(no subject)
This following is a short story I wrote when prompted to write one including a
Today is my father’s funeral. I can’t speak this morning. I silently go about my room, dressing for the burial. Delicately taking my pants off the chair, I think of my mother folding them the night before as she told me how the service will go. There will be no chapel, just a burial and a speech told by my mother and my father’s mother. I shudder as I slip on the jacket and look at myself in the mirror. A note inside my pocket tells me to check that my tie is straight. 16 years old and mother still thinks I can’t tell if my tie is straight or not. But I don’t really care. This suit scares me. It’s how I knew father was going to die in the hospital because when he got there, mother took me out to buy a new black suit. She couldn’t just tell me. She had to show me in her own way. I suppose she was trying to be discreet, but how are you discreet about death?
The car ride to the cemetery is drowsy and quiet. No one else is driving today. I feel half my age sitting in the back seat alone. The leather in the back seat is black and cold. I’m still unable to speak, so I don’t say anything and slump lower, crouching to try and gain some warmth. I lean my head down onto my knees and close my eyes for the rest of the ride. As soon as we reach the cemetery and stop, I feel myself start to shut down. Everything is so cold, the air is bitter, the rain is frozen, and yet it’s so bright outside. The clouds are white, completely blanketing the sky. It wants to snow, but it can’t. It just can’t.
I feel like my dentist has been seeping his numbing gas into my head and all I can do is follow my mother to a crowd of sniffling strangers, all as cold and black as the casket they surround. “The North Star” the Funeral Director calls it. But with it’s black paint and water droplets, the North Star itself is lost amongst the thousands of other stars surrounding it. I’m mesmerized by the casket. I don’t believe my father’s in there. How could he have gone so suddenly? This is simply a dream.
Among the people crowded around the casket, I see a girl my same height standing close to her parents. I recognize her father as one of my father’s friends, but I never knew he had a family. The girl has her head bowed toward the casket, like everyone else. She’s different, because she’s not wearing all black. She has a long, black coat on, but underneath, I can see the trim of her dress. It’s the brightest hue of red I have ever seen, incomparable to any fruit or flower. She catches me staring at her dress and waves with neither timidity nor enthusiasm. Her face is nearly all hidden under a black hat and veil. I can barely see her eyes, which are dark and smoldering.
I forget where I am. I feel much warmer. I take down my umbrella and then the rain hit my head, and I just keep staring at the girl in the red dress. Before I know it, everyone is walking away, and the casket is lowered. My mother puts her hand on my shoulder to guide me away. Away from the casket and away from the girl. I turn my head to see her again, and she’s standing there, looking back at me. Her parents have started walking away to their car, not minding her lingering. She starts to follow after us, but slowly, only walking. I turn my head away and open the car door. I still can’t say anything, but before I get in the car, I take another look at her. I can see her dress more clearly. It’s girlish, as if designed for a girl much younger than her, but the hue of it all holds such debauchery and decadence that when worn by her it creates an intoxicating effect on my mind.
I get into that cold back seat at my mother’s call, and continue to stare back at the girl and her dress through the rear window. The sky’s tears have warped her image, but the dress is still bold in view, engaging, beckoning me. She raises her hand in a wave as we drive away, and all I can do is look at her until I can’t see her anymore. Then I finally say something today, and I whisper to her disappearance: “Thank you.”
These are comments I liked, complaints, and one of my own critiques:
Comments I liked hearing:
-one girl says she got chills listening
-Lawrence loves the name of the casket being a symbol of guidance
-someone liked that I used the word "hue" to describe red instead of the common "crimson" or "blood-red" or something like that
-I got a lot of people saying they liked the line "how are you discreet about death?"
-a few people liked the description of the dress "beckoning" the boy
-the significance of the suit, how it came to be bought
-and someone said they "truly enjoyed listening"!
"Done Well"
-mood
-use of diction
-writing from a boys perspective/writing about something that doesn't have anything to do with personal -experience
-metaphor/simile
-flow/transition
-contrast-- now here's what I think was alright but still bugged me. Everyone pretty much said they liked "the contrast" but they didn't specify what contrast. I think people pretty much picked up on the black-attire/red dress, cold-black-seat-etc/bright white sky, but my favorite contrast that I don't know if people picked up on was the contrast of how the black suit makes the boy feel, the news that it brings, and the red dress, and how it creates such a fire in his chest, a distraction, a yearning.. not dread.
-my presentation was good
-using the element of mystery/the girl
-intro/conclusion
"Lacking/Complaint"
-one person said that the language was too old-fashioned for a 16 year old boy
-"Why death? It's so sad." -Exactly.
-my own complaint was that my sentence structure can be weak.
Tell me what you think, everyone! I want to know.
I watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" tonight, alone, and fell in love with Clementine, Joely, and Spencer all over again.
What I wouldn't give to be laying next to Spencer right now.
Oh, I'm so full of love, I could burst.
