Revised: Cats

“It’s a shame,” says the woman who smells like too many cats, shaking her head at the kittens in the wire cage. “A real shame.”

She’s older, would be a housewife if she wasn’t working at the shelter every day. She would also probably have too many cats, too, because she’s just the kind of woman to find a kitten in the back yard and feed it until was too big to suit her tastes, no longer tiny and adorable, and it would just never leave, just like the twelve cats before it.

I sort of hum in agreement to her observation and dump the cat litter in the trash bin that never actually leaves the room, making the cat kennels perpetually smell like baking powder with an underlying hint of shit.  I lean back as the litter hits the bottom, but I can never avoid the belch of pure eau-de-cat that follows. It’s not enough of a deterrent to keep me from doing my job, but it’s enough that the shame of this particular litter of kittens is almost completely lost on me.

“A real shame,” she says again, looking at the kittens’ papers. “Abandoned on the side of the road, barely even weaned. Not even old enough to fix, yet. A real shame.”

I give a glance around at all of the other cats in the shelter, older but still good, still loving, and that is a shame. Some have been here for weeks, like Lily. She’s the definition of sweet, but she has traits people don’t want – black fur and a missing eye, surrounded by pink scars. She is only two years old and housetrained, but she was given up by owners thirteen days ago, and no one has wanted her, since.

I peek around Cat Lady’s shoulder to see the kittens she’s so emotional over. I’m not moved to tears, but I have to admit that there’s something pitiful about the little animals. They’re still exploring the metal boundaries of their hopefully temporary home with as much curiosity and wonder as they are capable of. One of them bats at a string hung from the top of the cage, and it’s cheap, but for them it’s like every hunting instinct they didn’t know they had has come bursting to fruition. The smallest, white kitten mewls with victory around a tiny cough.

All six kittens have upper respiratory infections, so they’re semi-confined in the back corner of kennel. For me, that’s the real shame – all the little black and white and tortoise shell kittens hidden away, coughing and mewling quietly for attention where no one would hear them.

Cat Lady shakes her head and starts making another circle around the room, and I replace the litter box I emptied into its kennel. I juggle the cat and the box for a moment as she takes the open grate as an invitation to leave, but they both end up in the cage in the end. I glance at the clipboard hanging from the corner of the gate, making sure she’s not still on any medications.

When she came to us, two weeks ago, Lily had been terrified, cowering, clearly overwhelmed by new smells and sounds. She’d padded around her new kennel with her ears low, sniffing here and there and ultimately curling up in the darkest corner she could find, face turned away from the iridescent lights.

“She’s a great cat,” the man of her old family had said. “She’s so gentle; she hasn’t a mean bone in her body. Best friends with the family dog, great with children. But she and our son don’t get along like we hoped.” Their eyes went to the scars around her empty eye socket, and then darted away. “I’m sure she’ll find a nice home,” he said. “She really is too sweet.”

Lily purrs and rubs her body against the bars in greeting, and I scratch along her back as she goes. I’ve volunteered at this shelter for two years, working for volunteer hours and scholarship credit, and of all the cats that have come and gone I’ve never seen one more friendly and trusting than her. Every day, people pass by her cage and read her bio, and every day she purrs and meows and dangles, docile, as arms unaccustomed to holding an animal cradle her close while the humans discuss if she’s worth her ruined eye. And every day, she’s put back in her crate and left behind, crying.

The door across the room opens, sending the out-of-season jingle bells that hang from the knob clanging as they slap against the wood. A man walks in, jeans and a sport-coat like he’s come straight from church, nose crinkling as he holds the door for his blonde, properly pressed wife and their pudgy, eight year old daughter. They all stay there a moment, lingering in the doorway and looking around the ten by twelve by ten room with metal cages lining the walls and living things meowing and yowling for their eyes until the little girl asks what they’re all thinking: “What’s that smell?”

Cat Lady shuffles over to help them choose a cat. I ignore the whole conversation as she begins asking the “important” questions: Do you have other pets? How much time do you spend at home? Do you want a boy or a girl cat?

These people don’t want a cat at all.

There’s always hair everywhere, so I gather up the broom and dust pan and start sweeping. Clumps of fur roll and drift in front of the broom’s strokes like cicada husks, and I look up to see the wife’s lip curl into a slight grimace. She glances at the floor at her feet and tries to make it look like she’s not nudging fur away from her little square of linoleum. Cat Lady doesn’t notice, and gestures to a playful black and white cat called Panda. The little girl starts to push her grubby fingers through the bars, and I lean on the broom to see what Panda will do. Whatever he’s thinking as he watches the wiggling little sausages, he doesn’t get a chance to act on it. The wife swiftly shakes her head and shuffles her daughter forward like a battering ram to get past the black fur and mess to what will hopefully be a cleaner spot.

There is no cleaner spot, but she’s welcome to shuffle her daughter the entire circumference of the room until she makes it back to the door and out Kitty City forever. The little girl keeps slowing her down and shoving her fingers into each cage, though, until one cat makes a swipe at her finger and her mother pulls her away from the crates with a gasp of outrage. They pause briefly at Lily’s cage, the woman not paying much attention as her daughter pokes at the cat’s paws without even looking at her face. Then they’re moving away again and Lily lies against the grate, welcoming more petting if it will come.

 The man follows behind his wife at a more sedate pace, pretending to look at each cat and give a cursory glance at each Kitty Cat Bio printed at the top of each sheet clipped to the kennels. He pauses at Lily, for a moment, looking closely at her papers.

“Honey,” he says, “how about this one? Short hair, house trained, great with kids. She sounds… oh.”

“What?” The woman is trying, unsuccessfully, to dislodge a clump of hair from the toe of her shoe without bending down.

“Never mind. She’s only got one eye.”

“Ew! I wanna see!”

The daughter tries to rush over, eager to gawk at the one-eyed freak cat, but her father catches her by the hand and drags her to the door. Eventually they’re all gone and Lily is pawing at the spot where the man had been standing, mewling.

“That’s a shame,” Cat Lady says, hands on her hips as she shakes her head. “They would have made a great home.”

No, they wouldn’t, I want to say to her. They would have hated a cat. The man with his wrinkled nose and the woman with her fear of hair and the little girl with no respect for claws or lost eyes would have hated any cat, even one as perfect for a family as Lily.

By the time I sweep my way around the room, the dust bin is full and there’s more hair on the floor where I started. One of the cats has knocked its food dish over, too, and the kibble crunches under my feet. I sweep that up, too, and call the task done. A cursory glance around the room makes me smile. Cat Lady has finally stepped out for her afternoon smoke and left me to brush the cats.

It’s a long task, brushing each cat – head to tail, they’re nothing but loose fur and over-friendly claws – but most of them know the drill and are just content to drape themselves over my arm and shoulder. I take Lily from her cage and sit on the only stool in the room, brushing her short fur slowly, gently. Lily settles down and her chest starts thrumming. This is what those people wanted: a purring lap animal. Except there’s still so much hair everywhere that I’m sure the wife would have had a conniption no matter how much she wanted to add an iconic purr to her pretty, pressed home.

The door opens, again, and Lily makes to jump from my arms, so I carefully aim her back at her cage and close the gate behind her. There’s a boy standing there looking lost and more than a little nervous, a crumpled wad of cash in his hand. He can’t be older than fourteen.

