FlashNano25 Day 6: A story that takes place in a cafeteria - He's just a kid

 Flashnano25

Day Six

Prompt: Write a story that takes place in a cafeteria

Like I’m sure many other teachers, even retired ones like me, been dealing with nightmares while following in horror the Virginia Beach teacher shooting trial. 

Here’s one of those nightmares. 

He’s just a kid

Before the first shots rang out in the crowded cafeteria some students were already seated and nibbling on Friday’s lunch of cheese pizza, broccoli, applesauce, while others waited in line. Still more were walking into the cafeteria single file and silent per the elementary school’s rules though some were sharing silly whispers and a few jumped up and down. They were just six after all. Yet others, trays clutched close to their bodies because they were still learning how to balance, were meandering toward their seats. When the shooting started, some, startled by the sudden blasts, dropped their trays. As the firing continued, time stood still then sped up, as screaming children ran toward doors, windows, while some hid under tables and others stood frozen, their tiny nervous systems overloaded by fear. Some teachers on duty yelled, “Oh my God,” and rushed toward the doors, and others toward the screaming, crying hordes. More shots rang out and the three children seated across from the shooter fell backward onto the floor. The two on his left and right slumped forward onto their trays. The teacher closest, who’d been opening stubborn milk cartons and squeezing out ranch dressing, lunged forward, but her small charge, the one all the teachers worried about, the one with parents who scoffed at their concerns, the one the vice principal said was just a first grader and couldn’t hurt a fly so she didn’t even bother checking the backpack for the gun four students swore was in there, aimed too well and she was gone too. 

Flashnano25 Day 8: Happy World Pianist Day except to you, Mrs. VG

 Flashnano25 

Day 8

Prompt: Write a story about one of these (choose from list of events celebrated on 11/8).

Happy World Pianist Day, except to you, Mrs. VG. 

Your stern voice, harsh words, and corporal punishment changed me forever.  

I was in eighth grade when we met, my seventh year as a piano student at St. Gabriel’s School of Music. Up until that year, all my piano teachers were nuns. They were kind, caring, and encouraged me. 

Once a year, gentlemen from Catholic University in Washington, DC would make special trips to our school and listen to us play. I was always praised. They marveled at my talent, my work ethic, my dedication. They wrote letters to my family that I had potential. That if I kept at my current pace, I’d likely be in line for some college scholarships. 

At our annual school recital, I received ovations. My parents were so proud. I was so happy. 

Then came you, Mrs. VG. You yelled at me if I slouched. You insulted the way I looked and talked. You sat next to me on the piano bench. And you hit the backs of my hands with a ruler every time I made a mistake. Every. Time. 

Funny how things work. The more you hit me, the more mistakes I made. 

I begged my parents to send me to a different piano school. Told them the teacher was mean. They refused, because my school was THE school for piano in the area. I was lucky to be there, they said. 

The Catholic University performance that year was a disaster. 

The annual school recital? Still to this day my face heats up thinking about it. I got on stage, and everyone was expecting I’d be one of the best. But I couldn’t play. My fingers, once trusty and strong, started trembling, then shaking uncontrollably. I played maybe three measures perfectly, then lost complete control of my arms. I kept stopping. Starting. Stopping. Restarting. When I finished, no one clapped. I ran off the stage in tears. 

My parents relented after that. The next year I started at a new piano school. The teacher was a former jazz performer who taught me chords so I could play popular music. I still learned some classical stuff, but in comparison to Mrs. VG, the pace was super chill. 

I never played in public again. The experience that year with Mrs. VG destroyed something deep inside. Even now, if I try to play with people around, I freeze up and start shaking. 

A few years ago, my mother and I were talking about my old piano lessons. I told her how Mrs. VG used to hit me. 

My mother, a talented, classically trained pianist, got upset. 

“I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

I shrugged. “Back then I didn’t know any better. I thought what she was doing was normal. I thought I was the one with the problem.” 

As an adult, I now know better.

When my youngest daughter was in second grade, like me she decided she wanted to learn to play the piano. Given my past, I made sure that her teachers were warm, kind, encouraging. Like a sponge, my daughter soaked up everything.  By the end of her first year, she was already playing complex pieces. Starting in high school, she regularly performed for crowds, playing the accompaniment in local stage productions. A bit of a savant, she majored in Mathematics and its artsy equivalent --  Piano Music, in college. 

And time moves on. My grandson recently started taking piano lessons. He’s obsessed. He draws his own staffs and creates his own compositions. He comes to my house and plays his songs. One of his songs is about a spider. It’s eight measures long. I’ve heard it now maybe sixty times. I’m sure I’ll hear it another sixty more. 

