Assignment: Write the first two pages (no more than 500 words) of a short story. (You may, but do not have to, use the exercise you did in class as a starting point.) Bring five copies to class on Thursday. (Please double-space this and all manuscripts; to save paper, please make double-sided copies, if possible.) In class, we'll workshop the openings in small groups.You may post your work for this assignment by clicking on the "comment" link below.
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“Hurry Up, and Wait”
Daniel Yoo
“Hurry up, and wait” the recruit quipped cheerfully, walking to the end of the line with a manila folder under arm, and leaned casually against the wall.
Frank just nodded and tried to pull back the corners of his mouth into a smile, but his eyes screwed inward in a grimace. He took a step forward as the line moved up a foot, all the recruits maintaining a short distance of inches from the person in front of them in line. Frank caught a whiff of something sour and slightly sweet from the kid in front of him. The back of the kid’s neck was dark as wet loam, and glistened with a mix of grease and sweat from under the overhead fluorescents. Frank curled his nose and tried to back away from the kid in front of him, but he bumped into whomever it was standing all too near behind him, and stepped on their toes.
“Uh, sorry.” Whomever it was said nothing.
A portly sergeant in loose fitting green, brown and black camouflage walked around the corner, and stared down the white corridor to the back of the line, making Frank and everyone else caught up in his glare straighten their postures, pulling in stomachs, straightening neck, and lifting hunched shoulders. Feet shuffled as recruits tried to position their bodies directly behind the person in front of them in line, turning their faces so that their eyes bored holes into the back’s of the shirt, neck, or head of the person standing a few inches in front of them.
“Why the heck am I hearing you frickin talking?”
Frank took a deep breath. “Uh, sorry.”
The sergeant turned straight to Frank, eyes narrowing. When he spoke, only the left side of his upper lip moved, “Sorry? Sorry, what?” His toothbrush mustache wiggle like Charlie Chaplin.
“Uh, Sorry, Sir.”
“I’m not a sir. Do I look like a sir to you? Do I look like I sit behind a desk to you?” The sergeant walked up and reached a plump and callused hand out and snatched a folder from under Frank’s arm. “Gimme that.”
Frank’s mouth opened slightly in protest, and quickly pursed closed, as the sergeant leafed through the sheaf of papers. This close, Frank could see the man’s name stitched onto the military uniform; Cust.
“So… you are going to be an officer, Mr. Kendall.” Sergeant Cust stated it as a matter of fact, but arched his eyebrows questioningly at Frank. Frank felt all eyes in the corridor turn on him.
“Uh, yes. Uh, sir.”
Sergeant Cust didn’t seem to mind that Frank had used the “sir” honorific again. He looked around up and down the corridor at the thirty odd recruits who had now fallen out of their uniform lines to get a better view. Cust smiled, seeming to enjoy the attention fixed on him and Frank. “You hear that? Kendall here will be telling you all what to do.”
Teachers without Borders
-Upasana Taku
Speeding away in a Ford F-150 pickup truck Sheena reflected on her mellow life; suddenly she felt a poke in her stomach and sat up upright. Her jute handbag lay on the passenger seat filled with heavily scribbled sheets of paper – biology tests, a new schedule, memos from Principal Rosa and a letter from Emma, her favorite student who graduated last summer.
The dazzling California sun made a pattern of stripes on Sheena’s arms; her bronze body radiated exuberance as she drove up Hwy 1 in her usual speedy-safe style. Her years at Mt Mary’s High School as a Science teacher were like a sundae of her favorite ice creams - rocky road and caramel delight. There was Sister Rosa, who gave Sheena complete freedom to structure classes in a way that suited her personality and her students’ appetite. Then there was the damp environment; Sheena had never felt inspired by any of her fellow teachers in all her two years.
During lunch breaks, Sheena avoided the teachers' lounge, she ate either with her class or under a shady oak tree in the yard. Quite the social bee, she knew all her colleagues in and out. She had all of them figured out in her first month: Mrs. Tyler liked to knit, her colorful yarn was strewn on the beige coffee table in the lounge; Mr. Bing was a coffee enthusiast and a computer geek - he lived for them; Mrs. Edwards was the only grapevine - if it were not for her there would be no personal details floating in the school.