“Are you looking for a cat?”

His eyes dart to the left. “Yeah.”

“Do you have any other pets or small children?”

“I… yeah, we have a dog. And I have a little sister,” he says. He fidgets as I start moving around the kennels, checking the pages of each cat. “She’s six. That’s why we’re getting another cat, actually. We had one. Her name was Fluffy. My other sister named her when she was little, before I was born, and she died last month. Fluffy, not my sister. Our dog’s been moping ever since, and she sometimes doesn’t eat anymore –”

“Mmhm,” I say, and it’s Lily’s papers that I stop at. Her owners apparently had small children and two dogs, and the cat had no problems. “Are you okay with a girl cat?”

The boy sidles up to me, looking into Lily’s cage. He smiles. “Yeah. This one looks perfect.”

Lily meows adorably, right on cue, and I can’t keep from chuckling at the way the boy pokes his finger between the bars to scratch her ear. She purrs and walks along the grate, ears and tail flicking, happy to just be-

There’s a flash of black and white, and the boy shouts, snapping his hand back. There’s blood dripping down from two long cuts on the back of his hand. Lily is snarling and hissing, her one eye locked on the boy’s face hackles raised, legs stiff. I take a step back, pull him along as well. She’s never done anything like this before.

“We should wash this,” I say, and my voice is shaking. I lead him to the back sink and clean and bandage him up. He fidgets nervously then notices the kittens in the corner. They cough and mew at him as he stands over them. I tell him none of them will be ready to take home for a few more days. He says he’ll ask his mom if they can come back for the big tortoise shell.

Without another glance at Lily, or any other animals, he leaves.

Revised: Leaving

I’m not leaving because I’m a bad person. I’m not. I hold doors for the elderly and I help pregnant women carry their groceries and I’m nice to animals. But I’m not leaving because she’s a bad person, either. She’s a wonderful person – smart, funny, kind, and great at video games. She’s pretty, too; the pout of her lips and the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles make her face inviting.

But I’m not a lesbian.

I tried, for her, I guess. I mean, I hadn’t ever met a guy I was interested in, so I gave it a shot. We dated, held hands, kissed and went to movies. And when she came out to all of our friends, I was right there next to her, declaring myself to be bisexual and proud. And I was. Proud, I mean, not bisexual.

Shit.

Okay.

We met in elementary school, in second grade. A new school building opened that year, and new zones were put in place, a new teacher told us all to get to know each other and Voila! Katherine and I were BFFs Forever and Always (I know, I know, but that’s what’s in the yearbook my mother bought me so long ago).

I was a shortish, pudgy thing with unruly red hair and two buck teeth. She was blonde with pigtails, glasses, and overalls with pink buttons. I still remember, because I wanted my mom to buy me overalls with purple buttons to kind of match hers. I never got them, but Kathrine and I got matching Barbie backpacks instead.

We did everything together. We had tea parties in the park, painted our nails, and had our exclusive little birthday slumber parties. Time passed, and we got more friends, of course, but nothing compared to the two of us. By fifth grade, people were jokingly referring to us as the same person – Beth-Kat – because we were ‘joined at the hip,’ as her mom would say.

In sixth grade, nothing really changed. Boys were cuter, I guess, but Kat and I made a pact to put each other first. No stupid boy was going to destroy our friendship.

“Promise?”

She was really earnest, narrowing her eyes in a way that she thought made her look serious, but reminded me of my aunt’s poodle when you blew in his face.

“Yeah, yeah, Kit-Kat. I already told you so.”

“Well, yeah, but we should promise to not care about boys, like, at all,” she pressed, leaning close and hissing like this was some all-important swear.

“Well, sure, that’s cool,” I’d said, and I picked up the Nintendo 64 controller, because she was seriously delaying the game and I was winning for once.

“Promise.”

“Geez, Kathrine, I said okay! That’s stupid anyways. What about getting married some day? I thought you really wanted that.”

“Oh please, Bethy, like I’d want to marry some dumb boy. I’d rather marry you.”

I’m pretty sure she was making fun of me, or something, but then she pushed the start button, and I had to concentrate if I wanted to win this round. I didn’t, but I maintain to this day that it’s because Kirby is a crappy character to play.

Looking back, that probably should have set off some sort of warning flag or something. But it didn’t, because she was my best friend. Besides, she’d been talking about a boy named Collin James – a greasy, creepy monster whose only delight in life from second grade to fifth was to follow us around and throw dead worms at the back of our heads. I couldn’t imagine marrying him or any other boy back then, either.

Sometime in the next year, though I can’t remember when (it was a Friday, I think), she told me she thought she might be…

“G-A-Y,” she whispered in the dark of my bedroom.

We were both completely beneath the blanket, facing each other, knees touching, faces close together so we could sort-of make out each other’s features, if we squinted. She’d asked if she could sleep over the Monday before, then spent the entire week quiet and trying to avoid me. It had been obvious that something was up. But this? Being… gay? That was big.

“Are you… like, are you for sure?” I’d whispered back. “Like, completely serious, no bullshit?”

“You shouldn’t cuss.”

“You just told me you’re gay. I think I can cuss this one time.”

“That’s dumb.”

“What’s dumb is my best friend telling me I’m dumb for cussing when she just told me she was gay. That’s dumb.”

She sighed, and I could hear her fidgeting with her fingers against the bed sheet. I saw one of her hands come up to pick at her face, something she did when she was nervous. Her mom hated it.

“What… what if I am, though? I don’t… I don’t want to go to hell.”

“So… don’t be gay?”

“I don’t want to be gay, retard. It just kind of happened.”

“Okay, so it’s not your fault, then, right?”

“You think so?”

“Sure. I mean, we’re still cool, right? Like, you’re not gonna quit hanging out with me and spend all your time with Ashley and those other… lesbians, right?”

“Totally cool, I promise.”

And that was that.

Until it wasn’t that, anymore.

Two years later, Kat leaned in for a kiss, and I didn’t jump away. We were in the same position, but in her bed this time.  She leaned in, and planted one on me and I was so shocked I had no idea what to do so I laid there and let her press her lips against mine.

That was not my first kiss, but it was my first kiss with a girl, so I guess it counts, sort of. When it was over, I inched away and turned my back. I wasn’t interested. I wasn’t a lesbian. But I didn’t get up and leave because this was Kat. She was still my best friend.

We spent an awkward month and a half not talking about it.

After enough broken eye contact and nervous smiles, her mom called mine to ask what was going on with us. We both made up wildly different stories to tell our parents. I told my dad she was busy with school work, since she was always struggling with her algebra. She told hers that I had adopted a stray kitten that died of worms and hadn’t recovered. 

Her drama made me laugh, even though my parents wanted me tested for parasites. When I confronted her about it the next morning at school, barely able to speak through tears of laughter, she couldn’t help chuckling along. And so, we went back to being best friends, like nothing had happened – except she reached out and held my hand on the bus back home from school. She pointed out that I was never interested in guys at our school, whispered in hushed tones in the back of the bus, and asked if I’d never considered girls. I walked over to her house with her and let her kiss me in her room, again. It wasn’t that bad, and by the end of the night she convinced me to agree that we were Girlfriends, instead of just Girl Friends.

