(no subject)
Here's a paper I wrote for my english 101 class. We had to do a free-write (*just write whatever pops into your head) for thirty (?) minutes, then edit it and turn it into a descriptive essay. Here's what I got:
"A Representative Sample"
The setting is Anderson's Wal-Mart parking lot. The time is 9:30 at night, the peak of sober human activity. The exact place of sitting is the gray fuzzy driver's seat of a Toyota Camry, year 1993. The mission is to observe the goings and comings of this small, surprisingly representative sample of humanity.
A couple walks by. They're young, a few years out of their teenage days, seriously dating or perhaps newlywed. The young man has blonde hair cut short in a typical boy haircut. The girl's hair is long and straight. White grocery bags dangle from one of her hands. Both the man and the woman are slightly chubby, not obese but possessing tiny protruding pot bellies. They are both wearing glasses, an occurrence common enough to be called circumstance, but more curiously both wear white shorts made out of a khaki material and yellow shirts. They wear the same shade of yellow, a pale yellow found in the pastel color scheme of a newborn's nursery. The young man pulls out his keys, pressing a button to unlock the doors, and the couple loads their small purchase into the car and drive away.
A Hispanic man in his forties approaches in a small dark green wagoneer. The car has a few rust stains on it and places where the paint has chipped and flaked away. He drives slowly by the 1993 Toyota Camry with wide, staring eyes. His eyes seem to seek to make contact, to make a connection or communicate with the dark brown pair seated in the gray fuzzy driver's seat. Maybe the eyes seek only to look and stare. The brown eyes dart away, pretending to be engaged elsewhere, watching small slim fingers push imaginary buttons on the radio mounted in the center of the console of the golden Camry. The small green wagoneer passes by and, reaching the end of the row of parked cars, turns up another row and continues on in its slow sweep.
The vision of the green wagoneer is blocked as a monstrous maroon Dodge F-350 rumbles by. It is the kind of truck that has construction orange lights running in a line across the roof of the cab, always personally conjuring of images of moonshine and small boats mounted with spot lights powerful enough to illuminate large alligators drifting in the murky waters of a midnight swamp. It's the kind of truck driven by the owners of small construction companies who are either prospering or fighting bankruptcy.
Another couple walks across the parking lot to their white, gas-guzzling monster of an SUV. They both wear white shirts. White is a color rich with symbolic meaning. It almost subconsciously triggers tones of forgiveness, holiness, cleanliness, purity... abstinence, sterility. Their relationship had these last two. Forced into near abstinence in marriage from the constant rat race the American upper middle class life had become; that and from the stressing and fighting and screaming and fighting over fiscal affairs that had removed all feelings of love and tenderness from their relationship. Their marriage, like so many others, was a shadow, an act, a business contract that kept them together because divorce, child support, and their place in the eyes of their peers were much too expensive. Everything good and intimate in the relationship had been pressure washed away with screams and tears and selfishness until all that remained was a sterile, blank, white slate. What caused this sudden violent impression to flash through the golden 1993 Toyota Camry remains in question. Maybe it was something in the way the couple moved together, the brisk, business-like manner, that belied this hidden contradiction; maybe no contradiction existed at all, and it was perhaps only a coincidental similarity of mannerisms with another couple who lived like that that had triggered this subconscious linking. After all, the man did have on a white polo shirt. Polo shirts triggered signals of wealth and popularity. Maybe the couple was well set up after all with few financial and marital woes. Maybe they'd even been born into rich families and touted their lifetime memberships to the lucky sperm club with as much enthusiasm as the uppity pseudo-country twenty-year-old young man who owned three boats and lavished his girlfriend with gifts to stay "one up" on his country-club buddies.
These musings are dismissed as quickly as they came as the vibrations from another car's speakers travel in shaky little lines through the 1993 Toyota Camry. As the vibrations become stronger, a youth, enchanted and intoxicated by the golden years of life, like a moth and an open flame, drives by and the vibrations gradually lessen. As the sphere of influence of the youth's speakers travels away from and slowly loosens its grip on the golden Camry, a Mennonite woman immediately rides by directly in front of the Camry in the passenger seat of a small truck her husband is driving. The foil of characters is almost to perfect to be true. As the quaint couple's car pulls away, the small dark green wagoneer with the chipped paint creeps slowly closer. Once more the dark brown eyes dart about searching for something to fake interest in until the danger of the strange, staring, searching eyes is past.
One of the cars, an SUV, starts flashing its lights, frantically waving its windshield wipers, and beeping in thought-piercing pitches. The man who accidentally pressed the panic button comes to claim his vehicle in no particular hurry. He leisurely presses a few buttons on his little black remote control, unlocks his doors once the beast is finally silenced, and begins to unload the spoils of his Wal-Mart adventures with the help of his eight year old son. The owner of the car has on a polo shirt striped with white, navy blue, and a dark, almost maroon red. Images of six and seven year old brothers wearing the same shirt almost ten years ago are recalled from inside the 1993 Toyota Camry.
Another man parks an old, old white van in a nearby parking space. The van is small and boxy, almost pointy, and reeks of the '70's. Despite, or perhaps because of, the strange van's obvious age, the little car has a lot of character. Asides from the paint chips and rust, the little van looks like it just busted right out of a time capsule, screaming of a time period not too long past. The short, chubby, balding man who climbs out of it doesn't appreciate the little van's character though. He drives the little white tank because he can't pay for a new car, so continues touting this little antiquity with a certain amount of self-loathing. He scurries away from the unappreciated little van and towards the towering blue and white corporate castle before of him.
10:02 glows in illuminating green lines against the black background of the tiny clock a little to the left of the center of the console in the golden 1993 Toyota Camry, and this social exploration of the 9:30 Anderson Wal-Mart Parking lot comes to a decisive close.
