Writing Practicum #2-1

Exercise One: A Sense of Belonging

Nobody felt the lateness of the hour. It was dark outside, we knew, but we had come to a place defined by its darkness. We were loud in our fervor-- we screamed, we laughed, we, in short, acted like idiots, and sometimes dressed like it too. Every third person was a cosplayer, every fourth a larper. We used works known only to we few, we happy few, we band of those pushed rudely into lockers in high school. We believed if we just tried hard enough, we could disapparate and free ourselves.

The true nerdlings, honestly hard core, had to be here or somewhere like here, standing in a long and rowdy queue. Neo-Naziesque establishment hounds robbing us of our smuggled wares-- our cokes, our burritos, our Milk Duds.

"We're been here three hours," we whine. But, if we are truthful, we know it is our suffering that makes us mighty. A few of us make threatening gestures toward the sticks in the mud using our accessories and uttering non-words that still mean a rather lot to us. A few of us even laugh-- it's easy to be happy here, especially non-sensically.

We exchange war stories-- tales of exceptional valor and excessive trauma. American-ness becomes an insult-- spelling is important-- colour, favour, theatre. East coastians dominate the Westerners. But England is the shiniest place of all-- we fake British accents as we recite the standard lines.

"But, Josephine," one of us says, "You're a girl."

"Well spotted!" Another of us replies indignantly.

Some of us mock the posers in the second line. It's mostly good natured-- but part of us knows we mean our cruel words.

"Fandango," someone in my line whispers. We all nod, knowingly, taking the dirty word in stride.

When we are admitted, when the wait finally finally ends, we, for a few terrifying minutes, become mortal enemies. We battle, we wage physical war on one another, we use our purses, hats, children as weapons. Curses are screamed, none in English but we know what they wish of us. Then, cut and bruised and tired as hell, we sit, and are once again at peace.

Throughout the ceremony that begins this grand event, the event before the event, if you will, a few scattered voices sound out from the audience. In response, we must "shh" the ragamuffins. It isn't quite as serious an atmosphere yet, we are as though in suspended animation, hypersleep, and yet this wait is painful, we are all as though under the influence of the crucio.

Yet, when the main attraction, the glory of all glories, what we have all waited for hours, no years, possibly all our lives for, when it begins a single voice continues. Speaking over the voices we all came to hear, stabbing our eardrums like a sharpened pencil, a pointed wand. In our ears, it sounds as though a wicked Parseltongue. We bring up our props to kill.

From the theatre, she is not literally thrown, but she may as well have been. The one among us who was not one of us had to be ejected and ejected she was-- rightly so! It was as though she had crashed a baptism, an annunciation, the ascension of Mary, for god's sake, was not so spiritual as this night.

She was not permitted to re-enter. So it goes.

Unfortunately, she who was not us was, alas, my sister. And to this day, I believe she has never forgiven me for booting her out of the movie theatre (not theater) on the opening night of the first Harry Potter film.