The Road Creative Project

3 to 8 players with a closed hand are dealt a knife card, clothes card, and 3 food cards. This is their starting hand. At the beginning of each turn, players scavenge, or draw one card from a stack of 52 called the “scavenge pile.” Better weapons, additional food, additional clothes, and a rare cart can all be scavenged from that pile. Players are constrained to a maximum of five cards when their turn ends. On a turn, players have several options. First, they can attack another player. In doing so, the attacking player has to consume and discard a food card, while the defending player does not. Both attacking and defending players reveal their highest quality weapon. Every weapon can attack without restraint, except for the gun. If the attack, or defending player has no bullet, the gun cannot be used, and if not backup weapon is available, they lose immediately. Both players are assigned dice according the quality of their weapon. Knife cards receive one dice, flare gun cards get two, bow and arrow cards get three, and gun cards get four. Each player rolls their die and counts up the total amount that they rolled. Whoever has the highest total wins the fight and the other player dies. Both attacking and defending players can die. When a player dies, they reveal their hand and lay their cards on the table face up, and the winner of the fight can steal up to two card from the dying player’s hand. Second, players can steal rather than scavenging. If a player has died or is sleeping, they reveal their cards and lay them on the table face up. Instead of scavenging, players can steal only one card from any of theses piles, and then can proceed to other actions in their turn. Third, in the case that a player is running low on food, they can sleep that turn. Sleeping players cannot scavenge, steal, or attack on their turn, and they reveal their hand. At the end of each turn, players consume and discard a food card, as if to eat. Players that cannot eat at the end of their turn die. Sleeping players do not have to eat at the end of their turn. In addition, if a player has no clothing cards at the end of their turn, they die. Lastly, at any time during their turn, players can discard any card they do not desire. These discarded but not consumed cards are placed back into the scavenge pile at the bottom. Good Luck!

The novel revolves around survival. That is the characters’ only real struggle and we wanted to reflect that in a survival game. We decided against a game involving teamwork because, even though the man and his son work together, the world they live in is truly every man for himself. There are some examples of teamwork, but for the most part, the man and his son are alone and helpless. When creating items we kept in mind the value of each. For example, there is only one gun in the entire deck. In the novel, a gun was considered the most valuable thing one could find. There are also only two flare guns for the same reason. The bow and arrow however, are more common in the deck as they can be easily created in the novel. We also used similar reasoning when assigning dice quantities to each weapon. We gave the gun four dice as it is the most powerful weapon one could possess. It can only be used with a bullet, so we decided to keep the two separate and rare. A bow and arrow has similar characteristics to a gun but less powerful and less accurate. Therefore, we gave it three dice. The flare gun cannot kill as efficiently as the previous two weapons, but possesses the range that a knife does not. We gave it two dice. Lastly, the knife is the weakest weapon and we it allotted one dice. Warm and food are also huge factors in the novel’s characters’ survival and we implement this into the game as well. Players die without food or clothing so maintaining the two are important in the game, as well as in the book. We added stealing and the related game mechanics into the game to mirror the instances in the book where the characters were stolen from. While the game is played with a closed hand, players that steal from others can inspect their victim’s hand and choose a card. In the book, the characters are stolen from when they were unable to protect their belongings and the thief had the chance to inspect their stores. Finally, each turn players scavenge a card. At every opportunity, the characters scavenged what they could to survive, and so we decided that every turn players scavenge a card. In addition, a cart was added to echo the cart the characters used to carry more item than usual. There are some aspects that we added to make the game playable. Sleeping was added to give players a way to preserve their life and remain longer in the game. There are disadvantages to sleeping, so players are forced to either sleep or attack. The competitive aspect was also added. There is some competition in the novel but it is rare. The competition our game creates is to make the game more enjoyable and engaging. The book was slow and dull at some points and we did not want to make a game as such.

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The Road

Fire and Ice

Our board game consists of moral choices that not only affect one group but all groups involved in the game. The objective of, Fire and Ice, is to make it to the coast at the same time as the other team. We felt that since the coast was the man and the boy’s only goal in The Road that it would be fitting to make it the end of the game. There are two paths that lead to the coast. The longer (less difficult) road represents the road that the man and the boy took, and the shorter (more treacherous) path represents the forest that’s beside the road. Within the game two groups work together in order to reach the end at the same time. Throughout the book, the boy and the man are on their own and don’t really work with other people in order to survive but the boy constantly thinks about other people and how they are being affected by the world they live in. The boy has compassion for others and always wants to help even when they have barely anything to offer such as when they ran into Ely or when they returned the one handed man’s clothes after they took them away. Along with the man and the boy thinking about how their choices would influence one another throughout the book such as whether to “take a look” in a house or to camp out a night. Without them thinking about each other they would have ended up pushing each other away making it harder to survive. We wanted to add the compassion and teamwork element to the board game by adding two teams that must work together to reach a common goal but subsequently end up being the same group since they reach the coast at the same time. It makes the moral choices from the demon cards harder to make since it will be influencing both groups.


Each group gets camp cards and supply cards. Camp cards allow them to lose a turn in order to help teams reach the end at the same time. Supply cards are enough food, water, ammunition, etc for one person to survive the game, without a supply card the person evidently dies. In the book supplies is the most important thing for their survival which is why we added the supply card aspect to the game. It makes the moral decisions that they will encounter harder if it involves losing a card, possibly killing a member or taking on another person which means you would need a supply card in order to take care of them. Throughout the game each turn a group will roll a dice in order to decide which card they will have to work with, demon cards or angel cards. Demon cards deal with hard moral choices that people would run into while living in an apocalyptic era. These choices range from bad weather taking away a supply card to finding a child and having to make the decision to either take the child or not with the possibility of going back two spaces if you don’t, and losing a supply card if you do. Along with choices that can affect the other team such as pawning off a child onto them or taking a supply card from them. The team with these decisions would have to think about how their decisions would influence the other team and themselves bringing up the compassion element from the book along with the fact that within this kind of apocalyptic environment moral decisions are very important to survival. The boy and the man run into these decisions very often throughout the book where these choices that they make can influence the rest of their journey. Angel cards deal with the random strokes of luck that the man and the boy have run into such as finding a bunker or finding a tarp. Things that help with survival and make life just a little easier. Angel cards are hard to roll since you must roll a seven in order to earn them. You have the chance to earn supply cards easily or to move forward faster through out the game. There is also an opportunity to get both cards at the same time by rolling doubles. The man and the boy run into strokes of luck by getting supplies or finding a safe space but at the same time they have a hard moral choices to make such as staying the bunker. The man and the boy found a bunker which gave them enough supplies to survive for months but they had to decide how long to stay or wether to stay at all. In this kind of environment luck and choices go hand and hand so we wanted to make sure we included that aspect into our game.


Getting Started

Based on age. The oldest have to make the choice for the youngest. Do they want them to take the harder path with less choices compared to the easier path with more choices.