"A Representative Sample"
The setting is Anderson's Wal-Mart parking lot. The time is 9:30 at night, the peak of sober human activity. The exact place of sitting is the gray fuzzy driver's seat of a Toyota Camry, year 1993. The mission is to observe the goings and comings of this small, surprisingly representative sample of humanity.
A couple walks by. They're young, a few years out of their teenage days, seriously dating or perhaps newlywed. The young man has blonde hair cut short in a typical boy haircut. The girl's hair is long and straight. White grocery bags dangle from one of her hands. Both the man and the woman are slightly chubby, not obese but possessing tiny protruding pot bellies. They are both wearing glasses, an occurrence common enough to be called circumstance, but more curiously both wear white shorts made out of a khaki material and yellow shirts. They wear the same shade of yellow, a pale yellow found in the pastel color scheme of a newborn's nursery. The young man pulls out his keys, pressing a button to unlock the doors, and the couple loads their small purchase into the car and drive away.
A Hispanic man in his forties approaches in a small dark green wagoneer. The car has a few rust stains on it and places where the paint has chipped and flaked away. He drives slowly by the 1993 Toyota Camry with wide, staring eyes. His eyes seem to seek to make contact, to make a connection or communicate with the dark brown pair seated in the gray fuzzy driver's seat. Maybe the eyes seek only to look and stare. The brown eyes dart away, pretending to be engaged elsewhere, watching small slim fingers push imaginary buttons on the radio mounted in the center of the console of the golden Camry. The small green wagoneer passes by and, reaching the end of the row of parked cars, turns up another row and continues on in its slow sweep.
The vision of the green wagoneer is blocked as a monstrous maroon Dodge F-350 rumbles by. It is the kind of truck that has construction orange lights running in a line across the roof of the cab, always personally conjuring of images of moonshine and small boats mounted with spot lights powerful enough to illuminate large alligators drifting in the murky waters of a midnight swamp. It's the kind of truck driven by the owners of small construction companies who are either prospering or fighting bankruptcy.
Another couple walks across the parking lot to their white, gas-guzzling monster of an SUV. They both wear white shirts. White is a color rich with symbolic meaning. It almost subconsciously triggers tones of forgiveness, holiness, cleanliness, purity... abstinence, sterility. Their relationship had these last two. Forced into near abstinence in marriage from the constant rat race the American upper middle class life had become; that and from the stressing and fighting and screaming and fighting over fiscal affairs that had removed all feelings of love and tenderness from their relationship. Their marriage, like so many others, was a shadow, an act, a business contract that kept them together because divorce, child support, and their place in the eyes of their peers were much too expensive. Everything good and intimate in the relationship had been pressure washed away with screams and tears and selfishness until all that remained was a sterile, blank, white slate. What caused this sudden violent impression to flash through the golden 1993 Toyota Camry remains in question. Maybe it was something in the way the couple moved together, the brisk, business-like manner, that belied this hidden contradiction; maybe no contradiction existed at all, and it was perhaps only a coincidental similarity of mannerisms with another couple who lived like that that had triggered this subconscious linking. After all, the man did have on a white polo shirt. Polo shirts triggered signals of wealth and popularity. Maybe the couple was well set up after all with few financial and marital woes. Maybe they'd even been born into rich families and touted their lifetime memberships to the lucky sperm club with as much enthusiasm as the uppity pseudo-country twenty-year-old young man who owned three boats and lavished his girlfriend with gifts to stay "one up" on his country-club buddies.
These musings are dismissed as quickly as they came as the vibrations from another car's speakers travel in shaky little lines through the 1993 Toyota Camry. As the vibrations become stronger, a youth, enchanted and intoxicated by the golden years of life, like a moth and an open flame, drives by and the vibrations gradually lessen. As the sphere of influence of the youth's speakers travels away from and slowly loosens its grip on the golden Camry, a Mennonite woman immediately rides by directly in front of the Camry in the passenger seat of a small truck her husband is driving. The foil of characters is almost to perfect to be true. As the quaint couple's car pulls away, the small dark green wagoneer with the chipped paint creeps slowly closer. Once more the dark brown eyes dart about searching for something to fake interest in until the danger of the strange, staring, searching eyes is past.
One of the cars, an SUV, starts flashing its lights, frantically waving its windshield wipers, and beeping in thought-piercing pitches. The man who accidentally pressed the panic button comes to claim his vehicle in no particular hurry. He leisurely presses a few buttons on his little black remote control, unlocks his doors once the beast is finally silenced, and begins to unload the spoils of his Wal-Mart adventures with the help of his eight year old son. The owner of the car has on a polo shirt striped with white, navy blue, and a dark, almost maroon red. Images of six and seven year old brothers wearing the same shirt almost ten years ago are recalled from inside the 1993 Toyota Camry.
Another man parks an old, old white van in a nearby parking space. The van is small and boxy, almost pointy, and reeks of the '70's. Despite, or perhaps because of, the strange van's obvious age, the little car has a lot of character. Asides from the paint chips and rust, the little van looks like it just busted right out of a time capsule, screaming of a time period not too long past. The short, chubby, balding man who climbs out of it doesn't appreciate the little van's character though. He drives the little white tank because he can't pay for a new car, so continues touting this little antiquity with a certain amount of self-loathing. He scurries away from the unappreciated little van and towards the towering blue and white corporate castle before of him.
10:02 glows in illuminating green lines against the black background of the tiny clock a little to the left of the center of the console in the golden 1993 Toyota Camry, and this social exploration of the 9:30 Anderson Wal-Mart Parking lot comes to a decisive close.