Dropping a Deuce (my writing)

[the Deuce]

All my forced school writing goes here, any if by some miracle I write anything on my own, it will go here too.

I was told in english class to write about our first memorable experience with writing. I tried to brainstorm but couldn't think of a thing, so I wrote a fictional account of how I wish my first memorable experience had been. Some people said it was entertaining so I thought I'd post it.

Hum 

      Second grade was a curious year for me. Everyday I would sit, listening to the low hum that filled the classroom. Grinding my teeth, I let my eyesight fade into a comfortable blur as I zoned out to the mind numbing noise. That hum got me through the majority of that year with my sanity intact. The trance it put me under kept me from standing up and screaming at the top of my lungs out of frustration. I considered myself much smarter than everyone in that class. I felt the work was below me and asking me to do it was a blatant act of disrespect on the teacher’s part. Was it not for the hum, I would have burned my homework, stood on my desk, and sang songs of rebellion. “Fight the power! Don’t be a slave to the system! Let freedom ring!” I would yell as the students cheered me on and I kicked over whatever poor piece of furniture happened to be in the way of my blind fury.  I wouldn’t have really done any of these things, of course, but I thought of them frequently, and cursed myself for not having the courage those acts required. The hum kept me from dwelling on revolt too much though, and helped me become just another drooling infant in the prison of grade school.

      As days wore on however, it became increasingly obvious that I was the only one who ever noticed the hum. It confused me at first, but I soon grew to like it. It became my hum, no one else's. I grew to love its comforting buzz more and more with each passing day. It became the score to the film that was my second grade life.

      Days turned to months, as they often do, and my beloved hum had slowly become more aggressive. It wasn’t the same anymore. It wasn’t the friend who carried me through the elementary monotony that was consuming my life. It was a rabid animal, foaming at the mouth. Sometimes the hum’s pitch would increase throughout the day, and by the time we got back from afternoon recess it would have reached a point where it vibrates your brain so fiercely that it certainly couldn't be ignored! Could it? Well it obviously could, because when I turned my ringing head around to scan the room, no one else had their fingers shoved down their ear canals. “How could this be?” I would wonder, “How could there be this noise audible only to me?”

      I grew, not scared of the noise, but more curious. I started keeping a journal of times the hum was especially hostile. I would list the date, and then a short description of how it sounded. Something along the lines of, “Friday the 18th. Spoon in a garbage disposal.” or “Wednesday the 8th. World's largest hairball being choked out of the world’s smallest cat”

      It was at the peak of my interest, when I was writing in the journal more than ever, that the hum suddenly vanished. It didn't fade away one day, or gurgle and churn in one glorious roar before dying out. It simply vanished. I was thoroughly confused. Where had the hum gone? I waited days, then weeks, and eventually months. No hum. The New Year came and passed and still no sign of it. Sometimes I would hear a sudden buzzing and would jerk up my head with glee, only to see a student sharpening his or her brand new pencil to the eraser. The hum was gone, and I was alone.

      It must have been around the end of the year, when the Arizona heat had just started to reach the temperature where you could actually hear your skin cells burning away, that the hum returned. But it hadn't returned the friend I so dearly missed; it returned a full fledged monster. I grinned, and dusted off the journal in my desk. It wasn't a journal anymore though, the hum was far too demanding for a puny journal to suffice. It had evolved into a play by play of the hum's activities, an up to the minute report on its every action. It sizzled, rattled, and produced the sounds that nightmares are made of.

      It was soon after the hum's reappearance that, through rigorous observation and theorizing, I realized what the hum was. There was a robot in the walls. How had I not realized this before! There was a blood thirsty machine lurking somewhere in the white walls of my classroom and no one was even acknowledging its siren of death! Idiots! From that day forth I was a shivering coward, afraid of the slightest noise or movement. I never let my guard down because I knew the moment I did, that thing would come crashing through the wall and proceed to tear flesh and fire lasers. I would not be another victim of an event that would surely go down in history as one of the worst tragedies of our time. I would be the survivor. I would tell the story to the world. Like a war correspondent in the heart of the battlefield, I would describe in detail the horrific events that were undoubtedly about to unfold. I double knotted my shoes, and clutched my Luke Skywalker action figure extra tight. I was ready.

