Trying a little something new. Something I’ve wanted
to do for a while. For the next few days, I will be posting the pieces I
submitted for my Writing Minor Portfolio. They are all from classes I
took Sophomore to Senior Year at Keene State College. Most of them are
memoir in nature, but a few are slightly different. These are pieces I
love, but know still need work. If you would like to know more of the
stories behind the pieces, let me know and I will be happy to share!
Also, any and all constructive feedback is always welcome – just because these
were the final versions to be submitted doesn’t mean that they are perfect.
Oh, and also? These are mine. Do not
steal them. Thanks.
Word
Search
A Dream Story, Written for Cooking, Eating and Dreaming, Written Junior Year.
I am running around the library, looking for
words. All of the books have been sucked
dry, leaving a trail of blank white pages.
I had been working on my senior
thesis for months, and as soon as I began writing the conclusion, language
escaped me. I knew there were some books
here that could help me get it back, but I couldn’t find them. I begin to frantically pull books off the
shelves, searching for one that still has written language on the pages.
My heart
skips with excitement when I spy a book open on the floor, ink on the pages. I race over to it, and pick it up. Immediately, I slam it shut in
frustration. The printing is just an
illustration, and there are no captions or story to go with it.
Standing
in the middle of the stacks, I want to scream, but I can’t. I grasp my hair in frustrated fists and
scrunch my face in agony. “Where did all
the words go?” I whisper to the empty
books. Even the labels are gone.
I see a
figure pacing the stacks, like a panther prowling for a meal. I poke my head through the open space on the
shelf. “Hey! You!” I
hiss to the dark figure. They stop, but
do not turn around. “Are you
taking the words away?” Slowly, the
figure turns around, an indigo mask covering their face, their hair covered by
the hood of the black cape that was flowing down their back. An indigo-gloved finger rises up to the
painted mouth. “Ssshhhh…” And with that, the dark figure turns and
prowls away, their black cape flowing behind them.
I pull back
into my aisle, and flop onto the floor, defeated. I close my eyes, and lie on my back, arms
outstretched, breathing deeply in through my nose and out through my mouth,
trying to ease my anxiety.
A loud “thump” brings me out of my
self-pity, and I sit up. The masked
figure is standing at the end of the aisle, a large book at their feet. They hold out a hand, a gesture of
benevolence. In the blink of my eyes,
the figure is gone.
I crawl on my hands and knees to the book,
kneeling in front of it, as though beginning some sort of ritual sacrifice. I slowly open the cover, and see them: words. I don’t know if they are what I am looking
for, but it is a start. I close my eyes
and place my hands on the book.
Suddenly, the words are in my head and the book is empty. Tears of gratitude fall down my face. I rise up and head to the back of the
library, for along with words, the book instructed me on where to find the rest. I sucked the books dry, and returned to my
computer, where I was able to turn the words into sentences, the sentences into
paragraphs, and complete my senior thesis.
No comments:
Post a Comment