Jason - Childhood

On the writing:

There is a challenge in this week's writing that was not exactly what I expected. A soliloquy is a monologue, so a simple one person speech, but it is not simple. It is written in such a way that the speaker is talking to himself and at the same time, he is talking to the audience. Additionally, the writing is usually the deep thought of contemplation. Philosophies. Now, combine this with a childhood memory and you need to find a story the has some mystery or resonates deeply. Death? Love? What was there in my childhood to draw from? I considered this for a few days before I could even begin the writing.


The story I settled on was one in which Justin and I were playing in the basement and we stumbled into our stash of gifts.  The style is written a little bit stream of consciousness and a little bit with the Shakespearean punctuation, which is a bit poetic and capitalizing every line.  Here is an example: http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/what-light-through-yonder-window-breaks/

Guarding Surprise

 

Confused, my heart both lept and sunk.
Was this fortune, or misfortune?
Certainly unexpected. This collision of two games of hide and seek,
Like worlds crashing into each other in the vast dark of space,
But not as imagined, not the mutual fiery destruction of equals.
No, this was one giant swallowing another.
The past, tiny and eroded with age, was the egg being cracked.
Drawn suddenly and violently into the enormity of the now.
Never as my parents slid the coveted box into the dark,
As their fingers slid over the futuristic numbers “2600”,
Into a forgotten crevice of the deep basement did they imagine this.
Who could foretell that a hider would find that which was already hidden?
No tea leaves or soothsayer. No. There was none.
In that dark place the unprepared guardian of this prepared delight was unceremoniously me.
This was not the me with pen in hand, but rather a school aged and naive boy.
How could I rescue the moment imagined?
What skills were at my disposal? How to contend with the distraction of excitement?
So, I fell back on the time honored skill of prevarication.
Did you see the way he looked at the box his legs had bumped into?
Did you see the flicker of recognition on my brothers face?
“You have every right to be excited I started, these are gifts we have stumbled into.”
This was the sugary truth in which to wrap my deceit.
“But, the box is misleading, it is just a box used to wrap other things.”
How could I be so dumb?
What sadistic parents would wrap the socks and underwear in an Atari box.
That is how matricide happens.
“Let’s go play something else, somewhere else.”
Did he take believe me?
Would he be moved on to something else?
Was that a nod of understanding?
Did he know?
Alas, we moved from the space, but at the same time a portion of me remains there.