Unlike her colleagues, whom Sheena thought of as the "Brady bunch", her students were an interesting challenge. It took her a good 6 months to understand the context in which they lived and how it affected their performance. By the end of the school year, Sheena knew what normal behavior was for every student in her class, which helped her identify anything different almost immediately. Sheena worked hard at constantly improving the quality of education in class while influencing students to raise the bar of expectation that they set for themselves. Most evenings she was the last teacher to leave the school - busy creating an exciting science project, assessing students' silly mistakes on their tests with critical scrutiny, tutoring a student who needed special help or writing notes to parents.
The heat was relenting as the sun went down, Sheena was a just mile from her exit but her mind was a collage of images - of Tim! Earlier today, Sister Rosa had introduced Tim as the new Math instructor at the staff meeting. Her body tightened as she felt seasick in her stomach, something she rarely felt. Sheena parked her truck in the garage, planned her evening for a minute – jog, cook, TV, handbag stuff, read, Tim!? By now she was struggling, what was so special about Tim, why was she flustered? Was it that he seemed passionate about his work, was it his charismatic speech or was it just a crush - she hadn’t had one of those in ages!
Michael said:
"Imprisoned"
Michael Katz
Ida Katz felt her stomach tightening and her lungs constricting as Bradford Lukowski’s police cruiser screeched into the driveway—sirens blasting. She glanced at the alarm clock, noticing it was 2:15 P.M.. That was the usual time when six-foot four Newington police officer, Bradford visited his 70 year old mother Martha, shortly after she had performed her weekly abortion on the kitchen table. ‘Why had Abe sub-let two rooms from this woman?’ she thought.
Ida knew that Bradford derived childlike pleasure from frightening her with his police sirens; his mother had told him that Ida had frequent nightmares about being hauled off to jail, her brown eyes staring wildly from the front page of the Hartford Courant. She imagined her mother Bessie’s shock when she discovered Ida’s plight. Bessie had had such high hopes about her marriage to Abe Katz three months earlier on June 12, 1942. Although Abe was nine years older and did not own a home, Bessie reassured herself that Ida would be all right since Abe was educated and came from a good Connecticut family,with roots in Vilnius, Lithuania-- her own ancestral home. “Yichas”—status-- meant everything to Bessie. She always said, “never marry down,” but her oldest son Leon had not listened; over her protests, he had married Ilene, a Brooklyn tailor’s daughter. She prayed life would be better for Ida.
Ida glanced at the clock again—2:20 P.M. She pulled the pillow up over her head in bed. Tears moistened her sunburnt cheeks. She tried to stifle her sobs. Then, out of nowhere something began shrieking in her ear. “GET ME OUT OF HERE! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Over and over. She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. The voice stopped.
Abe would be coming home in about three hours from his job at Colt’s Firearms Company, a job he despised and one he never would have taken if he had been enable to enlist back in March of 1941. But his diabetes had made him 4-F and filled him with a deep sense of shame and inadequacy. That had led to several outbursts of rage—something Ida was not prepared for. After two of these outbursts, she had packed her bags and taken a Greyhound bus back home-- to her third story flat on McClellan Street, in Dorcester, Massachusetts. There Bessie comforted her and convinced her to return to Newington. “Give him another chance,” she said. ‘Maybe he can change.”
Ida brushed back a patch of grayish brown hair and sat up in bed. She felt the urge to pull out the box of chocolate cherries from her bottom dresser drawer. But she realized that she had only three left; the chocolates could wait till the usual time—9 P.M., about an hour before she went to sleep. She had not talked to Abe for three days now and she could feel him wilting under the weight of her favored approach to conflict—silence.
He walked heavily down the right aisle of the plane, wheezing obscenities under his breath. Trying not to look at the impatient people already seated, he barely missed hitting the aisle sitters with his black overstuffed satchel. He probably should hit them, at least one or two …the snobs were sneering at him. The pilot had held the plane; lucky for him there was still a seat available he thought, as he squeezed his 320 lb. hulking body past the stewardess preparing for the pre-board demonstration. She was a sight for sore eyes – tall, slender, well groomed, and smelling like Channel No. 5. Her stiff navy blue uniform didn’t hide the fact that she had nice curves. She resembled Penny 25 yrs ago. Cropped blonde hair, flashing blue eyes, shiny white smile, and just enough tits and ass to comfort a man. Five kids take a toll on a woman. If her folks hadn’t been filthy rich it wouldn’t be worth all the bitching. There were plenty of dutiful senoritas that wanted a handsome American doctor.