We came out our senior year, and it was anticlimactic at best. No one threw bibles and other than a few “No way, you mean they’re lesbians?” no one cared that we were, in fact, lesbians. A few of our mutual friends, girls we had classes with, weren’t shocked in the least. The one outwardly gay boy in our graduating class threw glitter in the air over us at our graduation.

Then we went to community college, where being gay meant small town activism in the form of flyers and poetry slams and rainbow pendants. The LGBT student community was just as vocal as any environmentalist/pro-life/pro-choice/anti-hunger group on campus, and the efforts felt great, important. Kat and I shared the work and helped put on some of the best flyer campaigns that campus had ever seen. We were the local lesbian poster couple.

And then…

Kathrine said she wanted to get physical, like, for real. We’d been together for four years, and she loved me. And Lord knew I loved her as much as I could. Still do. But we’d never gone beyond kissing at our drunkest, because I just wasn’t comfortable with it. It felt wrong, and her hands on my breasts and hips and between my thighs just made my skin prickle. Maybe it was just because I was never in whatever zone she was in – that romance novel, heaving bosom, breathless passion that seemed to be the goal of all.

Generally, I just felt too hot, like she was smothering me.

I knew, deep down, that it hurt her. She sometimes told me, usually when she was high, that she didn’t feel attractive. She’d put on weight in high school, where I’d only gotten thinner after puberty started. Mild acne and glasses made her feel nerdy and uncool. To me, she just looked like Kat, beautiful and sweet. I just… didn’t want to have sex.

“So you don’t love me?”

She put her hands on her hips, and used that reverse psychology bullshit she’d picked up in a basic psychology class. She was always being manipulative that way, like she didn’t think I could tell she was doing it, like I was stupid.

“You know I do.”

“So what? I’m ugly? You’re really straight?”

“How about ‘I’m just not comfortable with this and I’m exercising my right to say no’? How ‘bout that?”

“That is so typical you,” she hissed, throwing her arms up and stomping around. “Always trying to make me look like the bad guy!”

I barely kept myself from blurting ‘Girl’ like some of our more flamboyant friends are wont to do. “I can’t help how I feel. I love you, but this isn’t –”

“So what, you don’t have a sex drive? You think just because you’re a woman –”

The rest is more bullshit.

But that got me thinking. The part about not having a sex drive, not the woman part. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The more I looked back at those important pubescent years with the boys and the girls and the magical fucking changes, I realized that the changes didn’t happen for me. Boys were still boys, and girls were still girls, and Kathrine was still Kat, and I was still…

I tried to explain it to her, some friends, and, eventually, a counselor. The one with the degree in understanding people was the only one who thought I knew what I was talking about.

“From what you’ve told me, it would seem that you’re asexual, Bethany,” he said, glancing at me over his glasses. How cheesy is that? “It’s not a crime, and it doesn’t make you any less of a person. You should talk to your partner and see if you can work through it.”

“How do I work through not having a sex drive? How do I tell my girlfriend ‘Hey, sweetie, guess what? We’ll never have sex!’ like it’s no big deal?” I admit I might have been a bit hysterical.

“I never said it wasn’t a ‘big deal’,” the doctor explained, and he was the picture of calm. “I said it’s not a crime. Sexuality is different for everyone. What you have to do now is work to make it work in your life and your relationship.”

I spent the last twenty minutes of my therapy session switching between crying, swearing, and asking questions. There were some resources available, little online pamphlets and books written by learned psychiatrists. I took a couple home and gave them a read between literature assignments.

I started to spend a lot of time in chat rooms and “Ace Online Communities” where I could find them. It was more of the same of what the doctor told me, except it was coming from people living genuinely happy lives with partners who were either the same or just plain understood. I wanted that with Kat, so I paid attention, asked more questions, and prepared to share a large part of myself with the woman I loved.

We were lying on the bed in her apartment, cuddled close together, with my head on her shoulder. She had her arm around me, and we’d been watching The Little Mermaid.

“Kat,” I said. “I think… I’m asexual.” And I explained it the best I could.

She didn’t believe me, so I brought Kat to see the Doctor.

“She’s asexual, Kathrine. It’s not a crime, and” the rest of the spiel.

After hours of talking and shouting and silence, she said she understood. She said she wouldn’t pressure me anymore. But things only got worse as she promised to help me change. She wanted to be physical, light the fires or something similar. She wanted to express our love and had no idea how I could not want sex. Obviously, she thought, there was something wrong. So, together, we would fix it.

A week later, she told me we’d go to the local sex shop and see if we couldn’t find something to help me – some pill or toy or video that would make me… less of myself and more of what she wanted. I didn’t want to, and said so.

“So what? You won’t try for me? Why are you being so selfish?”

“I can’t change who I am, Kathrine.”

And that was when I realized that I really can’t change. I can’t make her happy, no more than she can make me happy. So, I’m leaving. It’s not because I’m a bad person, because I’m not. And neither is she.

But I’m not gay.

And I’m not straight.

I just am. 

"Spanish Moss" by Ethan Hightower

In Ethan Hightower's "Spanish Moss," the narrator is a young man about to enter high school, dealing with the pressures of growing up. He and his friends, Blake and Tommy, are in a rush to prove themselves "experienced," grown up and mature, before they are freshmen, though none of them are entirely comfortable with the way they decide to suddenly grow up. The three have a lot of internal conflicts, and then are confronted by an external conflict that forces them to understand that their desire to grow up doesn't matter very much in the grand scheme of things. (What are words?)

The title ties in well to the story. The piece opens with Spanish moss and closes the same way, and it adds a sense of finality to the story, so the reader feels no ambiguity to if the story is finished or not. The way that Hightower conveyed the emotions of all three characters, though the piece was in first person, was very strong. As a reader, it was easy for me to tell that Blake was nervous about everything and Tommy wanted to put up a facade of cool. None of them were comfortable, and it showed. The imagery in the piece was also wonderful - I could see the forest, the creek, and the Spanish moss. I could tell that the body in the bag was a small child's without having it explained in detail. Very well done.

It's obvious that the three characters are at least upper middle class, but I wanted to see more detail of that. Trig's parents were doctors, and Blake's father was a lawyer, but how did that translate into their lives as far as material value? Tommy's allowance goes to one joint, but how much is that? I got the idea that these boys were sheltered and soft, but I wanted to see more.

"A Dream" by J.J. Nelson

J.J. Nelson's "A Dream" is about a man struggling to find meaning in his life. He dreams of his life before some undisclosed event, and also dreams of drowning. His life, he finds, is going no where and that dissatisfies him. The conflict in Gabriel's life is internal; he doesn't know how to interact with the people he is surrounded by or express himself. He doesn't relate to the younger college generation.

 I thought the imagery was done very well. In the opening dream, it was easy to see the scenes play out over the dark water, and it was easy to tell these were visions and not entirely separated from the situation. The description of the gravity bong was also very good -- I could see what was happening and what it looked like though I have no experience with it. I thought that keeping the characters of Win and Tori as flat as they were was also a strong point in the story. It helped establish a "Me v. Them" theme for the reader and also was a good illustration of how the narrator did not relate to either of them on any level but the physical high.

