The End of a Generation's Fantasy

What do you say after almost a dozen years of fandom “officially” closes? How do you say goodbye to the characters with whom you’ve literally grown up? How much emotion are you allowed for characters who, while fictional, show real strength, real courage and real care? These were among the questions that haunted me on my drive back from the Harry Potter 7.2 midnight premiere. Actually, I didn’t think of these things at all. I just thought of them now. I was too busy trying to focus on staying awake for what was supposed to be a 2 hour drive.

My brother Matthew was asleep in the passenger seat beside me, and my friend Andy aka Leroy (long story) was sleeping in the back seat. We were driving back from Woodland, about 15 minutes north of UC Davis, where my brother goes to school. Even though it’s summer, my brother’s Lion Dance Club meets weekly, and in his two weeks back from Vietnam, he asked me to drive him to both meetings.

For convenience’s sake, we decided to watch the midnight showing in Davis, since seating would be nonexistent in San Jose if we decided to drive back after his meeting was over at 10. Naturally, we bought our tickets about 48 hours before the showing, which turned out to be “last-minute” because almost every theater within 100 miles of San Jose was sold out. Luckily, we were able to find tickets at a 5 theater cinema in Woodland, which after some Googling, we decided was convenient enough for us.

The tricky part was that we couldn’t stay in Davis for the night, like Mat and I did the week before, since Mat needed to catch a flight to Spain the following afternoon. Friday flights are always hectic, but as is my filial duty, I knew I had to agree, at least in order to spend time with my brother before he leaves for a 5 week pilgrimage to Europe. It was especially difficult for my mother, having raised two college-aged boys. She rarely saw her children during the school year, and now one was perpetually abroad for summer as well.

Indeed, the two weeks in between my brother’s Vietnam trip and his Europe trip seemed more like the vacation than the homestay. But this isn’t about that. It’s about our midnight showing trip with our childhood friend, Andy.

The reason why the Harry Potter characters are so indelibly ingrained into our emotional psyche is that they are the loyalest friends we have. From ten years ago, I can probably only count one hand’s worth of close friends who maintained their closeness throughout the time. But Hogwarts housed all our friends, some of whom left, but most of whom stayed with us. Even when the books ended, we still had the movies to watch, to meet again our old friends, who have never, ever let us down, unlike many of our “real-life” friends.

That’s why we’re so obsessed, see? We call ourselves the “Harry Potter” generation. We put each other in different Houses (even though no one really wants to be in Hufflepuff, which I never understood). We dress up and we daydream about the wizarding world, bask in both its perils and luxuries. We do it because of the people, who are at once so intrinsically different yet so instantly and believably similar to how we are and most importantly, how we want to be. They are our friends, and have been for far longer than most of our “real” friends.

So when I drove home, with Mat and Andy sleeping in the car, I felt a certain love I reserve for very few people in the world. Andy and Mat are two of only a few people whom I can call lifelong friends, though in Mat’s defense, it wasn’t by choice. Regardless, though, it’s these kind of relationships that are the most important. They are not the bright flashes of brilliance you see in a firework, bursting into blinding colors, but fading quickly, making the night seem darker somehow than it was before. No, these relationships are the sun and the moon, steady and unyielding and reliable, no matter the time of day and the distance. They will always appear.

And in a way, Harry and his friends were the same. They were always reliable, and we love them for that.

So when I dropped Andy home, what he said and how we responded was both poignant and hilarious.

“Mat,” he said with his door ajar, facing the walkway into his home. It was 4:35, and certainly his parents were asleep.

“Mat, I won’t see you for 5 weeks, so be safe in Europe, okay?”

“Yeah…” Mat muttered, still half-asleep. They hugged despite the passenger seat’s backrest obstructing them. The hug lacked awkwardness only because of how long they had known each other, a feat you can’t do with an acquaintance.

“Take it easy,” I told Andy, and offered my hand for a shake.

“Yeah, I’ll see you around.” He took a step outside and paused.

“Oh, yeah,” he paused. “Mischief managed.”

“Mischief managed,” we both replied in unison without skipping a beat. He closed the door, and walked toward his house.

Mischief managed.

Thanks, Harry. Thanks, friends.

Mischief managed.

Goodnight.

