Fanfics, insane or not-so-insane
Posted: Sat May 31, 2014 10:07 pm
Seeing as how I joined the site mostly to share my fanfictions with other Narnia people...
This was my first fanfiction for anything. Ever. So It's not stunningly amazing or anything. It's called "Remember".
It had been one of the greatest shocks of my life when I had received the news of the train wreck. I couldn’t believe it. I was the only member of my family left. The only one. Even one of my cousins, who had been there with them, was gone. Of course, it wasn’t like I was completely alone in the world. I was living in America, married, with one daughter. But it still took me a long time to get used to the idea. My parents, my brothers, my sister…all lost in one single train wreck. Unbelievable.
“Mommy?” I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down to see Rose, my two-year-old, and realized my mind had been wandering. And here I’d thought I was over it. It had been over a year since the wreck. There had been plenty of time for me to get used to it. And yet, strangely, I hadn’t.
“What is it, Rose?” I asked.
“Can we go to the park, Mommy?”
“No, Sweetie, it’s time for your nap.”
After I had tucked Rose in, I went to my room. I figured I’d read a book or something else that would occupy my mind. A picture on my shelf caught my eye. I took it down and looked at it. It was a picture of my younger sister Lucy, taken a couple of months before the wreck. She had been only 17. As I put the picture back on the shelf, my hand bumped something else up there, and I took it down. It was a notebook: Lucy’s diary. They’d sent it to me afterwards. I’d never read any of it before now. I opened it somewhere in the middle. I would have known the entry I was looking at had been written a number of years ago, even if the date hadn’t been written at the top, because of the round, childish handwriting. It had been written in 1942; Lucy would have been ten. “Dear Diary,” the entry read, “Eustace is really starting to get annoying now. Ed comes up to my room to get away from him, but sometimes Eustace follows him even here. I’m just hoping Ed doesn’t do anything extreme.”
I smiled as I read it. Lucy had always wanted everyone to get along, and sometimes Edmund’s temper wore her down to a frazzle. This entry must have been written when I’d gone to America and the two of them had to stay with our cousin Eustace at his house in Cambridge. I read the next entry.
“Dear Diary, you won’t believe it! I’ve gotten back today! Ed and Eustace came, too. The painting on the wall in my room, the one that looked like it was of a Narnian ship—”
I stopped reading for a minute. Narnia. That was the imaginary world we’d come up with when we were staying at Professor Kirke’s house, when I was twelve. Lucy had stuck true to it to the end. So had Peter and Edmund, in fact. Even Eustace, who had undergone a major character improvement since Lucy had written the diary entry, had started to believe in it. It seemed I was the only person with sense enough to know when to stop pretending. I read on.
“—a Narnian ship, came to life when Eustace was there, and we all got in through it.”
Here I stopped again. Yeah, I’m sure you did, I thought. I put the diary back up on the shelf to read later. Martin would be home in a couple hours. I should probably get supper ready.
I looked in the pantry and realized I needed to go grocery shopping. Once Rose woke up, we walked down the block to the store. Suddenly I heard someone behind me calling my name. I turned around.
One of my friends was walking quickly towards me. I groaned silently. I knew what she would be asking.
“Susan,” she said once she got close enough, “are you coming to church this Sunday?”
I opened my mouth to reply as I had every other time, “No, not this time I guess,” but something in me made me say, “I suppose so.”
You should have seen her face. Her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open. Then she gave a little squeal and hugged me. “Thank you, Susan!” she exclaimed.
As I purchased my groceries, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I hadn’t gone to church since I was sixteen. All those Christians had seemed to be a lot of blooming hypocrites, and I had no wish to be a hypocrite. But I had said I’d come! …
Sunday morning I was sitting next to my friend, listening to the preacher talking on and on. I couldn’t believe I was wasting a whole hour and a half, just sitting. Suddenly something the preacher said snapped me to attention. I hadn’t heard all he’d said, but he repeated it.
“He died so we could be kept from the death we’d earned. So we could be saved. He gave Himself, for He was and is the only solution and the only answer to the problem. And then he rose again, having fought the battle we could not win alone—”
I didn’t hear another word for the rest of the service. When I went home Martin noticed something was bothering me.
“What’s wrong, Su? Something the preacher said hit you right between the eyes?” he asked teasingly. I tried to give a little laugh, but everything the preacher had said (or all that I had heard, anyway) had sounded strangely familiar.
