I've been struggling a bit because I hated the profile piece so much, it totally bled through into my writing and a reader can obviously tell when the writer does not care about the success of their writing. I wish I had approached that completely differently, but what's done is done. I will now be sending some positive energy towards the next major assignment. The memoir.
Anyway.
I wrote a flash-non-fiction piece about the night I witnessed a pick-up truck/pedestrian collision.
Here it is:
Another red light in the dark. Not even the same corner. Still flash back.
Drivers abandoned their cars in the middle of the intersection. Headlights illuminated the darkness, turning midnight into an awkward hazy afternoon. Some left their doors wide open, not concerned with anything but the pile of arms and legs splayed on the pavement in front of my former elementary school.
I stared at the tiny figure. Her right arm bent backwards at a sickening angle beneath her. Her left arm was raised above her head, shoulder blade extending further back that anyone’s I had ever seen. I watched her chest.
“Please move,” I silently begged, “please.”
Shake my head. Focus on real time. Still hear them.
“Nobody touch her! Oh GAWD! Nobody TOUCH her!”
Plugging my right ear, I strained to hear the 9-1-1 dispatcher. Her voice buzzed in my ear like a fly in a room full of screaming alarms. “I’m s-sorry?” I pushed my finger deeper into my ear, a failed attempt to block out the distractions.
A small crowd assembled near me. “What happened?...where’d that boy go?...Is she dead?...I saw him running…” Witnesses and non-witnesses tried to sort out the scene.
“Is. The. Girl. Breathing?” the dispatcher repeated.
I advanced closer and crouched down next to the body on the pavement.
“Don’t TOUCH her!” The hysterical man in the Marathon parking lot screamed again. “Oh my Gawd!” This time his panicked voice jumped an octave.
Shut my eyes. Reach for the volume knob. Still feel it.
Robyn released the bone shattering scream from my passenger seat. Before either of us could do anything the girl disappeared from the crosswalk, snatched off the street by the front end of a red pick-up. My heart stopped and my entire body flooded with red-hot panic. We watched her roll over the cab, her legs flailing as if disconnected from the rest of her body. She flew over the truck bed and skidded to a stop on her right side in the left turn lane.
I felt the blood drain away from my face. The thick July heat dissipated and I froze in an icy shell. With trembling hands I pulled the keys out of my ignition and fumbled them under the steering wheel. I ignored them and hastily reached for my cell phone. I didn’t realize I was biting my lower lip until the familiar taste of metal filled my mouth.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
###
I love writing creative non-fiction. I don't know that I am creative enough to write fiction, I struggle with balancing between "brilliant imagery" and the cliche. With creative non-fic, you just dress up what actually happened. These are the stories I enjoy reading.
Sweet Valley Twins really ruined all other fiction for me. A good five years of my life were spent following two fabulous blondes with perfect lives and adventures that took them to Hawaii, London, Manhattan, through earth quakes, ski trips, and first kisses. Its like gorging on cupcakes, or in my case, raspberry flavored liquors. The saccharine gets to you and you can't even stomach the idea of ingesting something so sweet and perfect ever again.
With the amount of non-fiction I read, I shouldn't have much of a problem writing this memoir. I think my biggest struggle will be finding a common thread between the events I want to share.
I've been playing around with the idea of focusing the piece on my neurotic behavior and how its limited me in pretty much every aspect of my life (academic, romantic, professional) but I am afraid it would turn into a whiny, self-depricating sob fest. Its not something I have overcome yet, so there would be a very minimal (if any) turning point in it. Not much of a winner.
Still hatching.