On Line Workshop, Exercise One

[WendyPratt]

We've discussed time in relation to memory, and we have found that our early memories are centered around others. Let's now take a slightly different approach and think about 'age'. How does time affect a person? How has time affected you? Physically, emotionally, psychologically . Has time been kind? Or has it lead you to believe that everything is a bit pants at the end of the day.

This exercise is about finding an identifying moment in your life. It could be a childhood experience, the revelation that your mum and dad 'do it' , it could be something from your teenage years, the birth of your first child, the day you met your partner, the day a parent died. It doesn't have to be an event of any particular magnitude, it could be the day you realised that you didn't like carrots and were no longer going to eat them.

But, and here's the catch, write about it not as yourself, in your own voice, but as if you were being observed by someone else, third person I suppose. You don't have to write reams, just whatever comes to mind. Feel free to post anything you do write here, or not, it's up to you. If you don't fancy this exercise, I'll be posting another soon.

Wendy

[Brett]

How long is this exercise/workshop open, Wend?

Interesting exercise. I look forward to reading what is posted.

Brett

[WendyPratt]

Strictly speaking it will run for three days, I'll post another exercise tomorrow and another on Saturday then conclude on the discussion thread.I think that will give people a chance to join in. But I suppose that as long as it's up people can use it for inspiration.

I'll be back at the same time tomorrow night (7 PM) for the next part. Hope people are getting something out of it.

Wendy

[Phil]

I am - thank you, Wendy - and all respondents.

Phil

[WendyPratt]

I'm just glad people have turned up and it's not just me talking to myself.

[Keith exD]

Hi Wendy,

I don't know if this is what you want, but I've always wanted to write about this bastard, so I thank you for that.

Mr. Trethowan’s Electricity Class.

NB: The names haven’t been changed to protect the guilty

It was a bright September morning. The second week of the second year and the second return to the electricity laboratory for the notorious, Mr. Trethowan’s class. Everybody knew they had to pay attention, do their homework and arrive at class on time or risk 500 or 1000 very long lines which, if not completed meant a trip to the Head for a slippering on trumped up charges. Sometimes punishment was summary.

Keith forgot. He found the electricity laboratory a melancholy place with its rows of teak topped benches, high echoing ceiling and wide Art-deco windows (although he didn’t know his school was a 30’s Art-deco masterpiece at the time). The reason for this was, at eleven years old he, along with twenty-nine other scared kids, were shunted into this room for the first ever lesson in the ‘big school.’ He was now twelve and much more at home in this environment, but this bright autumn morning reminded him of that day one year before.

The laboratory looked out across a small quadrangle. At the far end, the feature that made the building locally famous dominated the view; a three-story circular wall of glass which enclosed the school’s main staircase. Keith looked out on this and remembered how he gazed out of the window on his first day wondering why he was there and wishing he was somewhere – anywhere – else. He had been shit-scared.

“Ginge!”

His best-mate, Phil’s urgent whisper woke him from his reverie just in time to see a four-inch steel bell, from an old fire alarm tumbling over and over in the air on a trajectory that ended somewhere between his eyes. An instinctive duck saved him and it noisily carved out a half-inch deep gouge in the solid wood bench directly behind him.

“Perhaps you will pay attention in my class in future, boy,” Trethowan said in his familiar cold voice. “Bring the bell back to me.”

Keith returned it, too frightened and too naïve to realise, at that moment he held Trethowan’s future in his hand.



I don’t know if this was a defining moment in my life, but it did make me realise what a bunch of psychotic bullying bastards teachers are (or at least were then). I’ve never trusted teachers since that day.

[Brett]

Work removed.

[Nick]

Hi Wendy,

In the spirit of the challenge, I've written a short in the third person. It's a rough 1st draft.

Falling Crosses

In the church car park, he sat in his car, 17 years old and angry at everything. The rust bucket wouldn’t start and it was a long hike home. This was just another bad day in a never-ending succession of bad days. Another death in the family and cheating slut for a girlfriend just compounded his angst.

Instead of getting out of his car and beginning the arduous walk home, he just sat there, smoking cigarette after cigarette and staring at the massive Cross dominating his immediate skyline.

The hate and anger building up in him was overwhelming as was the need to destroy something other people loved. The giant Cross seemed like the perfect thing to tear down.

