Hope West's Advent-ure Calander: DAYS ONE TO THREE

FROM HOPE WEST

It began with a Temple, and box of 24 doors. Every morning for 24 days, the next door would reveal a surprise gift—a tiny token. The challenge? To weave a story over those weeks, without knowing which character might appear the following day: an Advent-ure Calendar. Each day, one short chapter, illustrated with a photo of the day’s gift. The story would be of the search for the Lost Temple, a kind of children’s story for adults.

What magic awaits?

Door 1.

Dreams still ghosting my consciousness early this dark morning, I spy it on the breakfast table. My husband’s handmade advent calendar awaits me, and I delight at this unexpected gift on December’s first morning. Really, I still had no idea…

Pulling at Door One, sliding fingers into its small opening, I extract a rubbery flat ballon and a safety pin. (???!) On the balloon, enigmatic painted runes and a message: “Blow Me.” Giggling, I do its bidding.

More symbols emerge—a further message—as it inflates. “Remember the Big Bang,” it suggests in a tiny, intricate script. Answering the instruction, I burst the balloon with the pin, liberating a curled map on ancient paper. My fluttering delight speeds to hard rushing beats as the scroll guides me through my familiar house, still dark, down the hall, through wide doors to a candle’s dimness at the recesses of the room. Had I startled the former occupant and away he’d rushed, leaving only this cup of light? Oh, and another clue.

Inscribed on vellum, edges burnished with a delicate blossoming lotus, “Go further into the darkness,” it advises. “Watch the signs. Follow the map.”

More doors open to my touch, old floorboards murmur shared confidences like small birds under my bare feet.

Then. Another light, a hesitant light, glowing a circle as green as new growth. A sacred circle, rimming a large temple complex spread out across my bed—but hadn’t I just left it? Do I dream? I reach down to touch the comforter, still warm from a lovely night’s sleep.

As shadowed as my own house, its spires rise, pathways twist, and in the centre of this tremendous landscape, the great temple edifice lifts skyward. Gleaming at its base, near a gateway marked by another glyph, a flat silvered box.

It’s silent in the house, in this room, and I feel, rather than hear, my heart’s strength in my chest.

Lifting its cover from the box—heavy, substantial, not a dream at all—I understand this is real. And inside?

Well, inside, I find that this mystery is only just beginning…

DAY TWO

Door 2.

In Door Two, Ganapati appears—as he does when things begin—as well as the second page of this magical adventure.  

Our protagonist, a Canadian girl, little in stature—although taller than her sister, was overjoyed to find this undersized embodiment of such an outsized figure. Having spent a rather sleepless night, her thoughts constantly circling, circling back to the mystery of the Lost Temple.

“Who loses a temple?” she wondered, “And why? If one had a temple, wouldn’t one be mindful of its whereabouts?” A weighty conundrum, indeed.

With the arrival of Ganapati, this heavyweight expert in the removal of obstacles, the girl was reminded that the uncharted day brimmed with near-limitless possibilities—which might include a solution to this mind-boggling mystery. But as our story begins, let the reader be forewarned:

“A map may result in translocation from A to B, but a story has the power to move one vast distances—intellectually, psychologically, emotionally—while never yielding an inch in space.”

DAY THREE

Door 3.

A path so narrow that breath is nearly stilled, and nightfall now, so early. What luck that a full moon rises to brindle the forest floor with its diffuse light. Slow going. Treacherous.

Each step requires great care.

From the shadows, the last whoop of a howler settled to sleep, tiny bats traced elegant arabesques. And atop the temple’s crumbling outer walls, a tiger’s soft purrrrr. He had eaten, then, so she could move safety.

“How did I get here?” a heavy Bengali-accent rumbled from above. Never having conversed with 200 kilos of wild feline before, the little girl was somewhat taken aback. Fortunately, her Canadian upbringing had taught her to accept all sorts without prejudice and she reassured the tiger.

“You are safe and welcome. We are on the grounds of the Lost Temple—would you like to accompany me there?” she inquired politely. (Because…well…Canadian.)

Without any further clue than she, meeting the tiger was less an answer than a deepening of the mystery. Some days are just like that.