Reading this, I wanted to know what had happened two years before that had such a profound effect on Gabriel. There's so much build up on it, but we never get to see what it is, and it leaves the reader unsatisfied. I thought, with the flashback at the end, that you would expand on what was so awful that Gabriel was still affected by it, but the big reveal never came. The reveal would also, I believe, benefit from the reader understanding more about the mysterious girl that Gabriel thinks about enough to motivate him to write again, after being in a creative slump. Who was she in relation to him? How did he lose her? These questions were posed in my head, but I never received an explanation.

"As Big as Light" by Robert Mort

The piece "As Big as Light" by Robert Mort seems to be about Adrian Huxley, a young man trying to follow his heart while his mother was suffering from a terminal illness. The story is told from the view of Dean Overstreet, caretaker of the Huxley's estate, and centers around a conversation Dean and Adrian have after the young man has had a fight with his alcoholic father. The conflict is that when Adrian calls out to Dean, looking for comfort, he also refuses to accept it - Dean's well intended words are met with a wall. But Dean refuses to be disregarded in that way, and Adrian is forced to face and speak about his own feelings. The two of them find comfort in a memory Adrian has of a time when he was young and his mother was well and reassured him.

The emotion in this piece was very well done, and not too heavy handed. The reader was able to access both Dean and Adrian on an emotional level through their actions, expressions, and words. The opening was also very well done, in my opinion; the opening before the actual story only took about a page an a half and didn't detract from the story. Instead, the reader was made to care about the narrator and drawn into the story. Likewise, details about the fight Adrian had with his father, without seeing the fight directly, was a great way of summary and didn't draw out the scene too long.

As a reader, I would have liked to know more about Adrian's mother. We see that she had a close relationship with her son when she was well, but what does Dean think of her? We get a sense that Dean wasn't particularly approving of Mr. Huxley's treatment of his son, but there's so little emotion in this memory that we get to see. Occasionally, he breaks in with narration to remind the reader that the scene happened a long time ago, but everything he tells us is matter-of-fact. Why is Dean Overstreet so detached from one of the few clear memories he has?

"Dreams and Reality" by Lauren Barkley

The piece "Dreams and Reality," by Lauren Barkley, is about a young man named Luke with Big Dreams. He looks to live out the Rags to Riches American Story, rising from what he considers to be a nothing family of dairy farmers to a college baseball player to a lawyer, leaving behind his family's business and cows forever. The conflict comes, however, when his father wants him to stay and take over the relatively successful farm and have a stable livelihood. Tension rises between the two, until Luke leaves without telling his parents to tryout for the University of Mississippi baseball team. Luke is forced to realize, however, that dreams don't come true just because you want them.

The subject matter of this piece was strong and interesting. The American Dream is something that is accessible to many readers on an emotional level and is, therefore, something that can hold the readers' attention. The  point of view is also strong, I think. Third person limited works well to establish Luke as a character that could really be anyone - this is a shared dream by many. The dialogue and emotions that are conveyed between Luke and his father are also well done. There is tension in the beginning, at the top of the second page as Luke tells his father that he doesn't want to be "in the middle of nowhere being a nobody," without having to take pages to  establish that relationship. And at the end, when his father hugs him, the emotion is strong again.

I believe adding to the story would make it stronger. Though the reader gets a sense of the tension between Luke and his dad, I think playing up the fights caused by Luke's desire to leave, as well as a look at their relationship from before this burning ambition rose, would make the emotional stakes higher. Also, I think that emphasizing that he is a somebody in his little town would add another dimension to the story by bringing to focus the difference between the small town popularity Luke has and the "big city" dreams that he has.

"Aveux" by Taylor Hardy

Taylor Hardy's piece, "Aveux," is about a man who has lost his wife and is struggling to remain strong, emotionally, for his daughter, Amelia. After Becca's suicide, he has been a wreck, but he tries to cope - albeit in ways that are not healthy for him or those around him. When the woman he is having an affair with commits suicide with his gun, the conflict of truly dealing with his emotional issues comes to the fore front of his life. In the end, he finally finds some sort of faith in God, which he had lost following his wife's suicide, through the strength of his daughter as they leave their old life to start anew.

The story's point of view works well for the subject matter. First person perspectives like this one make it easy relate to the character and get in the narrator's head. For this type of subject matter, especially (suppression of emotion and using logic to counter "weakness") I think the choice to tell the story with this point of view was a sound one. The pace of this piece was also not too slow. The story begins by pulling the reader in, and then everything flows. When the narrator is arrested, the pace quickens and, likewise, when the trial is over, the pace slows again.

I thought the dialogue between Erica and the narrator was a little stilted. Both are, I assume, at least upper middle class, and, as lawyers, they are sure to have extensive vocabularies; however, I felt the words didn't flow properly for the subject matter. As a reader, I felt that the tone - at least on her part - was supposed to be raw and passionate but I kept being distracted by phrases like "I refuse to leave you in your time of need" and "...will not let themselves attain..." I think bringing the language down, just a bit, would do wonders to heighten the emotional stakes of this conversation.

"Casting Shadows" by Jeremy Hare

Jeremy Hare's piece, "Casting Shadows," is about a girl who has died and struggles with her lack of choices even after death. Living, she was a very passive individual, and dead, very little has changed. The conflict arises when she realizes just how much her free will has been violated - she was killed and forced to become a "death god" against her own wishes - and she must fight to make her own decision. In the end, she wanted a normal life, but, failing to regain this, she chooses instead a "normal" death.

The subject matter was interesting and the imagery (especially as it pertained to setting) was strong in this piece. It was easy to see where everything was taking place. The eerie whiteness of everything in "Sanctuary" was conveyed to the reader well. The reader could also be drawn into the story easily due to the unique subject matter. Though death stories are not too uncommon, this particular story is unique to our class, and, therefore, Hare's Audience.

To make the piece stronger, I would advise Hare to move the fire scene in the early part of the story to the very beginning - it would draw the reader in much more than "the girl woke up in the hospital." As a reader, it took me a long time to feel engaged in the story, as well as form a connection to the narrator. Another way to make the story stronger, in my opinion, would be to focus more on the barely mentioned characters (the person Kain was talking to when the narrator found out she was killed, and the girl with cat ears in the living world, for instance) instead of leaving them to the wayside. They needed to interact with the narrator in some way. Otherwise, why mention them?

"Whatever Gods May Be" by Kody Blackwell

Kody Blackwell's "Whatever Gods May Be" is the story of a man, Thomas Abrams, appointed to lead a congregation after the previous pastor steps down. The conflict arises as he studies the Bible more and begins to lose his faith following his wife's announcement that they are expecting a baby. Though Abrams chose to take the job as pastor, by the end of the piece, he cannot deal with preaching something he does not truly believe in and leaves the church.

The plot of this piece is very interesting, as well as the setting. We haven't seen a piece yet that deals with the faith of a church leader, and I think that setting the story in a non-urban area emphasized the importance of the church in the lives of those in the congregation. The character of Thomas Abrams was also very strong - he had a past, and was a character I found easy to connect to. His struggle with is faith had a discernible cause and steady progression. I also found the tactful use of imagery when the Abrams were "having relations" to result in the pregnancy to be very good - it's very easy to be cliched or tactless when writing something inexplicit.

