fiction

[crispy47]

A while ago, a friend of a friend told me a story. She is a baby-sitter-slash-English-teacher for this young kid, and he always wants her to read him this story called "The Stone Rabbit," and she's not really sure why. I thought it was sort of an unlikely children's story, and for some reason that made me want to rewrite it

Comments

[redefinegravity]

made me think of Grendel by John Gardner, which you might hate, but I stand firm by my opinion. But it's a compliment coming from me because I loved that book.
Is there an "original" version of this story?

[crispy47]

Yeah, there is an original, but I haven't seen it. A friend of a friend had to read it to a kid she was babysitting. It was like the kid's favorite story in the whole world and she had to read it to him every time, even though it made her cry. I don't think there's probably sex or Greek philosophy in the original. And I haven't read Grendel, so I don't hate that it resembles that.

Two things:

1. This was a pretty off-the-cuff draft that I want to fix up. Any suggestions?

2. Check out Casey's response to my entry about going to China. Do you know anything about what's going on with that guy? Because no one else seems to.

[redefinegravity]

1. i really liked it and when i really like something it's usually difficult for me to suggest improvements. sorry.

2. haha he's still alive? he sent me an email about meeting up in beijing last summer, he said he was there briefly. you thought he was with kent? where the fuck is kent? I would also guess japan, but it seems he's dropped off the e-map as well.

I would have gotten robert (lesser) to ask caroline if she knew anything about casey but he didn't end up seeing her (she was on the east coast for a little while, a while back). I suppose if all is well you will be seeing him soon enough, since he is "ending his drought" and all.

[crispy47]

Kent is in Japan. I'm not sure where, but last I heard he was an English-teacher-recruiter with two cars and a near-jail-bait girlfriend. He mentioned something about having himself castrated, too. I'm not sure if he did it, but it's safe to say probably no kids.

[milkweeds00]

allright, you guilted me into it. I haven't been keeping up with LJ much lately, so I apologize for not commenting earlier

[crispy47]

Thanks for the guilty response. It's helpful.

The original story, as I heard it, was pretty brief:There's an ugly monster who lives in a cave. He's so ugly that all the plants around him die and the animals run away. So one day he carves a stone rabbit to be his friend. Its face is ugly because he's never actually seen the face of anything before. He loves the rabbit a lot, and always talks to it and stuff. Then one day he stops coming out of his cave. Years later the area is all pretty, and some people come and see this ugly rabbit and wonder what it's doing there.
I hesitated about the McDonald's thing, and you're right that it's out of place. I think I wrote it after listening to a David Sedaris monologue. If you imagine David Sedaris reading that line, it's a lot funnier

[milkweeds00]

Glad you found the comments useful. That original story IS brief; maybe "The Stone Rabbit" is written up in some collection of fables/fairy tales somewhere?

Why I haven't posted in a while: I've been really, really, really busy. Since January I've been working towards an MA, teaching in Baltimore City, and tutoring. It was insane. My MA classes don't start up again 'till June, though, so it's more easy-going now.

Hopefully I'll start posting stories again; I actually have a longer one I've just begun fiddling with, but it's only in the outlining stages. We'll see.

[crispy47]

What's the MA in?