Start off with a 100% then throughout the game things are taken off of it.


Objective: Both teams reach the coast at the same time.

Items in Box:

  • Two dice

  • Timer

  • The board game

  • Angel cards

  • Demon cards

  • Supply cards

  • Camp cards

Rules:

  1. 2 or more people should play. It is okay to have an odd number of team members.

    1. When playing with more than 2 split into teams based on your choice

  2. To decide your path you roll the dice.

    1. Larger number gets longer path, other group gets shorter path

  3. Each group gets a set of cards

    1. Supply cards: each group gets 1 card per person, 1 additional card for group use only

      1. Supply cards contain supplies such as guns, food, water, clothing, tarp, etc.

      2. You must have the same number of supply cards as people in the group when you start. Throughout the camp you may earn or lose some.

    2. Group with longer path gets 1 camp card

    3. Group with shorter path gets 2 camp cards

      1. Camp cards give you the opportunity to camp out at night forfeiting a turn

  4. Each turn you roll the dice, for each choice you have 5 seconds to answer

    1. 7: Angel card

    2. Demon Card everything else

  5. Go back and forth till both of you reach the coast at the same time

  6. You win by both teams surviving and reaching the coast at the same time

    1. You lose by killing the other team or dying

      1. Dying: No more supply cards after 4 turns

    2. Not reaching the coast at the same time

Emily Pugliese, Shilo, Antonio DeRock and Lei
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The Road --- Creative Project

 Members
Wes, Sharron, Waverly, Sashoya


Title: Carry the Fire

Player(s) should be metaphorically “carrying the fire.” The idea is to protect and keep your fire throughout the game and stay alive.


The Board

Approximately a 4 by 3 foot board. Two inch squares that extend around the board to form a swirly path. The beginning point is titled “Darkness” and the end point is titled “The End of the Road.” Every few spaces reads “Draw Card.”


Gameplay

To start, each player is given 20 tokens. 10 of these tokens are survival tokens and the other 10 are fire tokens, the former representing overall player health and the latter representing the player’s overall compassion “level.” For each players’ turn, a die is cast and the player must move a corresponding amount of spaces along the board. If the player lands on a “Draw Card” space on the board, the player must draw from a stack of “Chance” cards and read their card out loud. Chance cards throw the player into a situation that they are out of control of and will ask them to either give up or collect one of the two categories of tokens (they typically concede or rescind 2 to 3 tokens). Additionally, players may opt to go down certain routes on the board to the “Scenario” locations, where they must draw a card from a separate stack of cards. The cards will present various scenarios, most of which will instruct the player between surrendering a certain amount of one type of token in exchange for the other. This way, strategy is introduced into the game. If a player loses all their survival tokens, they’re out of the game and pronounced dead. However, the goal is to reach The End of the Road with fire token still intact, and the player with the most fire tokens by the end of the path is the winner.


Explanation


Our game combines player strategy with an inevitable construct of luck, or lack thereof. In the book, the father and the boy face a series of unfortunate events that out of their control, such as rainstorms and earthquakes. Many of our scenarios reflect this randomness. However, one of the underlying conflicts worked into the novel is the boy’s unwavering compassion for life versus the father’s self-centered will to survive, and how both dispositions simultaneously interfere and cooperate with certain aspects of the human identity. In an attempt to recreate this conflict, we have made it so that the goal of the game is to collect fire tokens, but all fire tokens will be null and void should someone lose all their survival tokens.


Often in the book, the man and the boy must together come to a consensus of what the right thing to do is. When their cart is stolen, for example, they track the thief down and the father nearly shoots him, but the boy implores him to let it go. When they come across a feeble old man, the father wants to play it safe and show him no attention, but the boy wants to help him. In scenes like these, McCarthy means to demonstrate two divergent conditions of humans: kindness and selfishness. In such a desolate and dead world, decisions like these could mean life and death, and we made the game based on that premise. Accordingly, there are many scenarios that mirror real events in the book. Of course the Fire tokens are a direct reference to the “carrying the fire” motif that most notably appears in the novel at the end, when the man, dying, expresses his faith in his son’s ability to make a brighter world, even in the darkest of circumstances. In this sense, the boy’s compassion ideals triumph over everything in The Road as the most important saving factor. This was our reason for making the collection of Fire tokens the objective for the game; we want to make the statement that value of goodness in the world will always outweigh the benefits of selfishness. We imagine that while playing, players will have an earnest conversation about personal morals and how they affect our world.


boardgame
boardgame

Memory Reconstuction

The bell rings, a mob of kids filled the hallways every one of them stopping at their lockers. “Aye Johnny what are you about to do?” an unfamiliar voice said in the distance. I look began looking around but I can’t determine where it came from so I just put on my jacket and walked out the door. I was walking over to the bus stop to head home. Once I got home no one was there, I tried calling my mom, and dad but no answer each and every time. This left me confused they normally are always here before I get out of school. Then my grandma pulls up and tells me to pack my things and that I had to come with her. She says “Your mother and father, left all of us.”

I was confused by this I replied, immediately thinking the absolute worst,

   “What do you mean?!!”

   “ I mean that they probably are not coming back”

    “ Where are they?”

    “None of us know. They just left us a messages saying that you would be left in the house. Alone.”

It couldn’t be true. Why would they leave me behind like that? Do they just not care about me? Why!!?

The sound of the water running while I look at myself in the steamy foggy mirror. “I hate going back to that time.”, I said to myself. My phone begins to ring, “Hello, this is Jonny, CEO of Z-Star, How can I help?”

  “ Boss, we have another orphan.”

“Ok, make sure you take care of them”

I love that I’m able to make sure no one will ever feel the same pain that I did, I will make sure to give them the love and care they deserve. When my parents abandoned me, and I was forced to live with my grandma, it caused me great pain. I wanted to give up on life at that time but instead of ending it all, I managed to make it my motivation to do better.


Big Sean – One Man Can Change the World Lyrics | Genius Lyrics




I was inspired by Margaret Atwood’s writing style and how she really gave her characters their own personalities and thing like that. I chose to try that approach while writing this, by making his childhood something that would trigger your emotions and cause you to feel bad for him. Then I made it so that he helped the others who had the same kind of issues that he was suffering from.

Bits and Pieces: Reconstruction of Memory: Bea Gerber FINAL

There were pieces everywhere. Sharp, shattered, sparkling. The music masked the clatter, but only long enough to shield younger eyes. Sometimes it’s better to be left in the dark. The room filled in and flowed out, empty buckets, clanking trash bags, and soaked rags trickling with them. I am cold, but it was summer, and I had been warm only seconds before.


My happiness drained through my toes. The shouting was loud but I wasn’t listening, there were too many busy faces and furrowed brows to distract me.


