Walking into a stranger’s house has
never been something I enjoy. I hate not
knowing where halls lead, and the foreign quality of it all leaves me feeling
off-balance. But I was bringing cookies
to a new neighbor, and this was the right thing to do. I told myself that as I climbed their three
cement stairs to ring the doorbell. It
rung, and only one bell chimed.
I waited for a moment, and almost
decided to give up. It was getting dark
and cold, and I wanted to go home. But through
the glass window pane of the front door, I saw a picture that caught my
eye. It made a stark impression on my
mind since everything else I saw inside that house was so empty. They were still moving in, but for some
reason this picture had to be nailed up.
It was a black and white photo of a
young man in military dress. It wasn’t a
recent picture, it may have been from World War I, or maybe II. He had short black hair, and an unforgiving
jaw. He was not smiling, he was
staring. Staring straight at me with
those accusing black eyes, as if he could see into my soul. I glanced away, uncomfortable at the thought
of this long-dead soldier judging my secrets, but he pulled my gaze to him again. I don’t know why, but there was something about
him, something that spoke of terrible things.
Like unfinished grief or forgotten vengeance.
When my eyes rose back to the
soldier, he blinked.
A startled second glance revealed that the blinking eyes did not belong to the man in the photo, but a living man standing at the door. He was merely a shadow, perhaps a son or grandson. The resemblance was eery though, and when he unlocked
the door and stared uncertainly at me, it took me a moment to find the words I
had prepared to welcome him to our street.
I almost left with the cookies still in my hand, and I had to turn back to surrender
them to him before I left.
I'm finding that sometimes with creative non-fiction, you have to make something out of what a lot of people would call nothing.
ReplyDelete"I'm finding that sometimes with creative non-fiction, you have to make something out of what a lot of people would call nothing."
ReplyDeleteVery true, very wise.
I was checking some of my old 162 writers last night and thought about you, wondered if you might find some of what they put up interesting or stimulating. Have you checked any of those old blogs? If not, if you have the time or interest, you might start with Linda, Reta, Griz, many others.
Last graf has me confused. There is a photo. There is also a man. The man is a shadow of the other man--perhaps his son?
ReplyDeleteAnd here I just finished telling you to trust the reader and suddenly I'm asking dumb questions...!
:(
Okay, assuming we have a dead father and live son, a man who might be in his sixties, a man who on an early evening might easily spook a young woman on a mission she feels impelled, but not happy, to accomplish--then you have a vignette that does nicely something vignettes can do but often don't, which is to move gracefully between states of mind and external realities. More typically, they go one way or the other, but this more ambitious approach pays off here.
So, I'm confused. Does the last paragraph pay off, or is it too confusing? Should it be changed? I thought it was confusing too, but I hoped it was showing jerking confusion through the jerking feeling of seeing this man... was it a bad choice (or bad execution) though?
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I haven't looked much into past 162 writers. I will though, thanks for the suggestions.
Too confusing IMO. You have to find a way to depict confusion... clearly, to depict it but not by imitating it--moviemakers can get away with that. Harder in wriitng.
ReplyDeleteFor it to work, to pay off as I originally said, I had to make too many assumptions I didn't want to make.
ReplyDeleteOkay, that makes sense, I'll work on that. Probably my 11:30pm judgement shouldn't be trusted in the future.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly clearer. But do you feel you've lost the sense of confusion of the original experience in this rewrite? Have you watered it down and lost the strangeness?
ReplyDelete" I almost left with the cookies still in my hand, and I had to turn back to surrender them to him before I left. " That's very good and the use of "surrender" given what's gone before is even better than good. And that whole sentence ties into this one somehow: "I don’t know why, but there was something about him, something that spoke of terrible things. Like unfinished grief or forgotten vengeance. "
Maybe I watered it down, maybe I lost the strangeness. But today somehow I couldn't find the balance.
ReplyDeleteSometimes things wither after too much thought and rewriting.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't mean the material itself is withered. It might pop up again in some unexpected place.
ReplyDelete