Andrew came from a short line of rejections. He knew relative success his whole life, but in his mind, he peaked in high school. The saddest realization Andrew had was after his first year of college, after countless of parties and maintaining a GPA that would disappoint his high school self (but still was not that terrible considering the lack of effort, he justified). He realized that his most intelligent and creative days were past him. He chose the path, the path he was still on, and for the first time in his life, Andrew could not do something, and that is why Andrew comes from a short, not a long, line of rejections.

I have other skills, right?

That's it. I'm over it.

Trains of Thought

It must have been easier to write a long time ago, when the only prerequisites for literature were a cohesive idea and the motivation to focus on a piece of paper and physically pen your words. Now, it’s ironically more difficult. I can type, and I’m doing it now, with my eyes off the keyboard, off the screen even. And now I’ve lost my train of thought. See?

Trains.

I’m on a train right now. Bay Area Rapid Transit. It’s a monorail-type thing. The clouds are threatening to pee on us soon, but I have moving shelter. The clouds aren’t the only threat-thing. What’s a word that means “someone who makes a threat?” We need a more common word for that. Threatener/threatenor/threater? Those don’t look right. It looks too much like “theater,” although I suppose an argument could be made that theater is a bluff for reality. It could also be a buffer-reality, a reality that links our imagination to the physical world. Or it could be a bluff, only threaten at being reality, but never being it.

I like facing backwards on a train. I am always seeing exactly where I just was a moment before. If we claim that we live in a dimension, then it must have coordinates. So when I look at the guy right in front of me while I’m sitting on a train facing backwards, I can say that he is literally where I just was a moment ago. He is now occupying the space I just occupied, and is continuing to occupy all the spaces I just occupy. It’s true with a lot of moving things, but it’s definitely interesting to see it explicitly.

Here's an awesome video.

My First Period

It was not a dark and stormy night or some shit like that,
Nor was it the middle of summer while we were so quietly
yet so loudly in our own ears
dreaming our daily dreams.

Nah, my first period
was every morning at 8AM, and I was never late, usually
sometimes
maybe.

My first period was dirty.
The kids were loud and abusive to the high school teacher they only
vaguely respected,
and listened to even more vaguely,
whatever that means.

It wasn’t an English class.

My second period happened during my first period, when I got call from you.

Driving over, I knew that I had to do right by you, girl,
cus, something or the other told me so.
Well I skipped my first period cus I had to deal with my second period, your period.

I bounced to no music in the car,
swaying my head so much
that my neck was confused,
and beseeched me in its sweet neck way,
“Don’t break me, Andrew.”

So I didn’t.
I never do.
Necks are important.

We need them to nod our heads when you ask us if we love you.
We need them to shake our heads with vigor
when you ask us if that other girl,
who was smokin’ hot,
was hot.
We need them to hold up our craniums
jam-packed with jams
from the early days when compact discs ruled the music industry.
You remember. The things between cassettes and digital music.
CDs happened during the transition from hard music copies to soft music copies.
And you, my dear, during my first period, called me over to deal with your period.
It was our first period together, and well, I certainly showed it.

I didn’t bring the ice cream you asked me to because,
well,
I didn’t remember you asking me.
You scream something loudly which I kinda hear.
I should have already known you wanted strawberry ice cream?
Is that what you said?

I wish I could say sorry for not listening
but you’d ask why,
and the only answer I have is
that I was saving this conversation mentally
so I could share it with other people later.

My first period, my second period, our first period
lasted a week.
A period of a week.
That’s a lot of crazy to deal with in a week,
and I’m sorry you had to go through that.
Next time, I’ll know better.

Vanilla, right?

"You make me so happy, and that is why you make me cry."

Each breakup is a bullet. Sometimes it's a surprise, and sometimes you see it coming, but no matter what, the pain is numbing and oftentimes, unbearable. And for some people who've taken bullets before, if they go too long with experiencing that pain, they are not as wary to risk it again. They can convince themselves that they are impervious to the pain.

"I've done it before, so it'll be okay this time. I know what to do."

But it's not, and you don't. Bullets still hurt, the metal maggots eating you from within, and each new bullet hurts with the same extreme intensity, albeit in a different way than other bullets. Breakups are similar in that regard. They are all different, because there are different relationships, but they can hurt with an immeasurable intensity that can only be described by comparing it with similar intensities, such as other breakups. There is sadness and pain that eats from within.





So don't take things lightly, good friends, because when you care, you can hurt.