Lately, however, I have become paranoid.

I suppose it’s not paranoia in the most normal sense. Slartibartifast told Arthur Dent that thinking you were a small part of some great plan was “perfectly normal paranoia”. I don’t have that. No, I have become paranoid about people being able to read my mind.

Maybe I just read too many strange fantasy books, but I’ve started imagining scenarios where everyone else can read minds, but I can’t. Or maybe everyone else can read just my mind, it doesn’t matter. And I think I really have over-thought this, as I’ve begun to believe it.

I’ve started editing my thoughts–censoring, I suppose you could say. I avoid thinking anything that might be embarrassing if someone could hear them.

Is there some sort of universal scheme where everyone knows exactly what I’m thinking, and yet I can’t know that they can? I feel guilty for putting myself in the center of everything like this, but I know that I can’t hear anybody else’s thoughts, so–wait, can I? What if I can hear exactly what someone else is thinking, a specific person, say, Alice. I can hear every one of Alice’s thoughts–except only at close proximity, and she lives on the other side of the world. Or maybe I’m so used to hearing her think, I’ve subconsciously tuned it out? Or maybe Alice is that snarky little voice in my head. (Shut up, voice! I am so not delusional. Only Harry/Hermione shippers are delusional.)

Uh, what was I talking about? Right, mind-reading. Me being paranoid about it. Well, I decided to post this just to give you a glimpse into how I think, you know? Randomly, crazily, and without reason.

Although, now that I think about it, you probably already knew that. ‘Cause you can read my mind.

(I said shut up, voice!)

Thought is eternal.

It can, of course, be explained scientifically, but where will our science be fifty years from now? I don’t trust science. I don’t trust religion. I trust reality. Thought is real. Even if I don’t know how ir works or what I’m thinking, I know that it’s there, and it always will be.

Writing is an outlet for my thoughts. The more I think, the more I write.

I’ve kept a journal since all I could write was my own name. Even then, I was drawing the stories. I’ve written over 100 journal entries in 2009 alone, and that doesn’t include blog posts. It’s fun to go through and reread all my old entries, to see how I’ve grown and how I’ve changed. I find it interesting that I could spell “tomorrow” in kindergarten but not in third grade. My early entries are by far the most entertaining, although some of them are rather short.

Myra Ocilvie is a pen name, you know. She’s also a character in several stories that have been planned (but generally not completed). She has a sister, named Miranda, who’s dying (I haven’t decided what she’s dying of yet), but Myra folds paper cranes, just like Sadako in the classic Japanese story, in hope that her beloved twin will recover.

So that’s who I pretend to be. Hopefully you’ll never know who I really am.

On a totally unrelated note, I’m thinking of doing that 24-hour comic book thingy. I probably won’t stay up all night, though. I’ll just draw 24 pages or so in a shorter amount of time. Or, at least, that’s the idea.

We’ll all float on alright,

Myra.

Whoa. That was a long sentence.

The text is Greek, by the way. I put that part together a couple months ago, so I can’t remember if it’s Ancient Greek or Modern Greek.

I’m not entirely satisfied with it, but I’ve been working on it since April, so I figured it was high time I put it up, satisfying or not. I rather like the little owls though. I think I’ll make an icon out of them. The colors go pretty well with this theme, too, but I’d change the orange highlight color to blue if I could edit the CSS.

Harrumph.

But yeah, the header’s finally up! And I have a (rather morbid) story to post at some point, so that should be up in the next week or so.

Myra.

P.S. I’m learning French! Yay! Comment vas-tu?

Anyways, here’s a really random story that I scribbled down when suddenly struck by inspiration…

It sat, unread, on the poetry shelf. Nobody really cared about it. Although it was new, the writing was dull and the peoms it enclosed could be found in dozens of other, more attractive, volumes.

It sat, unread, until somebody was doing a project on one of the poets featured inside of it, and then they would carefully sign their name next to the librarian’s atamp before taking it home. They would find the poem they needed, dogear the page, and mark the lines they liked best. Two weeks later, they would throw it haphazardly into the return bin.

It sat, unread, for a very long time before somebody new would check it out.

Nobody ever renewed it.

Nobody ever checked it out twice.

Nobody cared.

It sat, unread, for so long that, when a new librarian was hired, it was given away. It travelled from the new librarian’s hands to the owner of a second-hand bookstore.

And there, it sat, unread, next to all the other battered ‘classics’.

A book has no way to measure time, save the stamps that the librarian would put on it’s check-out sheet to remind everyone of the due date, so it might have sat there, unread, for years, decades, or centuries. No matter how high the number, it was too long.

After that, who knows?

Perhaps it was bought by a collector, who stashed it on a shelf, where it sat, unread, for even longer.

Perhaps nobody ever bought it, and it was finally thrown away, forevermore unread.