I can’t believe he went straight through it. Destroyed the glass that separates children from adults, shattering a sense of innocence, bridging the gap. A conflicted frame of staggered edges. I heard, but I couldn’t see him. I searched for his tangled blonde mop in the crowd but he had already disappeared. The others whizzed around. Suds flew. Towels rolled. Bodies on autopilot. An organized frenzy. I couldn’t control the mess. It was going to last longer than the blood. My skin crawled.


He was rescued. Removed and absorbed by the bustling herd. No longer at stake. We picked his pieces off the floor, shard by shard, drip by drip. We removed the evidence of destruction, but a heaviness lingered on my chest. I hated that he put me in danger.


My time there had been long and short. Summers don’t last forever but they happen every year. Each time it feels like we never left our bubble of independence and responsibility. Our own heated snow globe full of children, held delicately in our palms. But his hand broke the glass. He shook too hard. Disturbed the comfortably settled dust. We let him. So we fixed it. Patched his hand and the door. Closed the young eyes. Shielded him by shielding ourselves. Everyone is affected by weak links.


Plastic protected my bitten fingers from the glass but I was still bare. At mercy of another; powerless to change his mistakes. The bass still bumped, matching my heart beat. I had to walk away. Find comfort in less danger, away from the shards, away from the glares. I wanted to be warm again. But that was too much to ask. I wasn’t protected anymore. But that is life. The fog lifts eventually. We have to grow up. If you don’t prepare for it, you will be left cold, shivering. It took too long for me to see this. Took shards covering the floor where children played. They would never know. They didn’t have to know. We glued their snow globe back together with our stories. We kept them warm.

Author's Note:

I took a lot of inspiration from Kesey because of the format of this assignment. I liked that there didn't need to be much context, so I could be as vague and sharp as I wanted because I didn't have to tie it back to a full story. I tried to take some of his stylistic elements: short sentences, blunt phrasing, reactions in the moment mixed with reflective ones, sharp scene changes. I wanted to confuse the reader by throwing them into something hectic. I also tried to humanize things to make them relatable, and I tried to use contrast with warm and cold like Atwood does to show how situations change from ideal to scary in seconds. I tried to give away as little as possible so that you would feel the emotions and the scene itself wouldn't really matter.

Artistic Piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2PnLiT2v2Q
I chose "The Babysitter" by Dar Williams because it is a song that is about childhood innocence and how it fails to see adult hardships at first, but is eventually faced with growing up. It follows the same emotional journey as my piece but with a little less intensity which I think is a good balance.

Reconstruction of a Memory - Matt Reed

I stood at the window, poking my head out. Clueless as to the horrors about to take place. Observing the environment around my house. Looking up and down. I locked the door, slowly dragging my body up the stairs. I made my way into my bed and kissed my wife on the cheek. She slept so soundly, like a kitten. I laid my head down on the pillow.


I woke up and yawned. I could feel my heavy bladder. I walked down the dark hallway. What was that weird smell? Leaky pipe? Spilled hairspray? It had a strong metallic scent.  I walked into the bathroom and struggled to flip the light switch on, and took a piss. I approached the sink and scrubbed my hands. What was that smell? Was it me? I squeezed out more soap and scrubbed harder just to be sure, applying some deodorant as well. I hurried back to my bed and laid down. Why am I all wet? My pants were drenched with something, the smell had also gotten a lot stronger now. I got up from my bed and turned on my lamp.

I turned around and dropped to my knees. The tears instantly came running down my face. My wife. MY WIFE. I grabbed her hand, it was covered in blood. Everything was covered in blood. I stood up and looked for my phone. Where did I put my god damn phone? I ran down the steps and to the kitchen. Sweat was dripping down from every part of my body. I tried to pick up the landline, but I couldn’t grasp it. What was that noise? Sirens? I ran to the window. Red and blue violently bled into my kitchen, blinding me before I even opened the curtain. I put my eye up to the fabric and peeked through a small opening. Police surrounded my home. Who called the police? I took a deep breath and walked out the door. The men saw the blood on me, pointing their firearms at me in response. They approached me as I yelled. “ I didn’t do it”.

They wrapped the cold cuffs around my wrist as shock ran down my body. I was shoved in the back of the police car.

As I sit in this dark cell, I dread that night. Every second of it, but I can’t forget it. I’m alone and as clueless as I was when this all started.


Authors Notes:
I didn’t know where to start when we first got this assignment. I thought about what would be a very unforgettable memory. A traumatic one. Then, I thought about one of the close readings we did in class. I thought about the one from the Handmaid’s Tale, where Offred remembered Luke killing the class. Atwood added Offred’s mental state into the story. How scared and confused Offred was at the time, and I wanted that to be in my story. So, by doing this. I would have the main character ask lot’s of questions during the memory to show what was going on inside his head. I also wanted to add little hints as to what was about to happen, and at the end of the story leave it off so the reader is just as confused as the main character.
sirens
sirens

Memory Reconstruction

I blink, hard, and begin to remember.
They had told us to get ready, this could take a while. Our eyes held shut with old bandanas that smelled like sweat, we gripped each others hands and sat on the cold and dusty concrete as the triangle was constructed around us. Reilly and Corinne likely stood back, clipboards in one hand water bottles in the other, smiling, and informed us of our challenge. We could only imagine what she was doing from the sounds of their voices, ambiguous scuffling, and giggling. We were in the triangle, we could get up and feel around. Plastic chairs, wooden beams, tape, and gaps. We had to get out somehow, but we couldn’t go over, or under, or break through it, given only the reassurance that we could ask them for things we might need.

My socks glared with a taunting mantra: “You’ve got this!” I was reminded of that after kicking off my shoes and was grateful for my blindfold. My first thought was to ask for a spoon, as if the feeble structure were a prison I needed to dig out of. They amusedly asked if that was really what I needed. It wasn’t; I couldn’t picture anything that could get me out. It was hard to even reconstruct my immediate surroundings with my eyes shut that tight. I felt dizzy. I became reliant on the comfort of holding my fellow inmate Virginia's hand and knowing we were in this together. The blindfold bound my eyes shut both painfully and blissfully as I drifted between frustrating confusion and appreciation for this moment we spent together.

We. The shift from we to I was sudden. They incessantly asked “What do you need?” and although I have no idea why, when my counterpart mumbled, “a giant...” we felt it together. Corinne threw an orange peel at me and and we, disoriented, laughed. About an hour in, Reilly stepped in and held our hands and we could hear her crying softly, feeling with us. But sometime, when our bodies were not linked in an embrace nor even our hands holding tight to each other, I felt her go. I called for her and after a couple sinking moments it was revealed, coldly, “Virginia has left the triangle.” I fell to the ground, physically and mentally exhausted, and utterly alone and in the dark. How?