It had been one fucking long day and he wasn’t looking forward to the four hour flight ahead. The red-eye, leaves at 11:50 pm, and arrives at the crack of dawn. It might be some consolation that Mexico City’s weather is nice in the fall. The smog doesn’t seem so bad and the humidity is tolerable. Although it is the end of the rainy season, the forecast called for clear skies. Long Beach had been unseasonably hot for Halloween, he was glad to spend the next ten days away from the heat. As he struggled to make his way through one of the two aisles separating the pairs of roomy seats, he noticed frosty iced filled glasses set on white cloth napkins. Drinks before take-off, nice. He needed a brandy, but whiskey would do. Make it three. A cigarette and drink, where the hell is 38 J?
A dark, big boned stewardess was blocking the aisle as she closed the full overhead compartments. She flashed one of those fake, overly toothy, I’m just doing my job, kind of smiles. “Sir, please take your seat, the Captain cannot take off until all passengers are seated.” The command didn’t even cause her lips to move. Her eyes pierced right through him, just like Ginny, hermana lesbiana, coal black Latina eyes. Almost mechanically she handed him a cellophane wrapped, navy blue blanket and small white pillows from the last open bin.
The black, horn-rimmed bifocals slid down his nose as he peered over the lenses to locate the empty seat assigned to him. Tucking the blanket and pillow under his left elbow, he heaved his bag around in front of his right leg. A stream of sweat descended his sideburn, down his jaw, filling the crease of his unshaven double chin and dripped into the already darkened spot growing below the pointed collar of his cream guayabera. There were two vacants ahead. One empty purple upholstered seat was dead center in a row of five. The other, his seat, was last row on the right, next to the window and a sobbing boy. Claustrophobia or annoyed, what a choice.
The Future
by Halim
I slowly take another sip of my cinnamon latté, carefully drawing a half-fake inviting smile on my face. The sort of smile that would invite whoever is sitting across the table to open that little subject that’s clearly on their mind. I always had it in me to tell when she was trying to find a good moment to say that little thing she is trying to say. It made her look cute in a way. Only this time I had a frighteningly good idea of what was coming. I sit back and let her go with it.
I calmly examine the blue eyes and light brown locks as the lips start their difficult translation job. “I have been thinking… and I wanted to talk to you about… you know, how things have been in general… I mean, the way you and I, I mean us, the way things have been between us… “
Another cinnamon latté sip. I let the words flow by me as my mind traces forward in anticipation for the punch line, the one word that is waiting for its turn to lead through all the other meaningless introduction phrases. I can somehow tell what she is about to say. I remember: Birds can mysteriously feel an earthquake coming long before it hits. And I think: I can mysteriously feel a tornado long before it touches down on top of a corner Starbucks, between my seat and the blue eyes looking me from the other seat.
I remember: How fun it was to translate my favorite songs for her. Her literature-savvy facial expression as I go through it verse by verse, guiding her wings as she soars along with the poetry. How you could almost see the poet’s state of mind reflected on her eyes as she follows through his words translated by a novice like me, the satisfaction in her expression as I reach the punch line, the contentment as she ponders over hidden beauty in the meaning. And I remember: Many first kisses, and long bus rides as she leans over my shoulder and drift to sleep to leave me watch the locks of brown hair draw wavy symbols over the nightly bus window.
“future”. I finally hear the punch line. As I drift into thought I always keep my ears screening for the right word to snap me back to reality. I meet her look in an obvious gesture to repeat what she just said.
“We need to talk about the future.”
I remember: The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their own dreams. And I think: If we cannot own the dreams then how can we have claim over the future?
Noodle Math
“Let’s go Noodle!” a chorus of boys screamed in unison.
“You’re so dang slow!” yelled one of them.
“Throw the damn ball!” shouted a ruddy-faced boy who jumped up and down in a whirl of dust and fury.
