Continuing with Intro to Creative Writing 202, assignment #2:
In this one, we had to write an autobiographical incident (a first-person account) as if we were a member of the opposite sex.
I chose to work with some of my previous writings, namely Frog Sinking, so I would have some extra time staring at the wall under dim light.
But seriously, I think the symbols worked out much better this time. I corrected some stupid mistakes too.
FROG SINKING
It is Friday, midday, hot enough to justify anyone’s perspiring armpits. I am in bed, starving to death. One would expect me to be used to hunger by now. This situation has repeated twice a week for the past two years, sometimes even more often, depending on my seizure status. Apparently I’m sick, mentally ill. But I don’t feel sick, which is how it is supposed to be, I presume. Crazies don’t know they’re crazy now do they? It is their motto here. Everybody seems so eager to repeat it. The nurses, the phony-smiling doctors, all of them. Even the patients seem to have grown into it, simultaneously chiming it, as if a prayer, while their heads bang on windows and cracked walls. Black-red stains are all over the place. I’m looking up. It is my favorite sitting position. Not much of those blood blotches up there. It matters not to them you know, not being sick. It is a weird feeling not remembering any seizures yet to be punished for them.
Outside some grey clouds are hovering low.
It matters not to them, hiding behind their white paper masks. Disposable yet always the same white paper masks. They throw them away for sure, that much I know. Mostly paper after all. Damp from tonguing them all they way through my electrocution. No doubt about it. Enjoying the work. My electro-sessions.. . .
I’m hungry. “Empty stomach for you little girl. Don’t you go and choke yourself while riding the lightning” they say laughing. They pat each other’s back for that funny business. Whoever fucks with me the most wins. I don’t know what. Does it matter? Hazy memories spring to mind. No remorse no regrets. No water either. They say I killed it. I don’t remember being pregnant.
. . .
I’m thirsty. I wish my husband was here. I don’t remember him either but I must have had one once. A hubbie and all. I feel so dry, like a frog in a desert. Not of the sinking type though. They water down my skin only before applying the electrodes, better conduction I guess. The sponge is in the bucket, yellow, absorbent, with hundreds of holes as if attacked by myriads of fire ants. I see them sometimes, working their way through the sponge. They love their work. I used to love it too. I was… well I’m not now.
I’m really thirsty. The desert sinking frog is a remarkable creature you know. Highly adaptive. Thrives in Australian deserts. Or should I say under? It surfaces from sandy undergrounds -once a year- when “The Summer Storm” softens the earth. It comes up, eats and copulates with neighboring female divers. Then it builds a new water-filled bubble from clay and saliva around its body and slides back to its underground post, waiting for the next storm, the next water break. Its only predators are hawks and the occasional Aborigine digging them out for their water and meat. Survival of the fittest. I am not fit. I am fat. He said that to me. It was not my fault. He put it in there.
A woman’s face distracts me. She has one of those faces you hate for no reason. Like an aching old grandmother’s face, seconds before bursting into tears. Did you ever cry in front of a mirror? Do you know which face? I want to punch her but they’re coming for me. The jiggling sound of the metal straps is closing in. The four male nurses are on their way. Muscles come in handy in here. They unstrap me from my immobile metal-screeching bed and they strap me back in my mobile white-leather jacket. Fighting them is not an option. They are fit.
. . .
Sitting in the chair, waiting for the ‘deep fry’ is the worst part. I’m under sedation on some drug with an –ine ending. In here everything ends with –ine. Even pain. My tongue numbs and hangs out, slightly to the right. Blurry vision. Two or three high-heeled nurses come in and flirt with the doctors. They all disgust me. Laughing at me, rubbing their plastic hands. The electric generator is humming maniacally to its maximum. Lacking power, the fluorescent light is trembling rapidly. Everything suspends. They are ready. I’m thirsty. A doctor nods. A nurse flicks the switch… Thunder lightning! My neck veins are throbbing. Yes, a thunderstorm. It is going to rain. Do you smell it in the air? It is going to rain.
the end.
My CW professor commented:
eerie, skilful, with much more suggested than said. A-