The ceaseless “What do you need” continued, but now with a sense of urgency. They were worried about me. Chairs were stepped over, arms were wrapped around my figure on the ground, tears were shed, mine and theirs. I didn’t know what would get me out, but I knew I couldn't figure it out alone. Reluctantly I found the words: “I need help,” afraid to disappoint them with this weakness. I felt a tugging behind my head. The blindfold fell away and light flooded to reveal Corinne’s smiling face and the strained teary eyes of all. Tears ran down my cheeks, now free from their bind.


Author's Note: My largest influence is Margaret Atwood and her ability to manipulate sentence length to convey deeper meaning. I exemplify this with “We. The shift from we to I was sudden.” where the narrator has the ability to be detached and reflect on the memory and inject their current feelings. I then shift to descriptive listing sentences to set the scene, a technique often used in flashbacks in The Handmaid’s Tale. I accompanied my piece with a blindfold because of the extreme intensity of the sensory experience without sight.

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Reconstruction Memory // Sweating out the Fever

A sudden jerk of my body results in a near full trash can. I lay back down engulfed in pillows and blankets, trapped under an immovable force. After a few moments of suffrage, I become fed up with the boiling of my body. I twist and roll but the boa constrictors refuse to letup. Too weak to call out, I assume the house is empty. The faint hall light illuminates a world light years away. My head sinks back into the ground.


A cold hand placed on my forehead sends my head into a downwards spiral. I arise to a serengeti, the mellow breeze follows the commands, the grass, revealing a group of men. They’re all circled around a crackling beast. All of the sudden they begin to fling their sticks at the creature, only stoking it to lash out directly at them, swallowing them whole. I turn away from the suffering men but I’m forced to stay.   


In the blink of an eye I find myself in a world of color, the room I’m in was drowned in color. The walls appear to be comprised of granny smith apples, the floor made of oranges and finally a sky blue ceiling to pull it all together. This feels much more like I’m awake but some surreal feeling doesn't resonate quite right. The world begins to spin and I begin to overheat, I unwillingly disappear once again. My head throbs me into another world. Icy water flowed down my throat, it begins to freeze my body from the inside out. My mind refuses to thaw and I’m left looking at the face of a giant pillow. The darkness begins to swirl and blotches begin to turn to light. The instant rattling of a train along it’s tracks is heard until I’m engulfed in light. I lay in silence until I once again fall back into a swirling sleep.






Authors Note:


In my piece I draw great influence from Ken Kesey and much less than Atwood. Much like Kesey my novel is surreal and is a trip. Although a lot of my novel is very psychedelic it has real life translations much like Ken Kesey's. Kesey uses a lot of descriptive language in order to convey events in the book. Like Chief, my character is not mentally stable so he describes what he sees. For example when the boa constrictors are wrapped around me, it actually translates to blankets draped over me. Kesey's character in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Chief Bromden doesn't have a sense of time. My character doesn't have a sense either. 

  

The little I do derive from Atwood is her ability to use Offred as a platform to convey facts in the novel without anyone down right saying it. Like when my characters body is freezing, it's actually the character drinking cold water from the sink. 



Audio:

College English Colin Memory Project

After spending a few hours at my desk, my eyes drifted to the wall of my cubicle and my mind drifted elsewhere. I was twenty-eight years old, and I was sitting up in the captain’s quarters of my very own freighter. I might have even put my feet on the desk and my hands on the back of my head, however, I refuse to believe that I could have been that carefree in such a high risk job. I looked up and saw Miami, the city that made me the man I am today, I seem to remember always grinning whenever the great city came into view after seeing nothing but ocean for days. But my smugness soon turned to annoyance as I saw the US Coast Guard approach. Having done this job for seven years, this was far from my first encounter with the boys in blue. As their speedboats encircled my freighter, I sighed as I walked down to greet the officers. They boarded and scattered throughout the boat. I walked down to greet the head officer. I shook his hand and he went into his usual spiel “Hi I am here on behalf of the US Coast guard and I am here to conduct a mandatory search of your vessel for any unregulated commodities.” I rolled my eyes as he went on with his speech “unfortunately, recently, we have been unable to find the source of the influx of arms, so we will have to inspect the contents of your shipping containers.” My heart suddenly beat 10 times faster, there was no way that I could have possibly anticipated this.”What sort of products are you shipping?” he asked. “Farming equipment,” I lied. He opened one container and found a collection of tractors, hoses and pipes. I breathed, but immediately tensed up when he approached the second. He opened it, to reveal a few barrels of grain and some seeding machinery. He looked at the third shipping container which I knew was full of AR-15 rifles, and I could barely breathe. It was a miracle that he didn’t notice my shaking knees and sweat drenched forehead. But then, he looked back at me and said “you’re good to go!” All of the tension suddenly left my body and I looked back at my men and smiled. I should be grateful now that I don’t have to live in fear of the law, now that I live a normal life with a nine to five desk job. I should be grateful that I never had to feel so much tension in my daily life. Yet I can’t say that I feel any remorse for this memory. In fact, I honestly miss the moments when I feared for my life. Because I have not felt a single strong emotion since I got my new job. Though maybe I should be grateful? Boredom is preferable to the slammer.


Artist Statement

This piece was not written from my personal experience, but rather details a memory of a man going through an experience vastly different from my own. One aspect of my piece that was inspired by Margaret Atwood was the unclarity of the protagonist’s memory. When Atwood details Offred’s memory of the pornographic bonfire, she mentions that Offred does not know many of the details of the event. I emulate this choice by making the protagonist question whether or not he was so chill when in his old job. Ken Kesey also chose to have much of the connections between memory and present be done through questions. I chose to emulate this stylistic choice by having the protagonist yearn for his past life of crime.
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Reconstruction Of Memory - Boubou Magassa

I woke up in a room with blaring lights and the pungent smell of medicine. There is a short old man with white hair and a coat to match. He tells me that he is a doctor and that I was brought in by one of the townsmen. I look to my side and notice that my right arm is missing. The memories came flooding back into my mind. Why does it hurt? The doctor then asks what happened to me.

I was young and wanted to write a book about a lonely mountain man. To gain inspiration I had moved into a cabin on a snowy mountain. I remember vividly the day of the incident. Why does it hurt? It was a regular day, just like all the other days. I had just left the town with some groceries. The path home was a treacherous one, cold and punishing as the snowflakes cut my face, and my visibility was cut down to a mere 5 meters. I only see a maze of trees ahead. Except for one tree, this tree was somewhat different. It was shorter and wider than the others. I wanted to examine it more for my book. I left the trail and headed towards this mysterious tree. When I finally got close enough to get a good look, it was no longer a tree but a bear towering over me. It let out a mighty roar. A chill ran down my spine as I was frozen in fear. I had then put my arms up to my face and felt a sharp pain as the bear’s jagged and unkempt teeth entered my flesh. All I can remember was the pain in my right arm. Why does it hurt? I had almost given up as my vision went blurry, I then remembered my pocket knife. I had grasped it and lunged the blade into the bears right eye. As the bear was stunned I had ran in any direction as long as I was running. I had ran for a couple miles. My movements grew sluggish and the feeling in my right arm had disappeared. I had peered overed, it was all mangled and didn’t resemble an arm anymore. My eyes could no longer stay open, my eyes wanted to rest, my eyes wanted to drift. I fell onto the snowy ground as my body began to freeze. I took one last look and saw someone approaching and tell my eyes it’s okay to rest.

