I have been tasked with writing on a subject that I have let myself become obsessed with.  I have for some time been obsessed with UFOs.  Oh, not the idea of UFOs themselves, but with the cultural phenomenon that has cropped-up since their inception.  The idea that I find so fascinating is that if the UFO community is correct in their assumptions about these objects, this planet is being visited by extra-terrestrial life which exhibits manned or unmanned flight craft, and therefore are intelligent.  If this is true, it would be the single greatest revelation of science, religion and mankind's place in the universe.  However, working on the position that UFOs are entirely nonexistent, that is even more fascinating to me than the prospect of intelligent life elsewhere.
          Most myths are based off a previously-established lore that one person or another created to explain something unexplainable.  Creation myths, and the like.  Most creature myths that are popular today are established through incredible stories or encounters with various cryptozoology, but the modern-day obsession with vampires and zombies operates on the assumption that the creatures being idealized in such various works of fiction as young adult novels and B-movies are taken to not be real.  The mythology of the faerie world or immortals and magic consist of fanciful impossibilities to make real the power of nature, but the mythology of UFOs only works because the people behind the perpetuation of the myth take it to be real.
          Fans of vampires and wizards can understand that they are seeing their objects of adoration at a certain level of being outside the work itself and heightened to that level in order to perceive the idealization and various tropes and pitfalls of that myth's genre, but UFOs mythology demands participation from the reader, asking that a side be taken, a side of light where the truth exists and is revealed, or a side of taking everything at face-value and assuming the UFO myth to be entirely bunk.
          Unlike other myths, UFOs not only offer the idea of their creatures as a possible reality, but the ability to defy the stories being fictitious is seen as an interactive necessity of the believers of such myths.  The denial that they are anything but real is a part of the ritual of becoming involved in the stories.  Perhaps that is why the modern myth of UFOs is so fascinating, that, if fake, it would have been a perpetual hoax perpetrated on random believers as the mechanism through which the myth evolved.  Unlike other myths, UFOs draw in the reader into the actual world, using reality as its set and setting, this involves the reader in real-time, presenting them with the possibility that they are living within the "other world" of faerie princes and ogres, and that this awakening to pass through the veil is symbolized through abduction cases or by the reader being awakened to the truth: that his/her reality was the myth, and UFO are the subsequent reality.
          As for the existence of UFOs themselves, I find it fascinating that UFO reports are received and corroborated by the Mexican government, and the country has some of the highest rates for UFO sightings, and yet not a single abduction case in history.  It would appear abductions are a region-specific social phenomena, occurring only in the United States.

The Sequel, Resplendent

          Why do sequels exist? I have been gradually coming to terms with the justification of sequels, being brought slowly to enlightenment more and more through each story I read. I have started this semester loathing sequels, regarding them as folly and fluff, something to fill up time, but nothing substantial nor significant. I saw no true reason for their existence, either as serialized editions of previous plots, serving to extend our time in a story that has already been fully realized, or as a re-imagining of themes, motifs and archetypal characters that may differ in critical aspects from the original, but the literary rebirth of such tales often results in a lack-luster replica, a shadow of the original story. But as I delved deeper into the origins of stories, I was able to understand the driving logic and simplicity in reasoning that warrant the function of sequels.

          Sequels exist to bring our society, as a collective, to a newer level of consciousness by changing the original story to better reflect the status quo, updating the material to compensate for developing social mythologies while staying relevant, and bringing us to a heightened sense of awareness of that social mythology. Sequels also come to fruition through what Frye calls “kidnapping” romance, a general repurposing of stories to suit the best interests of the ruling class. They also represent the cyclical nature in life, their renewal is reflexive of the human pattern of life and death.

          At first I saw sequels as unnecessary in all their forms: books, television, cinema, even the renewal of the bell-bottom jeans fad. The recreation of supposed classics was an affront to the power of the originals, I felt. How many hackneyed revisions of The Christmas Carol must I endure? Did all these screenwriters and directors really think their vision of Charles Dickens' novel was so pure that it warranted the creation of yet another? Sequels were, to me, one of the worst things a member of a creative community could muster, the simple and easy way out, it had seemed. Yet as I came to know more of it, I found that all stories are related. I started to see an image materialize before me, a massive matte with random colors dabbing at the surface, a sea of random paints, but as I draw back and distance myself from what I've been so intent to study closely, I see that the points of color create a painting. I am able to stand back from myself and see the image, a sea of stories, all seemingly independent, but inexorably connected.

