June 23rd, 2013
Metafiction – Student
Mr. Garrioch / World Lit
12v1 111150 Ho In Hee
A lonely desert. Yes, definitely a lonely
desert where red sands repeat themselves over and over vast space. North,
south, west, and east all filled with sands - red sands that distract my
consciousness. . I am just standing there, not knowing what to do like an
extraterrestrial that accidentally landed on Earth. The earth under my feet
belches out the heat into the red desert’s dry air. But I do not feel the heat.
As if I do not exist in this desert. As if I do not exist at all.
The sight fades out. The teacher is doing his presentation with all the lights
off. The PowerPoint slide is stopped on its fourth page for several minutes. He
knows that his voice tortures every part of us. He is just displaying extreme
sadism by taking his time explaining every small detail of his PowerPoint
slides. Time seems to be stuck. Students’ heads are moveless, all headed to the
table. The teacher displays no sign of pausing. The only thing moving in the
classroom is a little fly. The fly throws itself across the space, making a
parabolic motion.
My mind begins to blur. With the
decrescendo of the buzzing of the fly and murmuring of the teacher, I lost
consciousness. All the noises ceased. I existed and did not simultaneously,
with my mind drifting off to where the zephyr carried me. I travel further and
further away from the classroom, from the lecturer, from the world. I let my
eyelids drop. A faint wind brushes through my ear. The sandyish wind is rough
but gentle. And I am alone again in the desolate desert, under the burning sun.
I look ahead at whatever is there. The desert throws up a weak breeze somewhere,
blowing out its dry sand. The red sand ripples. I stretch my arms into the hazy
dust. But nothing is caught, and my hands are lost. My shirt flutters in the
wind. I begin to walk.
There is no sign of a living creature in this vast desert. The hot sand
that covers my ankle each time I take a step forward does not tell me where to
go. I sink on the lonely desert, breathing in the hot air. I look back, and
there it is, my staggering footprints. The footprints are the only evidence of
anything alive. Sighing, I hear a familiar buzzing in my ears. I prick my ears
up. There is the fly in my sight. I start to run after the fly. I run until I
am out of breath, as if I am aiming somewhere. When the fly is near as I can
reach, it vanishes. And there is a camel instead, The fly must have brought me
to this camel. The camel looks at me and blinks its eyes slowly just as it is
telling me to ride on it. I leap on it. And instead of the camel’s swollen
back, there is..
My hips, splat on the floor, are tingling. The teacher tells me to stand
up. His eyes are fixed on me, and their firmness awakes me from my haziness. It
is time to use reasonable deduction to predict the reason behind the lecturer’s
judgment. What in me caused him to stare at me so fiercely? Or more precisely, Or
more precisely, what angered him? Is it that important to beam at me that he
should even stop talking? Then the bell rang, and I began to pack my bag. He told
me to stay. The camel dim on the edge of my mind disappears into the red sand.
And I am alone again in the trackless desert, all by myself.
+) The dozing (or dreaming? illusioned?) part is gray. Plus, I find the images attached not so pleasurable (especially the fly one), but they were inevitably put since they are the images used in the story.
Isn't this basically the same thing James wrote? I don't see any metafiction that is reframing this. It does seem slightly improved from what James initially wrote, but it doesn't seem that much different either. Did you understand the assignment?
답글삭제In any case, it is good writing and nicely formatted. But I'd like to see REAL reframing. I realize it isn't easy, but you have to go further than this. Perhaps the teacher has to play a role.