The next day a package arrived in the mail. It was addressed to me from somewhere in London. I opened it and on top there lay a little note. I read it.
“Dear Madam,” it said, “we’re sorry it’s taken us so long to get this to you; it was hard to find who it even belonged to, and once we had, the item had been mislaid, but finally we found it again and sent it to you.”
I looked at the shipping date on the package and realized it had been delayed greatly in the mail, too. I lifted the item out of the box.
It was a small sketchbook. I saw at once that it was Peter’s. He’d always loved to draw, and was good at it, although he only did it as a pastime. I opened it to the first page. A winged horse seemed to gallop out of the page at me. I looked closer. The horse had an intelligent look in its eyes and I wondered how Peter had captured the aliveness of it in his drawing. I turned the page. A wolf, with the hair along its back bristling, glared at me from the paper. His teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl. My heart jumped. It had been a bit of a shock, seeing the wolf right after the horse. The next few pages were just small sketches and studies of birds. But after that there was a picture of two beavers. They were standing upright and had such human-like expressions on their faces that at first I laughed. Then I looked again. The picture vaguely reminded me of something, I couldn’t say what.
Most of the rest of the pictures were of animals and mythical creatures: fauns, centaurs, gryphons, and the like. Near the end of the book was a picture of a train station. I guessed that he had drawn it while waiting for the train Eustace and his friend were on. I smiled sadly. This was probably the last picture he had ever drawn. I started to close the book, but then something on the next page caught my notice. It was a picture of a sword. There was a dark, reddish-brown stain near the bottom of the page. I closed my eyes and stroked the book. Then I looked again at the picture. The sword looked very familiar. I tried to remember where I could have seen a sword like that. It could have been at the Professor’s house; he’d had several suits of armor that had fascinated my brothers greatly. That lion’s head on the end of the hilt, though…where had I seen it before?
There were at least a dozen empty pages, all with that same brown stain at the bottom. I closed the book and took it to my room. I put it on the shelf with Lucy’s diary. Then I took the diary down and sat down on the bed. I’d decided to finish reading that one entry, at least.
“It turns out the ship is Narnian. It’s called the Dawn Treader, and it’s Caspian’s.” I choked up. That name…Caspian! I knew it well, but I wasn’t sure why. I read on. “He’s king of Narnia now, of course. It’s only three years later here than it was last time. I’m going to help Eustace fill in the bits of his diary that he missed, because he had it along on the ship. He didn’t want to keep all of it, but I made him. He and Ed and I are going to stay up late tonight writing in everything that happened, so you can read it if you want to have all the details. But one more thing I think I’ll mention here: Aslan says he’s in our world, too.” I looked up from the book and stared absently at the wall. Aslan! He was the lion in Narnia that Lucy had been special friends with. She’d imagined him so vividly that he’d seemed totally real to her. “He says we’ll know him by a different name. I’m guessing it’s Jesus. Lucy Pevensie” I smiled weakly and got up to put the diary back on the shelf, then changed my mind. I opened it to the last page and started flipping backwards until I reached an entry. It was from the night before I’d gotten the news.
“Dear Diary, Peter and Edmund are back. They found the rings, and no one suspected anything. We’re going to meet Eustace and Jill at the train station and give the rings to them. I’m so excited! Not only because Eustace and Jill are going back to Narnia, but for some other reason I couldn’t tell you, and I can’t even tell myself. The Professor and Aunt Polly are coming with us to the train station to give them the rings. I feel so happy! I’m not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow, but whatever it is, I can be sure it’s going to be good! Lucy Pevensie”
I put the diary on top of Peter’s sketchbook. Well, Lucy had been wrong. The thing that had happened the next day had not been in the least bit good. And yet, something about that entry had captured the excitement Lucy had been feeling when she’d written it; something unexplainably thrilling and awe-inspiring.
Suddenly things began to fall together. Caspian. The sword. Aslan. The beavers. Even the wolf and the winged horse fit in. The sermon, though…the sermon fit in somehow. Somehow. I should call Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold and ask if I could borrow Eustace’s diary. I felt I simply had to read the full adventure. I doubted they would let me, but it was worth a try!
Then I realized what I needed to do first. I slid to my knees and knelt beside the bed.