          I felt stories which assumed a premise that was previously explored were trite and creatively-starved enough to simply steal material, but I have come to know it is not the drops of color that matter, not the place or setting or even characters, but that final painting, that sea of stories, the context, the ultimate mechanism of the story. Not the moving parts—they matter little—but the sum of its parts, create the machine. I was soon to find that even the best stories which endure centuries and equate lessons that we may take to heart to this day, were not all originals. The legends of King Arthur astounded me to this day, but keeping in the tones of divine lineage, death and rebirth and all the other similarities, I found the stories, while different in form, are parallel in function to the stories of Christ. Each collection of tales brings us through the personal journey of man redeeming his own soul, but each reflects the societal norm in a different way, one based off the guilt-based culture that Christianity is typically indoctrinated with, the other meant to idealize the natural higher morality of the chivalric courts of the ruling class. They sing the same song, but who they sing to seems to have the greatest effect on the lyrics. I noticed that Frye had remarked that Lord of the Flies was originally meant to be a parody of The Coral Island. The two stories share strikingly similar qualities in their topics, but because of the way in which they are presented to us, one with decidedly better character development and recurrence of themes, one withstands the test of time as being prescribed in more English classrooms than the other. I used to feel that using a previously told story to create a new one was deplorable and lazy, but sometimes the re-conceptualization of stories with strong ideas and concepts can be told better a second time by another author.

          Not only is it often worth creating sequels to assure that important concepts are realized with more appropriate words, but often we need to update older stories to keep them relevant. It has been said that Jesus what quite the humorist, but his jokes and merriment don't entirely translate while keeping their context from biblical times. This concept can be seen in almost any Disney animated movie. They take a popular children's story and reshape it into a family-friendly rendition. They remove the death from Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, they remove the scenes with the huntsman from Snow White, they purify and reduce the stories, but in doing so they also make the story available to a wider range of people than the original would have.

          Frye talks of the social mythology that pervades us all. We are constantly bombarded by peers, parents and all sorts of people to have unconscious expectations, supposedly positioned into particular prejudices. Without reading a single word, we live in a world, already constructed with anticipation for what we have been lead to believe ought to happen. We read everything through a screen of our own personal opinion, what Fry calls our “subliterary nine-tenths” of verbal experience and literary study. The social mythology of romance is a simple one with obvious tropes of love and preset expected archetypes of romantic figures, so we begin to identify and even trust the eventual appearance of such characters. When watching a Bond film, the audience typically knows there will be a chase scene and James will get the girl. It's become so anticipated, yet the action itself still rouses suspense. In realizing the social mythologies in romance are so silly, frivolous and oftentimes outright absurd, we bring ourselves to a new level of awareness through the recognition of these overused topos that have become the precedents of romance.

Sequels also serve the purpose of updating our well-known stories for newer generations, but not for as innocent a reason as to better reflect the status quo. In medieval times we see this manifest itself in the Christian reworking of the traditional stories in the lands they sought to establish their religion. The Green Knight helped preserve the old ways, the respect for nature, but in stories of Gawain and King Arthur's court, we clearly see a Christian influence, each member of the court attributing their strength and victories as God's divine will, not a shift in the story to better attain the state of affairs among the common man, but to establish courtly rule as the right order, not only through the heroic and chivalric code of conduct with which all the men of the court conduct themselves, but through the epic adventures of such knights, and their powers always derived from prayer and following the rule of order, seemingly divine in nature. This served not only to establish England's reign as willed by God, but gave the ruling class and royal families a level of morality mirrored in the stories as divine.

          Lastly, sequels exist for the sake of their mechanism, not the story itself. Within romance we see that most actions observed are highly ritualized. That is what true romance is, not the details of what was said, but how it was said. The ritualistic fashion of chivalric courts, the process of wooing a young woman, the journey of the hero, the portrayal of jousts, the rescuing of of the damsel and the defeat of the pirates: these are all expected modes of operation. It is this ritualization of action that makes it possible to see the simplified forms of real life, to categorize and segment the social acts into forms of ritual and thus raise ourselves to that higher level and be able to both recognize and understand the social mythology present in the work. There is a cyclical nature to the act of telling a sequel, were the sequel itself serves a function by being the realization of the endlessly renewing cycle of human life. Like a soap opera or serialized stories, sequels represent the unending rebirth that is humanity while being themselves a rebirth of older narratives, through these recurring storytelling conventions, the indefinite continuity of life itself is ever present within the reborn, the renewed, the sequel, resplendent.

