I'm Goin' Crazy Out There At The Lake

This piece was a response to “Bread” by Maragaret Atwood.  The assignment was to respond to the story by using it as inspiration for your own piece.

It might help to be familiar with “Bread” before reading this piece; however, I don’t think it is absolutely necessary.

If you are interested in the original story, you can find it here.

Friend

            Imagine a perfect friend.  Not just any friend, and most certainly not a friend you currently have.  No, this is a perfect friend.  The most suitable being to accompany you through life’s many journeys.  The ideal compliment to you.  The yin to your yang.  The peanut butter to your jelly.  The Laurel to your Hardy.  Precision, bliss, and harmony, until one of you uses the other for your own personal gain.  Thus putting an alarming kink into your relationship.  You stop talking to each other and even go as far as no longer exchanging Christmas cards.

            Imagine absolute loneliness.  You sit by yourself with no one and nothing to accompany you.  You are bored, sad, angry, and deserted.  Nothing of interest happens and if it did, you have no one to share it with.  Isolated and alone, you are the definition of misery.  Then all of a sudden, a friend appears.  You are elated at first, but upon further examination you have some reservations.  After being alone for so long, you consider whether this friend is real.  Is this a true friend or just someone planning to take advantage of your need to bond with another being?  Ulterior motives may be present and you should possibly proceed with caution.  The other burning question is whether or not this person really exists or is a mere figment of your lonely imagination. 

            You stare at the person longingly and analyze your stance on this issue.  In the end, you decide to throw caution to the wind.  You will now have a friend, and will no longer feel abandoned and alone.  You don’t care to know the truth. Is your friend is out to gain something more than your friendship?  Does your new friend even actually exist as a being?  It makes no difference to you.  You don’t want to know for sure, as you have come to the conclusion that ignorance is bliss.

            And with that you lock hands with your friend and march happily into the sunset together, anticipating the many Christmas cards you will exchange in the years to come.

The assignment for my class this time was to write a short story (between 50 and 100 words) using ONLY words of one syllable.  These constraints are a little bit harder to work with than one would imagine, but I think my story turned out okay.

Keepsake

            The note had caught his sleeve on his way out.  He stands on the walk and stares at it as the past floods his mind.  Black ink scrawled on a piece of worn stock.  Signed: “Love, Mom.”

            Mom was strong, kind, and warm.  Dad was cold, blank, and cruel.  Lies were Dad’s trade, and he could be matched in his tales by no one.

            The house from which he came falls to the ground.  The weak roof had caved in from the weight of the snow.  This note was all he had left.

criterioncollection:

An actual comment card from a test screening of David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME.

A PREFACE (of sorts)

I am taking a Short Story Writing class this semester.  The piece I am sharing in this post was the first assignment for the class.  As it turns out, writing under pressure and strict guidelines can still result in good pieces.  In all actuality, I end up having pieces that I never would have written otherwise.  Some old short stories I wrote (and am quite proud of) were written for a Creative Writing course.  So I am more than happy to take a class like this.

The assignment was to write a short story consisting of exactly 26 sentences (one for each letter of the alphabet). The sentences had to be presented in alphabetical order, and one of the sentences was to consist of 100 words while remaining grammatically correct (which explains the run-on sentence thrown in there). And finally, there had to be a sentence fragment thrown in somewhere for good measure.

Here is my piece:

Read More

Thought I would share with you the following clip from Fargo — seeing as how it is the source for my blog’s title.  Enjoy!

So I’ve had this blog up and empty for quite a while at this point.  I figured that it is time to start adding to it.  I’ve just been at a kind of stalemate recently.  I haven’t had too much to say and not a whole lot was concerning me… except for life’s problems, which I don’t feel the need to share with everyone.  So there.

Anyway, I’m still not sure exactly what this blog will be.  I’m assuming it will be a free-for-all smörgåsbord of random personal thoughts.  But, as always with these types of things, I reserve the right to change the blog or break from my own format/genre/style/point-of-view/general-outlook-on-life.  So that’s that, I guess.

I’m hoping to have something up here soon (or not, I’m a procrastinator).

Until then, I will leave you with this picture of me:

If I wrote a book, this would definitely be my “About the Author” photo on the dust jacket.

Cheers!