Authorial Interpretation

Ezra slammed the front door, just as he had slammed the car door, and just as he would slam his bedroom door. Ezra always slammed doors, ever since his mother had been killed by a drunk driver five years earlier. Her death had triggered his transformation from a straight-A student, a friendly teenager, and a polite, responsible son to an aggressive young man who had been expelled from two different high schools in one semester, who spent his days locked in his room listening to angry music, who gave the finger to anyone who even looked as if they might be in authority. The situation had not improved when Ezra's father, unable to see past his own grief, had dragged his son away from the small community and the few friends he had left to live in a concrete maze lined with skyscrapers, but the process had been rendered irreversible when Ezra's girlfriend of two years sent him a Dear John letter.

Cheers Redone

Prompt: Write your own version of Cheers, the short story handed out in class.

My feet don't quite touch the ground, and my heels hit the chair as I swing them back and forth. This sort of behavior will not be tolerated, says the mouth that is lecturing me yet again. Four inches below the mouth is the high collar of a severe black wool dress, even though September is at its hottest. I was a young girl once, too, she says, but I don't believe her. The skin that is dry and cracking and doing its best to hold her bones in place couldn't possibly ever have been younger than ancient. We have rules at this Girl's Academy for a reason. I've heard this before, and my young eyes wander from her arched eyebrows and rumpled forehead to the walls of her office that are bare except for a picture of pink tulips and a calendar that is still turned to August. Our actions have consequences, I am reminded, and I look down at the wooden desk that must be as old as she is. It bristles with splinters just waiting to jump into your palm, and it has never been painted. You should be grateful for the chance to receive an education, and my gaze returns to her face, because I am not sure if she is serious. It is such an odd statement to a girl who would rather be running barefoot on the seashore and who wants to be a gypsy when she grows up. Her grey eyes focus on mine, and I stop moving. I look away, uncomfortable, then at her again. She has deep lines around her mouth. Laugh lines, my mother called them, before she died. Laugh lines can be trusted. There, says the headmistress, are duties that must be fulfilled. She looks as if she has never laughed at all, and yet also as if she laughs every day. Do you understand? She looks at me for my answer, and I nod. I almost smile, because now I understand more than I did.

You

Prompt: Write about something that happened to you recently, using a second person point of view.

You adjust your apron, make sure your name tag is on straight, and reach for your closing checklist. Almost everything is marked off, and you smile. Maybe you'll get out of here at a decent time tonight. Orange Juice machine--cleaned. Carrot juice machine--cleaned. Wheatgrass juice machine--cleaned. Lobby--swept and mopped. And the list goes on. As long as no one orders a fresh juice, you're free and clear. You check the time: 7:57pm. Eight more minutes and you can lock the doors. The rain that is still pounding against the pavement has scared off all bu the most tenacious customers this evening.

At 7:59, you grab your keys and head to the door to pull the patio furniture and the umbrellas inside the store. Then a man stops in front of the open doorway and glances in.

"Are you still open?

You hear the hope in his voice and fake a bright smile as you say, "We sure are!"

He steps onto the clean lobby floor, leaving wet footprints next to the Wet Floor sign. Your smile becomes even more forced as he pulls out his cell phone--to find out what his wife wants, he says. Apparently, there is no answer, and he dials again. You're not about to stand behind the counter waiting for him, so you go outside, braving the rain, and stack the furniture and collapse the umbrellas.

When you retreat back inside, water running down the back of your neck and the cold working its way past your skin, your heart sinks further. He is having a discussion with your coworker about how great carrot juice is, and how he drinks it every day. Your mental estimate of the time it will take you to finish cleaning the store spikes as you realize you will have to clean the carrot machine again. But you would never think of telling the customer he can't have his carrot juice.

His phone beeps, and he opens it and stares at the screen. "Matcha Green Tea Blast!" he proclaims, and you head for the register to ring up his smoothie. When he doesn't say anything else, a flicker of hope appears. Even so, ever dedicated to customer service, you force yourself to ask, "No carrot juice?"

"No," he says. "I have my own juicer at home."

The knot of tension beneath your rib cage suddenly breaks and you feel like melting. You are certain you are standing in a beam of light, and could swear you hear the faint strains of an angel chorus. The man collects his smoothie, waves a cheery goodnight, and you follow him to the door. He disappears into the rain, and you may even whistle a bit as you lock the door and turn to finish your shift.

My Job

Prompt: Write about a place that has meaning for you. Use imagery.

