(no subject)
Title: Dancing the "Scorpion-Pants" Dance
Status: Applicant
Summary: A little bit of history. Unfinished.
Genre: Narrative fiction? Let's say it's in the question mark genre for now.
Word Count: 902
My life's just not what I expected. Well, I expected to be a tall, buxom, ball-busting, feminist superwoman like Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell (also, the pink Power Ranger). I guess I have a lot of time left, but man, before you know it you're thirty and your knees hurt when it rains.
For one thing, it's a lot more boring than I'd hoped for. For another, it's not a narrative. There are events and conflicts, but like an impressionist painting, when I look closer, all the details are vague and muddled. I can say, "I'll start at the beginning," but when I think about my "in the beginning", I realize that I have to start at a prehistoric time. Call it B.C.--Before Carrie (that's me by the way, the most important person in this story--so if by some miracle you decide to keep reading and are momentarily intrigued by one of the minor characters, you better check yourself, because I'm the narrator and that makes me omniscient). Let's travel to 64 B.C., way back to 1923, in Carollton, TX, where my dad, Sam Edd, was born.
He was the youngest of ten siblings, but sorry, I can't really remember their names. I'll have to ask. Off the top of my head, I can think of John, Inez, and most importantly, my namesake. They all lived on a farm, which was probably very Hallmark and picturesque, with barn cats chasing mice and cows a-chewin' on cud, while white sheets hung from a laundry line, blowing gently in the summer breeze--except (and there's always an "except") Grandpa was a drinking man, who'd lost a leg to diabetes; a barber, a gambler, who cheated on (and probably beat) Grandma. And then they died. So from about 1933 to '41, my dad spent his late childhood and teens in an honest-to-god orphanage.
And no one really knows what that was like, or maybe I've just never asked, so I'm going to do a little bit of creative spackling. During summer nights at the Carollton Baptist Home, the darkness was absolute, so much so that it made young Sam Edd feel like he had been tarred and feathered. It was so hot and so dark that it clogged up his pores and drowned him in sweat. And it was dusty: there was always a crunchy layer of grit on his molars. The home smelled like a sock hard with dried sweat, because it was packed with other children. He always wondered how there were so many kids, considering the size of Carrollton.
But it wasn't all bad. He got to play checkers and hopscotch and that stick-and-hoop game. Since it was the 1930s, he probably chain-smoked (ten-year-olds were like little chimneys back then, because they were unelightened savages and didn't have Reader's Digest to tell them they shouldn't). When he lived at the home, he would grow sickly and pale because there was never enough food, and when there was it was just a lard and ham sandwich, washed down with water from an unlined well. Later, he would wonder if maybe the night seemed pitch black because he was suffering night blindness from a vitamin A deficiency.
He had brothers and sisters who took him under their wings when they could, but never for more than a year. Times were tough, after all: bread lines stretched down busy city streets, where no brother could spare a dime; the dust bowl was in full swing and John Steinbeck was writing the Grapes of Wrath. People were dreaming of Route 66 and green pastures and trees lush with fruit (only now we know that all they would get in California were giant flaming piles of oranges and a laundry list of dead folk).
Dad was dreaming too--he didn't know of what yet. My uncle John lived right on the cusp of Dallas and his house was the only place where Dad couldn't see stars, only a cropped shot of the city through the little dusty window above his bed. Dad was so damn sick of clear skies filled with stars, and so sick of seeing nothing for miles around, and sick of sticky fingers and dirty bed sheets and dusty windows. But sadly, he didn't have a jalopy. He didn't even have enough clothing to fill up one of those little over-the-shoulder hobo bags on a stick.
Well, wouldn't you know it, World War II broke out. It was FDR's gift to all those poor, half-starved orphan boys everywhere. Even getting shot at by Nazis is better than living in north Texas, and that's a fact. My dad dropped out of high school and signed up for the Airforce, but he didn't see a single Nazi--he was stationed in Hawaii. I don't know how much he actually added to or gained from the military; he missed out on Pearl Harbor, anyway. I think he drank and got in a lot of fights, and was demoted once or twice. When I was younger, he told my sister and I about how a scorpion crawled into his trousers one morning; as he mimed pulling on pants, he would jump frantically from leg to leg, yelling out a few four-letter words that we weren't supposed to hear. This delighted us to no end, so the story was often told and the "scorpion-pants" dance, often danced.
Note: This is very first part of an unfinished longer work. It's probably not the best piece to put forth in an application...I know the rules warned against it. I kind of just wanted to know if it was complete crap and I know ya'll will tell me if it is. Thanks for reading.
