A Midsummer Night's Dream

3

THEODORE

I closed the cover of my diary and placed my pen back in the mug of other pencils and random stationary situated on my desk.

I lay down in my bed and tried to sleep but all I could think of whenever I closed my eyes or was left alone to deal with my own thoughts, was her.

"Diana" I whispered to myself. Her name sounded very elegant but she didn't seem that way. She had caught my attention unlike any other girl ever had. There were plenty of girls in my village but none of them were like her. I had never seen her here before. Maybe she's visiting from the city or another village.

She had smiled for only a split second when seeing me on the floor in a mess but it was not forgotten. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

I wanted to know her, see all of her, see all her scars and pains — if she had any. I felt suddenly, intensely certain that she was a safe person to show my own scars to.

I thought,
Maybe we have known each other always.
Maybe our hearts encountered each other somehow, like two hundred years ago at a cotillion, with her in some kind of elegant and complicated dress and me in a frock coat.
Or maybe our encounter was in another possible world. That is, in one of the countless other versions of this universe, the worlds running parallel to this one, two variants of us, we are already in love.

I shifted around to face my back to ceiling. I tried to recall what exactly she had said to me but it all seems like a haze or a dream. I was so transfixed by her beauty, I surely made a fool of myself.

I groaned and flipped over. You just can't seem to act normal, Theo, can you?

༻✧༺

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Martin!" Dad said in response to my calculus teacher, Mr. Martin Boucher's opinion on the play Medea by Euripides.

Dad usually got pretty passionate and excited when talking about literature and related topics. The three of us; Dad, Martin and I were sitting in Dad's study. I listened to their conversation intently as I ate from a charcuterie board I had decorated myself.

"Medea is an absolute perfect example of Deus Ex Machina. Euripides did an excellent job capturing the true essence of it." Dad explained as he waved the play in one hand and his wire rimmed glasses in the other.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Deus Ex Machina my son. A Latin phrase, literally translates to God from the Machine but there's so much more depth to it!"

I raised an eyebrow and Dad paced the room explaining.

"Deus Ex Machina is basically an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel. A perfect example is this play, Medea." Dad said pointing at the copy in his hand.

"I don't get it." Martin said as he sipped on a cup of red wine.

"Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it's an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie. And that my friends is why it is such a powerful tool. A lot of people go on about how it's too convenient and overly simplistic but I think differently. It opens up ideological and artistic possibilities. It gives excitement and shock. It's truly beautiful." Dad said as he sat back down on the other side of the wooden desk.