The Assignment: Write a short short story in which an alarm clock going off int he middle of the story plays some kind of crucial role. Half of the story will be dream and half reality. I don't usually encourage my students to write about dreams (it is very difficult to do it well, and the results are usually clumsy and obvious), but in this case, try to construct a mirror image on either side of this alarm clock sound. 400 words.
My Response:
"Don't touch that." She said. Her hands were on the body in front of her, tugging plastic over it. There was no blood to speak of, but she could see him inching closer. Wanting, perhaps needing, to see it. To know.
He looked up at her, a crooked smile on his face. "Hiding something?"
"You said I could take care of my own." She muttered, pausing in her task to make sure that her gloves were pulled up and her sleeves pulled down. She didn't need him to see. It was better if no one knew.
The smile didn't fade, if anything it grew. His uneven teeth clashing with the pristine sheriff's badge that decorated his chest. "Wake up. I wasn't going to let you take care of it."
Anger flushed through her, mingling with the fear that left a hard knot in her stomach. "I..."
"Wake up!" He yelled, the smile gone, and anger swimming in his eyes. "Wake up!"
She shook her head. "No!"
"Wake up, Ellie!" The voice was different now. Familiar, and she pulled her brows together. The scene around her was fading away, and panic set in. No, she had to be able to see. She had to hide the body, to protect herself!
"Ellie!"
Her eyes snapped open and she glance around at the room that she had been staying in for the last few days. The fear from the dream slowly began to slip away, and she relaxed back against the pillow.
"What?" She muttered, her voice thick with sleep. It had just been a dream. Nothing more than a dream.
"Come on. It's time to go."
Ellie's eyes met her sisters, their blue depths reflecting the mourning both of them were currently feeling.
"No."
"It's his funeral."
She shook her head, sinking back under the blankets and turning away. "I can't."
"You have to." Her sister's voice had gone hard. No longer was the caring sister. "This was your fault, and you're not going to lay there feeling sorry for yourself. Now get up and get dressed. We're leaving in half an hour."
A tear slipped down Ellie's cheek. Her fault. She was right about that. And there was nothing she could ever do to fix it.
My Thoughts: Well, I definitely wrote this one at work, so if it seemed like I was getting constantly distracted, I really was. But it was definitely fun. I don't generally do dream scenes. Mostly because when I read them, rather than seeing the meaning that the author obviously intended, I usually just find them annoying and superficial. So writing one kind of went against my personal likes. Still, trying to come up with some way to parallel the dream world and the real world was kind of fun. Still not something I want in my stuff, really, but it was definitely a good exercise.
I would love to see anything that you might have come up with for this exercise. Or if you just want to tell me what you thought of my response, I would love that as well. Leave a comment below!
All exercises are taken from The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley
No comments:
Post a Comment