UPDATE: FINAL VERSION: Inner Piece Through Metal
Here’s the (very) rough draft. I’d love feedback, but only if it’s constructive. Otherwise it gets deleted and ignored 🙂
I’m collecting perspectives for a creative nonfiction piece that I’m writing about Heavy Metal.
So. It all began some time between the third and fifth grades. I seem to remember things from this period by grades. Each year is divided by that one major change–moving to the next level in school; like the next level of a video game the enemies get craftier and stronger, the bosses more lethal, and your weapons more potent. Or something. So there are several possible beginnings. Or perhaps it’s a series of events…
Thus began The First Era. And it was Pretty Good. But the Second Era would be Better.
She is a shy looking girl sitting with an athletic shy-looking boy. Both are blondes and aren’t speaking. Now he raises his eyes from his Italian dictionary and talks to her. Her face animates and she returns the passing-the-time-reading events calendar to the tabletop. Is it awkward? He is listening to music. Or seems to be to anyone watching, who will see the black wires hanging from his ears. He wears a while, flat rimmed baseball hat that represents no team.
A less-shy looking girl joins the table. She is also blonde, and looks tired.
He wears blue sweatpants and a T-shirt decorated with a snowflake that tells us he is one of The Coolest Guys Around. Draped over his chair is a gray North Face fleece, like the one I left at home for its resemblance to ones like this. He may be a skater. Or at least likes their shoes.
He has a wide-eyed, yet simultaneously tired face that is framed by not-straight brown hair. He wears a bright purple fleece and a tie-dye shirt. He looks frenzied. Under the table are his legs, covered with snowman pajamas, though it is a Monday at 10:30am. Even his shoes scream unconventional, and are mottled with colors. Does he have something to prove? Or a sense of unique style. Meaning he uses style to prove his individuality, See?! Look, I’m different! Would you wear this?.
Or maybe he’s just color blind.
He stretches, and wishes that God bless the girl, not because she’s necessarily special, she just sneezed. He looks into space and mouths words to himself, presumably related to the notebook on the table and the pen in his hand. Or he’s using the notebook and pen to disguise insanity. But if he has to disguise it, then he recognizes it, and is it really insanity?
His movements are sluggish, as if his veins flow with something thicker. His words come out crisp and low, yet thin. He walks stiffly, his upper body is firmly affixed to his hips. He wonders aloud if the girl just left without saying goodbye. His friend (the frenzied one) doesn’t know, I’m oblivious and returns to his newspaper. He reaches for his green sweatshirt, hanging on his chair, and dons it; he takes his plates to the dish rack and leaves. He may or may not say goodbye.
He looks Jewish. I can say that because I’m Jewish. Well, half Jewish. But I look Jewish. It’s the Friedman nose, I think. And he wears headphones that fit his head a bit too well. The shape of his head, and his excited hair conspire to create an unfortunate illusion of squished-headness. The headphones are separate, attached to each ear, but appear to be squeezing his head like in those old Gushers commercials when people’s heads turned into fruits upon biting into the acid-filled fruitsnacks. Can you imagine the lawsuits? Like, if it really happened? What is the restitution for having one’s head turned into a giant cartoon fruit? I’d be pissed.
Whatever music he is listening to appears not to move him, for he is not moving. Maybe he doesn’t care if people think his music is moving him or not, and feels peaceful when he sits still. He is reading the newspaper. He rises to leave, carefully folding the pages and tucking it below his arm. Now standing, he looks slightly less Jewish for no particular reason.
WHAT IS FUZZMAIL? Fuzzmail records the act of writing… Dynamic changes, typoes, pauses and writeovers are captured and communicated.
[From About Fuzzmail]
This is meant for emails and the like, but I think it could be interesting to use for any kind of writing… really capture the process, yah?
[Political] prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.
–George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
And clichefinder. Enter some text and it’ll highlight the cliche’s.
