Archive for July 30, 2010
“A Wrinkle In Time” Chapter 6; The Happy Medium
Book: A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’ Engle
Posted by Jeremy Sorese
Another month, another deadline I missed. Thanks to everyone for being patient with me and apologies to Kali for sharing her posting day!
CHAPTER 6; The Happy Medium
Last month, we took a detour to visit the Happy Medium, a flighty air headed fortune teller living in a cave on a grey misty planet. Using her crystal ball, she showed our three heros the Darkness enveloping their beloved home planet Earth.
But there is hope in defeating this amorphous toxic black cloud. The Happy Medium shows our three heros how the Darkness is no match for a star. Everyone watches as a ball of burning gases rips the black cloud in two, dissolving it in the blackness of space. Comes to find out that Mrs. Whatsit, the quirky oddly dressed woman we met way back in Chapter 1 was once a star who sacrificed herself celestial body to thwart a portion of the darkness.
After a quick look at the Murry household using the crystal ball (and seeing a depressed and lonely Mrs. Murry falling asleep writing another letter to her missing husband) our crew depart from the Happy Medium and tesser to their next destination, Camazotz. At first glance, Camazotz is as ordinary as ordinary can get. Very Earth-like, even a little autumnal with some red leafed trees on the hill they tesser to. The three Witches are wary though and tell our heros that they cannot follow them any further. To aid them in finding Mr. Murry, the Witches gift the kids with small tokens such as advice and poems. Meg is even gifted “her own faults” which she is not happy about. Also, Mrs. Who gifts Meg her glasses, the oversized owl-like spectacles and Mrs. Who warns her to save them until absolutely necessary. And with that, they disappear.
At the bottom of the hill are the outskirts of Camazotz, a sprawling suburban neighborhood. The kids venture down off the hill and make their way into the city…
The trio take the ball to the front door of the home, knock and wait for a reply. Slowly the door opens just enough for the woman to peer through, her son barely visible in the darkness behind her. The doors of every home on the block slowly crack open for the nosy neighbors to listen in to the only noise audible for miles. The woman gets immediately defensive, claiming they haven’t had an “aberration” on their block for nearly three years and their paperwork is all in order and clearly her son could not have dropped that ball. The boy grabs his ball out of Charles Wallace’s hand and the door slams on their three faces.
The trio continue walking and slowly the square suburban homes change into cramped apartment buildings. Our trio of heros walk a long time before they see another soul on the street but the quiet is eventually broken by the sounds of a bicycle coming their way. On it is a boy no older than Calvin delivering newspapers, throwing paper after paper onto porch after porch in the same perfect arc. He gets defensive at the three out-of-towners because only the paper boys are authorized to be on the street at this time of night and clearly they should know that and doesn’t believe them when they tell him they haven’t had their papers processed yet. It doesn’t make sense to him that there would be any problem with paperwork because they are in the most efficient town on the whole planet.
The paper boy starts to get nervous around the foreigners, asking a lot of questions quickly about who they are and where they are from. Charles Wallace smartly asks if he is allowed to ask questions like that and the paperboy speeds off on his bike, embarrassed by his transgression.
Past the apartment buildings are skyscrapers in a more industrialized area, filled with adults in suits scurrying about ignoring the three children aimlessly wandering through the streets. They come across the largest building any of them had ever seen, as tall as the Empire State Building and nearly that wide. That must be the CENTRAL Central Intelligence and the three gawk in front of it as business men quickly enter and exit through a row of ominous doors. They decide they need to go in, Calvin has a compulsion about it, and nervously the three make their way to the entrance.
Thanks again for reading all of that (for those that read all of that)!
