Random Writings
This is just some stuff that thought would make a good short story...I guess it's finished. I'm not very good with this stuff. Anyway, I hope somebody out there likes it more than I do. It's about a boy named Kean who believes that life is more than just WWII unlike his grandfather.
The Good Soldier
Kean was short and tortured, like a tight little weed evicted from the Garden of Eden curling itself around a bright American flag. He was hardly American. His grandfather had come from Germany after the war- a refugee of many sorts. But the intermixing process had already begun, (much to the horror of the aforementioned grandparent), and Kean had tightly curled red hair and a face full of freckles. He was a bright boy usually referred to by his teachers as “my best student” right off the bat. But it was a lot of pressure, something Kean had trouble with. And sometimes he wanted nothing more than the destruction of all those who praised his intelligence, or anything else for that matter. With praise come expectations; expectations that can cause one deed to superimpose the life of a person.
Kean did not celebrate Christmas with his parents; he celebrated it with his grandfather, who told him stories that no longer mattered. These stories grew on Kean like a rosebush of nostalgia with poisonous and taboo blooms. They told, not of his grandfather’s bravery or endurance, but of the pain and suffering of an entire people. His grandfather was no Nazi, but it wasn’t about labels, and it never had been. It was about what you had to think or believe in order to survive, and anything with that amount of pressure is sure to burst, have an impact. His grandfather could spot a Jew a mile away, simply because it had been necessary. Kean believed, for a long time, that his grandfather told these stories to comfort him; make him feel that the world was a safe place now. Now that it was all over.
But the more Kean listened to his grandfather’s delivery, the more Kean realized that he was talking to himself. He spoke of the war like it had been a first date or a special birthday party, as though now he were watching all the events from the safety of his living room on a large television set, the occasional “That’s terrible” the only sign of its relevance.
The Good Soldier
Kean was short and tortured, like a tight little weed evicted from the Garden of Eden curling itself around a bright American flag. He was hardly American. His grandfather had come from Germany after the war- a refugee of many sorts. But the intermixing process had already begun, (much to the horror of the aforementioned grandparent), and Kean had tightly curled red hair and a face full of freckles. He was a bright boy usually referred to by his teachers as “my best student” right off the bat. But it was a lot of pressure, something Kean had trouble with. And sometimes he wanted nothing more than the destruction of all those who praised his intelligence, or anything else for that matter. With praise come expectations; expectations that can cause one deed to superimpose the life of a person.
Kean did not celebrate Christmas with his parents; he celebrated it with his grandfather, who told him stories that no longer mattered. These stories grew on Kean like a rosebush of nostalgia with poisonous and taboo blooms. They told, not of his grandfather’s bravery or endurance, but of the pain and suffering of an entire people. His grandfather was no Nazi, but it wasn’t about labels, and it never had been. It was about what you had to think or believe in order to survive, and anything with that amount of pressure is sure to burst, have an impact. His grandfather could spot a Jew a mile away, simply because it had been necessary. Kean believed, for a long time, that his grandfather told these stories to comfort him; make him feel that the world was a safe place now. Now that it was all over.
But the more Kean listened to his grandfather’s delivery, the more Kean realized that he was talking to himself. He spoke of the war like it had been a first date or a special birthday party, as though now he were watching all the events from the safety of his living room on a large television set, the occasional “That’s terrible” the only sign of its relevance.