Author’s Note

This is an original piece, I was never been attacked by a bear. I was inspired to emulate the repetitive language that Atwood had used. The repetition had allowed for a more poetic approach. I also incorporated the sudden change from present to memory.

Bear Attack
Bear Attack

Reconstruction of Memory // The Green Sun

We’re driving up a narrow street, our little Volkswagen Jetta slows down, the sounds of sand and rocks grinding between the wheels and the pavement. Though I already noticed the car coming to a halt, the place we stopped just felt off. It was a normal street, no stores between apartments, just houses.


“Guess where we are!?”, Mom glances at me quickly through the rear view while reversing the vehicle.


“No mom, I thought you were driving towards that old high school you used to go to?”, I say this not knowing it’s a lie. I know that house too well. It was the apartment that my mom and dad used to live in. I remember now why I feel so uneasy, it’s where I saw that thing.


I can remember the little side room that was on the other side hall from my parents, in that room was a crib on the center wall where I would sleep soundly but I was awake this time, that’s my room. It’s funny trying to stretch a scene that probably took 6 seconds into one that seems like 30 looking back at it fifteen years later, I close my eyes and open them to end up in that same crib.


I’m a baby now, turning my head must feel like moving on anesthetics and with the warm and protective green of the walls only makes my time awake more limited, the room has one little window that covered, the crack between the drape shows me it must be early morning. Even as a baby I could tell some things were up with the light this morning because I saw the sun. No, not a real sun but a small green one, the green sun. It’s glow was respectable, only illuminating within a couple of inches from its body. It’s weird, it has a face, almost sinister in its warm smile but oddly making me sleepier. Its revolves, just like the sun would and its face becomes hidden from me once more and as the face disappears completely, so does its body, sinking back into the ceiling of my room and I sink back into a slumber.  


I wake, still with the same amount of question about that object I saw all those years ago. I can’t help but wonder weather or not it was real, I used to think it was my guardian angel, my zodiac of sorts but now driving off I’m almost certain it was best to forget again.


Reconstruction Memory // That Warm Smile

My face felt blushed, overwhelmed. My visions were blurry, not because I was nauseous and afraid, it was because it was harder for me to see through the thin film of water. There was a warm hand on my back, rubbing against my spine. It was harder for me to breathe.

“It’s okay. This is almost over. Come here, I wanna hug you.”

“Thanks, I really need this,” I told Jessica, as I wrapped my arms around and squeezed her close.

As I stood, the ground became colder and malevolent that it sent chills down my spine. Then comes a figure walking towards me.

Bubbles, the code name I used for him. Light, full of joy, yet delicate. So fragile that it makes me sad to see him fade away. He walked to me with a smile, the same smile that I haven’t seen in so long.

We were together hanging out by a riverfront. It was cold that day, the middle of winter. It was also our first time doing something together. As we were both nervous walking with one another, he broke the atmosphere of tension with small talk. Small conversations turned into discussions. We talked all day about life in general, favorite foods, school drama, best music, and more. It felt endless. I didn’t feel as cold anymore. The sun was setting and created Golden Hour. The hour that sprayed the sky with bright yellow before it melts into deep red of the sun. “Hey, let’s get something warm to drink before we leave,” said Bubbles. There it is again, another smile. Warm and comfortable in my heart but I couldn’t keep eye contact with him. It was that friendship that held me up to this day.

“I’m fine. Thank you for checking in on me.” I said as I looked over Jessica’s shoulder remained hugging.

He shakes his head. “No worries”. It was the smile he gave that countered the daunting emotions I was going through. To be honest, the connection of friendship felt like a cure. A cure that helped my emotions become faded.

Artist Statement: “That Warm Smile” was inspired by a deep thought of something simple to someone but is such a huge deal to me personally. Atwood’s style of writing helped me build a short essay through other words and context that supported a stronger memory. The characters in both novels thought deeply into a memory but sorted out the details. Kesey’s style of writing also springed out what is memory and how we can be more descriptive with a memory that can be hard to remember.

"Run" Reconstruction of a Memory- Sean Johnson

Screenshot 2018-12-17 at 9.52.35 AM
Screenshot 2018-12-17 at 9.52.35 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUncXbXAiV0
Author's Note:

I wrote from my own personal memory, the primary source if you will. When it comes to the adaptations of my words I can attribute them to Margaret Atwood and her novel the handmaid’s tale. It always intrigued me how the author structured her words and emphasized specifics that you wouldn’t look into. I wanted to make a text that symbolized this sophistication and art when it came to the words in my recreation. I feel like this piece was a personal success because I feel that I  accomplished my goal when it came to copying her work, As well as writing in her image.


Reconstruction of Memory: Bea Gerber

There were pieces everywhere. Sharp, shattered, sparkling. The music masked the clatter, but only long enough to shield younger eyes. Some things take time to understand. The room filled in and flowed out, buckets, bags, and rags trickling with them. I am cold, but it was summer, and I had been warm only seconds before.


My happiness drained through my toes. The shouting was loud but I wasn’t listening, there were too many busy faces and furrowed brows to distract me.


He went straight through it, I heard, but I couldn’t see him. I searched for his tangled blonde mop but he had already disappeared. They whizzed around. Suds flew. Towels rolled. Bodies on autopilot. An organized frenzy. I couldn’t control the mess. It was going to last longer than the blood. My skin crawled.


He was rescued. Removed and absorbed. No longer at stake. We picked his pieces off the floor. Removed the evidence. We rescued him from second death but we were still in danger. I hated that he put me in danger.


My time there had been long and short. Summers don’t last forever but they happen every year. Each time it feels like we never left our bubble in the woods. Our own heated snow globe. But his hand broke the glass. He shook too hard. Disturbed the comfortably settled dust. We let him. So we fixed it. Patched his hand and the door. Closed the young eyes. Shielded him by shielding ourselves. Everyone is affected by weak links.


Plastic protected my bitten fingers from the glass but I was still bare. At mercy of another; powerless to change his mistakes. The bass still bumped, matching my heart beat. I had to walk away. Find comfort in less danger, away from the shards, away from the glares. I wanted to be warm again. But that was too much to ask.


The chaos chilled me no matter how many layers I put on. I wasn’t protected anymore. But that is life. The fog lifts on everything eventually. If you don’t prepare for the worst, you will be left cold, shivering. It took too long for me to see this. Took shards covering the floor where children played. They would never know. They didn’t have to know. We glued their snow globe back together with our stories. We kept them warm.