“Jesus. I—I’m sorry. Please…please…forgive me. I want to be a Christian again. I want to be a Narnian again. I want to believe again. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Amen.”
Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen.
This was my first fanfiction for anything. Ever. So It's not stunningly amazing or anything. It's called "Remember".
It had been one of the greatest shocks of my life when I had received the news of the train wreck. I couldn’t believe it. I was the only member of my family left. The only one. Even one of my cousins, who had been there with them, was gone. Of course, it wasn’t like I was completely alone in the world. I was living in America, married, with one daughter. But it still took me a long time to get used to the idea. My parents, my brothers, my sister…all lost in one single train wreck. Unbelievable.
“Mommy?” I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down to see Rose, my two-year-old, and realized my mind had been wandering. And here I’d thought I was over it. It had been over a year since the wreck. There had been plenty of time for me to get used to it. And yet, strangely, I hadn’t.
“What is it, Rose?” I asked.
“Can we go to the park, Mommy?”
“No, Sweetie, it’s time for your nap.”
After I had tucked Rose in, I went to my room. I figured I’d read a book or something else that would occupy my mind. A picture on my shelf caught my eye. I took it down and looked at it. It was a picture of my younger sister Lucy, taken a couple of months before the wreck. She had been only 17. As I put the picture back on the shelf, my hand bumped something else up there, and I took it down. It was a notebook: Lucy’s diary. They’d sent it to me afterwards. I’d never read any of it before now. I opened it somewhere in the middle. I would have known the entry I was looking at had been written a number of years ago, even if the date hadn’t been written at the top, because of the round, childish handwriting. It had been written in 1942; Lucy would have been ten. “Dear Diary,” the entry read, “Eustace is really starting to get annoying now. Ed comes up to my room to get away from him, but sometimes Eustace follows him even here. I’m just hoping Ed doesn’t do anything extreme.”
I smiled as I read it. Lucy had always wanted everyone to get along, and sometimes Edmund’s temper wore her down to a frazzle. This entry must have been written when I’d gone to America and the two of them had to stay with our cousin Eustace at his house in Cambridge. I read the next entry.
“Dear Diary, you won’t believe it! I’ve gotten back today! Ed and Eustace came, too. The painting on the wall in my room, the one that looked like it was of a Narnian ship—”
I stopped reading for a minute. Narnia. That was the imaginary world we’d come up with when we were staying at Professor Kirke’s house, when I was twelve. Lucy had stuck true to it to the end. So had Peter and Edmund, in fact. Even Eustace, who had undergone a major character improvement since Lucy had written the diary entry, had started to believe in it. It seemed I was the only person with sense enough to know when to stop pretending. I read on.
“—a Narnian ship, came to life when Eustace was there, and we all got in through it.”
Here I stopped again. Yeah, I’m sure you did, I thought. I put the diary back up on the shelf to read later. Martin would be home in a couple hours. I should probably get supper ready.
I looked in the pantry and realized I needed to go grocery shopping. Once Rose woke up, we walked down the block to the store. Suddenly I heard someone behind me calling my name. I turned around.
One of my friends was walking quickly towards me. I groaned silently. I knew what she would be asking.
“Susan,” she said once she got close enough, “are you coming to church this Sunday?”
I opened my mouth to reply as I had every other time, “No, not this time I guess,” but something in me made me say, “I suppose so.”
You should have seen her face. Her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open. Then she gave a little squeal and hugged me. “Thank you, Susan!” she exclaimed.
As I purchased my groceries, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I hadn’t gone to church since I was sixteen. All those Christians had seemed to be a lot of blooming hypocrites, and I had no wish to be a hypocrite. But I had said I’d come! …
Sunday morning I was sitting next to my friend, listening to the preacher talking on and on. I couldn’t believe I was wasting a whole hour and a half, just sitting. Suddenly something the preacher said snapped me to attention. I hadn’t heard all he’d said, but he repeated it.
“He died so we could be kept from the death we’d earned. So we could be saved. He gave Himself, for He was and is the only solution and the only answer to the problem. And then he rose again, having fought the battle we could not win alone—”
I didn’t hear another word for the rest of the service. When I went home Martin noticed something was bothering me.
“What’s wrong, Su? Something the preacher said hit you right between the eyes?” he asked teasingly. I tried to give a little laugh, but everything the preacher had said (or all that I had heard, anyway) had sounded strangely familiar.
