She patiently waited with her father, her hair neat and clean and pulled to the back not much past 8. Her father a buisness man of some kind, bent coat playing on his lap, as his tie dripped from his neck like a long green paste. He had one arm tucked around the little girl on the bench made of wood that was harder than concrete to sit on.
The little girl kicked her feat back and forth, not yet able to touch the ground. She smiled and asked the man, "Daddy is Max alright?" pretty soon a man in a lab coat came out and approached them, "I don't think Max will make it through the night!" His voice was a sturdy rumble, one that choked the air with sounds. The man shook his head and replied, "Can you bring him out so she can say good-bye?" The Vet looked at the little girl and nodded with a grim smile.
The Vet walked into the back. It seemed like years had passed before he returned shuffling an old, weathered dog. The dog looked like each step was planned to cause as little pain as possible. "I gave him some pain killers to help a little," the doctor mumbled. The little girl jumped from her chair and hugged the dog. Max looked up at her and wagged his tail a few times as if saying good bye. She kissed him on the cheek and said, "I will see you tomorrow Max." She seemed pleased with her answer, and the dog tilted his head not wanting to ruin the girls day. The Vet looked away tearing up a little he told the father, "This is the hardest part of the job." The father who was clinging to his coat with passions of sadness said, "Lilly let's go mommy is waiting for us."
The little girl bent down one last time and kissed Max whispering, "I will miss you." The dog drew a sad face and licked the girl on the cheek on last time. The father stood and bent down he grabbed the muzzle of his friend like he had probably done so many times before and said, "Don't lose your squeaky toy."
The Vet turned and shuffled Poor Max back into the back. The Father and his Daughter Turned and headed towards the door. From the backroom there was a loud yell, "Hey sit!" Pretty soon Max burst around the corner and approached the little girl. He eased his head under her hand. Then took the time to lick her cheek on last time before calmly reversing his steps and walking calmly to the back. The little girl replied one last time, "I love you too Max!" The dog kept going un-waivered by the girls words. He walked around the corner, and the father, daughter duo walked away. Max never came back out nor did the girl return. All she knows is he is in heaven, and from a far Max watches her grow.
The Warm-Up on the first page has a drawing by Saul Steinberg similar to the one above (I couldn't find the exact image in the book, but I got close!). So, based on either the image above and the image in the book on page 36, you should complete the Warm-Up as follows (reply with your creative response in a comment):
Write a few sentences that might be coming out of the mouth of [at least three] of these characters. What is each likely to be talking about? What do the drawing styles suggest about the voice, vocabulary, sentence structure, and tone of each?
This simple poetic structure relays a humorous outlook on rather serious subjects such as, but not limited to; death, murder, marriage, and/or political upheaval.
An example would be:
Taid and Earth
Taid was laid to rest outside his home in Tulsa. Just a few feet from the place where he was stabbed 4 times. Ground slit and turned over just like the corpse laid within. It smelled of death, and looked dull and lifeless. Earth still moist, and temperate to the touch.
Ironic, in a way, since Taid suffered aichmophobia, the fear of knives and other sharp objects. His body soiled with moister, from the resent fallen rain; And Dirt, The very earth on which he now would be covered. His body so useless. To think it would be months before the person who commited the crime would return to give back what the earth had given.
A death is so unfortunant, you stop to mourn Taid, but who is there to mourn the earth? By now the sun has set on the mound, drying the pile that holds the corpse. Reaching it's long fingers and parching the grains layered aimlessly together. A man wearing a baseball cap wipes his brow at the lingering sun. dropping salt elixer onto the dirt he has just molested, and creased. His eyes squinting, and his teeth blazing through the outcome of what he has just done. He squeezed his hand around a shovel, and sighed. His breath was horse from all the hard work put into covering such a body.
Course you have to take into the consideration that this man loved his hobbies, but his hobbies rarely loved him. Seven years had went by, and Taid his latest victim was his fondest. He took good care with the best of the best for Taid. No matter how far and how much, this man loved Taid. But like the last Six, Taid eventually met an un-timely death. The man would rack his mind over how with the first few. But he had a knack for killing. So eventually, he was consumed with time. How long before the unfortunant, How long before? Each time he drew it out a little longer, and got good at reviving, so he could torcher the victim longer, and longer.
