1. Autobiographical 2. Fiction 3. Wood- cork
My creative writing class was assigned a flash fiction project. Here's what I wrote.
The Summons
One Tuesday night, N. came home to find a summons in the mail. The charge was "Harassing Phone Calls". N. thought it vaguely strange and funny, and he dismissed it as a bizarre accident that would quickly resolve itself in court, if it even got that far. He posted the summons on the kitchen corkboard, printed side down. He showered, listened to some classics on NPR, went to bed, and slept soundly. He did not think of the summons again all week. Then remembering it on Sunday night, he took a second look at it, just to get down the time and location of next month's hearing. N. went to bed at the normal time, about two hours later, but he could not fall asleep. He was nauseated and dizzy and his heart thumped fast. In adolescence N. was a practiced liar; now as an adult, whenever he faced a psychic crisis, N. would do a rapid search of his defenses to find a phrase or a thought that would chase the trouble away. So tonight he tried to temper his anxiety with stabs at morbid, ironic humor. Kafkaesque! or, Too bad, I always wanted my first arrest to be for a drug offense! He remembered the time two months ago when riding his bicycle, he was almost knocked down by an aggressive driver. The driver cursed him out in Spanish. N. got his license plate number and gave it to the police. The summons was filed by a Detective Gonzales, and N. smirked and fancied the notion of an Hispanic cabal.
In truth, N. had led an insulated life since he moved to this city eight months ago. He had had no relationships of any sort here, and no crushes: Whom did he have to harass? Still, every night for the next two weeks, he would endure the pangs of a guilty man trying to subdue his conscience. His thinking became rapid and paranoic. The Hispanic conspiracy sounded silly, but it wasn’t out of the question, was it now? Kafkaesque, isn’t it? Truly Kafkaesque! On the night before the hearing, N. finally found the solution. He sat hunched on the bed, staring at the summons, with the radio still on in the kitchen. Beethoven’s "Suicide Scherzo" came on. This was his story: Trying to order take-out one night, he had dialed a wrong number. A nervous female voice was on the other end. A wicked part of him emerged out of a dark corner of his mind he had never known. He called again and again, saying "wrong number", until she cried and begged him to leave her alone. He could not remember doing it, but it made the most sense. For which would you judge more plausible: that a loner and a liar was innocent of harassment, or that he did the deed and couldn't own up to it?
The Summons
One Tuesday night, N. came home to find a summons in the mail. The charge was "Harassing Phone Calls". N. thought it vaguely strange and funny, and he dismissed it as a bizarre accident that would quickly resolve itself in court, if it even got that far. He posted the summons on the kitchen corkboard, printed side down. He showered, listened to some classics on NPR, went to bed, and slept soundly. He did not think of the summons again all week. Then remembering it on Sunday night, he took a second look at it, just to get down the time and location of next month's hearing. N. went to bed at the normal time, about two hours later, but he could not fall asleep. He was nauseated and dizzy and his heart thumped fast. In adolescence N. was a practiced liar; now as an adult, whenever he faced a psychic crisis, N. would do a rapid search of his defenses to find a phrase or a thought that would chase the trouble away. So tonight he tried to temper his anxiety with stabs at morbid, ironic humor. Kafkaesque! or, Too bad, I always wanted my first arrest to be for a drug offense! He remembered the time two months ago when riding his bicycle, he was almost knocked down by an aggressive driver. The driver cursed him out in Spanish. N. got his license plate number and gave it to the police. The summons was filed by a Detective Gonzales, and N. smirked and fancied the notion of an Hispanic cabal.
In truth, N. had led an insulated life since he moved to this city eight months ago. He had had no relationships of any sort here, and no crushes: Whom did he have to harass? Still, every night for the next two weeks, he would endure the pangs of a guilty man trying to subdue his conscience. His thinking became rapid and paranoic. The Hispanic conspiracy sounded silly, but it wasn’t out of the question, was it now? Kafkaesque, isn’t it? Truly Kafkaesque! On the night before the hearing, N. finally found the solution. He sat hunched on the bed, staring at the summons, with the radio still on in the kitchen. Beethoven’s "Suicide Scherzo" came on. This was his story: Trying to order take-out one night, he had dialed a wrong number. A nervous female voice was on the other end. A wicked part of him emerged out of a dark corner of his mind he had never known. He called again and again, saying "wrong number", until she cried and begged him to leave her alone. He could not remember doing it, but it made the most sense. For which would you judge more plausible: that a loner and a liar was innocent of harassment, or that he did the deed and couldn't own up to it?