The story seemed to rely heavily on Abrams' study of the Bible, and I think that placing more of an emphasis on the things he studies as well as his reactions to them would make the piece stronger. I would also advise showing more of Bethany's pregnancy - his concerns as a father-to-be are what start him questioning his faith and the stories in the Bible, so it would make sense that her pregnancy could be used to mark time or remind the reader of how everything began. I would also like to know more about Mrs. Johnson, the grandmother in the nursing home. Abrams goes to her for advice about being a new father, but we never find out why. Is it just because she's old and has raised her own children? Even if so, I'd like to know.

"Untitled" by Jessica Mullino

Jessica Mullino's story, "Untitled," is about a young woman, Andy, who needs to write a story with a fast-approaching deadline. She is aware that she needs to finish her story for class at noon, but she feels uninspired and unable to write. Her conflict is that she finds other things to occupy her time and attention instead of her assignment, from idle thoughts to groceries to television. Though she stays up all night to finish, she writes the story in the last sixty minutes she has.

The description of the procrastination-to-panic mood that plagues students everywhere was very well done. Andy's struggle and means of putting off her work are things that are easy for a reader to relate to. Particular to readers who are also writers, the details of trying to create a story and characters on the spot are particularly easy to relate to. The use of time stamps, such as "11:23 PM" to separate different sections from one another was also a great way of conveying a sense of time without drawing out the story with meaningless details and clutter.

This story was a good comedy piece, to me, but there didn't seem to be a climax. The tension rose a little bit as the piece moved on, but I didn't feel there was any point of the story where the tension broke into something really important. Instead, we seemed to skip over the climax and right into the end of the story (there's also no time stamp here, which confused me as a reader and jostled me from the story). Another thing that might make this story stronger would be to switch the point of view to first person. Though third person limited can be a good medium and works fine, I think that, for conveying a feeling of panic and distress as well as the calm "I have plenty of time" mood of procrastination, first person in Andy's point of view would be stronger. I think that fleshing out characters mentioned, such as Andy's visiting friend and "high maintenance" room mate would add dimension to the piece. As a reader, I want to know why the friend is visiting and what makes the room mate so high maintenance and not just whiny.

"Secret Park" by Cole Eady

Cole Eady's "Secret Park" is about a man looking to get his body to a more fit state. His two friends from high school have kept themselves healthy and fit, and are willing to help him, but the narrator feels inadequate in comparison to them. The apparent conflict is, therefore, the narrator's struggle with exercises he thinks are simple and the eyes of the people around him watching him fail. The real conflict, however, is something that the narrator isn't even aware of and creates an interesting story arc.

The attention to detail in this piece is very good. I, as a reader, was able to understand the narrator's distress while comparing his life to those of his old high school friends - body and lifestyle wise. Particular details, such as the fact that James arrives in a Mercedes Benz and is a doctor, show that the narrator associates having a fit, well muscled, and ideal body with being successful in a monetary sense. It's also easy to see that the narrator considers Sean and James to be living seemingly perfect lives - it never occurs to him that something like an allergic reaction can take down a man like James, who seems to have everything. Other details, such as those describing the setting of the Secret Park, make the story very strong. It's easy to see exactly where the story is taking place, but Cole used minimal exposition. We catch glimpses of the lives surrounding the main story, preventing the piece from feeling isolated from the world.

One thing that would make the story stronger, I think, would be to have more detail about Sean. James has a nice car and a job as a doctor, but the reader never finds out about Sean's "perfect life." The set up of these two strong, healthy men is a large part of the story, so setting up Sean as a strong character is important. As a reader, I also would like to know about what happened after James went into anaphylactic shock. Did the narrator go to see him in the hospital? Did James live? What is he allergic to? The climax of the story seems to be when James has his episode, and I'd like to see this climax reach a resolution.

Response to "Once in a Lifetime" by Jhumpa Lahiri

The short story "Once in a Lifetime" is the story of a young girl and her experience as her home is invaded by near strangers. She does not understand them or why they are in her house, and barely remembers them from childhood. She is addressing the reader as "You," referring to the 16 year old son of Dr. Choudhuri and his wife. The story seems to be a simple case of one family taking advantage of another - the Choudhuri's are spoiled compared to Heme's family. They are rich and have no problems with spending their money on frivolous things, yet they take up space in Heme's house, eat their food, and continuously don't help out with any kind of household chores. But then the "You" character (I cannot, for the life of me, remember his name) explains to Heme that his mother has cancer - she only has about a year to live.

The "you" aspect of this story was very interesting to me. The story wasn't "second person," but instead was a third person limited view focused on Heme's experience. Though she said "you" throughout the piece, the story was about her and her experiences, not the intended reader. It's an interesting dynamic that I don't think would have been conveyed if the story had just been a traditional third person telling. Another interesting aspect was the juxtaposition of Heme's family and the Choudhuri's in terms of their "American-ness." Heme's family "stuck it out" as immigrants and kept to the old ways, while You's family returned to India and became more American.

I thought this was a very interesting story, especially with Heme's change from hate to infatuation. I think that maybe the story might have been enhanced by emphasizing the infatuation a bit. We hear a lot about Heme's feelings about everything in the beginning, but by the middle, I didn't really know Heme's character at all. Was that the point?

"Meow" by Cary Bayless

In Cary Bayless' "Meow," the narrator, Cyril, is a mentally challenged young man looking for connection. He has three friends - Earl, the owner of the Captain D's down the road, Cyril's father, and Jimmy-Cat, a stray living behind the Captain D's. The overarching conflict is Cyril's lack of understanding about social interactions and the world and manifests itself in two separate instances. The first is when Cyril breaks into Kelly's room and reads her diary - we hear Annie, another girl, talking about how she and Kelly are getting the locks changed and she shouts at him that he can't keep breaking in, implying that Cyril has broken in many times before. Later, Cyril panics when he sees Jimmy-Cat and her new litter of kittens - the blood and smell scares him enough that, without prompting, he cannot understand what he is seeing. But understanding comes when Earl gently shows him what he didn't see before.

The voice of the narrator was well written. It was easy as a reader to understand Cyril's character and sympathize with him. The detail, as well as syntax, made the mood of the narrator easy to identify without coming right out and naming the emotion. In the last conflict, when Cyril finds Jimmy-Cat, I was very impressed with the way the kittens were first described. I'm not sure that Bayless meant to do this, but when Cyril described the scene with so little detail about the "white things" that were "eating [Jimmy-Cat's] stomach," I, as a reader, was confused and disgusted as well. My first thought was that the cat had died and was covered in maggots - something I can understand; Cyril has no idea what he is seeing, making it just as upsetting.

I think that the story could be enhanced if Cyril's father made an appearance. The reader hears through the characters that the man is important, but he never shows up at any point. Kelly never appears either. Another part of the story that seemed a bit off to me was the two very separate conflicts. The conflict with Annie and the diary does not tie in with the rest of the story, or the title, yet it opens the story and takes up half of the text. I think that incident can be cut down and the scene with Jimmy-Cat can be extended.

"Perfect" by Laurel Kostakis

Laurel Kostakis' "Perfect" is the story of a young woman who changed herself upon entering college, and not for the better as she would assume. Her personality in high school, the reader is led to believe, was meek, school focused, practical, and friendly; she changes herself to be what she believes is beautiful and enticing. The  overarching conflict of the story is that she cannot make connections with anyone anymore. Carly, her "best friend," wants nothing to do with her, and neither do any of the boys she flirts with.