Poor Earth, concealing this man's abilities, and in-abilities all in the same. How glamorous are you to take the bile, and the blame at the same time? False greens cover your dark secret, and yet the birds sing to your glory, for you hide their lunch. How eager, are you to greet the man, who rarely cuts your hair, or trims your bush? How happy are you to see the grimace on the man's face as he carries out his latest victim. How loud a song the birds must sing, to see the body? Knowing the worms will feast? The poor man, who lives a lone. His life revolving like the earth; slowly, isolated, and constantly dealing with life, followed by death.
His hands show the error of his ways. Early mornings working hard up-rooting vegetables, and cutting them to put into his stomach. Then later to return not so far from the scene, to lay the untouched bodies, and other eaten body parts close to the full view of the on-looking garden.
Which brings me to my point? Do vegetables have feelings?
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I am sorry I am tired and in a weird mood, I thought this was funny as hell, when I was writing it!
A few years ago, I had a dream that had three dogs, one dog was a blond lab looking dog who would stand to my right, and the other two were dogs wearing a coat of jet black. The one infront of me was savage in nature, looking like a hellhound of old Irish folklore, The other was sitting to the hellhounds left. It was docile in nature and not at all a threat to me. The savage dog would walk back and forth in front of me taunting me, the blonde dog, would move to defend me. However, we were in a field, a bright field. and behind the two black dogs was a huge door. One that had been laid with several gold marks and held a lock. The dog who scared me so bad that I feared closing my eyes, spoke a latin, and German Mix. He spoke and sounded hateful with his tone.
I wrote everything down after everytime of having this dream! It repeated several times, and I got only few hours of sleep every week. I eventually would pass out due to my lack of sleep.
After focusing on speaking with the beast in my sleep, it eventually went away! I was so relieved. I finally could sleep. Well, a few weeks ago, this dream started re-accuring, this time it comes and goes through out the day. He won't quit trying to get at me. I even find myself looking over my shoulder to think I see him out of the corner of my eye. He refuses to leave this time, even after trying by telling him to leave me alone.
This morning was the worst of the bouts with this dog. He randomly makes himself present in my minds eye, and then taunts me with his glowing white, and yellow eyes. Rest is a bitter sweet memory for my weary mind.
So here I sit. Wakend by the threads of my mind. Tired..... Oh, how I wish for the sweet taste of sleep. The good thing about this blog is the feeling of being able to write about it! The sad part is actually reading what I am writing. I am a person of facts and proof. There is NO reasoning or fact behind what is happening. It has happend so much that I have done countless hours of research on my dreams. I do say dreams, mostly in part because I know nothing can affect me out of the dream state.
Even though I am a person who likes evidence to support causality behind something. I also have a big belief in the pseudo-science, (super-natural, and the power of demon/angelic impressions.) Now I don't think anything is out to get me, I just think there is something that has bothered me for so long, now I am trying to over come it. I have no clue what it is. I wish I did because I would be working through it instead of losing sleep trying to figure out what it means. Symbolism and dreams go together, WE ALL, should admit that, but what my dream means I have not the slightest.
I sit here in this dark house, in my little corner, waiting on the clock ticking by to cease. Hoping I can pass out before my alarm tells me to get up. Urgh... Well I hope you all have fun reading this, and don't think I am too crazy. Course to say I am crazy you have to tell me what normal is first. Okay, well see you all in class!
You might be wondering why I have chosen the title Three Strikes and I’m Out, well; the reason is because this is how I feel living here in what I consider “Rural-Ville” Indiana.
I was born and raised on what is considered the “South Side” of Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, we capitalize South Side because we are very proud of our history and background from each of our neighborhoods, and whether you are from the North Side, the South Side, the East Side, or the West Side, that is how we all roll in Chi-town.
I eventually ended up moving to Northwest Indiana, to the city of Hammond, but it is so close to Illinois that it is considered to be part of the surrounding, metropolitan, Chicago area.
From the time that I was born, I have lived in very diverse areas. I was exposed to virtually a melting pot of ethnic groups; and by the way, I am multi-racial. My father is African-American or “black” as it is generally referred as, and Mexican; and my mother is Caucasian or “white” as most people have a tendency to refer to that particular complexion.