      Obviously, there was never any massacre. Looking back it now it's obvious that the hum was nothing more than the air conditioner, with some sort of mechanical problem the school couldn't afford to fix.    Even though it was years later that I realized this, I still felt foolish and child-like when I remembered my second grade terror. But now, even more years later, I still haven't forgotten my strangest year of school and can look upon it with humorous eyes. My fascination with the hum in the walls wasn't a total waste of time and energy though. The journal I kept so diligently had become my first real experience with writing. It's what sparked my interest in not just my own potential as a writer, but in books and reading.  That violent machine lurking in the walls altered the course of my life for the better and introduced me to the beautiful world literature. So thank you, humming tools of death. Without you the world would be a much worse and less literate place.

[Relym]

Interesting. I liked it. At first, I thought it was going to end with you screaming, the teacher asking what was wrong, and the humming would have stopped. But that had nothing to do with writing, so I don't know why I thought that. I love your satiric sense of humor.

[the Deuce]

Thank you! 

[Tobias116]

When you told us about that part where you wouldn't scream that "Fight the power!" stuff I had that totally imaged in my head in my school cafeteria as you set flame to an armchair. The story was excellent and vivid. That's why I love english litterature, because there are more words to describe things in than in swedish, and yours was captivating, I was clueless about what the hum was until the end. And I loved the killer robot.

[Woo]

fantastic, I loved it. It sounds a tad like something I might have thought up, but wouldn't have the attention span to maintain as a child. (Though I did think there where zombies in the walls of my old primary school)

Excellent, thank you very much for sharing it.

[the Deuce]

Got an A for writing "Hum", and just turned in a small packet of poetry done very swiftly and poorly.

ACROSTIC POEM (using my name)

Jeering from side to side, the sailboat lays its
Anchor off the
Coast as I
Observe from the
Beach

HAIKU

The small crab awakes
He crawls from his sandy home
He claps both his hands



The spring rain drips down
Atop a sad minnow’s head
He wishes he’d grow



A small lone egg sits
Hatching brings more of the same
Lonely albatross



The young turtle yawns
His shell is covered in dew
The morning is here

CINQUAIN

She sleeps
There in the sand
She dreams of flight and clouds
This manta ray wants the whole world
She sleeps



The stars
Not in the sky
But in the darkest sea
They form a great constellation
Below

A LIMERICK

There once was a bold young krill
Who was daring and fearless but still,
Was as dumb a horse
And was filled with remorse
Once the great hungry whale had his fill.


I DUNNO JUST A POEM

With each gentle wave I sink a bit more
And I’m slowly pulled down, into the sea floor.

I hum
And record what I see

And as my toes disappear my smile grows wide
Because I’ve longed all my life, to be one with the tide.

I hum
And record what I see

[Alcaknight]

That first writing was absolutely ... Amazing? :3

The poems were great, too. I especially liked the Haikus. Keep it up!

[the Deuce]

Thank you!

Here's an essay I had to do. The topic was "a picture is worth 1000 words" and your essay had to be precisely that many words. We had to take a Norman Rockwell painting and write a story about it.


A Sink Full of Blood

(first love)

 

              “I hate you Ben.” she said.

              “Well I hate you too Sarah.” I replied, hiding my smile.

              “You might as well die, no one loves you.”

              “No body loves me? Nobody loves you, you reject orphan.” I said, loving her more than ever.

              “Well you eat poop.”

              “Well you eat shit.”

              We burst out in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. As spit flew out between the gaps in her teeth I couldn’t help but notice how nicely her hair caught the light, and how pretty her freckles looked in the evening sun. I normally dry heave at the very mention of those dirty little brown spots, but on her they were picturesque. She looked like a photo in one of my mother’s magazines. I wanted to cut her out and tape her to my wall so I could fall asleep to the sight of her face every night and dream about it.

              “What are you staring at?” she grunted as she punched me in the arm.

I hid my pain and answered, “You were turning me to stone Medusa, you witch.”

“Oh shut up.” She punched me again and got up, dusting off her skirt. “So, same time tomorrow?”

              “Yeah, sure. I’ll try to remember the bait tomorrow. Maybe we’ll actually catch something.”