Perhaps someone bought it at last, admiring the way the dull red binding had aged, for fifty cents. They might have been planning to throw away the pages and keep the cover, using it for some other purpose, but when they opened the pages to see exactly what it was about, the rich smell of a book that hasn’t been opened in many years flooded out. This might have allured them into reading some of the dog-eared pages, whispering peoms to themselves with laughing at ink spills and notes in the margins.

Perhaps it is still there, sitting on the shelf, unread.

Perhaps it was only a dream.

Yeah, you guessed it–I bought the book The English Poets for fifty cents at a secondhand bookshop. Although I can’t find the year it was published, the earliest due date stamp is from 1954. Yum.

My favorite poem in the book (and, evidently, some other people’s favorite as well, judging by the circled page number and folded-over corner) is “I Wandered Lonely” by William Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle in the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Then thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed–and gazed–but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Yeah! So hopefully I’ll have something to post soon (a header, maybe?), but don’t get too excited.

-Myra.

The very air we breathe is thick with inspiration.

So why can’t I find any?

Where am I?

Who am I?

What am I?

The sky…it’s gone. I feel the pressure of a great wall, bleak and gray.

It’s falling, the sky is falling towards me.

Swallowing me up into the gray nothingness.

I feel as though I am flying, for a brief moment. It’s the most curious sensation, as if my middle is somewhere near my head. I’m not entirely sure if I want to fly again.

Where am I going?

Up above this gloomy elevator, is there something more? Something like bright blue sky, warm sun, or any other sign of life?

Am I dead?

I can’t remember.

I don’t want to remember.

I don’t think it would really make a difference, remembering.

There would still be this gray.

And now it’s cold, too. What is this cold? How did it get here?

How did I get here?

Am I merely an intruder, interrupting the cold and the gray, changing someone else’s life?

Or afterlife, as the case may be.

My limbs are tingling strangely. I think it might have something to do with sudden warmth, as if I were submerged in a refreshingly hot bath.

But I feel something beneath me, something with substance.

Something that scratches my bare feet, but tickles my toes.

Something that crunches slightly as I shift my weight.

Grass.

I inhale deeply, absorbing the scents of a warm summer day. I can smell the crushed grass, fresh and sharp, as well as the faint scent of nutmeg.

I can hear the rustling of small creatures in the foliage nearby, frantically buzzing.

I knew they were trying to make the best of their short lives.

Life.

I exhale, sighing.

And, ever so slowly, I open my eyes.

So, it’s pretty short. I was planning on splitting any stories as long as Chinese Water Torture into at least two pieces from now on, anyways.

I’d like you to understand that, for every one of my writings, I scribble down my story quickly in a notebook, read it over, and type it up in a blog post. There’s no thorough editing, no careful typing in a Google Docs, no nothing. Just the hard copy and the post.

Best of luck,

Myra.

P.S. Including the italics, 406 words.

Today’s post has nothing to do with the book Here There Be Dragons, although it’s a wonderful book and it was the inspiration of the title. Today’s post is on the existence of magical beings.

I know, I’m crazy. You don’t need to tell me again.

Anyways, there are probably hundreds of imaginings and theories about whether or not there are mystical creatures in print. Some of these are serious texts citing the ancient Egyptians and are used in college classes, while many others are merely fiction novels for third graders.

But are they fiction?

Sadly, the authors of the novels probably don’t believe in what they’re writing about. However, many of these authors–including J.K.Rowling–have tried to make their magic possible. In Harry Potter, the magic is included in a sort of secret society that covers up for any magical mistakes. In the Chronicles of Narnia, time runs differently in the worlds, so that no one notices when anybody goes from our world into the next. It seems to me that many of the more famous works of literature are plausible–that the kids go off on some adventure without the adults. Maybe that’s it–the kids have got to go off on their own. I wouldn’t know–I’m not exactly a famous author.

Another way of getting the magic is through myths and legends, that way the author doesn’t have to create totally original material.

But where is the line between fiction and reality?

I watched a show on television once that was explaining a way that, scientifically, dragons could have existed. Some of the logic was a little  shaky and there was no way some of the circumstances they came up with could have ever happened, but it aroused my curiosity. How exactly is it that almost every culture–all over the world–has some sort of form of a dragon?

And if there really are magical things, how come humans haven’t noticed them?

There’s two theories I find most often: one, its hidden, like in Narnia or Harry Potter, or two, we just can’t see it. A prime example of this are the Spiderwick Chronicles, in which you can only see into the Invisible World with a stone with a hole in it (the hole created by solely natural means), being born with red hair, or being the seventh son of a seventh son. My theory is that, if there is magic, that we just don’t think of it as that.

How do we know science isn’t magic?

What is magic?

I think what magic is generally defined as is something that can’t be proven (is that a word?) by science, something that doesn’t work. But what if echolocation–which is pretty amazing as it is–is actually some sort of magic, but a magic that can be proved by science?

So, do mystical beings exist?

Beats me.

Myra.