I don’t identify singularly with either “black” or “white”, or even Hispanic. I consider myself to be of all those nationalities, because that is who I am; regardless of the color of my skin, the texture of my hair, or the size of my lips, nose and “butt”. In "Rural-Ville" however, based on my experiences so far, this seems to be the first strike against me.
I moved to New Castle, Indiana in August of 2007. Prior to this, in February of the same year, I began dating someone that I’d met via Internet dating. She and I, yes, I said she, oh, and yes, I’m gay, did I forget to mention that? And based on personal experience, this would be strike two for me here in the “Rural-Ville” Bible belt.
Anyway, as I was saying, we’d started dating, and by the third week of June, we both decided to move in together. How cliché, I know. That is what we lesbians do, we meet, we date for a period of time, and then we end up U-Hauling it. It’s listed in all the manuals and brochures! Take a look to see for yourself!
The first things I noticed in New Castle were the corn fields. Are they sure there is more than corn in Indiana? There were also soybean fields, as well as many cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, llamas, and alpaca’s… what in the world is an alpaca? They kind of look like llamas to me, but what do I know? I am from “up North” as my partner says.
My partner told me we lived in the city limits; city limits? What is she talking about? Around the corner from her property, there are fields and many of the aforementioned animals, again I say, this is the city? And where by God are all of the sidewalks?
As the summer progressed, I noticed many things. Many people have a drawl in the dialect here. Words like I reckon, and I “cain’t” instead of I can’t, or “like ‘at” instead of like that, flow abundantly from many mouths, and son of a bitch, has turned into “sumbitch”. This isn’t a problem however; I actually think it’s rather endearing, and believe me, I’ve been asked “You’re not from around here, are you?” and “You’re from up North ain’tcha?” enough times to know that my dialect is very different as well.
There was another thing that I noticed in New Castle, where are all the black folks, Hispanics, Asians and such here? I asked my partner. Well, she said, they are here, you just don’t see them. What? That in itself isn’t very funny, but when she said it I actually chuckled and said, you have to be kidding right? She wasn’t.
What a treat for me when we went to the Mexican restaurant, Los Amigos for lunch one day! There were actual Mexicans in the restaurant! Albeit, they were serving in the restaurant, however there were no Hispanic families actually eating in the restaurant.
This was very odd to me, in my neck of the woods, in a Mexican restaurant; you see many ethnicities enjoying the cuisine, especially the nationality of said cuisine! You should have seen the look of shock on our servers face as I ordered my meal in Spanish, and then explained to him, also in Spanish that “Hola, soy de Chicago, no de aquí. Mi padre soy a medias mexicano y a medias el Negro, que es porqué hablo español.” Which translates to: Hello, I am from Chicago, not from here. My father is half black and half Mexican, which is why I speak Spanish.
He seemed as shocked to hear Spanish with the correct dialect come from my lips as I was to actually see another human being of a different ethnicity in the area! This is why I felt the need to explain to him that I was not quite of the same cloth as those that he may have come across before. The server smiled at me and I smiled in return, it was a connection, a kind of kinship, and that small gesture made me feel very much at home...
I didn’t start meeting any other people with different ethnicities until I began college in August, 2007. I decided to go back to school to attain a degree in Nursing. I began attending Indiana University East in Richmond, Indiana, but even there, there were very few people of different races, the campus was predominantly of the Caucasian persuasion.
Regardless of this, in classes where there were a few people of different ethnicities and cultures, I found the atmosphere very pleasant. Everyone seemed to get along quite well, and I did not feel the walls of prejudicial bigotry, until I began working in the child development center at the school.
There, the center was run by a Caucasian woman who felt the need to jokingly point out racial differences in the individuals who worked there, with things like “That must be a black thing huh?” and in front of us as well! I am a pretty up front person, so when I told her one day that I was not only of black ancestry, but gay as well, her jaw dropped in surprise.
The other individuals that worked in the center that were African-American never let this woman know that her remarks were unnecessary and made us uncomfortable. I couldn’t understand why. On more than one occasion, prior to my telling her who and what I was, she would often say things in a hushed tone to me, such as, “I can never understand those people, do I have to learn an entirely different language?”
My assumption is that this woman felt comfortable with me because of the color of my skin, hair and eyes, so when I let her in on my “dirty little secret”, she did a complete about face with me. From then on, the comments did not include joking remarks regarding race in my presence, but they were now directed toward my being a lesbian. Strike two strikes again here in “Rural-Ville”.