Madis and Amera

           Once upon a time, there lived a couple who tried very hard to live happily ever after.  It was always said in their youths that they were meant to be, both being sorcerers gifted with powerful magics.  Unfortunately, though their powerful magics afforded them many methods to enhance their lives, the spell of eternal youth was unknown to them.  So it was that they grew old together and as they grew older their skills in magic grew stronger and more lofty with each passing year until they had become distant towards one another, absorbed in their own quest for knowledge in increasingly more powerful magics.  And in each passing kiss they parted, they knew more and more of the demarcation of age.  This frustrated the couple greatly, as they had mastery over many primal forces, unbound by the limits of man, yet still eternally trapped by the trappings of old age.  They lived in a small cottage which had perched atop the narrow hillside overlooking the town of Gramen for ninety-nine years and a day, until, after spending almost the entirety of their lives together, the poor couple, having grown tired of looking into each other's aging faces, the sorcerers decided it was time to learn all they could about youth and beauty.  So it was, in the hopes that they might master their own eternal youth, the couple donned disguises of poor beggars with an effortless wave of their arms and a few simple incantations.

           In the town of Gramen there lived many a youth, some of which beautiful, and many a beauty, some of which young, but of them all, no two were as infallibly gorgeous as the butcher's daughter, Amera and the glass maker's son, Madis.  The two shared golden eyes, pooled from beads of honey, cream-colored skin of an unnatural alabaster white, and luminous sheets of hair which danced alight in the softest breeze like loosened spools of silk.  The two had never known each other and never walked together, but the comparison was always drawn by the townsfolk, when beauty was brought into conversation.  Everyone knew of the exceptional beauty of both the glass maker's son and the butcher's daughter, but none could decipher which of the two were more radiant, so often the townspeople would break into arguments over the matter, and it was during one such debate that the sorcerer and sorceress had been walking past, in their guises of elderly old beggars (though their true visage were just as decrepit.)  They stood, listening to the men and women describe this account of such beauty, so impossible and breathtaking that it must have been divine.  The couple glanced at one another and both knew what must happen next.  The old man cleared his rusty throat and extended a bony hand into the gathering, getting their attention.

           "Why, surely these being are as angels?"  The man croaked.
           "An angel's sight would be crude if you aim to compare how pleasing the forms are to the eye," spoke a man.
           "Well, surely they stumble when they walk and do not seek their homes among the clouds?"  Said the old man.
           "Sure enough, they may as well live in God's kingdom—how often we may rest our eyes on their grace."
           "How do you mean?" Scratched the old throat of the beggar woman.
           "'Tis a feast for the senses, their supple forms, but, alas, our joy in watching them grows farther apart with each blessing," said a woman.
           "Aye, always a shame when the wealthy keep their riches to themselves.  You'd think their parents would understand the whole point of owning treasure is to show it off," complained some old Sea-Hand.
           It was true as it was unfortunate, but the parents of each child had both lost their spouses to the West Leak wars, and have since become hardened and shied away from the world.  It was the unnatural beauty of these offspring that poured their parents fear and love into a mighty river, sweeping their children safely away from the world.

It was in the late September when Amera's father had fiercely twisted his ankle and despite his wholehearted pleas not to, Amera insisted that she run his deliveries for the day.  She was soon on her way, delivering an unremarkable brown paper wrapper.  She had rang the doorbell expecting nothing in particular, but when Madis peered from behind the door, slowly peeling it back, she realized her life had changed forever.  Standing before her was the most inexplicably handsome man she had ever laid her eyes upon.  Her eyes swallowed back tears as she presented the box towards him with a slow, shaking motion.  He, in turn, had opened the door, expecting little, but being astounded by no less the absolute pinnacle of physical attainment, this unerring goddess of resplendence.  He stood in admiration and silence for but a moment before speaking "I think I'm falling in love with you."To which the young girl replied "I know I'm falling in love with you."

           They stared lovingly into each others eyes before the girl had to part to finish her deliveries.  The couple vowed to see each other again.  The girl tries to kiss the boy, but he turns away and blushes, his face turning bright red.

