Writing Assignment #2, Draft 1

Book Dreams

The girl is curled up like a cat in an armchair. Her brow is furrowed slightly, and she bites her lower lip gently in concentration. She is clutching an open book in her hands. Her eyes race across the page, and she smiles unconsciously in amusement and lets out a chuckle that no one else hears. Finally, with a satisfied sigh, she closes the book with a faint snap and levers herself out of the armchair.
That night in bed she does a spectacular cannonball into her imagination and peruses her favorite scenarios and characters from novels. First she is aboard a ship, a brisk wind washing her in salt spray. Her eyes travel up the roughhewn mast and alight on a rippling sable flag which is gaudily plastered with a grinning skull. She beams in recognition, and the girl’s dream changes. She is galloping on a horse now, although she has never ridden one in her life. Her docile childhood pony rides don’t hold a candle up to this exhilarating chase. The landscape they are cantering through is rugged and romantic, and the girl can hear hoof beats pounding behind her. As she turns around, the landscape falls away like a heavy curtain. She is now in an opulent ballroom, which is glowing with the light of a thousand dripping ivory candles. She feels the heavy swish of yards of silk around her legs as she dances. A clock chimes somewhere in the distance, and as if cued by some silent director, she flees out of the sumptuous palace and down the endless marble steps. The girl almost smiles as she feels one spiky glass stiletto slip off her foot and laughs at the satisfying cinematic hilarity of it all as a faraway male voice yells “No!” in desperation. She is still smiling when she wakes up and the reality of morning melts away her fairy tale. The girl exhales in cheerful resignation and reaches for her book...