They were small, indirect things of course; things that one might be able to brush off in annoyance once or twice; but they occurred every time that I was in her presence; and I did not find her comments, regardless of how small, funny. In fact, they were outright ignorant, and this was a director of a child development center?
My co-workers and I discussed this on several occasions, but they felt it was out of their hands, what could they do? they said. I felt completely different. She doesn’t know who she’s dealing with! I said. I’m from Chi-town! We all laughed at this of course, and I didn’t want to cause any trouble for my co-workers, but I just couldn’t even begin to try to understand why were they allowing this to continue?
I eventually wrote a resignation letter and addressed the letter not only to her, but to her boss as well. I stated how I felt and why, and suggested the director be retrained in an ethics class. Nothing ever came of this; I guess the school did not feel it warranted any affirmative action.
I feel better for my actions however, and that is all that is important to me now. I cannot change everyone, people choose to be who they are, but if you work in a situation where there are so many touchy ethical issues, keep your negative opinions within your own circles and don’t bring them into my open minded space if you please. I did what I felt I had to do, and sometimes just speaking out brings forth empowerment in itself.
I also came across an instructor in an Art class that I’d taken that seemed was pretty biased against women. He never seemed to interact with any of the women in the class, and whenever a female hand was raised, he just never seemed to actually see those hands.
I am a very observant individual, and being the person that I am, I decided to call him on it one day, just to affirm if it were just my imagination. There were already several male students gathered around his podium going over assignments, etc., and it was early. We were all still getting settled in our seats and there were still several minutes to spare.
I stepped forward after the others had finished their discussions, and asked him a question regarding one of my assignments, and was taken aback when he abruptly stated, much to my surprise and embarrassment, “Ms. Jackson, can’t you see we are about to start lecture? If you need further information with regard to the assignment, make an appointment to see me in my office!”
Needless to say, I was very embarrassed. Red faced, I went back to my seat, mumbling an unwarranted apology. I guess this would be strike three for my being a woman here again in “Rural-Ville!”
I am ashamed to say that I did nothing with regard to this incident. Why you might ask? I believe it has to do with wanting the best grade possible. I could stand up to my boss at the child development center because she after all, had nothing to do with whether I received an “A” in a class.
I stayed at Indiana University East for three semesters, but because I moved from New Castle to Muncie, Indiana, it was just too long of a drive. I decided to finish my prerequisite courses at Ivy Tech Community College in Muncie.
I am pretty content with the curriculum here. I really like the diversity of the campus, and the instructors. I have to say however that there are still predominantly Caucasian individuals in most of my classes, but here again I do not feel any prejudicial walls of bigotry, that is until I spent some time in my English 112 class.
I do not feel any racial bias in this class, there is, after all one young man in the class that is African-American, and then of course there is me. To look at me however, with my blond hair (now red), green eyes, and light complexion, I don’t blame anyone for their assumptions, but I say to you, never judge a person by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character!
The thing I feel the most in this particular class from a few individuals is their animosity toward homosexuality. I have heard a number of people in the class state their opinions with regard to this subject and I have to honestly say that these comments make me uncomfortable.
I do not wear a sign that identifies me as a lesbian, nor do I fit the typical stereotype of what a lesbian is “supposed” to look like. I wear make-up and jewelry, much of the time and regardless of my sexual preference, I personally identify with being a woman.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, thoughts and preferences, and I have my own as well, but I do not voice those opinions unless they are warranted, and they are usually not directed negatively toward anyone with the intent to do harm.
I wrote this paper with the approval of our instructor, and it is basically a kind of hello, this is who I am, I would really appreciate it if we would all just mind our own manners kind of thing. We all chose to be in college to explore the many possibilities that a higher education can bring, and one of those possibilities is how we might be able to have a positive impact on ourselves, others and quite possibly the world in which we all reside.
Thank you for opportunity to practice my impact on others by listening to what I have had to say. The title of my paper is Three Strikes and I’m Out? That is the question, and my answer is absolutely not, I'm out and very proud.
a blog containing thoughts, discoveries, questions, prose, news stories, links, and media posted by the one and only Creative Writing class of the Semester 2010 at Ivy Tech Community College in Anderson, Indiana.