The third person limited perspective of this piece works well. I'd say that it was better than using third person omniscient or even first person. The details the readers are privy to with this point of view keep the story going around this character who is so essentially unlikable. The unnamed narrator's character - shallow, oblivious, and  all together unpleasant - also gives the story an interesting dimension. It's easy to write a main character that the reader can relate to and like, but a more interesting perspective to see the reactions of those likable characters to a less personable character from the outside.

I think a good enhancement to the story would be to give us more background on the narrator's past - her mother and sister, her relationship with them and her father, for example. I would also like to know more about Darcy and how the two of them became friends. Another thing I would like to see explained/reworked is the narrator's lack of emotional depth. She hasn't always been shallow and vapid, so how can she just disregard her family and old friends without feeling any kind of remorse? Her character is too one dimensional to hold the reader's attention. To counter this without changing the narrator, I think more detail could go into the interactions between the narrator and those surrounding her, especially focusing on the reactions of the other characters to her.

With the formatting, I don't really know how I feel about the italics. In many instances where they were used, I was pulled out of the story. Italics are usually (in my experience) used in a first person thought bubble, and having them be third person like the rest of the story made me regard the story as a text instead of a story in and of itself.

David Foster Wallace - "Incarnations of Burned Children"

"Incarnations of Burned Children," by David Foster Wallace, is moving in a way that makes the reader's stomach clench and roll. The subject matter itself is mentally interesting and unique -- there are not many stories that one would read on a regular basis where the biggest, most obvious conflict is the physical pain of a child. At the same time, the story is about states of being and change; the Daddy changes from relaxed to panicked control, the mother from hysterics to helpful urgency. Most of all, there is a change in the state of the child from trusting and hopeful to disenchanted with life, even as early as toddler-hood.

The concrete imagery and syntax was very interesting to read in this piece. The simple diction and run on sentence structure pulls the reader along, creating a sense of urgency that the reader cannot pull out of and then come back to with ease. The story is written in such a way that it must be followed from beginning to end to be understood properly and to catch all details (this style also lends itself to the brevity of the piece). The persistent image of the door of the tenant and the bird on the tree outside also helped to foster a sense of panic within the story -- the human mind, like the eye, rarely ever rests on one thing for an extended period of time; there is a constant shifting and taking in of (seemingly irrelevant) information about what is going on around us, even in a state of emotional upheaval.

I would like to emulate this method of conveying emotion. There is very little "telling" in this piece about the emotional states of the characters, and a lot of "showing" through setting, background and flashback, as well as the actions of the characters.

"For the Love of the Game" by Jessica Mullino

Jessica Mullino's "For the Love of the Game" is a story about a young woman who wants to meet the father who was never in her life. The major conflict of the story comes when she attends a baseball game in order to try to meet him, but doesn't see him during the game or after. The conflict is quickly resolved, however, when the narrator finds a note from her father on her car, promising to meet in the near future.

The detail and imagery in this piece was very strong, especially in the opening scene with the baseball game. The level of attention to little pieces of imagery, such as the way the red dirt clung to the umpire's clothes, the hole in Joel Johnson's shoe, and the way the scouts sat behind home plate with their "guns" and their expectations all worked together to set up the scene and mood. There was no need to tell the reader what was going on, because there was enough detail to show  what was important instead.

There were a few inconsistencies that I thought could be fixed to make the story stronger. First, how did the narrator's mother get in contact with Johnson to let him know that Lindsey was coming? The note Johnson left his daughter suggest familiarity with Lindsey's mother; sure they had been in a relationship at one point, but that had been sixteen years prior. If she was in contact with him while their daughter was growing up, would he not have come to meet her at some point? He said that he loved her without knowing her, so I feel like he would have at least wanted to see his child at some point during her life. Another thing I thought was inconsistent was the fact that Lindsey didn't know that Johnson's shoulder was bad -- she watches an old tape of her father almost religiously, and plays softball herself. If she was going to make an effort to see him, I feel like Lindsey would have done her research and known her father wasn't playing due to his "situation."

"Losing Sincerity" by Taylor Hardy

Taylor Hardy's piece, "Losing Serenity" is about a young event supervisor who is faced with a nightmare situation of a concert. He wants to make the entire event run smoothly and is willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. There seem to be two external conflicts: the concert situation turns out to be worse than the narrator, Brad, had anticipated and his new girlfriend and supervisee finds his business manner to be cold and aloof.

I found the subject matter of this piece to be interesting, as well as the combination of external conflict. In real life, conflicts rarely ever turn up in single file. I found the way Hardy made the two conflicts intertwine to give credit to the piece.

I think something that would make the piece stronger would be a bit more attention to syntax. I was very aware that I was reading a story -- sometimes the dialogue seemed stilted because contractions were not utilized. Another thing that would help the story along is more detail. For example, at one point the staff "started to panic." What does that mean? How does the narrator know that they are panicking, and how does he calm them down? The reader is also told that Brad is cold and business like at work before we get any evidence of it. I think that cutting that out and showing the narrator's work personality instead would enhance the conflict between he and Alyson.

Something else that would enhance the story, in my opinion, would be to flesh out the characters that are introduced. Stephen is supposed to be a slacker, but all we as readers see is that he wants to take off early and hates his job. The narrator apparently hates his job, too, and sends everyone home instead of polishing silverware -- does that make him lazy? The reader is also told that Connor is the narrator's best friend at work, but we don't get much in the way of proof besides the little bit of comfort he tries to give Brad after overhearing Alyson commenting on his business manner.

"The Grind" by Cole Eady

Cole Eady's "The Grind" is about a young man who tries to find work as a writer. He doesn't really want to be a writer (I'm not entirely sure what he wants, truly), but it's something he finds himself to be good at and is content to find a career in it. The conflict comes when the job he finds completely conflicts with his sense of art and idealism.

Something that worked well, I think, was the detail throughout the piece. I was able to visually follow the narrator through the process of being hired, disgusted, and subsequently quitting. The point of view for this piece was also a good choice - because of the conflict it deals with (internal, idealism versus capitalism) the reader needs to be very intimate with Skipper Fischer, the narrator, in order to understand why he walks out of the writer's room in the end. I also really enjoyed the final line. If it hadn't been there, and everyone had just remained quiet and had maybe felt bad about what they were doing, that would have been too unrealistic for the rest of the piece. The fact that the narrator makes this connection with the people in the room as he quits and leaves, but the connection means nothing to those on the other side, really makes this piece strong.

Something I would work on would be the connection between Skipper and Martin. I understand that the interview process went well, but I don't know why Martin would be so eager to help Skipper and hand him a notepad to save himself. As a reader, I didn't see anything in the interview to warrant that kind of interaction between them.

"Over the Counter" by Kody Blackwell

Kody Blackwell's "Over the Counter" is about a man who finds himself in a desperate place - he doesn't have money to keep himself and his three children in their home, and cannot think of a way out. The lack of money, however, is not the main conflict of the story. The conflict comes when a man he knows but wouldn't consider a trustworthy friend presents a possible solution to his conflict: selling prescriptions illegally. This creates a moral and practical dilemma for the narrator because he does not want to break the law and he does not want to risk losing his children. At the same time, however, he knows that this could very well be the only way to make the money he needs within the month. All he really wants to is provide for his family.