..to love and be loved.
Today is my father’s funeral. I can’t speak this morning. I silently go about my room, dressing for the burial. Delicately taking my pants off the chair, I think of my mother folding them the night before as she told me how the service will go. There will be no chapel, just a burial and a speech told by my mother and my father’s mother. I shudder as I slip on the jacket and look at myself in the mirror. A note inside my pocket tells me to check that my tie is straight. 16 years old and mother still thinks I can’t tell if my tie is straight or not. But I don’t really care. This suit scares me. It’s how I knew father was going to die in the hospital because when he got there, mother took me out to buy a new black suit. She couldn’t just tell me. She had to show me in her own way. I suppose she was trying to be discreet, but how are you discreet about death?
The car ride to the cemetery is drowsy and quiet. No one else is driving today. I feel half my age sitting in the back seat alone. The leather in the back seat is black and cold. I’m still unable to speak, so I don’t say anything and slump lower, crouching to try and gain some warmth. I lean my head down onto my knees and close my eyes for the rest of the ride. As soon as we reach the cemetery and stop, I feel myself start to shut down. Everything is so cold, the air is bitter, the rain is frozen, and yet it’s so bright outside. The clouds are white, completely blanketing the sky. It wants to snow, but it can’t. It just can’t.
I feel like my dentist has been seeping his numbing gas into my head and all I can do is follow my mother to a crowd of sniffling strangers, all as cold and black as the casket they surround. “The North Star” the Funeral Director calls it. But with it’s black paint and water droplets, the North Star itself is lost amongst the thousands of other stars surrounding it. I’m mesmerized by the casket. I don’t believe my father’s in there. How could he have gone so suddenly? This is simply a dream.
Among the people crowded around the casket, I see a girl my same height standing close to her parents. I recognize her father as one of my father’s friends, but I never knew he had a family. The girl has her head bowed toward the casket, like everyone else. She’s different, because she’s not wearing all black. She has a long, black coat on, but underneath, I can see the trim of her dress. It’s the brightest hue of red I have ever seen, incomparable to any fruit or flower. She catches me staring at her dress and waves with neither timidity nor enthusiasm. Her face is nearly all hidden under a black hat and veil. I can barely see her eyes, which are dark and smoldering.
I forget where I am. I feel much warmer. I take down my umbrella and then the rain hit my head, and I just keep staring at the girl in the red dress. Before I know it, everyone is walking away, and the casket is lowered. My mother puts her hand on my shoulder to guide me away. Away from the casket and away from the girl. I turn my head to see her again, and she’s standing there, looking back at me. Her parents have started walking away to their car, not minding her lingering. She starts to follow after us, but slowly, only walking. I turn my head away and open the car door. I still can’t say anything, but before I get in the car, I take another look at her. I can see her dress more clearly. It’s girlish, as if designed for a girl much younger than her, but the hue of it all holds such debauchery and decadence that when worn by her it creates an intoxicating effect on my mind.
I get into that cold back seat at my mother’s call, and continue to stare back at the girl and her dress through the rear window. The sky’s tears have warped her image, but the dress is still bold in view, engaging, beckoning me. She raises her hand in a wave as we drive away, and all I can do is look at her until I can’t see her anymore. Then I finally say something today, and I whisper to her disappearance: “Thank you.”
These are comments I liked, complaints, and one of my own critiques:
Comments I liked hearing:
-one girl says she got chills listening
-Lawrence loves the name of the casket being a symbol of guidance
-someone liked that I used the word "hue" to describe red instead of the common "crimson" or "blood-red" or something like that
-I got a lot of people saying they liked the line "how are you discreet about death?"
-a few people liked the description of the dress "beckoning" the boy
-the significance of the suit, how it came to be bought
-and someone said they "truly enjoyed listening"!
"Done Well"
-mood
-use of diction
-writing from a boys perspective/writing about something that doesn't have anything to do with personal -experience
-metaphor/simile
-flow/transition
-contrast-- now here's what I think was alright but still bugged me. Everyone pretty much said they liked "the contrast" but they didn't specify what contrast. I think people pretty much picked up on the black-attire/red dress, cold-black-seat-etc/bright white sky, but my favorite contrast that I don't know if people picked up on was the contrast of how the black suit makes the boy feel, the news that it brings, and the red dress, and how it creates such a fire in his chest, a distraction, a yearning.. not dread.
-my presentation was good
-using the element of mystery/the girl
-intro/conclusion
"Lacking/Complaint"
-one person said that the language was too old-fashioned for a 16 year old boy
-"Why death? It's so sad." -Exactly.
-my own complaint was that my sentence structure can be weak.
Tell me what you think, everyone! I want to know.
I watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" tonight, alone, and fell in love with Clementine, Joely, and Spencer all over again.
What I wouldn't give to be laying next to Spencer right now.
Oh, I'm so full of love, I could burst.
..to love and be loved.