           It was soon after this that the sorceress came upon Madis's house.  She peered inside, and seeing the most remarkable looking boy inside, her interests in attaining such beauty were forgotten.  Suddenly she desired only the taste of his lips and she vowed she would have it.  She decided her disguise was likely to repulse the young man, and so she took the shape of a beautiful young lady, but the magic would last but a half-minute, so when he came to the door she burst over his threshold, wrapped her arms around him and slathered him with wet, lustful kisses for thirty seconds, before running away, giggling.  The boy was blood-red in the face when she left, and he quite protested the whole ordeal, or would have, had his lips been free to do so.

           Meanwhile, the sorcerer had found out the address of the girl who he heard so much about, and without even hesitating, hid behind the door to ambush Amera with kisses when she returned.  Amera entered the door and was covered in the lips and tongue of an amorous old lecher.  He didn't even bother to use magic to hide his face for he was but a few quick moments and then gone out the door, the poor girl left dazed and humiliated.

           The old sorcerer ran gleefully down the road until he ran into a giggling old woman.  He immediately recognized his wife and become concerned with her laughter.  "What brings you into so good a mood?" He asked.  "Have you found the secret to eternal beauty?"

           "If I ever had a need for such a thing," exclaimed the sorceress.

           "What mean you by this?  Have you not the knowledge we came to attain?"

           "I have failed, husband. And I have laid my eyes on another."

           "What say you?  You have abandoned your task, woman?"

           "I have found it!"

           "How are we to be rid ourselves of these shattered shells if you cannot comply?"

           "I have need no longer of your old bones or decrepit disposition, for I have found my breast alight with a new love!"

           "But you are nothing without me!"

           "You are nothing, even with yourself!"

           "A plague on your head, woman!  I too have little need for your forked tongue and meager offerings, for I have also found a lover beyond compare!"

           "Go have it, then, if you think any will take your dusty old tome."

           "As you have not the skill or mind to master youth magics, surely your efforts will be doubled to mine!"

           And so the two stormed off, each seeking their new lovers, but before either reached their destination, they paused in reflection of what the other had said.  They both resolved that they were unlikely to ever woo the boy or girl by their own merit, and both fell into depression.  However, like most magic married couples, they both refused to be bested by the other, and so resolved to disrupt the each other's affairs, rather than intend to commit their own.

            And so it was that they left, each to commit their jealous acts, intent to hurt or trap the poor children.  It was not long before the Amera, remembering her vow to see Madis once more, left the safety of her father’s house to go looking for flowers to pick for the boy.  But soon she became forlorn, for none of the flowers she had gathered bare any semblance of beauty she beheld in Madis.  It was at this time that the sorceress had caught up with her, and, intending to trick the girl, approached.  The old woman’s visage at first frightened Amera, but seeing the posture and frailty of the old woman, Amera felt no threat.

           “Good morrow, kind youngster,” rasped the old woman.

           “Good morrow, ma’am.”  Amera knelt beside the woman draped in beggar’s clothes.  “Is there anything I might help you with?”

           “Nay!” barked the hag.  “But I can divine through my magics that you are in need.”

           “You have powers, true, if you can see so.”

           “Ah, yes, you seek a flower whose beauty drives the eyes and nose mad with delight?”

           “Yes, yes!  If there were such a thing, gladly I would seek it.”

           “Ah, then luck be yours, young thing!  I am the sorceress, Hitna!  Surely you have heard of my renown as a conjurer of the highest caliber?  Being a diviner of many sacred and hidden artifacts, I happen to have in my knowledge the only known whereabouts of the shuck-skinned cannabra, the rarest of flowers whose rareness is only outmatched by its breathtaking beauty.  If you will seek it, I have no qualms in telling you the location, for I see you may only intend to use it for good.”

Amera agreed, and Hitna began to describe in great detail how she will find the grounds where the flower grows.  Amera went off in search of the plant, following the paths behind the hills and walking where the water runs upstream, just as instructed, until she came across a great clearing, veiled as it was by a thick shroud of fog, and just as she was entering the clearing, she was set upon by some lashing beast.  It pushed her to the ground and lashed at her with its whip-like tendrils, embracing and beating her all at once, until, once it was certain the fight had gone from her, it chucked her into a large, wooden cage, suspended above its head, curled up beneath the cage and fell fast asleep.  Hitna had come to learn that the Side-Eyes Mistfiend was a monster of unsual strength that ate only the flesh and hearts of beautiful virgin women.

           Madis went out the following morning, looking for the girl he loved, but could not seem to find her.  He went to her father’s house but she hadn’t been home all night.  This filled the boy with an overwhelming sadness that sunk his heart deep into an ocean of heavy black abyss.  It was at this time that the old sorcerer had found Madis, and had overheard that Amera was missing, he also overheard Madis confess his love for the butcher’s daughter.  So, the sorcerer approached.

           “Young man,” he snarled.

           “Yes, o beggar?”

           “I fear the graveness of whatever it could be that would turn so pretty a face into such a sullen mess.  Is there a matter with which I may assist you?”

           “Yay, though there be little a beggar man like you may do.”

           “Ah, bolster thyself, young man, for you are in the presence of Feral, the strongest magician in all the land, and surely in Gramen.  Through my powers of manipulation I may see that is at hand, and no matter of even the smallest importance may pass me by.  For instance I know you seek a beautiful young maiden, do you not?”
           The boy was astounded, and after a few tricky words, Feral told Madis that the girl he seeks was captured by a neighboring village of Beram and forced to work in their brothel of some prestige.  In a mad rage and fit of passion, Madis set off, running full speed to the next town over.  When he arrived he headed straight for the golden-gilded gate of Beram’s Brothel.  He confronted the guard who told him that he was under strict orders not to let anyone enter who isn’t a client or a girl working there.  Madis pleaded with the guard but to no avail.  Heartbroken, he began to return home.

Feral had followed him there, intending to gut his belly and leave him for dead along the road between towns, but every time he had seen the boy in sillouette, something powerful rose from inside him, pangs of guilt at the thought of destroying so beautiful a creature.  And so the sorcerer resolved that the wouldn’t kill the boy.

“Has the fire in your belly been so easily put out?”  Came a voice.  “Surely you did not think my magic limited to mere soothsaying?  Here, I have a gift, only for you, and to ensure your entrance into the house that you have been bared from.” Said Feral, as he extended a hand to the young man, demanding something to grasp.  The magic demands a sacrifice, you must understand.

           “Of what sort?” the boy retorted.  Feral told him that he required few items, all of which are easily parted with.  First the sorcerer asked for the boy’s hunting knife, and in return gave him a wooden bowl.  The sorcerer instructed him to sing a song into the bowl, and as his did, Madis felt his height fall as he became shorter.  Then Feral told him to remove his shoes, and being so desperate to free Amera, he complied.  In return he was given a bracelet, which he was asked to wear.  Immediately after slipping it on, he felt his face stubble shrink into his cheeks and his arms and legs grew longer.  Finally, he was given a brush, and told to brush his hair ninety nine times.  At this point he was leery of the magic being employed by this old man, but having given his heart to Amera, he vowed to finish.  He did as was instructed, and in doing so, his body gradually shifted out into rising buttocks, conforming hips and an amble bosom began to sprout on his form.

           “What’s happening to me?!” His voice shrieked in a shrill crack he wasn’t used to.

           “You’ve done well away with your old life,” cackled the old man, grabbing Madis by the arm.

           “I don’t understand, what is happening to me?” Cried the girl.

           “You are not to be her prize, I won’t have it.  I’ll sooner see you condemned to a life of lewdness.”

           Feral dragged the screaming young woman past the guard and sold her permanent companionship to the brothel’s owner.  The owner set her to work right away, to be trained in the arts of lovemaking.  The sorcerer was sad to see her go, however.  For as Madis had been the most extraordinary beauty as a man, so to was he as a woman, and the poor old sorcerer was finding himself regretting having sold her.  He soon resolved to have this new astonishing beauty for his own.  So, intending to don the guise of a prince, the old man first took the shape of a random passerby, being sure to let the guard within earshot when he talked of the young prince from a neighboring province being quite keen on buying women from famous Brothels in the region.

           Hitna had knowingly deceived Amera, tricking her to wander the hunting grounds of the dreaded Side-Eyes Mistfiend. The Side-Eyes Mistfiend is a tall blue creature made of sinew and tight flesh draped over the carcass of some rotten thing.  It had six eyes, all on the same side of its toothy face.  One eye has the power to see everything there is in the dark, but can only see in the dark.  Another can see through and only in the day.  One in and only in the mud, one in blizzards, one in water, and his sixth eye never opened.

           Hitna soon, however, felt herself set upon by some pangs of grief and regret, and even as she schemed to have Amera’s life taken by the beast, she fondly remembered the immaculate beauty she beheld in Amera, and in doing so resolved she would save such a gift, not allow her to die, but be of no interest to her husband.

So Hitna returned the morning after and seeing the sobbing Amera, cloaked her form in magic as to appear as if a toad of unusual size and told her this: “Dear child, have you need?”

           “Yes,” sobbed the girl.  “I have been caught by this wicked fiend and fear my end draws near.”

           “Fear not,” croaked the giant toad, for I know of this creature’s ways and may help you find yourself free of such a prison.  I am a toad and have very little to be glad for, but if you are willing to part with some pointless parcels, I will give you all I know.”

           Amera agreed and the toad took out from behind its back a small sack, gilded with satin and a golden weave.  It asked her for her jade earrings, and she promptly gave them up.  The toad reached into the sack and pulled out a giant leaf, many times larger than the sack, covered with a thick pile of black powder and began to fan it furiously.  A black cloud overcame the thicket and it was pitch black and dark as night.

“Now the creature will not stir today, for it sleeps always in the night, and will be duly fooled for a day-and-a-half.  But this will not keep you safe, girl.  I need another thing,” said the Toad.  He asked for her silver ring, and throwing it to the ground, the girl complied.  Now the toad took out a single pomegranate seed and, squeezing it, out poured the most radiant clouds of luminous light, cascading through the clearing and mixing with the darkness to cast over the whole scene a stage of the dusty, dim light of dawn.

           “Now the creature will not rouse sight in any eyes, as he will not see outside the light of day nor the dark of night, caught in perpetual blindness.”  Now the Toad asked Amera to remove a lock of hair, which the girl reluctantly did.  Out of the sack the Toad gave her a necklace of the most vibrant green.  It was covered in a waxy shell and was rather heavy for the girl to lift up with her into the cage.  “Put it on, round your neck,” instructed the Toad, and she did so.  “Now, my dear, I need you to remove your fine dress, if you please.”

           “Filthy old frog!” the girl exclaimed, “you’ve come to take advantage of a girl in her dire moment of need.”

           The Toad calmed her down and assured her that this plan was bound to succeed.  She slowly disrobed, unsure of the Toad’s intentions.  She dropped the dress down, and the Toad threw her up a comb.  “Comb your hair ninety-nine times, and you will be freed of your prison.”  With that the Toad leapt off into the fog of dawn, and finally bounded out of sight.  The girl, now alone and filled with fear, began to weep as she combed her hair.  And as her tears spilt she combed and as she combed her hair grew shorter, her arms and legs bulged with new mass, and her supple bosom was replaced with broad shoulder and a chiseled jaw.  She was so blinded by her tears that she hadn’t been able to notice, but as her combing reached an end, so too did her tears dry up, and then, stopped entirely.

           She looked at her new form, noticing the changes, she was at first disgusted at what had been taken, letting out a scream of anger in her fury.  This sudden cry awakened the Side-Eyes Mistfiend, who awoke with a horrid whine, then stood as if stunned before slowly circling beneath the cage where it had trapped Amera.  It was indeed blinded, for it groped madly at the air in the hopes to catch the corner of the cage.  Finally it had grabbed the cage and ripped it down, entirely.  It threw open the door and reached-in a singly sinewy claw.  Blinded, it groped Amera’s body, suspicious of her low-toned screaming, and when it felt that she had no breasts, it became enraged.  The beast pounced upon the poor boy, opening its mouth and gripping Amera’s neck like a vice.  Suddenly the beast let out a whimper and then a sigh, and fell limp at the boy’s feet.  It was foaming at the lips, and was the necklace Amera had been wearing.  He removed the warm and foaming necklace carefully and set it beside the Mistfiend.  He had remembered the smell.  Hemlock.

           The beast was breathing slow and heavy and the boy approached.  Suddenly the sixth eye that never opened flew wide and an eye shimmering with the light of a thousand mirrors stared to look directly at the boy.  “For the first time, I know you.” Came a deep, rumbling voice from behind the forked teeth.  “The person you seek is in the brothel in Barem.  This is what I see, and all I can see.”

           “Why tell me this, monster?” asked Amera.

           “Because I was cursed by a hateful sorceress to live in this form until the day I die.  My release is pain, but also pleasure.”  And with that the creature gurgled on last spurt of life, and sighed away its final breath.

           The boy stood, now with new resolve to save his love.  Hitna had hid in the fog, watching the girl transform and the Mistfiend die, but when she had seen Amera become a man, she instantly fell madly in love with this new form, for as Amera had been the most amazing beauty found in a girl, so too was this beauty affirmed evenly as a man.  The old woman vowed she must be as close as she can to this sculpted and stunningly handsome creature.  So the sorceress, being very skilled at assuming the guise of animals, and knowing that the young boy’s resolve would drive him through any danger and at any distance, she resolved the boy’s heart to another, and tempered her form into that of a regal stallion: a horse of the purest white with a flowing mane and saddle trussed with the finest silks and satins and laces, and conjured a fine robe of the most delicate cottons, gilded with beads and jewels—all the things Hitna knew would appeal to the heart of a young girl.  Amera spotted the lone mare and mounted it, sidesaddle, delighted in the dainty decorations and flattering clothes and rode towards the town of Beram.

           When the boy arrived, he headed straight for the Brothel.  When the guard who had been working at the gate caught the sight of a man dressed in decedent attire and riding a bejeweled white horse sidesaddle, he had remembered mention of a prince making his way to town.  So when this man arrogantly demanded he be shown all the workers, the guard knew this must be a prince.

           Amera went in and demanded to see everyone working.  He looked upon them all, but insisted none of them were what he wanted.

           “Well we do have a newer girl,” said the owner.  She isn’t much to do with, though, she refused to perform even the easiest of tasks asked of her.”

           “Bring her to me,” demanded the boy.

           Out came a girl with the most amazing eyes and hair of gold, and an unnatural alabaster skin.  The boy stepped down from his horse, looked deep into the girl’s eyes and gave her a kiss.  She pulled away as her face turned an impossible shade of bright red.

           “My love, at last I’ve found you!”  Exclaimed the boy, and the two embraced each other in their arms.

           “My love, my longing, at long last, I am saved!  You who I have longed for since the moment we met, pray, tell me, what is your name, my dearest?”

           “Amera,” said the boy.  And yours?

           “Madis,” said the girl.
 The two embraced for three full days before the two finally returned home to Gramen, to the delight of the townsfolk and especially their parents.  Plans were quickly drawn up for the two houses to unite, and the town was blessed with the most amazing display of love and merriment seen in any wedding before or since.  Even the cruel couple, the sorcerer Feral and the sorceress Hitna, looked upon their young love, born full bloom in the union of their lives, and declared that they were bested by the perfection of already-attained beauties.  The old couple came to their union, and as a wedding gift, gave them all their incantations and spell books, gifting them with powers far beyond those possessed by others, to allow Madis and Amera many methods to enhance their lives, and so the couple tried very hard to live happily ever after.

The Wealth of Recylcing

     So I've pondered the why of sequels, peering ever deeper in their murky depths, and have found that the only real conclusion to their unending proliferation and popularity stems from their ability to appeal to the instant-gratification crowd, knee-jerk reactions expected by audiences who understand the marketing, presentation and movie itself are there to cater to the largest base of people possible, namely by broadening the average movie to reach the average person.  I began to try and apply this methodology to simply reproduce a proven system or method to various forms of entertainment.  I found it is not only the cost effectiveness of reproducing or recreated already given concepts that drives companies and producers to inexorably rehash old ideas, but this almost cannibalistic nature of adding minor "newness" to already prolific forms has become not only an industrial norm, but a necessity.

 

     Consider the telephone.  I was remembering the good ol' days when I'd call up my friend Alexander Graham Bell.  Seems he had a pretty good invention, and getting it patented was one of the most valuable ideas of all time.  Nowadays we have an overabundance of need for situational and useless modifications such as speed-dial and call-forwarding, caller ID and voice-mail, conference options, etc.  I just find it funny that we call modern phones "smart phones" as if Bell's idea was stupid.  Now our phones are essentially pocket PCs, with all the esoteric bells and whistles.  Perhaps I'm getting to off-topic.  But the idea of patents existing is to receive credit for the invention of a new device, but now, in our over saturation of consumerism, it's become necessary for companies to rip each other off simply to survive.  When Apple released the iPad it was mere months before most other mobile communication companies had their supplemental version; from the bevy of computer tablets after it, and even the PC stylus-operated pads that predated the iPad, the idea of building a slightly reworked alternative to another inventor's original seems to be a staple of almost all consumer products, various forms of entertainment, not withstanding.

     We have reached the point where, at least technologically, we have so many facets and immeasurable depths of overly-complex language of hardware and syntax of software, that it's nigh-impossible to not entirely clone the work of another inventor and moderately modify it into whatever recycled newness we may muster.