Journal-Me-Author

I have been working on making some short stories. I think diving into a full novel is too ambitious for me right now. I might try them out by posting them to my blog. I am nervous because I already let Stu read one and in his words 'I don't get it' and he didn't seem to get my 'flow'. I like choppy. I write, I speak and I think choppy. I think my biggest problem is 'tense' - whether or not to write in the present, or the past and from what perspective. I figured I would acclimatize myself to writing in an 'authory' way- by turning events in my day into little journal/short story type entries. So here is my first one (note this is fiction, lightly based on personal experience):

I think I knew almost immediately that the child in the clinic was being molested by her father. Children have a way of telling you things without ever opening their mouths. I saw it in the way she slumped in the chair. The way she shied away from his touch. The way her hands lay limply at her sides and the way she chose to sit in the waiting room with strangers, rather than sit in the assessment room with her father and the dentist. Her eyes were brown and too big for her face and lacking in animation. She stared at a spot on the floor and did not move.

The final deciding factor was when I started to see desperation on her face and she began to squirm and l realized she needed to use the bathroom, but didn’t want to have to go into the office to ask her father to take her to the public restroom. I watched all of this from behind my desk where I am a receptionist for a dental office and thanked god that I am not a teacher. Teachers are obligated to ask questions and take action. I was merely an observer of human behavior.

Finally the girl caved and tapped on the door to the room where her father was meeting with the dentist and whispered something inaudible. It was followed by the man leading the child past my desk into the single woman’s washroom and closing the door behind them. Of course the bathroom visit took an excruciatingly long time, but that could have just been my imagination. Once the child returned to her seat and her father to the dental chair, I gathered my courage and asked her girl how old she was. She told me she was five and then asked me what that ‘thing’ was on my nose. I told her it was a nose ring, like an earring, but in your nose. Her eyes lit up a little bit when I asked her if her ears were pierced and she said she was waiting until she was six and could handle the pain.

I remembered thinking she could most definitely handle the pain. Little kids are resilient creatures, especially ones that go through trauma. They always seem older than their true ages. This kids’ eyes could have been the eyes of a 40 year old woman, and not just because they were too big for her face. She was a pretty little thing with a long ponytail. Dark olive skin and long lashes. Her father was speaking Arabic, but her English was reasonable. She was small for her age. Could have passed for a four year old, except for those eyes.

How do you ask a child if they are being abused? Maybe teachers don’t ask as often as they should. They are probably afraid if they ask and the answer is no- that it will get back to the parents and they will get an angry phone call. If I was a teacher, I would just tell myself little kids are moody and I would keep my gaze high and away from their eyes. That’s safest. Or you do one of those class lectures about sexual abuse, to not centre anyone out and invite them to come and speak to you privately if they have questions. That’s funny, you know they always tell children to reach out to people when they are bullied, hurt or abused. They have to tell kids that because they don’t do it. They are naturally secretive little people who value secrets above all else. So maybe they should be telling adults to reach out to kids more often.

So I talked to the kid for a little while. She has a brother who has diabetes. He is fifteen. She asked me a hundred questions about my job and my computer and how old I was. I told her I was 25 and let her play on my computer in Microsoft Paint while her dad was in with the dentist. She had never touched a computer before and it was shocking how fast she learned it. As an adult you don’t get things as fast. Your brain isn’t as ‘spongy’ as it is when you are five. I didn’t pry and I didn’t try to council information from her, but I was her friend for an hour while she was sitting beside me. I hope it was enough.

That's it. Not too exciting. Practice for taking a point of view and picking a tense. I am retelling a story from my past and need to consistently tell it like that. Man. I need to take a writing class. I had this teacher once tell me to stick to art when I told her I wanted to write books. I still remember it clearly. I was in grade 10 and waited until after class was over to show her a short story I had written for my boyfriend at the time. She tore it to pieces. I never gave it to him, but I still have never forgotten the characters or the story line. Oh well, I guess if you want to be good at something you need to practice. I just feel sorry for you poor people that need to read the build up. Ha. All for now...