Skip to main content

Stretching again

Here's a minor rewrite of a descriptive exercise. Thank you, Stacey.

Cai
He just as easily smiles as pouts when he doesn’t get his own way. Cai is a speedy ghost—his pale form and blond hair streak past you jumping, running, or clambering on his way to some activity be it riding his bike, practicing his fishing casts, or throwing rocks. The freckles smeared across his nose and under his grey eyes lead you to think he’s all summer’s child, yet he was born early in the morn of Christmas Eve. The clouds do roll in when he is frustrated or when he commiserates in empathy with your pain or misery. Then, like the blink of a firefly, as if the painful incident never happened, he’s off to growl with his dinosaurs or storm his castle.
Like most boys he’s full of contrasts: his appetite balances swinging from glutton to a faster nearly everyday. Tears drop easily, too easily at times, but a few moments later the emotion disappears like a stone flung into a lake. He doesn’t like the sight (nor even the mention) of blood, but cartoon violence doesn’t faze him. The world is apprehended through touch and the pitch of his little boy’s voice in his questions. He hasn’t mastered jokes yet, but he’s improving, especially with knock-knocks. I know the boy Cai, I wonder what the man will be like.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                   ...

Independent Women?

      During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust .  The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI.  The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said.  The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character.  He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture.  He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing."  This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point.     I would counter with "How far we've fallen."  To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has m...

Mystery Meat indeed!

During my grocery shopping today I was asked to pick up some hot dogs for some meal or other. Now I am not an aficianado of the 'ot dog, but will usually have a corn dog or BBQed version of one or two during the summer. If my children like them, so be it. The trouble came when trying to find a package that didn't arrive from a chemistry lab. Nitrates and nitrites, sugars (including HFCS), the preservative sodium benzoate, and other fun substances littered every package I picked up. Even Hebrew National which "Answers to a Higher Standard" was doped. Apparently Kosher doesn't mean it can't be injected with a chemical cocktail. So-called "Natural Casings" were prominently displayed to catch my eye. As if sheep or pig intestine somehow offsets Agricorps tinkering. I ended up buying the brand "sold at Tiger Stadium" not because it was chemical-free, Hell no! It was merely the brand with the least additives. Why does a hot dog need su...