The voice in this piece works very well. The narration style is first person and done very well; as a reader, I was drawn in, and I felt like I knew the character and his personality in short order. The details within the piece as well, such as "we jogged, awkward and loud, in loafers and heels" when the family enters the church captures the mood of the piece and gives the reader an interesting mental image. The imagery is also something the reader can relate to without being cliche.

Something that would enhance the story would be to explain what happened to the children's mother. For me, that opened up a lot of questions, like if he didn't have money because his ex wife took half of it. Did she die? Those kinds of questions can be answered rather quickly. Similarly, I'd like to have Tim's character fleshed out a bit more. The narrator doesn't trust him, and as a reader I don't really trust him either (led by the narration) but why? Did he do sketchy things in high school? Yeah, he's suggesting selling drugs, but he says that he doesn't know much about the process. How bad is his character, exactly?

Coming Soon! Review of "Pretend" by Robert Elrod

Unfortunately, I didn't notice Robert Elrond's story "Pretend" was in another folder until this morning. The review for this story will go up sometime soon!

"Winter's Chill" by Lauren Barkley

Lauren Barkley's "Winter Chill" is about a man leaving to attend to his job as a funeral home director and the wife he is suddenly made to believe is cheating on him. The conflict is very brief - the text message that drives Mr. Smart to the conclusion of infidelity is only received and read two hours before he leaves to drive in the icy night to retrieve a body. It seems that Mr. Smart only wants to distance himself from the wife he doesn't really understand, and Mrs Smart wants to resolve the issue of her non-explicitly accused infidelity.

I thought the conflict was very interestingly presented. We've read a few stories about cheating husbands or wives, but there was no doubt at all that the party in question was cheating. We as readers were made certain that there is another man/woman. In Barkley's story, the third person limited POV lets us see the struggle in Mr. Smart to come to terms with what this text message might mean - his wife could be telling the truth, but he doubts that. At the same time, the reader also gets to see that Mrs. Smart isn't a terrible, hateful woman. She wants her husband to come back safe, or not go out at all, so that they can discuss and work out their issues.

There are a few times when the dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Smart doesn't flow as well as it could, so reviewing and rewriting some sections would probably enhance the story. Also, I think expanding on characters with more back story would make them more relatable, believable, and likable. I don't really have a real connection to the characters.

"Holes Full of Dirt" by Ethan Hightower

Ethan Hightower's "Holes Full of Dirt" is about a young teen who wants to impress a girl who is not at all interested in him. She's old enough to drive, and he just barely isn't. The year between them (two years for four days between their birthdays, she points out) makes him feel inferior, too young and inexperienced to catch her attention. He sees a chance to impress her when she makes an offhand comment about the holes in the road to his house, and it's just the kind of sudden project-that-will-take-more-effort-than-I-anticipate that I think a fifteen year old would make to impress a girl. Unfortunately for him, the narrator is forced to realize that the undertaking was, essentially, pointless.

The tone of the piece is spot on for a fifteen year old boy as a narrator. The awkward dialogue between the narrator and Ashlyn makes it clear to the reader that he is very much interested in her and she is very much not interested. Sometimes, it can be difficult to make the relationship (or lack of romance) between two characters without using exposition. At the same time, the tone between the narrator and Denver is absolutely frank -- Denver can see right through the narrator, and they both know it, but the narrator will stalwartly deny it because that's the relationship they have.

This needs a whole new paragraph: the depressing realizations on page 6, starting with "I sat in the truck overwhelmed by a sense of failure," captures the uneven way human emotion works perfectly. The sudden change from "I can do this" to "I can't believe I even tried that, what was I thinking?" fits so well into the story that I have to applaud Hightower.

I understand that this is a story about the narrator's love for Ashlyn, but I think the story would be enhanced by more mention of the father earlier in the story. The character's realization of self is very much tied to his father helping him out of his mess, and I think the relationship between them would bring another dimension to the story.

The Short Story by Adam Smith

This story by Adam Smith is about a young woman named Margaret who wants to get out from under her stifling and worrisome adopted mother. Lucy Delamar -- the mother -- is beyond terrified of the world after both world wars, the shock of being robbed in the middle of the night and finding her husband gone forever. The fear she feels from these events pervades her entire life and affects the way Margaret lives her life. Young and knowing little of life, the now 15 year old girl looks for a way to liven up her life by disobeying her mother and making a friend. Unfortunately for her, she made the exact wrong friend; Marcus never speaks an unkind word to her but shows his true colors to her unknowingly. Margaret is then forced to look at what she believes and admit to her guardian that the world is, indeed, every bit as dangerous as Lucy has always told her.

I enjoyed reading the back story in the beginning of the piece. Smith manages to give plenty of information without making the beginning of the story expository. I felt like I was reading the real plot, and when there was a time skip and the real story started, I wasn't offended or jarred out of the story. The transition worked very well. Another aspect of this particular story that I liked was the time period. It's not far enough in the past that the story becomes genre on principle. It's not set during a major historic event; instead, the story is affected by the wars in a way that makes sense. Lucy's questions about Marcus wearing a radio or looking like a German was wonderful, and I thought it was very interesting that Lucy was so afraid of these far fetched things in every day life -- wolves don't need to be exotic to be dangerous.

Unfortunately, where I wasn't jarred from the story by the time skip, I had a hard time enjoying the story when things kept changing structurally. For example, Margaret suddenly became Margarite, Lucy's last name switched from Delamar to Melamar, and Lucy's flat suddenly moved to a completely different street. Technically, these things aren't part of the story itself, but they did make me as a reader have to regard the story as text on a page instead of a riveting story.

"Deception" by Laurel Kostakis

Laurel Kostakis' piece, "Deception," is about a middle aged woman who finds out in a disturbing way that her husband is cheating and no longer loves her. What she wants is to be loved, needed, and no longer lonely. This is her own internal conflict - her children have grown up, her husband is always working, and the dog she had once loved had died. But the conflict of the story comes when Marcy's husband, Kevin, tries to kill her in order to save his extramarital affair and comes into direct contest with an at-large, armed and dangerous burglar.

As always, Laurel delivers an interesting piece with an interesting point of view. I think the fact that the narration  is in third person limited form and follows Marcy through the entire piece, instead of Kevin, who is, apparently, a murderer, or the unnamed burglar, who is very much capable of murder, actually presents an interesting perspective on the entire situation. It would have been easy to follow the other two characters and hold the attention of the reader - in fact, that could almost be expected. But Laurel chose to follow the victim, a difficult thing to do without hinting very heavily to the reader that the narrator is, in fact going to be the victim in an obvious manner.

One thing that could help the piece would be to establish the ages of the characters early on. For some reason, reading the first few pages, I was convinced that Marcy and Kevin were a younger pair. There was no evidence that this was the case, but there was also no evidence to the contrary. Another thing to pay attention to is that, like my story, "Leaving," the end of the conflict is given to the reader very quickly. The end of the story is actually done in a very timely pace, however.

Response to "The last bit of home-made sugar" by Nate Lundberg

"The last bit of home-made sugar" is about a man who has grown up in a generation that is too uninterested in following the traditions of the previous generation. It bothers him, on some level, but it doesn't actually provide him with a purpose; what the narrator wants, I think, is to find this purpose. Through most of the story, there is no conflict, and the voice of the narrator reflects a kind of nervous waiting. When conflict does come, it's sudden, all encompassing, and takes all of the narrator's attention, but then it's gone again and we're left with the narrator standing alone in the dark, wondering if there isn't more.


