Short Story Draft: DON'T ASK!

Anne looked at the ceiling watching the dull light bulbs. One of them was flickering like in a horror movie. Her situation was horrible, too. She has just eaten a dish which contained peanuts. She was allergic of peanuts. Luckily, the waiter called the ambulance quickly and she was brought to the nearest hospital. The doctors told her she had to stay there for some days. She was put in a three bed room and she became the bed in the middle. How she wished to have one of the other beds. But they were already occupied by two young women. The one on the left side was sleeping and the woman on the right was starring at the window. Anne wanted to start a conversation. She asked the woman on the right how she was doing? That is always a good question… The other woman turned to Anne and looked very thoughtfully. Her name was Katie but she wouldn’t tell Anne. She hated meaningless conversations. Maybe she could have told Anne that she became pregnant from an alcoholic when she was sixteen. Or that when she had her baby she struggled from financial problems since her fiancé had left her. Or that she saw no other chance to become a prostitute. Maybe she could have told Anne that her pander maltreated her when she resisted having sex with a client who had strangled her some time ago. Or she could have mentioned that she started drinking and doing drugs in order to bear her miserable life. And that her six years old daughter was hit by a car three days ago and died on the way to the hospital while she had another client. Maybe she could have told that she tried to commit suicide since she could not live without her daughter. Or that, unfortunately, somebody had found her in time… But the only thing she said was “I’m good” while turning back to the window…

Response On Chapter 7

Basically, chapter seven deals with the point of view in fiction. It distinguishes between three distinct speakers a story can be told of: the third person speaker, the second person speaker, and the first person speaker. Moreover, it gives an overview on omniscience and whom a particular speaker addresses.

I like the short story entitled Orientation by Daniel Orozco and will respond of this piece of literature. In this story an office worker introduces someone new to his new job. During the whole story, the new employee listens to his colleague. He just asks one question but his dialogue is not included- only indicated by the story teller: “What do I mean? I’m glad you asked that.”

The first part is about general background information about work and the office. But later the speaker includes more and more gossip about the other office workers, for instance, about a man who is thrilled by using the women’s bathroom. Another favourite topic of his is about other people’s relationships: “He has a secret crush on Gwendolyn Stich […]. But he hates Anika Bloom.”

The story becomes supernatural and some kind of surreal at the end. The speaker tells about a woman who can say when people die. Moreover, he mentions that one of his colleagues is a serial killer.

All in all, the speaker provides so much background information about the people working in this office which make it rather unlikely to recall all the details. Moreover, since only one character speaks (the speaker) the story is told from his point of view only. So maybe not everything he told is true.

Response On: The Valley of Spiders by H.G. Wells

This excerpt is about a group of men who are riding through weir territory. The master of this group is determined to find a young woman who ha just escaped him. The men are attacked by big white globes which appear to be spider webs and being filled with spiders. When one man saves his master’s life he falls off his horse and is committed to the spiders. Instead of helping him out of this situation, the master takes his horse and rides away. Another man cannot understand his master’s behavior and it comes to an argument in which the master kills his subject.

Actually I do not like this excerpt because of the story itself which seems to be very unrealistic to me. Moreover, it is very peripatetically written I think.

However, the excerpt strikes through its unusual and colourful description of the landscape as in the following passage:

“It spread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of serethorn bushes here and there, and the dim suggestions of some nowwaterless ravine, to break its desolation of yellow grass. Its purpledistances melted at last into the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it might be of a greener kind--and above them invisiblysupported, and seeming indeed to hang in the blue, were the snowcladsummits of mountains that grew larger and bolder to the north-westwardas the sides of the valley drew together. And westward the valleyopened until a distant darkness under the sky told where the forestsbegan.”

All in all, this excerpt has not convinced me and I will probably not read the whole book.

