「故事·听力」What Happened To Dr. Strange

AVENGERS SPECIAL! What Happened To Dr. Strange

Hi! My name is Janis and I am a Marvel fan. Actually, I am a fan of Marvel movies – I was nine years old when the first “Avengers” movie appeared on the big screen. Now I am sixteen and I've never missed a premiere. I'm so thankful that my parents took me there when I was a little girl.

But this story is not about my family. It's about the other important people in my life.

 We met at one of the Marvel fan cons a few years ago and even though we have nothing in common in everyday life, we are real friends - soul mates, united by one little secret. We are not into cosplay, but… well, each of us has our own favorite Marvel character and when we meet we play like we are these characters.

So please, let me introduce our group of Five! Let Cap be the first here. He is the oldest of all of us (just as it should be, right?), he is very calm and reasonable… And I have to admit, I find him very attractive.

Then goes the inseparable couple. Guess who? Right! It's Rocket and Groot! Groot doesn't look like a tree, but he does look very much like Vin Diesel. Also he is kind and not really outspoken. Just like Groot. Rocket is small, quick, and nervous. And you'd better not call him a trash panda. These two were friends before we all met.

The next one is Doctor Strange. He looks like Sorcerer Supreme only because of his self-assuredness and his love for dramatic effects. He does not wear a cloak, but he'll turn up any collar, like he's Benedict Cumberbatch himself… And it's not that I dislike him, but sometimes he irritates me.

Oh, I get irritated pretty easily, and in this case it's better to just stay away from me. Maybe you're thinking that I might be the Natasha Romanoff or the Gamora of our company. Huh! Guess again... I'm Hulk, nice to meet you!

Well, now that you know who we are, I'll get to the story. It all began last year in April when we went to see the premier of Avengers: Infinity War.

Many fans, you know, love to find out all about what's going to happen in the future films. But we tried to avoid the spoilers so that what we were about to see was a real shock to us. I mean, when half of the Earth’s population just disappears at the snap of the Crazy Titan’s fingers… together with the half of the main characters. It was awful – to see the heroes we'd known for so many years vanish into thin air.

We left the movies totally depressed and couldn't even talk about what we saw – it was all clear, words weren't even necessary."

But within the next few days something happened that made us forget all our aesthetic impressions.

So, Rocket sent a signal for an emergency meeting - we do have these kinds of superhero agreements.

When I came, Cap was there, and Rocket was pacing back and forth, like a wind-up toy.

“Call me an alarmist,” — he started, "but Groot is missing."

I was about to agree that this scene from the movie made me very upset too, when Rocket exploded: “Not movie Groot, morons! OUR Groot!”

It turned out that he had tried to call his friend all day long and when he went to see him, he discovered that his apartment was empty and nobody knew where he was.

“Can people just vanish into thin air?” Rocket asked and broke off. We looked at each other.

"Why didn’t Strange come?” Cap was straight to the point, as always.

 “He must be busy,” Rocket replied with uncertainty.

We looked at each other again. Out of OUR five characters it was these two that disappeared in Infinity War: Groot and Doctor Strange."

You know, it's not that easy to find out a person's address when you don’t know the person's real name.

We had to turn the whole fan community upside down, but finally we got Strange’s address. So, within an hour we were awkwardly shuffling our feet in front of his great and respectable house.

“Move forward,” Cap ordered quietly and we moved forward.

A tall, thin old man opened the door. But Cap couldn't even finish his polite greeting before the old man waved us away, saying angrily: “He is not here anymore! And never will be! Leave and don’t come back!” and shut the door.

We were puzzled and, honestly, scared. And, worst of all, we were helpless.

Well, we promised to keep in touch with each other and even met a couple more times, but then stopped – we couldn't talk about anything else, apart from our unexplainable loss. And what was the point?...

…And so almost a year had passed.

But one day news finally arrived! I was hanging out with the other fans at a drawing for "Avengers: Endgame" premiere tickets… when I saw Strange! He was wearing dark glasses and he had changed his hairstyle, trying to be unnoticeable…