Exercise 6 is incomplete at the moment as the story struck me as deserving of expansion and some extra thought, but it may be worth a read for those interested in the writing process, which is, of course, one intended audience of this blog. Will update when more has been written, but for now, version one and two can be found below.
Exercise Six: The Old Woman
The assignment:
"This should run to a page or so; keep it short and not too
ambitious, because you're going to have to write the same story at least twice.
The subject is this: An old woman is washing the dishes, or gardening,
or editing a Ph.D. dissertation in mathematics, or... whatever you like, as she
thinks about an event that happened in her youth.
You're going to write this sketch by intercutting between the two
times. "Now" is the kitchen, the garden, the desk, whatever, and
"then" is what happened when she was young. Your narration will move
back and forth between "now" and "then." There should be at
least two of these moves or time-jumps.
Version One:
Choose a PERSON:
a) first person (I)
b) third person (her name/she)
Choose a TENSE:
a) all in past tense
b) all in present tense
c) "now" in present tense, "then" in past
tense
d) "now" in past tense, "then" in present
tense
Write the story. Label it - Person (a), Tenses (c) - or whichever
you chose.
Version Two: Now write the same story in the other person and a
different choice of tenses. (Label it.)
Don't strain to keep the wording of the two versions identical,
and please don't just go through it on a computer changing the pronoun and verb
endings. Write it over. Changing the person and tense will almost certainly
bring about some changes in the wording, the telling; and and these changes are
interesting.
Within one version, the verb tense may shift, but the person of
the verb can't. Stick with either "I" or "she" in Version
One. Then use the other person in Version Two.
Additional Option: If you want to go on and play with all four
tense options, do.
Another Additional Option: After you have done the exercise as
directed, if you want to change the person of the verb within one version
(using one person in "now", the other person in "then"),
try it.
Here are
Exercise Six, First Drafts of Versions One and Two:
Version One: First person; “now” in past, “then” in present
The steam rose from the bland broth (spices were too
expensive; surely the most basic was good enough for the hungry) and coated my
face with warmth. It was an appropriate job to have in this chill: cooking to
chase the frost away, and assisting those in need during this dire season
served to lighten the darker regions of one’s being.
I waved to the next person in line. He looked teenage,
pimples and awkward shuffle, appearance unbalanced overall. He was taller than
he felt, at least so it looked from the way he leaned into his step. Unless he
had some physical defect or injured leg.
He placed three bowls on the counter. I smiled but raised my
hand in a palm down of flat refusal gesture. I told him, more likely reminded
him of, the one bowl per customer rule. He smiled back and nodded but didn’t
remove the bowls.
“There’s me, there’s my family over there. That makes three
bowls.” He vaguely pointed behind him.
“Why not bring them up here to the front of the line? I’ll
serve you right after the next customer. I want to help, but we have to heed
this simple rule to make this work for all of us.”
“Right over there, the two of them, they’re tired, they
asked me to get the food and bring it to them. That’s all.”
“I’m sure it is, but…” I rolled my eyes. Did the damn rule
even matter? “Tell you what, boy, we’ll bring the soup back to them together,
make sure you don’t spill any, okay?” I had another volunteer cover me at the
counter while I left with the boy. He led the way through the crowded plaza,
carrying two bowls. I carried the third. I kept one eye on him. My son carrying
part of our picnic toward the festival stage had walked like that. That must be
why I had decided to bend the rules a slight bit for him.
Soft strings promise a performance as we thread through the
seated and standing audience, the drinking and sweaty onlookers. His father is
sitting near the front, waiting for us. My son looks at me, nervous, his
parents haven’t spent much time together for a while, and he had suggested this
picnic at a concert. I see the man nod politely at me then take the basket from
my son. He starts taking out the food, places it in the middle of the blanket
as we sit. We break out the drinks: the beer is smooth and imbued with spices.
Unfortunately, the vendor only handed us two. Or perhaps we merely forgot while
we chatted non-stop about all the time I had missed while away on research. My
son puts a hand on my shoulder, graciously returning to fetch another beer for
himself, while his parents enjoy what they have. I focus on the beer. Nothing
in particular I want to discuss with my ex-husband at the moment, and a second
musician is joining the stout woman with the classical guitar. A grizzly
flutist dances around a haunting melody and I lower my eyelids.
Just as the rest of the band enters the stage performance,
my ex-husband distracts me with his comment: what’s taking him so long? He
stands and walks off. The music is good but the beer suddenly tastes like piss
and the crowd feels oppressive. I stand and follow.
That’s how we manage to find our son before he bleeds out.
He lays there in the dirt, body jerking in spasms, bottle of beer spilled
beside his twitching outstretched hand. “How?” I ask. My ex shakes his head as
he scans the scene, leaning in close.
“Hey, you okay? I’ll take the bowl.”
The boy had his arms out, eyebrows arched. I saw the other
two bowls on the ground. They were his parents, obviously, I thought, and I
worried for them. The elderly father was trembling and used a finger to taste
the broth. The woman, much younger than the man but older than the boy, watched
me with bloodshot eyes, ignoring the full bowl placed before her. I wordlessly
gave the boy the bowl. He spooned some into his mouth, and then spooned some
into the woman’s mouth. When the food touched her lips, she moaned and accepted
the spoon. Her eyes didn’t seem to register my presence. Even so, they stared
ahead as she swallowed.