              “Ha! Yeah, you remembering something, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

              “Shut up you whore. I have a great memory.”

“What’s a whore?”

“I don’t know, but it’s what my Mom calls my Dad’s girlfriend, who has brown hair, and your hair is brown so you’re a whore too.”

“Well you have brown hair, so that makes you the whore.”

              After a short debate about whose hair is a more whorish shade of brown, we said goodbye and I reluctantly went home. My mind was going crazy. Behind my eyes was a torrent of imagined futures, all of which, ended in me living happily ever after with the love of my life, Sarah. Though we’re both only ten, I’ve loved her since the second I laid eyes on her petite frame and gorgeous smile. If only she knew this, I thought. Then I remembered the ache in my arm and rushed home.

              I turned the ugly brass knob, and threw myself through the doorway. I hurried to the bathroom and yanked on the door but it was locked.

              “Jesus! You’re going to pull the door down!” said my mother’s voice.

              “Mom, hurry up! I need to use the bathroom!”

              “Well you’ll have to wait. I’m getting ready for a date.”

              Great, I thought, she’s going to be in there for another hour.

              “By the way, you’ll have to fend for yourself for dinner. I don’t think there’s much in the fridge to eat, but there might be some cereal in the pantry.”

              “I don’t care about dinner; I need to use the bathroom!”

              “Just go piss out back.” She says in a snobbish tone that makes me want to break the door down and punch her in the face.

              “No, I need the mirror!”

              “What for?”

              “Mom. Get OUT of the bathroom.”

              “Fine,” she sighs, “I need to run upstairs and change my dress anyway, but when I come back down you’re outta here.”

              She opens the door and I shove my way in, push her out, then slam and lock the door behind me. I yank my shirt off and examine my arm. Yes! There’s a golf ball sized bruise just below my shoulder. I melt. Sure, it isn’t a lipstick stamp on my cheek, but I don’t care, it’s just as good. I touch the blue-grey bulge gently, wince in pain, and then smile so wide my lip cracks and the sink gets dotted red. Nothing says young love like a sink full of blood.

 

              The trees hum in the wind, and the flowers in my hand gently sway back and forth. The sun is just low enough in the sky that it gently casts evening hues of purple and orange. I’m on a bench and Franklin is just behind me staring off into space.

              Franklin is my Beagle. I read in one of my mom’s magazines that girls love dogs so I brought him along to soften Sarah up. The magazine said that puppies are best to lure in a girl because they’re cute and innocent. Franklin isn’t a puppy, but he has brain damage and epilepsy, so I think it’ll still work.

              “Wow, you really remembered the bait!” Sarah says as she skips over. Her dotted blue dress compliments her eyes in a way words can’t describe and stripped socks match perfectly.

              “Ha, yeah.” I manage to stutter.

              “Good job! Too bad we’re awful at fishing! Hey Franklin! Who’s a good boy?” She says reaching down, petting Franklins head.

              “Wanna sit down and cast the line out anyway?”

              “In a minute, I’m gonna play with Frankie!”

              You stupid animal, I brought you to help me get Sarah, not steal her away from me. I pictured him seizing up and dying right there. “Well hey…I got you these flowers…”

              “Huh?” She jerks her head towards me.

              “Um, flowers…I got them for you.”

              “Wow…thank you!” She says as she plops beside me and takes them. “They’re beautiful!”

              “Yeah, I thought you might like them” I say as I shiver with fear. I look at my arm and tell it to move but my body and mind are no longer communicating correctly. Move you idiot! Slowly but surely I reach my shaking arm up. After what seems like hours, my hand reaches the far side of Sarah’s waist.

              She looks at me wide eyed for a moment, but then her lids ease back to a normal height. Then she does the most amazing thing. She scoots closer. Then closer again and my arm relaxes comfortably around her. “It’s a really nice day” she says as she leans her angelic head against me.

              “Yeah, it’s amazing” I say as I smile so wide my lip cracks.

[Relym]

Wonderful. I like the relation that they both have. The only real complaint is how fast the whole thing goes. It's very linear as well. Good ideas, though, and great dialog.

[Woo]

wow, I like it. ^^ very sweet. you did good with the 1000 world limit. I like it very much.