An element I found really worked about this piece was the fact that the narrator had no purpose. It's a fine line to walk - one could easily make the entire story purposeless and lose the attention of the reader, but Nate manages to move the story along quite well. I also rather like the title (though it could use some capitalization) and how it fits in with the overall mood of the story. It isn't random; the reader gets to watch as the last of the Stir Off sugar is used and the container thrown away. The attention paid by the narrator to this detail and his mother's face makes the situation monumental enough for a title without being too heavy handed.

I have a bit of issue with the flow of this piece. One way to smooth out the kinks, I think, would be to reduce the amount of dialect used in the dialogue, especially by the grandfather. Following the language of the narration - very precise and without any regional dialect cues - the grandfather's language is a bit jarring. That being said, I think that the first couple of lines of dialect, such as "Hey, buddy, what do ya say?" instead of "How are you?" as an opener, work well to establish the grandfather's tone. Another way to smooth the difference between the narration and the dialogue would be to put more regionalisms within the the entire text.

"Off" by Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender's "Off" is about a young rich woman with a goal. The goal is simple - kiss a red head, a blond, and a brunet - but the reader never finds out why she had this particular goal. This is actually a big part of the narrator's character; we never find out the why for a lot of things. Why is she rich? Why did she paint morbid images into her art? What does she want from the hostess, from the party, if she feels too good to be there? There are some interesting observations she makes, such as the fact that women will say "oops, sorry" when they've done nothing wrong (due to society, upbringing, meekness?) and that these people who would like to consider themselves sophisticated can't eat their cheese the right way.

As far as form goes, I actually found this piece interesting to read. When I read "Off," I was coming off of a fever. The long, rambling sentences reminded me of my own stream of conscientiousness. The minimalist description of setting was also an interesting touch with the first person point of view - when thinking to myself, as the narrator was, I don't look around and take note of everything. The odd things she does notice, however, she gives a reason for - the brie is eaten the wrong way, the nervous woman says "Oops, sorry" for no reason, Adam is speaking animatedly with a woman to make the narrator jealous. These little details make the story work well, even without a lot of description.

I think I used to write in a style that was similar to this, but I doubt I succeeded. In my own attempts, my minimal description of setting and character was not countered by increased detail elsewhere. Other than this, however, I didn't find much appealing about this writing style. It confused me (again, I was coming off of a very high fever) and was circular. The subject matter was interesting enough, but I've never found long, block text pieces to be interesting, especially with rambling, run on sentences.

Response to T.C. Boyle - "The Love of My Life"

My first interest in the piece "The Love of My Life" by T.C. Boyle is the syntax he uses. His style of persistent concrete imagery used to describe a scene or situation over a long period of time reminds me of what I try to do with my work. I'll definitely be reading more of Boyle's works to try to decipher exactly what his pattern of writing is.

The description of China and Jeremy in the beginning ("They wore each other like a pair of socks") is very different. It pulls the reader in, because it's not cliche. Again, the concrete imagery -- everyone in his intended audience knows what wearing socks is like -- plays a strong role in setting up the scene and telling us about the characters. The two of them weren't just joined at the hip, they had a "sashay of love" that persisted through everything they did. Boyle's words, his list-style method of showing the reader exactly what he means ("to the mall, to the game, to the movies and shops and the classes...") serve to create a characterization not only for China and Jeremy, but for their relationship as well. But he isn't heavy handed with these descriptions. He only lists enough to convey his meaning, and then he can trust the reader to infer or remember enough to continue the story.

The mood he creates is also noteworthy. He is able to seamlessly move from very much in love to finger numbing fear to helplessness and despair from the beginning of the story to the end. The characters are also believable in this aspect because they don't jump from one of these emotions to the other. The emotions bleed and blend into one another in a way that is very human - in the end, China still loves Jeremy, though she will, supposedly, testify against him to save herself.

There's is no abrupt jolt for the reader until the end, when the story is inexplicably over.

(What is love worth?)

J.J. Nelson's "Lessons"

"Lessons" is the story of a young man's encounter with an older man on a train to Sorreno, Italy. At first, it seems the entire conversation is an old man speaking soothingly and condescendingly to the younger, but it turns out to be an elaborate scheme of pick-pocketing -- age and experience vs. youth and diligence. The words exchanged between the older man and the young, however, as well as the thoughts the reader is able to pick up from the younger man speak to much more than robbing other people blind. The young man's feelings of frustration regarding those who are older looking down on him with contempt is something many young people can relate to, not matter the situation.

The third person, limited point of view works well for the format of this story. An omniscient narrator would have muddied up the story with what the old man was thinking in addition to the young man, but the story isn't about him. The reader doesn't need to know what "lessons" the old man has learned over his many years, because the reader doesn't need to relate to him. Instead, we are able to relate to the young man who speaks of "having his own life under control" and knowing loss.

Something that I think would make the structure of the story better would be to change the gender of the young man. Because there's only two characters, and neither has a name, this change would help to reduce the use of "the young man" and "the old man" as indicators of speakers. Another aspect of the story that it might affect is the condescending tone of the older man. In the opinion of this particular old man, young people are foolish, and I would find it quite believable if he thought of young women being less capable than young men.

"New Coach" by Lauren Sides

In "New Coach" by Lauren Sides, Kaylee, a competitive cheerleader in high school, tries her hardest to succeed in her sport to attain a scholarship. Unfortunately for her, the new coach's standards are extremely high -- they're just close enough to impossible for her to tear her ACL attempting to please him. This only leads to higher conflict between Kaylee and the coach as she goes through months of physical therapy. Finally, Kaylee lets go of her dream of a cheerleading scholarship in favor of keeping herself safe and healthy.

The beginning of the piece was very strong as an interest grabber. Nothing quite gets the attention of a reader like unexplained pain. The nature of the conflict, especially after learning that Kaylee had not been sold on chearleading as a sport in the beginning is also interesting. The stereotype of vapid cheerleaders doing anything they can to get ahead in a social scene generally overshadows the fact that the sport is a very dangerous one, requiring high levels of strength, coordination, and concentration; when looking at what is needed to succeed, the reader is more likely to believe that Kaylee would get lost in her drive to succeed, at any cost.

I think the story would be stronger, however, if the last scene -- where Kaylee makes the decision to put her health above her dream of a scholarship -- was drawn out a bit more. As it is, the scene is very abrupt, short, and doesn't make much sense. It seems as though Kaylee had no conflict in herself over the decision, but she should have. She invested years, and her ACL, to cheerleading, and she was banking on that to take her all the way to college, so I think a reflection on these things would make the decision seem more real, and more emotional. Another issue I had with this story is the technical language. I'm not familiar with cheerleading or gymnastics, so I don't know what the different types of "tumbling passes" are, let alone what a "full" is supposed to look like. This makes visualizing the situation difficult, creating distance between the story and any reader unfamiliar with the subject matter. Lastly, though the concept of pain draws the reader in in the beginning of the story, it's abstract - is the physical pain shooting, sharp, throbbing? Emotional pain is named, but not really relatable.