A Writing Exercise
So my writerly friend Scott came up with a wonderful idea. Take some of your favorite songs and use them as an inspiration or stepping-off point for short stories.
Below is what I came up with. Here's the fun part. Who can tell me what song was my inspiration?
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Dear Mom,
I know you’re going to catch hell for this. And that’s not fair, I know. I guess you’ve probably seen the reports over and over ad nauseum by this point.
I’m the one they’re dragging off. Not you. You shouldn’t have to suffer. When I was walking into that courthouse, some bullshit reporter yelled out, “Why’d you do it, Owen?” I just kept walking with my face to the concrete. Acting like I didn’t hear it. But I heard it. I acted blank and like I wasn’t present. But I was.
The truth is- I couldn’t believe the question. Did that jackass of a reporter really expect me to answer? Did he really expect me to stop amidst the crowd and cacophony- the noise and rushing- and talk? Did he think I would stand there and deliver some pithy little sound bite for him and the folks back home? Or some well-reasoned lecture? Like I’m some kind of professor something? What the hell was he thinking? Can you believe people get paid to do that?
Looking back on it, though, he kinda was my first prosecutor. Sitting here with some time on my hands, I really
do wonder. I
do wonder “why I did it.” It’s not like he was asking for it. Not like he was secretly screwing my wife or something. William Gibson Smith wasn’t anything special. Not deserving or undeserving of any favor or disfavor. He wasn’t asking to die. Not anymore than any of the rest of us, anyway. You know how some guys, though, are just asking for trouble? To get hit? Taken down a notch? They talk like they’re so tough or so smart. Got that bubbly electric blonde or elegant waif on their arm like an advertisement? Those kinds of guys make me question things, not William Smith. The kind of guy with everything handed to him…silver-platter. Job, car, woman, smiling friends.
Those are the guys that make me question fairness.
What’s fair is fair. Isn’t that what they always say? Or
All is fair in love and war…Man, that question of fairness…it really claws at me. You know what I mean? It’s like sometimes I can’t sleep because I keep those pounding ideas alive in my head. If no one ever said life is fair, where did I get the idea from? Was it a dream? Did I dream it up? Surely there’s some reality propping that table up, right? I mean, I’m not normally in the business of creating ideas out of mid-air. So surely there’s something to it. Fairness exists somewhere, right? Otherwise we would have had to create it. Creation ex nihilo. We’re all nihilists that way. Creation. Creation. There’s something to it, right? To create. To make order. Structure. To arrange. Breathe life into chaos. Make a living, breathing chaos. Forge it. Give it substance.
Some nights…Man! I just can’t keep all of these ideas at bay. It’s like having your back to the door, pushing with all your weight. Your arms splayed. You groan and grunt and strain. But it’s not enough. I still have the thoughts. They still come out. Still come out. Still.
I wanted to shout when I was in that courtroom. Listening to those dull arguments and propositions by the lawyers and suits, as if I weren’t even there. Not even a bit player in my own drama. I wanted to scream “Do you know who you’re dealing with here? Do you know? I consume whole worlds!”
It’s all right, though. It’s all meaningless, mom. All of it.
I miss you.
Flight: A Novel by
Sherman AlexieMy rating:
4 of 5 starsThis book is equal parts _Catcher in the Rye_, with its depiction of teen angst and delinquency and _Slaughterhouse Five_ with its time- and personality- jumping protagonist and initial inscription in homage to Vonnegut.
However, unlike his predecessors, Alexie's narrator brings much more redemption by the end of the novel, nearly- and I mean NEARLY- bringing this cynical reader to tears.
View all my reviews >>
What's In a Name?
Today I learned a lesson about names.
Do you ever wonder how your life, your circumstances, your habits, personality- basically all of the things that make up your reality- would be different if you had a different name? Cara- would you have wound up acting and thinking the same way if your name had been longer? Is ease of pronunciation an aid in getting people to talk to you? What if you had been named "Carolina?" Or Carol?
Christina--aren't you "Chrissy" to some people? And does Chrissy act differently than Christina?
Or Charlie, Steven… we are kindred spirits, I’ll bet. My whole life I have grown up with an ambivalence about my name. No one knew whether I was “Mike” or “Michael.” And consequently, I didn’t know either. I have secretly gotten quite a bit of amusement as I’ve listened to people of my own age group try to avoid making the choice between the two, by calling me “Mr. Stutzman,” “Stutzman,” or, even, rarely, “Mr. Man.” Would a rose called “Steve” or “Charles” smell as sweet?
Of course, I have no answers to these questions, but today this naming business got even weirder for me. Here at work, we have a dry-erase board in our kitchen/conference room and this week’s unspoken, unofficial project has been to write your name and the traditional meaning up there for the office to see.
I went around proclaiming to a few friends that I knew that my name means “He who is like God,” and that no matter how they tried, they shan’t come up with a cooler one than that. And my implication was that, maybe they ought to show me a little respect since I’m like God and all. After all, it’s right there in my name!
(And truly, there have been times in the past when I have literally thought to myself, “I need to try to start living up to my name a little better.)
Well, enter the fact-checker, Lauren. She says, (with a website up at her desk), “Um…this website makes it sound a little different than you said it.” This says it’s like a rhetorical question: ‘Who is like God?’ [Turns out that’s a pretty important question mark at the end.] For the assumption in the Hebrew mind: “no one.” No one is like God.
“Well, shit.” I said, like Dr. Evil in the first
Austin Powers movie.
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But the more I think about it, the more I like how those ancient Jewish folks thought. Some of my favorite stuff in the Bible is in the Old Testament, the wisdom literature, where G-d is mysterious at times and even belittles the ignorance of his creation. (By the way, anybody else think it’s cool how Jewish folks approach even the name of their creator with reverence and the fear of even writing it all the way out?)
Think of the end of Job. G-d says “Were you here when I made all of this? I created the earth and sky and heavens, the waters, and sea monsters. I don’t remember seeing you here…” That’s my own
very scholarly translation by sheer power of memory.
I’m not sure why I like it when humans are put in their place and we discover that our place isn’t as high up as we might have presumed or would have preferred. It’s like watching the First Place Apple Pie baker at the county fair finding out that there is a ribbon even better than the blue ribbon. Turns out there is a .5 or even a Zero place ribbon and it’s a most beautiful color, one like we’ve never even seen before!
All the sad baker can do at that point is sit on the stage and eat their apple pie in humble resignation.
After all, “Who is like God?”
I can live with my name.
