Creative Writing and Comparative Essay. (Fernanda)

Creative Writing. The School for Professional Assassins, Chapter 1. A book I´m writing.

Chapter 1: Angels

It was a very gloomy day and very little light came through the window in Katherine’s classroom. The room itself wasn’t very big, the class contained around twenty or so students. Katherine sat at the table closest to the blackboard and, like always, paying her full attention to Professor Fry during Spying 101. She was sitting in an individual desk. It was beautifully decorated with spirals around a white rose, all engraved with extreme precision.

‘Now, can someone tell me the best way of listening to a conversation without being noticed?’ Katherine’s hand went straight up as soon as Professor Fry finished asking the question. ‘Yes Lady Black?’ said Professor Fry with an encouraging smile.

‘Well, it is of course to use our angels, and make them invisible. Then they can get into any conversation we like them to.’ answered Katherine.

‘That is exactly right Lady Black’ nodding proudly at her student ‘now, your homework is to spy on someone without being noticed. Practice with your angels, and then I want a full report on what you listened on Friday. The person caught spying will receive zero marks, and will not go to Wolf Town this weekend.’

Katherine was smirking and holding her head up high in her usual posture when she got a question right (which was most of the time). The rest of the class didn’t even bother putting their hands up as Katherine was Professor Fry’s favorite. At the end of the day they all returned to their dormitories. The boys went to the top of sun tower (located at the south of the campus), and the girls went to the top of moon tower (north of campus). 

Both towers were decorated like the old tails about fairies and magical creatures. Moon tower was a huge castle decorated with different types of stones. Crystals and jewels incrusted in the walls. Katherine shared a room with a girl named Crystal Thompson, a beautiful brunette girl with hazel eyes that also happened to be Katherine’s best and only friend. Or at least that’s what she had thought. 

The dormitory was huge, there were two beds one at each end of the room, one side was decorated in pink, jewelry everywhere. Posters on the walls. While the other side was more normal, with a collection of weapons and books in shelves. In her dormitory Katherine started her homework, she extended her right hand and recited the words that came so easily to her.

‘My dear angel of the night. When there’s no tomorrow left for me, I come to you so that you aid me. In my task of eliminating what I do not need.’ While reciting these words her hair went up to the sky. Her eyes became an intense red colour and a magical circle appeared in her palm. When she finished, the spirit of a beautiful black butterfly came flying out of her hand and the magic circle closed.

‘Sapphire, RECEDO!’ she ordered, the butterfly immediately went invisible. Then, talking more soothingly Katherine asked the butterfly, ‘Sapphire I need you to go to sun tower and listen to the boys in our class, be careful not to get caught.’ The butterfly seemed offended when her master asked her not to get caught, after all she never did. But the butterfly did as she was told and left through the window.

‘You’re good Katherine’ laughed Crystal ‘I can’t even get my angel to turn completely invisible’. Katherine had been so caught up in the magic she hadn’t noticed Crystal’s presence.

‘That’s because you never practice’ mumbled Katherine casually glancing behind her to disguise the fact that she had been surprised.

Ignoring Katherine, Crystal went on ‘I guess it’s only expected of you, I mean, you are a Black after all…’

Katherine hated this snarky remark and wished that Crystal hadn’t even mentioned it. Katherine didn’t like being reminded that she was a Black. I mean, yes, the Blacks were, and still are, the most popular and most prestigious family of assassins, but not to her. Katherine’s father, Aaron Dimitri Black, was murdered by his wife, Christine Giselle Black. Who after killing her husband, committed suicide. That left Katherine utterly and completely alone, her only family now was her father’s brother, Derek James Black, who loved her as if she were his own daughter. The name ‘Black’ might be very prestigious in this school, and in Andromeda’s community, but to Katherine, it was a curse. Interrupting her train of thought Sapphire came back after what seemed like an eternity.

‘EXORIOR’ said Katherine.

And the butterfly went back to her normal colour and landed on Katherine’s shoulder.

‘What did she find out?’ asked Crystal.

‘Why? Do you plan on copying me again?’

‘Oh, come on, it was just once!’ complained Crystal ‘You know what? I’m going to send Gregory right now.’ Just after saying this, she pointed the palm of her hand to the floor and invoked her angel:

‘Angel, angel that sleeps at night. Hunt my nightmares so that I can rise. I am your queen.  I need your help, so come save me!’ Her hair went straight up just like Katherine’s did when she invoked her angel. And a different, certainly bigger, magic circle appeared in the floor. Her eyes turned an intense green colour, the spirit of silver cobra appeared at their feet, Katherine flinched but recovered her posture immediately. Katherine hated snakes, she didn’t know why, she just got the feeling that they were vicious animals, corrupted by greed and blinded by power.

‘Gregory, be a dear and RECEDO!’ Gregory started turning invisible but it still had quite a few flaws. When the cobra moved you could see some of its silver lingering around but it was barely even for a second. ‘I don’t know how you do it to be honest,’ mumbled Crystal.

‘You have to concentrate, If you don’t it’ll never be perfect. Right Sapphire?’ the butterfly flied around a bit as to agree but then returned to her comfortable spot in Katherine’s shoulder.