He finally threw the ball but you could almost see him calculating trajectories in his mind. A little to the left...and down...and control the arc, he must have been thinking. The ball never made it to the catcher before the runner crossed home plate. The kids were filled with rage but not surprise. By the end of the game most were verbally exhausted from all the “clever to a fourth grader” taunts they hurled at him. He was used to it though for he had been slow his whole life.
The town rumor was that Noodle’s mom carried him for ten and a half months. The doctors wanted to induce labor at nine and a half but his mother refused. Then when she finally went into labor it lasted thirty-three hours. The boy just wasn’t in a hurry to come out. In fact, he was never in a hurry for anything. He walked slow, he talked slow, he chewed his food slow, and I would even say he thought slow but then one might get the impression that he was mentally deficient. However, that simply was not the case.
He took his time thinking, he formulated all the data, calculated all the probabilities, and he chewed on it like an overly satiated dog would chew on a soup bone. And when the chewing was done the dog would bury the bone but in Noodle’s case he would expound some brilliant, revolutionary response that bewildered his classmates, teachers, and family. Perhaps when you’re gifted like that you are required to be deficient in some other aspect of life. Maybe it’s a universal law of physics that one being cannot possess too many exceptional attributes for if one does the universe unravels into chaos. Who knows?
We didn’t always call him Noodle. That was quite by accident. His real name was Charlie Nouvelle, pronounced “new-vell,” but one day back in first grade we had a substitute teacher who while reading off attendance pronounced Charlie’s last name “new-vull,” and to the wisecracker Damon Mathison that sounded awfully similar to “new-dull.” Damon crowned him “Noodle” and thereafter we all playfully razzed the boy with that moniker.
However, all the teasing he received at recess, at lunchtime, in the halls, and before and after school was silenced by his genius in Math class. The boy shouldn’t even have been in our grade except at that time I don’t think our town even knew what the term “gifted class” meant, let alone that the sloth-like Noodle was deserving of such a class all to his own. It was too damn bad that our Math teacher Mr. Furrell was a forlorn drunk and was wholly indifferent to his job. Had he cared, or been sober at least, he would have climbed the highest mountains and proclaimed to the greatest universities that Noodle was the next Einstein. But Furrell was oblivious. Sure he knew that Noodle knew more mathematically than he did, but instead of finding this remarkable he exploited it as a way to periodically skip out of class and let the socially inept Noodle tutor the rest of us. Looking back I think only I realized the true potential of this alien being, but it took the Summer of ’63 catastrophe for me to discover it.
Everyone in the office knew it was coming. Well, everyone except Barry. But afterwards even Barry admitted he should have seen it coming.
For weeks, the good bosses had been assigning projects that weren’t too important for the company, but were great for building portfolios. The bad bosses weren’t assigning much at all. Almost everyone spent a good part of their day exploring the web. They jokingly justified their activity as researching competitors, but, of course, they were actually surveying the arid job market.
The regional downturn had started about a year back, so everyone knew at least one person who had been impacted and they all had heard stories of how these things worked. This tribal knowledge was passed along in the small groups that would naturally gather near the kitchen’s free food.
Jeff, one of the marketing drones that Barry tried to avoid whenever possible, was almost always in the kitchen, passing on the same advice, “It’s better to be in the first round. They get the most generous severance. Each round after that gets a smaller package, and the last few survivors usually end up with nothing.” And, even though they had heard it before, the small group gathered round Jeff would nod their heads in agreement and silently hope to be out in the first round.
The more competitive amongst them even wondered if there was any way to get themselves into the first round. Was there any way to volunteer?
Even though they knew it was coming, very few in the office were completely prepared. By the time HR showed up in the building, most people had begun taking personal stuff home, but very few had finished off their resumes. Even Jeff was not done. Per his Personal Marketing Plan, as he insisted on calling it, he had intended to print out a stack of color copies using the company’s high-end printers. But the axe fell before Jeff could decide on a font, so he ended up having to get black and white copies from Kinkos instead.
Barry, being Barry, hadn’t done anything at all.
The morning HR arrived Barry followed his normal morning routine. He wheeled his bike in at 6:30, took a quick shower, grabbed a Green Monster smoothie from the shared fridge, and started coding by 7:00. It was unusual for a developer to start so early, but Barry liked having the quiet office all to himself.
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