Sometimes he sings along and I join him, but only for a few minutes because he says I tend to sing offkey and he tells me to stop, which I do. He’s got a delicate ear. For him as was true for my daughter, bad singing is literally painful. I have no desire to inflict any pain on this kiddo. 

 His tiny hands are soft and delicate and still getting used to piano keys.  Sometimes his fingers trip and that’s more than okay. Me, his parents, his teacher, we all praise him for trying and learning new things. Mistakes are just fine. 

I think now about people like Mrs. VG who never learned that mistakes are part of trying. That mistakes can be a GOOD thing. She must have had a miserable life. 

 

 

 

 

Flashnano 25 Day 7: Sans even a clue

FlashNano25

Day 7

Prompt: Write a story in the form of a list. Use the number seven in the title. 

Sans even a clue

1. Let's have statewide mandatory student testing! What an awesome way to ensure that kids learn! It'll cost next to nothing but the benefits? Wowza! Yay for everyone learning. 

2. Oh boy. It's going to cost a little more than we think. A lot more, I mean. 

3. Oh, and we need to set strict guidelines. 

4. Third graders should be able to sit for four hour straight, right? 

5. Teachers say that's abusive. They're saying these standardized tests aren't helpful and shouldn't stand alone as representing who kids are and what they know. 

6.  Those teachers are so stupid. They really think we, the folks making six figures who got our jobs because we know someone, are going to listen to them? I have a more powerful job, therefore I'm smarter. They're citing Piaget? Erickson? Maslow? Their own experiences? Excuses excuses. 

7. Bathroom breaks during testing? Insanity. Not as a group. Make sure kids wait until the one monitor for their entire floor of like ninety kids or whatever can take them one at a time.  So what if they have to wait an hour or more. They can keep working. It's called discipline. Seig Heil! 

8. Forgot their glasses?  Grown ups can't bring them?  Of course those kids have to take the tests. No excuses. They can squint. Test away! Wheeeee! 

9. Sick kids? Just put a frickin' wastebasket next to them. Wusses. 

10. Yes, of course give them lunch. We're not animals. Hand deliver it to them in their testing classrooms. No they can't talk. What if they share test answers?  

11.We're going to need more money. 

12. Maybe we should shame teachers more. 

13. Teachers keep quitting? Good riddance. They're a dime a dozen anyhow. 

14. Okay, now we have more kids scoring advanced, but those inner city school scores are still shit. 

15.  Of course it's the teachers.  And the curricula. Let's spend more money on programs we don't need that don't work. And keep telling everyone the teachers are at fault. 

16.  Huh. Yeah, so we keep putting pressure on all those cities and towns with failing students. But the scores aren't changing. 

17.  OMG OMG OMG!!!! I have a great idea! Let's throw more money at the problem! Oh, and don't forget to continue that inner city teacher shame campaign!  Let 'em all leave!  They sucked anyhow. We'll get newer, smarter teachers. 

18. Wow. These young teachers don't have any mettle. They keep quitting. They don't make 'em like they used to. 

19.  Okay so things aren't changing as much as we thought. We're throwing money at the problem. Changing curricula. Shaming teachers. But STILL our inner city kids aren't passing these tests. 

20. Well, a lot of those kids are immigrants. They're just starting to learn English. And we have lots of kids with special needs, too. 

21. OMG so many excuses. 

22. We're giving the kids a WHOLE YEAR to learn English before we test them. I know.  It takes seven years or so for students to fully learn a language, and yes, some need more and some less. But if we only give them a YEAR and then start testing them? That's pressure. That's good. They'll rise to the challenge. They won't drop out of anything. They won't get angry and act out or anything, right?

23. Special needs kids are getting frustrated? Tough. No one ever said life was easy. 

24.  Sure, they won't get a high school diploma if they don't pass, but NORMAL kids don't give up. I mean, I never gave up. Like every human being on the face of this earth, I lived in a house that always had heat and electricity, was raised by loving parents in a stable environment, had tons of books, was read to constantly, always had nutritious food, music lessons, sports programs, had so many opportunities to grow in so many different ways. I grew up the same as every other kid who ever existed. This bullshit test failing? Damn teachers. 

25.  More money more money more money. Gimme all the money. Years and years of this. 

26. Hey, here's something. Someone I deeply respect because they make tons of money and might be politically connected so it's to my advantage to do what they say says there's a correlation between low income and low test scores. Huh. 

25.  You sure about that? Teachers have been saying that for YEARS and we know they're stupid. 

26. But we should respect and listen to people who make tons of money who have tons of influence and who can advance our careers. 

27. More money more money more money more money more money and test results barely budge. 

28.  Finally. Maybe it's not the teachers' fault. Maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe it's societal, economical, emotional. Maybe testing isn't the end-all-be-all of existence. 