Status: Applicant
Summary: A little bit of history. Unfinished.
Genre: Narrative fiction? Let's say it's in the question mark genre for now.
Word Count: 902
My life's just not what I expected. Well, I expected to be a tall, buxom, ball-busting, feminist superwoman like Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell (also, the pink Power Ranger). I guess I have a lot of time left, but man, before you know it you're thirty and your knees hurt when it rains.
For one thing, it's a lot more boring than I'd hoped for. For another, it's not a narrative. There are events and conflicts, but like an impressionist painting, when I look closer, all the details are vague and muddled. I can say, "I'll start at the beginning," but when I think about my "in the beginning", I realize that I have to start at a prehistoric time. Call it B.C.--Before Carrie (that's me by the way, the most important person in this story--so if by some miracle you decide to keep reading and are momentarily intrigued by one of the minor characters, you better check yourself, because I'm the narrator and that makes me omniscient). Let's travel to 64 B.C., way back to 1923, in Carollton, TX, where my dad, Sam Edd, was born.
He was the youngest of ten siblings, but sorry, I can't really remember their names. I'll have to ask. Off the top of my head, I can think of John, Inez, and most importantly, my namesake. They all lived on a farm, which was probably very Hallmark and picturesque, with barn cats chasing mice and cows a-chewin' on cud, while white sheets hung from a laundry line, blowing gently in the summer breeze--except (and there's always an "except") Grandpa was a drinking man, who'd lost a leg to diabetes; a barber, a gambler, who cheated on (and probably beat) Grandma. And then they died. So from about 1933 to '41, my dad spent his late childhood and teens in an honest-to-god orphanage.
And no one really knows what that was like, or maybe I've just never asked, so I'm going to do a little bit of creative spackling. During summer nights at the Carollton Baptist Home, the darkness was absolute, so much so that it made young Sam Edd feel like he had been tarred and feathered. It was so hot and so dark that it clogged up his pores and drowned him in sweat. And it was dusty: there was always a crunchy layer of grit on his molars. The home smelled like a sock hard with dried sweat, because it was packed with other children. He always wondered how there were so many kids, considering the size of Carrollton.
But it wasn't all bad. He got to play checkers and hopscotch and that stick-and-hoop game. Since it was the 1930s, he probably chain-smoked (ten-year-olds were like little chimneys back then, because they were unelightened savages and didn't have Reader's Digest to tell them they shouldn't). When he lived at the home, he would grow sickly and pale because there was never enough food, and when there was it was just a lard and ham sandwich, washed down with water from an unlined well. Later, he would wonder if maybe the night seemed pitch black because he was suffering night blindness from a vitamin A deficiency.
He had brothers and sisters who took him under their wings when they could, but never for more than a year. Times were tough, after all: bread lines stretched down busy city streets, where no brother could spare a dime; the dust bowl was in full swing and John Steinbeck was writing the Grapes of Wrath. People were dreaming of Route 66 and green pastures and trees lush with fruit (only now we know that all they would get in California were giant flaming piles of oranges and a laundry list of dead folk).
Dad was dreaming too--he didn't know of what yet. My uncle John lived right on the cusp of Dallas and his house was the only place where Dad couldn't see stars, only a cropped shot of the city through the little dusty window above his bed. Dad was so damn sick of clear skies filled with stars, and so sick of seeing nothing for miles around, and sick of sticky fingers and dirty bed sheets and dusty windows. But sadly, he didn't have a jalopy. He didn't even have enough clothing to fill up one of those little over-the-shoulder hobo bags on a stick.
Well, wouldn't you know it, World War II broke out. It was FDR's gift to all those poor, half-starved orphan boys everywhere. Even getting shot at by Nazis is better than living in north Texas, and that's a fact. My dad dropped out of high school and signed up for the Airforce, but he didn't see a single Nazi--he was stationed in Hawaii. I don't know how much he actually added to or gained from the military; he missed out on Pearl Harbor, anyway. I think he drank and got in a lot of fights, and was demoted once or twice. When I was younger, he told my sister and I about how a scorpion crawled into his trousers one morning; as he mimed pulling on pants, he would jump frantically from leg to leg, yelling out a few four-letter words that we weren't supposed to hear. This delighted us to no end, so the story was often told and the "scorpion-pants" dance, often danced.
Note: This is very first part of an unfinished longer work. It's probably not the best piece to put forth in an application...I know the rules warned against it. I kind of just wanted to know if it was complete crap and I know ya'll will tell me if it is. Thanks for reading.