September 1st, 2012
Childhood Trauma in 2nd/3rd person
Mr. Garrioch/English Composition
11b4 111150 Ho Inhee
“Why are you wearing just a t-shirt?”
The boy wearing a skeleton costume asks. She simply stares at the boy.
Why is he wearing such weird clothing? Where did his pants go?
She looks around. There’s one Tinkerbelle. One Snow White, one witch,
and one Spiderman. There are even non-human things. One butterfly with big
rainbow wings, one brown bear, one monkey with an exceptionally long tail. And a bleeding
Dracula! What the hell is going on?
She steps backward, puzzled and perplexed. She checks if she’s in
the right place and returns to the hall. And yes, she is in the right place.
“Okay, kids. Knock on the door and say?...”
“Trick or treat!”
A lady with a purple
robe and a black crumpled witch hat asks, and a bunch of kids with weird,
ridiculous costumes yells the answer. The hall, all dark without light, is
filled with high atmosphere. Caspers - grinning nastily, riding a broomstick, waving
hands, running after something, and making a spooky face - are floating all
around the black colored wall. Above the wall is a white silky web that extends
all the way to the ceiling. Among the uniquely-dressed crowd, there is one girl
with a uniquely plain clothing. Wearing a pink Gap T-shirt, white pants, and a white headband, she looks
around the hall in bewilderment. All the white ghosts on the wall seem to be shouting
at her. The girl shrinks slightly.
Soon the loud,
bustling crowd leaves the hall. Now the girl is left alone. No one’s in the
hall. Wiggling her fingers, the girl nervously gazes at the door the crowd just
passed through. She takes her step forward, but soon stops. She does not know
where to go.
She bursts into
tears. Alone in the dark hall, she cries loudly until the witch-looking lady runs
in.
“What’s wrong,
dear?” The lady asks nicely.
The girl doesn’t
answer. Still shedding tears, she holds her lips tight. The lady wipes the girl’s
tears.
“Honey, are you
all right?”
The girl shakes
her head.
“Do you feel
sick?”
The girl shakes
her head again.
“Do you want to
go home?”
This time, the girl
nods.
“Why, because
you don’t have any costumes?” The lady asks in a soft voice, trying to soothe
the crying little girl.
The girl looks
up, and after a while, she questions.
“Costumes?”
“Yes, dear. Do
you know what Halloween is?”
“Yes,” the girl
mutters, her voice so muted the lady hardly hears her reply.
Yes, the girl
knows what Halloween is. She knows Halloween has something to do with
orange pumpkins. She knows it has to do with ghosts. She once watched a cartoon
on TV about Halloween. In the cartoon, a white lonely ghost with a pumpkin lantern
woke the boy up and took him to its castle. But costumes, she’d never heard
about them.
“We wear
costumes on Halloween. You saw your friends wearing beautiful princess clothings?
Those are all costumes.”
Understanding
less than half of the lady’s words, the girl merely nods.
“Do you want to
wear a costume, too?”
This time, the
girl understands the lady’s words fully. She nods strongly.
“Great. Let’s
make your costume."
The lady gets
the girl papers, color pencils, and a bunch of arts&crafts stuff. Costumes
with papers, the idea simply puzzles the girl. She picks up a red pencil, puts it down. She then picks up scissors, and puts it down again. She repeats this simple action
again and again until a great spark of idea hits her.
“Ah!”
She exclaims,
holds a pink pencil, and dashes the pink color on a blank sheet of paper.
The girl puts her
white headband back on. There is a paper-made rabbit ear sticking to the
headband now. The girl then sticks a cotton ball on her pants. She also puts
the red clown nose she borrowed from the Tin man-like robot.
“Do I look like a rabbit?” The girl asks diffidently.
“Sure!” The lady
answers with a big smile.
Elated, the
rabbit-eared girl runs out of the hall, joining the crowd. And later that day, a
girl, with a rabbit headband and a white plumpy rabbit tail, vigorously bursts into her
house. Both her hands full with overflowing Halloween sweets. And she yells out,
"Mom, I'm home!"
"Mom, I'm home!"
Some
exaggeration and details added, but the story is generally based on my
experience when I was six ;D
cheesy resolutionnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
답글삭제Not at all. I really liked this. It's a first draft, and has some grammatical stuff to clean up, BUT the third person narrative really works and it is exceptionally cute. Some things to help this out:
답글삭제1. Pretend the reader knows nothing about you - the fact that you were a Korean in America? Is that the context? It's missing. It is essential to know this, so cover your bases.
2. Who is the lady? Where is this story happening? Need a few more details perhaps. Actually, I like the mystery of the lady. But maybe your age etc. and the 5 w's can be lightly introduced.
All in all, very well done. Excellent choices as a writer. Some of your verbs are not matching.
Well, I liked your essay. Though you said that it's not happened in foreign countries, it made me to believe that it actually happened outside of Korea! But since I never cared about my clothes, it was hard for me to understand your trauma fully :)
답글삭제