Author's note: I took a lot of inspiration from Kesey because of the format of this assignment. I liked that there didn't need to be much context, so I could be as vague and sharp as I wanted because I didn't have to tie it back to a full story. I tried to take some of his stylistic elements: short sentences, blunt phrasing, reactions in the moment mixed with reflective ones, sharp scene changes. I wanted to confuse the reader by throwing them into something hectic. I also tried to humanize things to make them relatable, and I tried to use contrast with warm and cold like Atwood does to show how situations change from ideal to scary in seconds. I tried to give away as little as possible so that you would feel the emotions and the scene itself wouldn't really matter. 

Reconstruction of Memory - Leah Bradstreet

Sometimes, Mr. Brown would count the holes in the ceiling to pass the time. One, two, three… An hour to go after he had finished the day’s office work and it had been sent to HQ, Mr. Brown was not allowed to leave until the end of the day. It was a friendly enough work environment, but people often found Mr. Brown hard to approach or boring and no one liked starting a conversation with him unless it was unavoidable. At work, Mr. Brown was alone. That didn’t mean he wanted to be. When Mr. Brown had lost count, the clock finally clicked to 6:00 and it was time to clock out. He unlocked the door to his little basic apartment. Keys went on the counter, he shrugged his suit off and slipped into softer pajamas. His bed was calling his name, but he was not tired. From under his bed, he pulled out the most expensive thing he owned besides his home. His laptop. Aptly so, for it was also the most important thing he owned. He opened up a web browser and clicked the only bookmarked tab he had. He was going to watch his favorite TV show. It was his favorite because of the way it made him feel. He smiled for the first time all day when he clicked play. From there, Mr. Brown experienced 40 minutes of rare almost constant laughter. As the credits rolled up, he sighed and ruminated over the episode in an attempt to commit it to memory and carry it around with him. Hearing it ringing in his ears would last him the rest of the long week. He was feeling especially down today, so he tried to dig deeper into the cache and pull out the best memory of the show he could find to push out a lasting smile. Until he got hungry enough to make himself dinner, Mr. Brown stared at the ceiling, watching the characters joke around with each other in his head.

This passage came from one of the short memories written in the class exercise. Originally, the memory was from a specific episode. However, I ended up adapting it and simplifying the idea into a simple unnamed episode. Mr. Brown is meant to symbolize a dramatized version of loneliness. He finds solace in this TV series where the characters make jokes and live carefree lives. He sees this as what he wants in life, and it makes him smile. When the characters are in his ears, he does not feel so alone.


Memory Reconstruction - Sean DeSilva

Neglection
Present Day

I lie in the hospital bed, waiting for my my father to aid me… That car crash really took a toll on me, huh? I wonder if I will make it...Heh… My eyes are s-so…tired… I struggle to stay awake… I fall asleep. 

“Max! Wake up, you have to go to school!”

“Huh? Grandpa?” 

“Yes moron, it’s time for you to get ready for school.”

“Oh, right. I’ll be downstairs soon.”

“Hmph.”

Alright I guess it’s time for me to get ready… 

Once I’m ready,I run downstairs.

“Alright, I’m ready. See ya!”

“Stop. You need to eat your breakfast.” My uncle said in stern manner.

“Ugh, really? Even with those eggs?” 

“Yes, boy! I slave to wake you up and make you food every damn morning.”

“Okay…” I begin to slightly shake, but I keep it to myself so he won’t notice.
 
“Here! Take it.” Grandpa hands over the food furiously. 

“T-Thanks…” I shiver and eat a small bit of the food. 

“Alright, I’m full.” I hand over the plate to my grandpa. 

“You barely ate! What the hell. Boy...” Grandpa threatened. 

“Sorry… I wasn’t hungry. I have to go now.”

“Get the hell out of here.” Grandpa hollered.

I walked to school, as sweat began to drip down my forehead. Wondering what will happen when I get back home.

 The school day began and I couldn’t focus.

I went back home and grandpa was waiting for me.

“How… Was school?” Grandpa asked creepingly.

“Uh… It was good.”

“Don’t wanna talk to me?” Grandpa questioned.

I remained silent. I didn’t want to start any more arguments. I walked up to my room, steadily.

“Boy! Don’t think you can get away…” Grandpa threatened again.

I jotted up stairs in fear.

Why can’t I live a quiet, peaceful life? What does this man want from me? 

Tears fall down my face as I lie in my bed, my head leaning on my pillow praying that I can warp to another world. 

Creative Piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAIMIfiCRZc

Authors Note: I decided to  use Atwood's writing style in my own short story. After analyzing her own work, I noticed that Atwood likes to convey emotions through descriptive language. I wanted to emulate this idea throughout my short story by showcasing how our protagonist felt when he was being scolded. His palms were sweaty, knees weak... He was scared to death and didn't want confrontation. Atwood is the type of writer that is easily able convey emotions through descriptive language and she does it well.

Tyreek's Short Story

The jet rises. It’s full of superheroes. One hero asks me “what you say your name was again? Iron Wolf, Captain Wolf, Lone Wolf, Werewolf?” Actually, my friends call me Al. “What’s that short for? Alfred? Ally?” The others chuckled. Actually, it’s short for Alpha. “Why do they call you that?” It was my nickname when I was a boxer. I was undefeated. 45-0 with 46 knockouts. 46? Yeah, I knocked out a ref once. Everyone laughed. “Okay, Al… how come this superhero crap doesn’t scare you?” Al reaches into his suit and pulls out a chain. The charm was heart shaped. He opened it and revealed a picture inside. Who’s that? That’s the love of my life… or at least was before the accident. “What happened to her?” No one knows. She’s my motivation. One day, I was in a championship match. My opponent was tough. No one, but her believed that I could win. At the time her and I were dating for about three months. I fought hard. Punches were flying back and forth with ruthless aggression. Then, he hit me with a hard right hook and knocked me to the canvas. I struggled to even get my head off the mat. All I could hear was her screaming at me to get back up. I never heard her sound so scared in my life. I got up after the referee counted to seven. Everyone couldn’t believe it. My opponent came back to try to finish the job. He threw another right hook, but this time I ducked. Then, I countered with a left hook. He fell to the mat. The ring started to fill with reporters. I couldn’t see with the flashes and bright lights in my face, but somehow I saw her approaching me. Her expression crowded with tears, but balanced out with a smile. I remember seeing her mouth moving. I didn’t know because I was too busy staring at her beautiful face telling myself she was the one. I kissed her luscious lips and hugged her tightly. Since then, I knew I could get through anything because she always had my back. This is the first time that I’m going into a battle alone. “You’re not alone Alpha. We’re your brothers. Ain’t that right fellas?” Everyone agreed. “We got your back no matter what.” Thanks guys. I really appreciate it. The jet lands. Alright team, roll out!

Author's Note:

Ken Kesey throughout his novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, uses a way to express his main character Chief Bromden. I used Kesey’s style of using important traumatizing flashbacks as something that shaped the protagonist or narrator into who they are in the present. Kesey uses Bromden’s past of being taught how not to be a Native American by someone he looked up to as way to explain why he is confused on his identity especially his culture. My main character’s source of motivation and determination is explained the same way through his flashback to a time where it first developed.
091218-Celebrities-Michael-B-Jordan-Tessa-Thompson-Creed-II
091218-Celebrities-Michael-B-Jordan-Tessa-Thompson-Creed-II

Ring of Fire

Cold hospital air hit my nose as I sniffled, I stared at the hospital bed in front of me, holding my dad’s hand. I thought back to all of the time I had spent with him, sitting with my mom in the small apartment we lived in, awaiting my father’s arrival home from work. My mom walked around, humming to herself and cleaning spots off of the countertops. That’s when a key hit the lock, turned, and the door opened. “Daddy!” I yelled, hopping off of the couch to run into my uniformed father’s outstretched arms. He picked me up and squeezed me tight, that’s when I assume that my mom walked over and kissed him on the cheek, asking him how his day was. That’s what she normally did at least, but it slips my mind if she did it that day.


He then put me down, walking over to the cd player that sat in the corner of the living room. Ring of Fire, by Johnny Cash started playing, followed shortly by my father’s raspy voice singing along. He then picked me up and held me in his arms. We danced around the living room of the small apartment we lived in, while my mom sat and watched, smiling from ear to ear.


I can’t remember how long we danced for, if it was just that song or more to come. I can remember though, how the smell of cigarettes radiated off of his clothing when you got close enough. That’s when the beeping of the hospital monitor and my dad’s deep coughing pulled me out of my daydream. He half smiled, the most he was able to do. I held tears back as I smiled back, squeezing his hand.


I used many different stylistic choices in this piece. One that was inspired by Margaret Atwood was the fact that the narrator doesn’t remember everything. In both “The Handmaid’s Tale” and my story the narrator says that they don’t remember certain parts of the memory that they are retelling. Something else that I did that wasn’t inspired by Kesey or Atwood, but I felt was something that was important was telling small, but important details about what was happening at the moment. For example, telling that the narrator’s father was in the hospital. It makes the memory more special for the narrator, which makes it more special for the reader.

Reconstruction of Memory - Ariana Flores

Author’s Note:

In this piece, I specifically chose to blur the lines between the past and the present, so that the repetition of phrases had more impact. Alexander Chee’s advice and metaphors, such as the monster in the corner of his mind, were the main inspiration for my piece. I incorporated both a great fear of mine (forgetting) and one of the most important memories of mine that I can remember from my early childhood. A stylistic choice Atwood incorporated was making one aspect of Offreds’ memory super clear and the rest a bit fuzzy. I tried to do my best to emulate this with the phrase about gripping my dad’s jeans really tight because I was so afraid. I accompanied this piece with Adeline by Alt J, which encapsulates the wonder and the somber tone of this piece.

"Neruda"

In you, everything sank. This phrase pops into my head, from an English class long past, or at least that’s how long it feels. We spent weeks upon weeks investigating every couplet, scrutinizing every stanza. I hated it. I hated talking about “author’s intent”. Why did Pablo Neruda repeat this line? Why was it a motif? Who gives a shit? In you, everything sank. I think about you and I wish I didn’t. The kid who sat next to me would always fall asleep. I couldn’t blame him. It was an easy escape. Why did I ever bother staying awake? His light snore invades my thoughts, of Neruda, of the teacher’s droning. It’s there, gently, always reminding me that there’s another way out.


In you, everything sank.


Stocks pop into my head. Our economics teacher was always right after English. He taught us all about the stock market that year. We even invested a little bit ourselves. I heard but didn’t listen. In you, everything sank. Science was next. We would skip class together, you and I. We’d sit in the stairwell and talk. Or we wouldn’t. But we always understood.

In you, everything sank. It happened on a Sunday. The Lord’s day. Funny, because we had always hated religion. I like to imagine you did it to spite God. I didn’t find out until Tuesday: you weren’t in the stairwell. They called me to the office. Your mom broke the news.  In you, everything sank. On a whim today, I visit the bridge. The cold wind whips my hair, the seagulls below call, like sirens. And I, too, am sinking.


Author's Note:

For this memory, my idea was to create not a single memory, but a series of smaller memories. This was inspired, to some extent, by Ken Kesey’s style of writing memories - a series of shorter thoughts rather than one larger one. I chose to kind of take the reader through a school day through memories to some extent. It creates a little more cohesion, which I believe is necessary in a story like this. To transition, I used the phrase: “In you, everything sank”, pulled from Pablo Neruda's Song of Despair, which was a big inspiration for the story overall: dreary, depressing, defeatist. It was the anchor that my story was based around, and inevitably the note it ends on.


Companion - The Song of Despair” by Pablo Neruda: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/song-despair


Reconstruction of Memory - Meymey Seng

A red spiky fruit is being handed to me. One might call it strange but it is actually delicious and sweet, easily one of my all-time favorite fruits. Eager to dive into this fresh batch that was just purchased from the local Asian supermarket, I tore one open, ripping apart the outer layer to reveal the fruit itself.

With the little self-control that I have, I trickshotted the lychee straight into my mouth like a basketball player making a bucket. After the consumption of this I became distracted, conversing with my sister, taking away my precious seconds of lychee eating. What she does not know is that it this basically saved my life. 

Halfway through the conversation my voice was locked inside my throat, trapped. Trying to verbalize the words that were forming in my head was physically impossible. Don’t panic, I told myself. As I struggle to talk, I gasped for air and found it not possible to exhale and inhale. The only form of communication was my flailing arms and wide-opened eyes, desperate for help.

My mother ran towards me, confused, afraid, and frantic. She asked me what was happening, what was wrong, but the problem is that I couldn’t talk. That damn lychee. About to rush to the hospital my mother shoved cough drops and water down my throat. The people in my household paced frantically, staring back at me with fear, yet everything felt like a blur to me.

Slowly, my throat was clearing up and I was able to croak out a word and puff out a breath of air. I told everyone that I was okay, going to the hospital is unnecessary at this point. Running through all of the different possibilities we were shocked by the only culprit, the red spiky fruit. Never having an allergic reaction to this nor any other fruit before, of course my first reaction had to be one that almost put me in an anaphylactic shock. If I had eaten more, I am not sure what the outcome would have been and do not want to even imagine it.

Author's Note

In my writing, I was able to connect one of my personal experiences to that of Chief Bromden’s. In the ward, he would pretend as though he could not talk in order to avoid trouble, even when others may be talking to him. During my allergic reaction, I was unable to speak when I so desired to, which made me wonder that when Bromden was not speaking, did he feel trapped? Along with that, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey used short sentences to show urgency which inspired me to incorporate that, bringing out the true feelings during the actual situation. Moving on to the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood used many comparisons, for example the Commander to certain fragile objects, to convey a deeper understanding. Using this idea, I used a simile to describe one of the moments in my memory, to give the readers a clearer visual.

Creative Writing

In the dentist office I couldn’t seem to get my mind off the fact that I will be removing my braces. I was nervous because of all the stories I had heard and experiences from my friends. It was a strange feeling because I was afraid, but I also felt relief. I had been waiting on this moment for so long. At first, I wanted braces desperately; I thought they were appealing because of the different colors, they were like jewelry for your teeth. I didn’t need braces, I wasn't qualified to get them because the dentist said my teeth were fine and straight. When I first got them, I couldn't eat, drink, or sleep for a week. Braces were the most painful thing in the world. We went on vacation the day after I had them done. I couldn’t enjoy anything. Later on, it got better and I thought I would start to like them, but I didn’t. Food always gets stuck in your teeth when you have braces, which is disgusting. As much as you brush your teeth, they never seem to be clean. Your breath somehow never stays fresh and it's the most annoying thing in the world. Thinking about that pain of getting them on, I didn’t want to feel it again. This time, it would be twice as bad. I kind of felt like leaving the office. It was almost my turn. I’ve been afraid of the dentist ever since the first time I ever took my tooth out, I was four going on five. My mom told me I had to go to the dentist to remove the tooth. In my head there was no way I was going to the dentist. It was a late night and my mom was home with friends. I went into the bathroom twisted my tooth out and finally got rid of it, I came out proud to show my mom and everyone else. And for that I overcame my fear of taking out my teeth. I guess removing my braces wouldn't be so bad afterall, I could get them removed and get it over with.








Authors note:

In my writing I chose to emulate Margaret Atwood's style of writing because she uses symbolism to represent what is going on, whereas Ken Kesey uses dialogue. For my writing piece I think Margaret Atwood's style fit best with what I was trying to do with my writing. I used a lot of symbolism to emphasize my emotions as Atwood did in the handmaid's tale. I also visited many similar memories to connect them all to one main point of overcoming my fear. I feel as though Atwood does a great job of that and I was inspired to use more of her skills in this writing for that reason.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxAEY3l9BQ

Memory Reconstruction

​Creative Writing:

“Remember when we found money in your mom's closet.” Azeezah says while laughing.


“OMG! Yes and then it magically disappeared the next day.” My stomach hurt just from thinking about it.


“I swear your mom probably thinks we thought it was fake.”


“She’ll never find out that we knew it was real. We were good children because I wanted to stash it.” I said while picking up a box and running to hide it as if it too had money in it. Azeezah just laughs at me.


“Yeah right.” Azeezah rolls her eyes, but not in disbelief.


My cousin and I used to play dress up in our mom's closet all the time. We would open all the shoe boxes and walk around almost breaking our ankles.

 

“Oh, I wonder what that is.” Azeezah pointed at the big purple box.


“I don’t know, but let's open it” I went towards the box in an attempt to open it.


“Wait, Kemba, I think we should….” Azeezah trailed off.


“You think we should what..?” I looked up at my cousin.


“I want to open the box.” Azeezah folded her hands over the big overcoat.


“Yea..No, but we can do it together.”


“Fine.”


“One… Two… Three” Azeezah and I both counted together and when we opened the box we found what we liked to call cash. I’d never held money in my hand. I was too young to even have money. The money wasn’t crisp, but it wasn’t old either. The money smelled clean which made no sense at the time. We didn’t know what to do, but we both knew this was our secret.  We laugh about it to this day. We were children then six and seven years old, acting like we were nine and ten. It still amazes me how finding my moms money makes us laugh. I mean it is funny, but it shouldn’t be a secret. We keep it that way because anytime we dressed up we would secretly go looking for money or anything of value not knowing that the clothes we put on were worth so much more than we thought.



​Author's Note: 

Margaret Atwood and Ken Kesey both didn’t use dialogue, but when they did it was purposeful and it filled the whole scene. They made sure the dialogue didn’t leave anything unknown. I made sure in my story I used a lot of dialogue because I wanted to show the difference in time as well as how impactful the memory is. Ken Kesey used a lot of metaphors in his writing while also leaving the reader thinking about things he wasn’t specific about. I wanted readers to be able to think of their childhood selves and fit it into my story.

Reconstruction of Memory // Christina Santana

Creative Writing Piece: Haunted

Reading our old text messages brought me back to where it all started. The flirtatious conversations, the plans for our first date, our first phone call. It reminded me of a happier time, one that bore no resemblance to the trauma I’d end up facing. Looking back on it now, I wish I would have known that the first phone call would be a contract I unknowingly signed. He wanted all of my time, every second of it. If I said I was busy or that I wouldn’t be able to call that day, he’d guilt trip me by threatening to kill himself. He knew that was my weakness. That I cared about him enough that I couldn’t risk it happening.  I felt helpless. I couldn’t help myself because if I left and he ended up killing himself, it would be my fault. The guilt would have been harder to handle than dealing with him ever was. As time went on, I thought I’d been getting better with coping. I thought going to therapy was aiding my healing process. It was supposed to show me that his abuse was not my fault.

I hadn’t noticed that my heart had been racing until now. My posture was stiff and my breath was coming in and out in nervous, short intervals. Just seeing his name brought back all the terrible memories. It reminded me that he still followed me everywhere. His harsh words were forever embedded into my being, and whether I liked it or not, he still had me under his control. I could never get away. He knew exactly what to say in order to make me stay. “You can’t leave me, Claire,” “I’ll kill myself if you do!” he’d say. His mental health history and the things he’d confided in me during that first phone call let me know that the threat was real. I was convinced that the fate of his life was in my hands. It was too late now. There was no turning back. I wish I would’ve known that there’d be one moment in time where the rest of my time would never be mine.

Author’s Note:
When writing my reconstruction of memory, I was inspired to emulate Margeret Atwood’s narration tactic of putting more emphasis on how the moment she’s writing about makes her character’s feel rather than spending too much time contextualizing the moment itself. I felt that putting an emphasis on the emotion would aid in the characterization of the narrator of my memory and would make it easier for the reader to see that her memory was a reflection of her experience. Similarly to Chief Bromden in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, the narrator of my piece solely speaks about her experience with her antagonist in order to show the effect he’s had on her. It was an intentional choice on my part to make the narrator of my story focus on the actions of all of the other characters but themselves because I didn't want the reader's perspective to be skewed. As for the topic, I felt that writing about emotional abuse in the manner that I did would allow people to see how it’s an internal battle that many people can not see.

Screenshot 2018-12-17 at 1.28.37 AM
Screenshot 2018-12-17 at 1.28.37 AM