The next day a package arrived in the mail. It was addressed to me from somewhere in London. I opened it and on top there lay a little note. I read it.
“Dear Madam,” it said, “we’re sorry it’s taken us so long to get this to you; it was hard to find who it even belonged to, and once we had, the item had been mislaid, but finally we found it again and sent it to you.”
I looked at the shipping date on the package and realized it had been delayed greatly in the mail, too. I lifted the item out of the box.
It was a small sketchbook. I saw at once that it was Peter’s. He’d always loved to draw, and was good at it, although he only did it as a pastime. I opened it to the first page. A winged horse seemed to gallop out of the page at me. I looked closer. The horse had an intelligent look in its eyes and I wondered how Peter had captured the aliveness of it in his drawing. I turned the page. A wolf, with the hair along its back bristling, glared at me from the paper. His teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl. My heart jumped. It had been a bit of a shock, seeing the wolf right after the horse. The next few pages were just small sketches and studies of birds. But after that there was a picture of two beavers. They were standing upright and had such human-like expressions on their faces that at first I laughed. Then I looked again. The picture vaguely reminded me of something, I couldn’t say what.
Most of the rest of the pictures were of animals and mythical creatures: fauns, centaurs, gryphons, and the like. Near the end of the book was a picture of a train station. I guessed that he had drawn it while waiting for the train Eustace and his friend were on. I smiled sadly. This was probably the last picture he had ever drawn. I started to close the book, but then something on the next page caught my notice. It was a picture of a sword. There was a dark, reddish-brown stain near the bottom of the page. I closed my eyes and stroked the book. Then I looked again at the picture. The sword looked very familiar. I tried to remember where I could have seen a sword like that. It could have been at the Professor’s house; he’d had several suits of armor that had fascinated my brothers greatly. That lion’s head on the end of the hilt, though…where had I seen it before?
There were at least a dozen empty pages, all with that same brown stain at the bottom. I closed the book and took it to my room. I put it on the shelf with Lucy’s diary. Then I took the diary down and sat down on the bed. I’d decided to finish reading that one entry, at least.
“It turns out the ship is Narnian. It’s called the Dawn Treader, and it’s Caspian’s.” I choked up. That name…Caspian! I knew it well, but I wasn’t sure why. I read on. “He’s king of Narnia now, of course. It’s only three years later here than it was last time. I’m going to help Eustace fill in the bits of his diary that he missed, because he had it along on the ship. He didn’t want to keep all of it, but I made him. He and Ed and I are going to stay up late tonight writing in everything that happened, so you can read it if you want to have all the details. But one more thing I think I’ll mention here: Aslan says he’s in our world, too.” I looked up from the book and stared absently at the wall. Aslan! He was the lion in Narnia that Lucy had been special friends with. She’d imagined him so vividly that he’d seemed totally real to her. “He says we’ll know him by a different name. I’m guessing it’s Jesus. Lucy Pevensie” I smiled weakly and got up to put the diary back on the shelf, then changed my mind. I opened it to the last page and started flipping backwards until I reached an entry. It was from the night before I’d gotten the news.
“Dear Diary, Peter and Edmund are back. They found the rings, and no one suspected anything. We’re going to meet Eustace and Jill at the train station and give the rings to them. I’m so excited! Not only because Eustace and Jill are going back to Narnia, but for some other reason I couldn’t tell you, and I can’t even tell myself. The Professor and Aunt Polly are coming with us to the train station to give them the rings. I feel so happy! I’m not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow, but whatever it is, I can be sure it’s going to be good! Lucy Pevensie”
I put the diary on top of Peter’s sketchbook. Well, Lucy had been wrong. The thing that had happened the next day had not been in the least bit good. And yet, something about that entry had captured the excitement Lucy had been feeling when she’d written it; something unexplainably thrilling and awe-inspiring.
Suddenly things began to fall together. Caspian. The sword. Aslan. The beavers. Even the wolf and the winged horse fit in. The sermon, though…the sermon fit in somehow. Somehow. I should call Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold and ask if I could borrow Eustace’s diary. I felt I simply had to read the full adventure. I doubted they would let me, but it was worth a try!
Then I realized what I needed to do first. I slid to my knees and knelt beside the bed.
“Jesus. I—I’m sorry. Please…please…forgive me. I want to be a Christian again. I want to be a Narnian again. I want to believe again. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Amen.”
Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen.