The Rat

     Templeton the rat is an antihero. Antiheroes are nonstereotypical protagonists. So, he is a hero, as he goes the direction the book says is heroic. The rat is just not a conventional hero (rather refreshing, if I may add, after all the other annoying animals).
     However, there is the fact that Templeton is, in fact, a rat. He is vermin. He is dirty, diseased, and serves no visible practical purpose. It just consumes food. You must excuse me, for I absolutely despise the vile things. If Templeton was a human hero, I would just dismiss him as an antihero with disgusting tendencies. But, I cannot, for Templeton is a rat! A rat! That, in my mind, is unforgivable and already sets him as a villian, regardless of his actions.

A Fine Cat

     I had a very hard time deciding which animal I share my life with (own, I believe, is an inaccurate term) to write about. With three lovely cats and dogs, I consider myself one of the luckiest humans in this department. It would be very easy to write about my dogs, all silly and loving and loyal. However, judging from all the stories I hear from my classmates, I am especially lucky to have such wonderful cats as well. Having shared a special moment today with this certain feline, I decided to write about Mickey, one of the nicest cats I have ever known.
     I was very young when we got her. All I remember is a delicate, amiable ball of fluff, snow white except for a patch on her forhead resembling Mickey Mouse (thus the name Mickey). We took her home, to which she immediately settled. And grew. And grew. And as far as I know, still growing into a myriad of figures; Today she looks like a Vokeswagon, while last month she was more rectangular. We do not stuff her with treats, and she does get her kitty excercise, but still she has advanced majestically from sweetly pudgy to incredibly fat.
     Quite suited to her shape, she has grown placid and comfortable, always finding new spots (Mickey spots) to settle and occupy space. She is the most indifferent of all the cats, rarely disturbed by the rambunctiousness of the dogs. As much as I love her, she probably views me as another nice human who comes and pet her sometimes. This relationship is perfectly fine with me. The aforementioned special moment today was me sitting beside her and starting to pet her. She rose out of her sleep with a quaint little chirp, sees it's me, and immediately turns her enormous stomach to the air and begins to purr.
     I adore this cat. Luckily for me, there's a lot of her to love.

The World According to Tom

     Tom walked through the hallway, and through the corner of his eye he saw Leslie approaching him. He noticed her bright, cheery smile and greeted her with a "Hello!" he hoped was as cheery. Leslie looked radiant, dressed very chicly and fashionably to suit her delicate charm. Tom was faintly jealous.
     He remembered when Leslie had first appeared at the school, shy and only noticeable by her extremely odd taste in clothes. It wasn't long before shallow Sarah, at least pretending to be nice, had swooped down on the poor girl and transformed her, and standing before him was the result. Tom had decided Leslie was in the distinct minority of popular girls who were actually nice, charitable human beings. She was not one of the school's most notable students, but Tom enjoyed her presence very much. Sadly, the same could not be said for Leslie's former good pal Sarah.
     Tom and Sarah had been good friends as well, but, as of that very day, she repulsed him. In his younger days, he had pretended to have a deep crush on her. It was very easy to do, for Sarah was a very lovely girl, with her tight clothes, heavily tanned skin, and suspiciously black and glossy hair. However, when Tom actually started speaking to her, he found she grew less and less beautiful with every foolish and spiteful word she spoke. Still, being of the same high school social class, they naturally grouped together. But now he was older, and he had finally realized he could stop speaking to her and start hanging out with nice girls like Leslie, and he did. Sarah, who did not see these things very well, barely seemed to notice.
     However, she did notice things like Leslie conversing with Tom, which disagreed with her very rigid view of high school social structure. As Tom began talking with Leslie, he pretended not to see Sarah's glare of uninhibited rage from down the hallway.
     "Tom!" Leslie piped delightedly. "I haven't seen you since... since last week!"
     "Yes," he replied, still smiling. "I've been sick."
     "I thought you'd miss Homecoming! And with you looking forward to it so much."
     She refered to the football game, not the dance, which Tom actually did not care for that much. But at the mention of a game, Tom grew excited once again, and uttured a loud whoop of the kind that rarely meant anything to anyone but teenage boys. Leslie laughed.
     "I meant the dance. You're going, right?"
     "Eh, I don't know..."
     "What? But you have to! According to the rules of the high school football jock archetype, you must show up at the dances with a really hot girl."
     "Oh? And do you have anyone in mind?"
     "Oh-" Shrill giggles punctuated the air. "Um, no, I don't. Have you?"
     "Yeah. Whitney Brown, over there." He indicated a girl with a rather tragically large stomach.
     There were more giggles. "Don't be mean, you jerk. I thouht you were going with Sarah."
     They both looked back to Sarah, still standing at her locker. If possible, her glare intensified. Tom looked away, embarrassed, struck by how horrible a glamorous face could become in anger.
     "I think she's mad," Leslie said, sounding not entirely concerned. "Oh well."
     After a few tactful moments, she said, "But, are you going. You should! Even if you weren't a jock."
     Tom shrugged. "Who would I go with?"
     "Whitney Brown, of course. Don't be stupid. When Homecoming comes, all the available girls line up and wait to be picked up, hopefully by guys like you. Like prostitutes," she added.
     "You do realize, after you said that, I can't possibly go to the dance with that on my mind."
     "Don't be silly. Go with me!"
     This was not the first offer. Tom himself wasn't hard on the eyes, as well as athetic, popular, and intelligent. But what really made him irresistable was that he was in the distinct minority of athletic-popular-intelligent teenage boys who wouldn't try to smoothly remove his date's clothes by the end of the evening (at least, if his date was a girl). However, this was the first offer he seriously considered.
     "Or not," she said mildly, after his hesitation.
     "Nah, I'll go."
     "Really?! Yay!"
     And that was that for the two of them. They walked away, even forgetting about Sarah's unfaltering red-hot glare.
       

The Shadow of the Mountain

     Besides the heavy trudge of his slow feet, everything was quiet. No howling winds, no far off cries of mysterious animals. Just the slow, painful movement of the young man through the shin-deep snow. At times he stopped, and fancied he could hear the snow softly patter upon itself. It was a very beautiful sound, especially now that he stopped feeling the bitter cold on his unprotected ears. He had been moving sluggishly through the snow for the past several hours, with meager protections against the cold and his supplies forgotten.
     One step, then another. A scrap of sense in him wondered where he was going. Was it... yes, it was uphill. He had been moving for the past day up the mountain away from civilization. Why? Did it matter? In his head he'd had this constant image of a soft bed alarmingly close to a raging fire, a dubious find in the upper reaches of this such a mountain. Was it possible that someone might find him, that a helicopter might appear dramatically above him or a buzzing snowmobile might be approaching, might fly over that next snowdrift? To take him back to civilization, back to warm beds and noise and happy, chattering people, wondering about what could have happened to him up on this too quiet, freezing mountain, asking about Dana...
     As the methodical stepping had become a routine, his mind went round and round like a caged squirrel. But it all drifted back to Dana. Sweet little Dana, determined, mousy little Dana. In her mind, forever underestimated and overprotected and considered to young for this and that, especially by her overbearing big brother. But why, she would pout, could she not accompany him on a mountain scaling trip? She was extremely capable, and if her big older brother could go on his own, then surely she could aid him. After all, she could only be an assistance! And to keep him company in that cold, harsh landscape- it was too much for him. Despite the protests of their mother, she eventually came, making it their first ever solo trip. Dana was so excited, and they made quick work farther and farther up than they had ever gone before, out where there was no outside contact or ways to replenish their dwindling supplies. And now...
     No! He couldn't think like that. She had to die. It was most certainly not a matter of his choice. She was so cold, so desperate, and so pained that he had to. She would have wasted away and died right before him, but instead it was pleasant and peaceful; just the last of the warm, sweet hot cocoa with a healthy amount of dissolved aspirin mixed in. It was painful, yes, but only for him.
     No! hissed that strangely detached inner voice of guilt. She would have made it! It was you who is the weak one! You who couldn't stand to watch her suffer! "No," he mumbled aloud. He couldn't think like that. What was done was done. But the guilt continued mercilessly. Dana was a survivor, much more so than you! She would have made it! She would not have left the supplies, however few they were! And she would have the sense to STOP WALKING UPHILL- Good lord, was he still doing that? He stopped walking and fell to his knees. Was there any point in going on?
     He stood up and continued walking, not because of some deep inner urging, but that the pain and exhaustion was so dull and so numb at this point that it was easier than changing his postition. The snow was thicker now, and trees and such became blurs. Something to his right scampered past him- Dana! Yes, it was Dana, rushing down the staircase, making a lot of noise, running around the corner into the living room, sqealing with delight at the pile of presents covered with pine needles. He follows at a slower pace, telling her to wait for their parents. She slows and stops, but temptation leads her to grab the nearest one, a fat one with patterns of cheerful snowmen. As she rips through the paper like an animal, he chuckles mildly and looks away. There is a window revealing a snowy lawn, and before the window is a squat little fireplace with the remnants of a toasty fire. A hot fire...too much snow...burning-
     Something jarred him back to reality, or rather, the white, quiet, ethereal world of seemingly no end or beginning. There was nothing here, just snow and dark, snow covered masses. Nothing, but yet... There, in the distance, something appeared. It was something that didn't match the surroundings. It was white and therefore barely visible, but a flow of darkness on top distinguished it. He approached it, but at the same time, he realized quite calmly that it was approaching him as well. Or rather, she was approaching him.
     She had very long, very dark, very straight hair descending down to her breast. She wore a thin, fluid kimono of pure white. She was very tall and thin, and she glided towards him like a slow moving liquid. As she approached, her face became clearer and more defined. It had a pale kind of beauty, with her slightly parted red lips and large black eyes contrasting with her fair skin. It didn't change or falter as she came closer to him, remaining completely blank and devoid of any emotion. Any ordinary person would be terrified, but at this point he was beyond those kinds of feelings. He just continued to approach her, seeing less and less as his vision blurred.
     He could see her come very close to him, and he closed his eyes. As he did, she softly kissed him, but only for a moment, for he fell forward into the snow. And then, all was quiet again. Had there been anyone listening, they would only have heard only the snow softly patter upon itself. It was a very beautiful sound.

Of Mice and Men- Saving Face

     Curley is a major character in Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men". He is very influential, more or less the cause of the book's dramatic finale. He is first introduced in the third chapter as an understandably suspicious young man looking for his wife. He seems to like to keep his wife on a tight leash, so to speak, and doesn't want her to wander around the men, which I believe is the sole sensible thing he does in the entire book (I wouldn't want my wife wandering around a bunch of men), but at the same time, he doesn't give her enough freedom and she doesn't know what to do with herself. He is very insecure, as seen when he feels threatened by simple Lennie.
     The book implies he was looking for a reason to attack Lennie simply because of his size, and he does when he sees Lennie smiling about something, which Curley immediately takes as Lennie laughing at him. He then goes to attack him, which ultimately causes Lennie to break his hand. Still bitter about this later in the book, he immediately blames and puts a death sentence on Lennie when he sees his wife dead, without any actual proof that Lennie did this.
     The problem with Curley, I believe, is clearly mental instability. He is violent and easily provoked, and put in a situation where his instability can surface. However, while it is indicated he is largely disliked, no one seems to be truly worried about all the damage he could do to others.