Back to Class

"I am honestly shocked that my summer is over." I said this out loud as I dusted off my MacBook and cracked open its neglected case. I haven't touched my computer in months. In the same way that I have not worn jeans in months. It was a summer of shorts. It was a summer not thinking about my education.

I sat at the dining room table and logged into my first Fall class.  ENG 221: Creative Writing. This course teaches techniques for creative writing. Explores imaginative uses of language through creative genres (fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction) with emphasis on the student's own unique style, subject matter and needs.

"Why did I sign up for this class?" I said out loud. I am not creative. I can't write. I was right then I decided to write as much about the Nazi's as possible. This is mostly because the class is online, and we have to "peer-review" each other's work. It is also, as I scanned the class list, filled with inspired, yet frustrated Soccer Moms. So bloody epic atrocities it is then.

Our first assignment was to write a simple scene with tension. I turned in this...

The large man in the uniform barked again.

“Ma’am move into the scanning area.”

She was frozen in terror. Her weak and feeble legs, the ones that were once strong enough to carry her quickly across that field in Poland, refused to move. The legs that saved her life by outrunning the German’s dogs. The legs that fearlessly out ran uniformed German soldiers. Now they were frozen in fear.  It was her Grandchildren, which talked her into leaving the safety of her bedroom. To take an airplane to see them. She didn’t understand what this uniformed man wanted. She peered up at him. Tears began to flow.

“Oh, geesh.” The TSA agent whispered as he rolled his eyes.  “Move into the scanning machine, everyone has to be scanned.”  The security officer will never understand how his actions mirror the actions of other uniformed men. In a similar line, back in Poland.