It’s a corner rectangle on a block of rectangles. The glowing sign above the double doors invites you to step inside. As soon as you do, the smell of oranges and lemons swirls around your head, prompting deeper breaths. You’re startled by the chorus of “Hi-how-are-yous” that bounce off the walls of the small lobby and then are quickly swallowed by the roar of a quartet of four-speed blenders. The buzz of activity behind the gleaming stainless steel counter is almost exhausting to watch, and your eyes seek the relative calm of the bright green walls and the shelves of books, caps, biking shirts, and insulated mugs. The menu that hovers over the cheerful, eager smiles, the visors, and the aprons offers a dizzying number of choices, each entry containing two or three lines of black-lettered explanation. Even the menu board is a riot of colors.

(narrator shift)

My shoes stick to the floor ever so slightly as I round the end of the counter and step onto the black rubber floor mat. The faint squeaking of the juice machine that flows with orange juice is almost comforting—it means that it’s not broken, and it’s one less worry for me today. I watch the lush green wheatgrass being fed into the top of a machine that looks almost like the head of a dog from the side, with the leftover grass pulp growing from its nose like a green Pinocchio. It smells like a freshly-cut lawn.

Sweet Pea

Prompt Write a paragraph or a poem exploring your relationship with an animal or a machine. Describe the animal or machine using at least three of the senses.

He is a flash of blue on a background of green.

He is a necklace of black pearls around his neck

He is an excited flutter of wings when I come into the room

He is the smile on my face when he sings for me

He is the rising and falling notes to a melody entirely of his own invention

He is the soft, downy feathers that cover the carpet beneath his home.

He is the smell of birdseed and millet.

He is a cold, stiff body one anguished afternoon.

He is the tears that sting my eyes and drip off my chin.

He is a little freshly-turned mound of dirt in my backyard.

He is a tiny ache in my heart eleven years later.

He is a fond memory that I dust off now and again and that brings a smile.

He is a part of me.

Creative Writing

Prompt: Write down a bumper sticker you like. Desrcribe the car this bumper sticker is stuck on--make, model, year, color, condition. Open the door. Describe the smells and textures. Name three objects you find there. Name a fourth object you're surprised to find. Look up. Here comes the owner. Who, walking how, wearing what, carrying what, with what facial expression? The owner says something. What?

“My other vehicle is an X-wing.”

The only reason I stopped that I am an avid Star Wars fan. I frequently read bumper stickers, and have seen some pretty amusing specimens—one of my favorites being, “Your village called. They want their idiot back.” But I never stop and pay much attention to the car that drags the bumper sticker around.

Not that this car was really worth paying attention to. It was a common enough car—a Toyota Corolla, though I couldn’t have told you the year. Dingy blue paint clung to the sides and flaked off alternately, covering and exposing the raw metal. Grime caked the four mismatched hubcaps and “Wash Me” was scrawled multiple times through the dust coating the windows.

“I hope you take better care of you X-wing than you do you car,” I murmured to the unseen owner.

I cupped my hands above my eyes to shield the sun’s glare and peered through the finger-width lines of clear glass. It was, as I had guessed, a college student’s car. Three textbooks had been flung onto the backseat, falling over each other into piles of empty soda cans and water bottles, their landing cushioned by fast food bags and candy wrappers. Crumpled college-ruled notebook paper filled the floorboards, some stabbed through with ballpoint pens and number two pencils.

Then I caught sight of something that made me gasp. Unthinking, I reached for the door handle and pulled. It opened, and I was hit with the aroma of stale hamburgers, cold french fries, and day-old Chinese food. The vinyl seat creaked and showed signs of cracking as I rested my hand on it and leaned across the seat. I picked up the picture from off a bed of cd cases.

It had been taken nearly a year ago, at a birthday party—though you couldn’t really tell from looking at it. That party had lasted six hours and we had laughed until our sides ached. That could be attributed to all the sugar and caffeine being consumed, but it was largely the fault of my older brother, who is a comedian in denial.

I know so much about the picture because it was my birthday. My face laughed up at me from the matte-finished photo paper. There was confetti in my hair and more raining down from the hand hovering over my head. I had lost my balance and was steadying myself on the arm of my boyfriend, who smiled down at me with sparkling blue eyes.

I half-smiled, caught between the pleasant memories the picture called up and perplexity at where I had found it.

“It’s my brother’s car. I’m just borrowing it.”

I dropped the picture guiltily and backed out of the car. I misjudged how far in I was and hit my head on the doorframe.

“Ouch!” I rubbed my head and turned to see who had spoken.

He was about twenty steps away and walked with the casual confidence of a man who knows who he is and what’s happening around him. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his stone-washed jeans, and his jacket was unzipped, revealing a faded black t-shirt.

He stood about six-four, and his stride greedily devoured the distance between us. Black, tousled hair that was a few days past due to be cut brushed his collar and fell in his eyes—those same blue eyes that were in the picture. He grinned at me.

I sighed with relief and laughed aloud. “Seth!” I met him halfway and was folded into a warm embrace. My cheek pressed against the thick grey wool of his coat, and I could feel the tension that had filled me when I saw my picture in a strange car begin to bleed away.