‘I’m trying! But it’s harder than it looks like. You make it look so easy! Gregory go and listen to Erica ok?’ The cobra started moving to Erica’s dormitory. ‘See? Now tell me, what did Sapphire find out?’

‘Sapphire, APERIO’ the butterfly started flying around Katherine. White sparks rained on Katherine’s head, and she suddenly smiled.

‘What did she say?’ said Crystal but Katherine was giggling. 

‘She says that they were talking about you,’ said Katherine in between laughs ‘Adrian and Diego were fighting about you.’

‘No surprise there, Adrian thinks that Diego doesn’t deserve me and Diego thinks the same about Adrian. The truth is, that I’m too good for either one of them’ said Crystal with a smirk.

They were laughing like crazy, until Katherine heard a strange noise. It barely audible, in fact an untrained ear could’ve never detect it. Suddenly, Katherine became very serious ‘shhh’.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Crystal.

‘Someone’s here, Sapphire REPERIO.’ The butterfly went up to the sky and made a horrible high-pitched sound, Katherine didn’t seem at all bothered by it. However, Crystal was on the ground as if in agony, covering her ears. For a moment Katherine wondered why she was on the ground, after all, her command was just supposed to expose hidden things. However, Crystal’s voice turned her focus on back on reality.

‘Make it stop!’ cried Crystal but suddenly someone else was screaming. No, not someone, but something. Another angel, ‘reveal yourself and I will not harm you’ said Katherine.

The blue spirit of a dog revealed itself and Katherine commanded Sapphire to stop. She flew down and settled once again on her master’s shoulder.

‘What a surprise, this is Erica’s angel. Erica sent it to spy on us just how you sent Gregory to spy on her.’ The irony made Katherine laugh.

‘I’m afraid she won’t be able to go to Wolf Town this weekend’ said Crystal, barely able to mask her recent pain.

‘Yeah well, I was the one who discovered her. But either way, whatever it heard I’m going to make it forget. Sapphire UT OBLIVISCATUR.’ and so the butterfly flew to the dog’s head and settled on it, and turning intense white colour, made Erica’s angel forget the previous conversation, after Sapphire was done she went back to normal and settled once again on Katherine’s shoulder ‘I think we should pay a visit to our dear friend Erica, don’t you agree?’.

‘I agree’ said Crystal with a smirk.

They walked down the corridor until they reached the door with the number forty-two engraved in the door. Her uncle had taught her a little Japanese when she had been younger, these two numbers together would normally be read as ‘shi-ni’ which also meant ‘death’, Katherine found it amusing that Erica was staying at the room of death, while Katherine was caught up in her own thoughts Crystal didn’t even bother to knocking and just opened the door.

‘Erica dear, we brought you a little gift’ teased Crystal.

‘What are you two doing here?’ asked Erica with a hateful tone in her voice.

‘We could ask you the same thing about your angel’ said Katherine, apparently, she was the only one calmed enough to talk normally.

Erica seemed surprised that her angel got caught but then again, she had tried to spy on Crystal Thompson who shared a room with Katherine Elizabeth Black…

‘Richard! You ruined my homework!’ she was whining like a five year old that wanted a toy but her mommy wouldn’t buy it, Katherine and Crystal hated Erica, and Erica hated them both. Richard ran back to his master whining, I guess it’s true what they say, dogs are like their owners.

‘Well now that we’re here, Gregory, EXORIOR!’ her snake went back to being silver, when Crystal saw Erica’s face she had to hold back her laughter ‘well done Gregory’.

‘That’s not fair! Richard-’ exclaimed Erica.

‘Now, Erica dear I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sapphire is in a bad mood today. She could very well hurt our good friend Richard without my command. Our ancestors used to say, all is fair in love and war. Don’t take this personally but I agree with them.’ replied Katherine. Erica looked startled, without any hateful remarks to bite back.

Kathrine and Crystal turned around and walked back to their dorm with triumphant smiles on their faces. Once they were safe in their room they both said in resonance ‘GRATIA AGERE’ and their angels went back to their magical realms.

Note from the author, AKA me. So at the start of the book, I absolutely hate both Crystal and Katherine, it is only until later that I actually started loving Katherine. You'll find out soon enough. But yeah, you're supposed to hate them both at the start, I did.

Comparative Essay.

When an author is trying to get worldwide recognition, it is important to translate their works into other languages. This is done so that everyone has a chance to read a certain author and Cortázar is no exception. However it is importar to have a good translator, otherwise, the text might loose some of it´s original meaning.

Since Cortázar is such a complicated author, not just anyone can translate his works. The work of a translator relays on changing the language of a work so that the meaning (both literal and figurative) doesn't change. This is an incredibly difficult job since you still need to achieve what the author wanted in the first place with some changes here and there. 

I have to agree that it is thanks to the translators that works can be appreciated worldwide. However, I still believe that they cannot be comprehended in the same way as reading the author itself. Some things that the translator must always be aware of while writing are: The rhythm, the points of view, and the subtle hints at the author´s culture. Within Cortázar´s work for example, there are a lot of hidden meanings, symbols and motifs, which is why he is incredibly hard to translate.

In order to achieve the recognition he deserved, it was necessary to translate Cortázar's work. But since his writing style is iconic, only very few good translations of his work exist today.