Essay 2

Another "gem" I found when packing...

When I was in high school, I was editor of the school literary magazine. We collected original works from students and published them in one book at the end of the year. I had a teacher who talked about the writing of high school students. They often write something that seems so powerful, so emotional, so unique--and yet they all end up exactly the same. I believe that everyone goes through a stage when they think all their emotions and experiences are completely new--to themselves, yes. To the rest of the world, not so much. So, stories and poems that seem amazing, really, aren't. I saw a lot of those as the editor, and apparently, I created some of my own.

Which just makes me laugh now.

This is a story that I apparently wrote in ninth grade. I think I was trying to be amazing. Now, it's just really, really corny sounding.

"Essay 2"
January 28, 2000

He shivered as he walked down the silent, deserted street. No sound penetrated the thick, cold blanket of fog that covered everything like a memory. Behind him was just a mist, as if it had all been erased. He glanced back and saw only undefined things that he had forgotten and hoped to keep forever behind him, never to remember. Ahead lay a sea of nothingness, filled with love and hate, life and death, hope and despair. He did not want to venture into this great unknown. A vast dread engulfed him, as he feared what he might encounter.

He walked on for what seemed like days, in utter solitude and isolation. His walk was brisk and hurried, as if he urgently needed to get somewhere quickly, despite the fact that he knew not where he was going. He was on a mission, though he did not know what he was going to do, whom he was going to help, or to where he was destined. In his eyes was the fierceness of one with a purpose, as no one had ever seen before. Was it the look of true determination, or sheer madness?

Lurking within the unseen world around him were countless myriads of the small creatures, ready to attack at any moment. They truly were something to be feared, although no one did--but one. Hidden within the folds of a great imagination they prospered, fed by the unsurpassed floods of anxiety and dread.

Will they be conquered? Only their creator, the man lost within his world, can ever tell.

****

I received an A- for that story. The comment my teacher wrote on my paper was "I really like your penmanship! Very lovely and stylish."