Creative Work: Short Story Based on the Exercise on Page 46

Ariadne had a bad dream. When she woke up she felt very uncomfortable. She tried to remember what the dream was about. But she had no clue. She couldn’t remember the last time she did not wake up tired and cross. She decided to get up even though her alarm clock had not rung yet. She sat down on her round wooden table in the dining room and had breakfast. “Are five rooms not too many for one person alone?” her fellow student Angela asked her once. She denied. “I don’t think so. Anyway, I wouldn’t know where to put my stuff if I only had one room, you know”. There is her beautiful kitchen. Actually, she did not want it. This was not because it did cost a fortune but she didn’t like the color. But her mother insisted on this kitchen since it looked like the kitchen of her friend’s daughter and even more precious. Next to the kitchen there is the bathroom which was redecorated last month. Most people like white, shiny flagstones. Her mother does like white. But to her they looked cold and less comfy. And there was the living-room with the dining table and too much chairs around it. Her mother always said one has to be prepared for guests. Actually, she once used only two of them when her friend Angela stopped by her place. Next to the living-room there was her bedroom with her big bed. It used to stand in the center of the room. After a few nights she decided to move it to the right side of the room. But when her mother visited her she moved it to left side like she had seen a picture in a furniture magazine some days ago. Ariadne tried to imagine how it would be to live in an ordinary dorm sharing her room with a totally unknown person. Impossible for her. Not enough space for her favorite furniture and books. Where to put the piano? It needs a room for itself. Though she hated the piano lessons but a piano looks so nice, doesn’t it?
Ariadne looked at the huge grandfather clock standing next to her TV and realized that she would be late for classes again. Her teacher told her if she comes late again, he will inform her parents since she was under eighteen. So she headed for classes. Arriving at the college building she saw Leroy and became startled. He looked as ever, behaved as ever, and laughed as ever while talking to his friend Andrew. She knew that he’d probably not laughed at her but it was enough to make her feel insecure. She didn’t saw the last step. She fell badly on the steps and broke her ankle. Leroy rushed to her and offered to take notes for her. She answered that this wouldn’t be necessary. She would ask somebody else though knowing that shewon’t do this. She couldn’t stand Leroy. Not anymore. One teacher who observed everything called the ambulance. So she went to the hospital. One doctor told her that she had to stay there for at least one more day. But she didn’t care. She was too embarrassed about what happened. What would Leroy think of her? Why hadn’t he called yet? Jerk! Finally, her mother arrived. She brought a huge bouquet and put it to the cupboard next to Ariadne’s bed. She wanted to know how this accident happened. But without waiting for Ariadne to answer she told her daughter how excited she was to going to the Caribbean Islands next week…

Response on Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Story The Black Cat

This short story is a typical Poe short story and I like is very much although it is violent: It is a story about a man who is haunted by a mental disease which lets him maltreat his animals and even his wife. When his disease becomes worse he even hangs his favourite black cat named Pluto and kills his wife with an axe.

The first paragraph is very interesting since the teller knows that he is going to die soon and furthermore emphasizes that he is not insane. But reading further one can see his insanity. Only an insane person could behave like this. I mean who could mistreat animals? Or kill his wife?

I like the mysterious elements in the story, for instance, when the teller discovers “the figure of a gigantic cat” on the wall they day after he had killed his black cat and his house had burnt down. Or under which circumstances the police finds out about the murder of his wife.

All in all, this story strongly reminds me on two Steven King novels, namely The Shining in which an alcohol addicted writer moves with his family into a hotel in order to be a house keeper. But he becomes haunted by ghosts who let him try to kill his family with an axe. The other novel this short story reminds me of is Pet Semetary. When the second black cat appears after the teller had hung Pluto I thought is was the revived version of Pluto. So it would be interesting to find out if Steven King’s novels are based on this short story.

Character of My Short Story

My character is a young woman in her mid-twenties. She has long dark hair which she prefers to wear loose. There is nothing special about her or clothing or her face or her language. Basically, she looks like any ordinary young women anywhere.

She doesn’t like to catch attention. Maybe she is even a little shy. On the other hand it is easy annoy her, because of her lack of patience her mother always criticised. At first glance, it seems that she and her mother are as different as anybody could be. But, actually, their relationship is close which none of them is aware of.

She wants always to know what people are thinking: about her, about their neighbourhood, about everything, even about thinking itself. She wants to look into people’s heads since she has misjudged people too often. She has a lot of acquaintances, fewer real friends. But sometimes she rather likes to be alone reading a book or doing nothing but thinking.

She lives in her own little one-room apartment. There are only few furniture in her apartment. Actually, everything one needs but nothing more- no personal items that reveal what type of person she is. She’d like to have animals, somebody to care for since her apartment appears blank to her.

Actually, she feels more comfy outside than in her apartment. She likes colourful things and places, for instance, Venice. One of her favourite activities is going out for dinner with her friends. She prefers Italian restaurants but doesn’t mind trying something else.

Response on Chapter 10

This chapter deals with the themes of short stories and how to approach them. I find the first short story entitled A Man Told Me the Story of His Life by Grace Paley very interesting. It is a story about a man, named Vincent, who dreamt of becoming a doctor when he was seventeen years old. So he learned “every bone, every organ in the body”. However, his teachers convinced him to become an engineer since he did a good job on his math tests. Later in the text, one learns that Vincent has even saved his wife’s life. His wife was sick and Vincent checked his books and told the doctor what his wife was suffering from and that she needed an operation soon.

It is very interesting to see how other persons somehow can decide about which path you’ll take. The character in the story trusted his teachers because he knew not better. But the text gives no concrete clue whether they and even the headmaster pushed him in only one direction without considering some other test.

At the end, Vincent tells about that he had lead a good life- he had a good job, a wife and three children. However, I find this statement extremely questionable. What if he had fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor? And what about other people who suffer from a decision others had made for them? The passage about his good life makes the authorities being right. But on the other hand, saving his wife’s life shows his real vocation.