I was looking through some old stuff that I had written and found a piece for my creative writing class last semester. I spoke with the professor a while ago and she said out of all 50 pages of work I produced, this one was the most powerful. I don't know what to think. I think I may have written bits and pieces of this in my journals but I don't think i've put the whole thing on here yet. Anyway, here it is.
On Second Chances
When I was four years old, my dad would take me into the cryogenics facility where he wanted to be preserved. It was an ominous place, all concrete floors and concrete walls.
Theyre like big refrigerators. There are dead people in them. Ill show you what they look like. He showed me photos of frozen human corpses inside the capsules. I didnt know what to think, except that those people could be zombies and that they could get me if I went too close to the machines.
I was afraid that one day, I too would be frozen and dead, with a slick, psychotic smile twisting at the corners of my blue lips. I didnt want to be like the people in the capsules. Dad told me that one day, we would make machines that would make them warm and able to play again. I didnt want those people to ever be released. I thought they would be monstrous and that if people like me would be afraid of them, they would feel unwelcome. Then they would have no one to play with. I asked dad if God would be angry at scientists for stealing away angels. He straightened his spectacles and said, Is there really a God?
I resolved then, at four years old, to touch as many things as possible and play as many games as time would allow before I ended up dead. Now Im twenty and I dont want to touch as many things as possible, I just want one thing to put my arms around at night. Ive found that body pillows are poor substitutes, but that women are not. Sometimes, I fear that no woman will learn to love me before my times runs out, not before I am a dead thing beautiful. Like a rose killed by a harsh winter.
On Second Chances
When I was four years old, my dad would take me into the cryogenics facility where he wanted to be preserved. It was an ominous place, all concrete floors and concrete walls.
Theyre like big refrigerators. There are dead people in them. Ill show you what they look like. He showed me photos of frozen human corpses inside the capsules. I didnt know what to think, except that those people could be zombies and that they could get me if I went too close to the machines.
I was afraid that one day, I too would be frozen and dead, with a slick, psychotic smile twisting at the corners of my blue lips. I didnt want to be like the people in the capsules. Dad told me that one day, we would make machines that would make them warm and able to play again. I didnt want those people to ever be released. I thought they would be monstrous and that if people like me would be afraid of them, they would feel unwelcome. Then they would have no one to play with. I asked dad if God would be angry at scientists for stealing away angels. He straightened his spectacles and said, Is there really a God?
I resolved then, at four years old, to touch as many things as possible and play as many games as time would allow before I ended up dead. Now Im twenty and I dont want to touch as many things as possible, I just want one thing to put my arms around at night. Ive found that body pillows are poor substitutes, but that women are not. Sometimes, I fear that no woman will learn to love me before my times runs out, not before I am a dead thing beautiful. Like a rose killed by a harsh winter.
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yeah b. you know i think this is your best piece... steiny never lies.
i will add my own mary poppins-esque word:
SCALYWAG! hope i spelled that right.
I'm wearing cute undies too!