Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Narrative Part One

Mickey mouse. Gosh darn Mickey Mouse. He was always so friendly on T.V., his voice endearing, and his attitude mesmerizing. Well then, why had this loyal old friend turned his back on me, cruelly preventing me from getting on that ride? I watched my siblings walk by Mickey seemingly unconcerned by his outreached hand and a sign reading, “You must be this tall”. I tiptoed behind them, reaching my nose into the air, and stiffening my posture. ‘If only I was taller’, I thought as the cart pulled away.

            Shifting my weight from one leg to the other attempting to appear nonchalant. I was lanky, full of self-doubt, trying to find a place to put my impossibly long limbs. I am alone in the gym with a coach. She bounces me a volleyball. I hold it lightly in my hands unsure of what to do. I bounce it on the ground then try to slap it down like I’ve seen other volleyball players do. It lands on the toe of my tennis shoe and swiftly rolls away. I pause then quickly scramble to catch the ball before it rolls too far out of reach. Once I’m back at the end line she instructs me to serve it. I’ve barely touched a volleyball let alone serve one. So trying to conceal my apprehension I agree to serve it, as if it was something I could do in my sleep. I tossed it up above my head and flail at the ball with the force of my whole body. There was an empty thud as my hand hit the ball propelling it ten feet short of the net. My cheeks burn and I quickly spit out, “my bad”. Perhaps my aspirations to make the varsity team in a few months were more than naive.

            I was always the family caboose. What is a caboose but a tag along, slowly following my siblings along on their excursions and exploits. My opinion wasn’t solicited let along valued in any topic big or small. So I went along for the ride dependent on their pull to get me through. However over the years each compartment of this family train broke off and eventually left me completely alone, lost, and insecure with a empty track ahead of me. 

3 comments:

  1. I like the contrast between the shortness of the narrator in the first paragraph and the "impossibly long limbs" in the second paragraph. In the third paragraph, the words "solicited" "excursions" and "exploits" really don't sound like words you would normally use, they sound more like "thesaurus" words, maybe you should try to find some more natural sounding words.

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  2. I love where you are going with this. I think it has a clear focus, and could really go somewhere good.

    I like that you are keeping the sort of train mataphor going between the first and third paragraphs. It's a nice connection that isn't terribly obvious, which is nice to see.

    However, while I think I get where you're going in the third paragraph, the wording is a bit confusing, and not too clear. That could be a really beautiful section left almost as it is if it is developed well over the rest of the paper. However, you still might want to make it a little more clear where you're going with it earlier on.

    Check over your grammar a bit. Some things are worded kind of awkwardly, and I think this could benefit a lot, as you use a lot of carefully selected words, if you were to be really careful with the structure and syntax.

    I wanna see the rest! Nice job so far.

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  3. The beginning is good because it begins to allow the reader to understand where the second paragraph is going to develop. The contrast used is very good and the parallesim of not going on ride to not serving ball is good.

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