I settled myself and helped the father. The boy said nothing
for a time. They cleaned out their bowls, and then he spoke.
“More?” The boy had gathered the three bowls. I nodded and
went to fill the order. It felt like I’d done this so often that it was a
memory I relived between more tense moments of my broken life. A regular calm
between the storms. That boy had a name didn’t he? Sometimes I felt that we were
all losing our names. Each storm strike, another hundred names lost.
I walk to the vendor, a bartender of about the same age as
my son, and ask him, with noise to my voice before I sock it to him. My fists
have rings on them, rings I take off when I box of course, but I don’t think of
that, my son’s shaking and bloody due to this idiot, and my knuckles strike the
sides of his face with a lip-curling smack. I feel a sickening smile on my
face. He whimpers then growls. I scream at him. “Look at him! You poisoned him!
Answer me! Your name!” “Fucking bitch! Get off me!” “That’s my son you’re
answering for, you little prick,” and I throttle him as he clutches at my waist
pulling me against the counter. I cry in pain, but an angry pain that keeps me
fighting. And my ex-husband, claws me off him, telling me officers are arriving
and he’ll handle it. I push him off me.
“I’ll handle the officers. You find out what happened before
they arrive.” And I left him to it with a stab of my finger.
I halt the officers and I ask them their names. I go into
interrogation mode, throwing them off balance as I inquire into their ability
to properly perform their duties and demand to know what kind of officers would
allow innocent children to get beaten on the street, never directly approaching
the question of my son until I am sure my ex-husband had investigated the
incident well-enough on his own. I note him following a trail with the
suspicious bartender tugged along by hand; I note him returning with an
accomplished frown on his face, like when he’d won the argument that we
divorce, the argument I had started. “And now officers, you better tell me
you’re going to seek justice. There’s my son, lying broken on the street. And
you, waltzing around like you have all the time in the day to do so.” The men
scurry about. My ex nods curtly and whispers: our son’s got himself some rotten
enemies. I whisper back: and they’ve gotten themselves rottener enemies. My ex’s
eyebrow knots into an amusing tangle at that.
I gave a second helping to the boy and his struggling
family.
“Boy, what’s your name?”
“My name’s Caluid. Remember this time?”
“Your parents… are they alright?”
“They’re fine. I mean, they’re better with the food here.
But I wonder, maybe I should take your place. You seem… tired.”
“You are a good kid, aren’t you? But, I’d be exhausted
without this. At my age, everything makes you tired. This job makes me a lot
less tired than other things.”
“Well, miss, we’re grateful.”
“It’s Halvea. Mind if I join your family for a bit? You all
remind me of livelier times.”
“Sure, the extra company might help them. They’re not all
there these days – the food helps, but no friends left living now, and I’m only
around so much…”
I nodded, sat, and I told him what my son was doing.
Version Two: Third Person; now” in present, “then” in past
Halvea works hard. A cold spell hangs over the city, paired
with a sporadic downpour, threatening to bring on flood conditions, especially
dangerous in the poorer districts, exactly where the soup camp is located. Yet,
when her relatives beg her to stay put, relax, enjoy old age, she ignores them
and goes to work. She volunteered for this to help people. More than that, to
help herself. Sitting around brought on a dread that working did not. She stands
over the soup and the cold melts into warm puddles, those menacing regions of
existence are forgotten in the sparkles and shine of directly benefitting other
human beings.
An awkward teenage boy shuffles up in line. She studies him
and correctly deduces the limp in his walk is due to being uncomfortable with
his relatively new height. She signals rejection when she sees the pimply
scarecrow bears three bowels. But he assures her that his family is waiting on
him to deliver.
She warns him that the rules state that there shall only be one
person per bowl and that his family members will each have to individually come
forward with their own bowl. She feels like a tool saying it, but it’s true:
the rules help everyone benefit from this camp.
“They’re exhausted,” Halvea hears him say, and it gives her
pause. Not the pause of recognition – man, I’m tired, too – but a pause signifying
a reminder of the past.
Her son left to carry something for his parents once and it
failed, miserably, even if it was quite different than this boy fetching food
for the whole family scenario she handles for work, it was still a failure she
doesn’t want to see encouraged when that memory is stirring in the curling
shadows of her mind.
They went to the concert for a picnic at her son’s request.
She would’ve rather not have seen her ex ever again, but for her son, none of
those overly harsh feelings she prided herself on mattered. He was the warm
soup for her soul and she sipped from his cup of healing as requested.
It didn’t heal though. Not in the way Halvea would’ve liked.
It might have been how her son wanted it though. Self-effacing as his father
was, he must’ve felt some glowing sense of accomplishment at seeing his parents
sitting side-by-side like in his childhood. Halvea thought as much as she watched
band members warm up on stage, waiting for her son’s return, his father doing
the same. He had left to retrieve the missing third beer, leaving his parents
with theirs in the meantime. Nice ploy, she thought to herself. Hurry back, she
told him. Yeah, son, his father said, glancing at his mother.
The parents enjoy sips from their spicy beer, but they don’t
touch the food they’d laid out on the picnic blanket. They study the stage,
listen to the good music for a little while, and then they turned to each
other.
“Something’s taking him too long.”
His father walked in the direction the son had gone, and
Halvea ditched the beer and followed after. They found him in the midst of a
seizure. Beer is spilled and there are splotches of blood. The father leans in
for clues; the mother scans the area, suspicion weighing heavy on her.