How can the owl be so wise in the stories but so stupid in reality? I mean, sure the owl is wise within its own owly niche–you know, hunting mice. But even the largest of owls has a brain the size of a grape.

What’s the difference between wisdom and intelligence? Can you be very wise but very unintelligent?

I think, in general, humans aren’t very wise. Many are intelligent–book smart–but I don’t think many are actually wise. That adjective is reserved for the elders.

Why is it that the older you are, the wiser? I suppose because you’ve witnessed a lot of life and therefore no how best to deal with things, but there are people (now very old) who went mad from serving in the military.

Unless I suddenly become very wise,

Myra.

P.S. Sorry for the short post (despite the fact I know that no one ever reads this blog).

So here it is: Chinese Water Torture.

My sister and I sat in that dark silence for a long time. Any attempts to start a conversation–perhaps, how to escape–were swallowed by impending doom.

I had heard about the horrid torture techniques these people used, and how they eventually turned the victim mad. And as I tried to forget the stories whispered from friend to friend that still had made me shiver, even in broad daylight, I prayed to every god I could think of that they would not hurt my little sister. After all, she was too young to have learned the Society’s secrets. She could stay in this dark, cold cell while I went to endure things that–well, I didn’t really want to think about what they would do to me.

Alone in my horrific thoughts, the seconds stretched into hours. In darkness as deep as that, it is truly impossible to tell time. There is no marker of time passing–save the number of breaths you take. I fell into a sort of half-asleep state of constant nightmares.

So when a man, dressed in black and with cold, merciless eyes, walked into our cell, bringing of flood of dim light from outside with him, I thought it was just another hallucination.

But, of course, hallucinations can’t pull you out of a room or blindfold you with rough, thick cloth that reeks of vinegar.

As soon as we half-stumbled, half-dragged ourselves (with much encouragement from the strange man) to wherever we were going, my blindfold was torn off.

This surprised me, but then, as my eyes adjusted to the half-light, I saw my still-blinded little sister. A man–I couldn’t tell if it was the same one that had dragged us here–held her left wrist with one hand and a long, sharp knife with the other. My heart quickened.

The knife, glistening eerily in the gloom, pressed against the skin of her wrist as I screamed. I tried to help her–but found my hands and feet bound. Still, I struggled, yelling for help, as the blade sliced deep into her skin.

That horrible man held her as she writhed, holding her left arm so tightly that her skin turned white.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from my sister as the blood fell from her wrist to the same rhythm as the tears falling from my eyes:

drip.

drip.

drip.

I wasn’t sure whether to sigh in relief or shiver in fear as I felt the vinegar smell come back, and my blindfold being roughly tied (along with some of my hair) at the back of my head.

Tears seeped out from beneath the cloth as I felt cold steel bite into the flesh of my left wrist, unbound but restrained by a callused hand. I could feel it tear into my flesh, but I felt somehow unconnected to the pain, even as I writhed on the filthy gray floor.

But still, I could hear the telltale

drip.

drip.

drip.

of warm liquid flowing from beneath the skin of my left wrist.

My will to live fell away with the blood, intermingled with tears and dirt on the stone. I welcomed the darkness, when it came.

I suppose it was not surprising that, in my misery, I hadn’t noticed that the blade they had used on my wrist was barely sharp enough to sting. I hadn’t noticed that the liquid dripping from my wrist was merely warm water, poured from a flask by one of the men. I hadn’t even noticed that my supposedly cut wrist was unmarred, save a slight scratch.

But I didn’t realize all of that until much, much later. So when I found myself back in the dark cell with a bandage wrapped around my left wrist, I couldn’t even make myself sit up. I just lie there, quivering in fear.

You see, I might’ve been ignorant, but even a child could see that there was still the right wrist to cut.

Constructive criticism is welcome–but please excuse any spelling errors. Those probably occurred because of my lack of a spellcheck. Sorry about the gruesome topic–but it was pretty fun to write.

The word count (including the italics) is 746.

Until next time,

Myra.

Because I wanted to, duh.

I mean, why else would I make a blog?

It’s not like a good friend would ever force me to make one. No, of course that would never happen.

Annyways, I’m Myra, and this is my blog. Obviously, my favorite animal is the (not very wise) owl, and the owl is Athena’s animal…hence the blog’s title.

So now that I’ve answered why, now I just have to answer what. And when, who, where, and how…but I think you’ve already got those figured out.

So… What?

I’ll post things like…words and pictures.

No duh.

I’m actually not entirely certain what I will post. I’ll probably scan some of my doodles and post them up here, as well as some of my short stories…maybe a couple oh so fascinating book reviews…

Well, this is a pretty short post (by my standards) so I’m thinking maybe I should answer who.

My name is Myra, I’m allergic to cats, I love owls, I like to sketch and write…I have a twin sister, whose name is Miranda, and I’m constantly folding origami cranes. Uhh…I just moved to a new home and I read a lot of books. And I should be doing my homework.

So, until tomorrow…

Myra.