The images reeled though his mind of the headlines in the news, pronouncing the evil of some unknown individual who desecrated the local church. He wanted their anger, their righteous fury and their need for revenge. He smiled at the thought of Christians turning the other cheek, ‘not round here’, he mused. Maybe they would find him and beat him to death in their indignation. It would be a suitable end for all concerned.

He thought about meeting God, how he would disown the supposed saviour, just straight out tell him to ‘fuck off’, but then all of a sudden everything made sense, something shifted in him, his mind was no longer stuck in a repetitive black hole, like a flash of lightening, he knew the truth.

He’d been trying to hate God for 3 years and it never made him feel any better and the reason was so obvious he started laughing to himself, loud and long. He simply didn’t believe in him, never really had. It was more of a faint hope. In his desperation he wanted so much to believe, he wanted someone to blame for his life, someone to hate for it, but in the end he knew in his heart it was a lie. God was a myth.

[Sue]

Time You Understood

There were two faces in the dining room. One belonged to a little girl called Susan, and the other belonged to her enemy, the Clock.

They hadn't been enemies when the days were long enough to explore and play and make up songs to butterflies. It hadn't mattered then where the Clock's hands happened to be at any moment. Daddy left for work when it got light, and Mummy put on her apron and washed dishes and vacuumed the house. When the sun went to bed, Mummy took off her apron, put on her lipstick, and Daddy came home, so they all had tea together. The Clock had just been something that sat on the mantlepiece and made a pleasant tick, tock, and chimed like the radio at news time.

That was before school.

Susan had wanted to go to school, very much, and Mummy had talked specially to the teachers so she could go straight after Christmas, instead of waiting until after the summer holiday. She enjoyed playing in the sand-box, and painting and drawing and being able to read and write. She puzzled over buying painted plaster cakes with cardboard pennies, and sticking Cuisenaire rods together - what was all THAT for? But her enemy at the moment was the Clock.

The Clock told her when she had to go to school. It kept her in class until dinner time, even if the sun was shining, and it forced her outside when it was raining, just because it wasn't lesson time any more. It told her that she had to use the loo at playtime when she didn't need to, so that she didn't have to hold up her hand and ask to go during lessons.

Worst of all, school wanted her to understand what the positions of the circling hands of the Clock actually meant. That was when the Clock became her enemy. Sometimes the Clock played chimes over and over in her sleep. She had nightmares in which the Clock, staring white, grew multiple hands that flew round and round and escaped whenever she tried to focus on them. Sometimes the hands of the Clock were a faceless black spider that marched off the dial and advanced on her.

Susan tried not to learn anything about the Clock, and refused to answer her teacher when she asked, "Now, what time is that?" over the cardboard copy of its face. The Clock became a torture to her. In the end the teacher spoke to Mummy, and Mummy spoke to Daddy, and Daddy stood her in front of the Clock in the dining room, and Susan knew she must be in trouble.

"It's time you understood how to read the clock. Things happen at school at different times. You need to know what time it is so you know when to drink your milk, or eat your dinner, or to meet Mummy and come home."

"I don't want to," was all she could say.

"Look at the big hand," he commanded, as he moved it round to twelve. "When it's up there, it means it's something o'clock. And what's this number here?"

"One," said Susan. That was easy.

"So when the little hand's on one, and the big hand's on twelve, it's one o'clock."

Susan looked at her enemy, and it seemed to wink at her. "One o'clock," she said.

"Now," said Daddy, and he moved the little hand to two. "What time is that?"

Susan looked at her enemy, and it seemed to smile. "Two o'clock."

"You're right. Now," said Daddy, and he moved the little hand to three. "What time is that?"

Susan looked at her enemy, and it seemed to point out of the door. "Three o'clock and home time." She clapped her hands and said, "I know the time now, Daddy. Can I go out and play?"

"No," said Daddy, and he moved the big hand to six. "Now, what time is that?"

Susan looked at her enemy, at the Clock with its impossible face, and wondered why Daddy had to go on making things difficult, even when you'd done something right.

[WendyPratt]

Sorry I'm running a little late, i shall get to exercise two any minute then I am looking forward to looking through all your brilliant Time pieces. Did you see what I did there?