mavarin

In response to no demand whatsoever, I'm going to post some stuff related to my non-Mâvarin character Joshua Wander here and on Messages from Mavarin over the next few days.

First, the explanation. I wrote the following two years ago. I don't remember whether it's accurate on one point, namely whether JW dates all the way back to high school instead of college, which is where my specific memories of him begin. Still, it's possible that just before I wrote the posting below, I came across some old papers, since forgotten, from the days of the Mycenae Gazelles and other high school literary affiliations. I do remember starting something about a guy named Jon. Perhaps I got around to Joshua, too. Funny, isn't it, that we can't really question our past selves and get definitive replies, except for what we wrote down at the time. All we can do is keep records, not just of our past but of the now, so that our present selves can testify to our future selves. Clear? Onward:

May 18, 2002

As you most likely know by now, my head is so far into the whole Mâvarin thing that I can't see past it to even consider writing any non-Mâvarin fiction anytime soon. But when the time comes, IF I can ever get a story going to suit the character, I know who I want to write about. His name is Joshua Wander, and he popped up at work a few weeks ago, just long enough to remind me of his existence.

Back in college (1975-9), I was part of a D&D group that evolved from the Star Trek club I was in back in high school. By 1977-8, Evelyn and I and our friends were staging "live dungeons" in the rambling interconnected basements beneath The Vincent apartments and in a nearby park. For the first of these, which I DMed, I scavenged a story fragment from high school(?) and worked it into a little storyline. It concerned a college student (Christopher Stein) in love with his professor's brilliant wife, who is also a professor. Chris is zapped into an alternate reality during a supposedly routine lab experiment. The wife is killed in the process, only to become part of Chris's psyche. Enraged and distraught, the professor (John Grayson) manages to follow Chris into the other reality, seeking vengeance. He doesn't know that part of his wife survives inside Chris.

Naturally (considering this evolved partly for D&D purposes), the new reality in which Chris finds himself is a magical one. Possibly because of the accident (or possibly having caused the accident), Chris finds he has magic talent in this world, and hooks up with a wizard to learn the craft. Being on the run, and not liking his original name anyway, Chris takes a new name, Joshua Wander. The Wander part comes from the fact that, like a multiverse Billy Pilgrim, the guy can't seem to stay put in one place for long. He keeps bouncing from place to place and from reality to reality. Eventually he discovers a beach full of rocks that do the same thing, from which he erects a castle that follows him from place to place and world to world, called Toujours Chez Moi.

Meanwhile, Grayson follows his former student into the magic business, seeking any possible advantage in the eventual showdown. He takes the name Xerxes Greyman (don't ask me why). When they do finally face off, Josh finally manages to convince XG that his dead wife survives inside him, and that, being idealistic, moral people, Chris and the wife never slept together when she was alive. There's a big cathartic moment, and XG decides to leave JW alone and try to get on with his life.

Well, it worked in D&D, but it never really cut it for me as a story. There's too much I don't know or can't explain, too much that sounds contrived, and too little cool stuff for JW to do in between the accident and the confrontation. Still, I've always been fond of "chaotic good" Josh and his uptight nemesis, and always planned to build a viable story around them someday. A quarter century later, they're still waiting for the opportunity.

But not quietly. A couple of weeks ago, I was processing invoices at work when I came across a ticket for Marian Wander (or somesuch first name). I was amazed that any real person would have that surname. Furthermore, there were several names on the invoice, not just one. Warily, I looked up the record. Sure enough, one of the tickets was for Joshua Wander. I guess he finally turned up into my reality, just long enough to buy an airline ticket.

Karen Funk Blocher