29. So are we saying that teachers had it right all along? 

30. Oh please. Never. 

FlashNano25 Day 5: Running is a family trait

 FlashNano 25

Day 5

Prompt: Tell a family story. Fictionalize as needed. 

 

I tell people that I was destined to become a marathoner because the talent runs in my blood. I say my mother’s uncle was a runner. 

Like all my mother’s stories, the story about this uncle was heavy on emotional tugs, though a little light when it came to the facts. I’ve done my best to research the truth but haven’t found any sort of paper trail. I’ve asked cousins and most shake their heads at me as though to say, “What the heck are you talking about?”

Back in the day, “runner” was another word for messenger. See the joke? See how, when I tell people that I have marathon blood gushing through my veins, because my great-uncle was a runner, I’m playing with words? It’s kinda funny, right? 

Here’s the tugging on your heart part that my mother told with much more emotion than I am capable of conjuring.

My great-uncle was a messenger for the Irish Republican Army for a few months, weeks, days -- I'm not sure, in the decade before World War I. He was a child, still a baby in some ways, only ten years old when he was caught by British soldiers, arrested, and given the awful choice of jail or deportation. I can’t even begin to imagine how terrified he must have been and how inconsolably devastated his parents were. 

Today, ten-year-old kids don't even go to the corner store by themselves. Yet 115 or so years ago, my great- uncle was dashing over bogs, fields, mountain tops, doing his utmost to help his family, friends, countrymen. 

My great-uncle's family chose deportation for him. He immigrated to the U.S., Massachusetts specifically, where some of his older siblings already lived, sent earlier, one at a time, by impoverished parents desperate to give their kids more than what they had. 

In Massachusetts, my great-uncle lived with my great- aunt, a housekeeper for a wealthy family, and then with my grandmother, a governess. Brutally torn from the aching arms of his mom and dad at such a pivotal age, my great-uncle died a spiritual death the day he set sail for America, my mother said. He spent the rest of his relatively short life mourning for home, a shell of who he could have been. 

And here I am, making it all into a big joke, each time I bring up that running is in my blood.  

 

FlashNano25 Day 4: Blonde Wood

FlashNano 25

Day 4

Prompt: Write a story using Home Depot Blonde Wood 

No. I don’t want to do this. 

Read this prompt yesterday and have been feeling annoyed ever since. Pisses me off. You want me to write about a color? A color? Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk this aggravatingly boring, pathetically pedestrian bit of story prompt into mine.

Oh my God this is so stoooooooopid.

How am I supposed to escape from reality, indulge my fantasies, pretend I’m not doing anything other than using things like writing prompts to avoid dealing with the fact I’m barely treading water re: my hopes, dreams, goals, when you wave this dull piece of blech white bread in my face? 

And don’t even get me started on how this is not helpful not one bit when it comes to giving me a way out of avoiding confronting the existential dread that has shadowed me like an adjudicated rapist since last November’s election. 

It’s like you WANT to make me nuts. It’s like you’re FORCING me to face facts. 

And the facts are these. I don’t give a rat’s ass about blonde wood. My country is dying. My rights are rotting. My students. Oh my God don’t even get me started on how much I’m worried about those kids and their families right now. 

And you’re asking me to use my precious energy to write about

a paint color

flooring

the potential song

poem

book title

character name

plays on words

blonde would

Hi, My name is Wood, Blonde Wood

Elle Woods 

Norwegian Wood

Out of the Woods

What would you do if you had a million dollars

What would you do if you had... 

“one shot... or one opportunity...
To seize everything you ever wanted... one moment...
Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?” 

Yeah. That’s Eminem. 

My creative process is weird. 

I think I need a run. 

FlashNano 25 Day 3: Alone on an empty highway

 FlashNano25

Day 3

Prompt: You are alone on an empty highway. 

 

Being an American girl, she was raised on promises. Yes, every breath you take, she was told, can lead you to wide open spaces, where there’s room to make your big mistakes. 

Carefree highway let me slip away on you, she thinks, pedal on metal, from California to the New York island. And the cornfields, so many cornfields. Bright lights. Big cities too, teeming with life. Like me, wretched refuse yearning to be free. That’s some proof. If you build it, they will come.

Gotta keep rolling and must keep riding, even if sometimes feels like I’m on the highway to hell. 

I go to the mountains. Drink from the fountains. There’s more than one answer. But thinking in terms like roads and driving, lyrics and phrasing, those guiderails help frame my thoughts, while I move on from town to town. 

Every day is a winding road that brings me closer to feeling fine.  There are bumps, sure. Detours too. But if I waited for perfection, I would never write a word. 

So many stories of where I’ve been and how I’ve got to where I am. It’s a little overwhelming, but in a good way. 

It’s a truth, universally acknowledged by some women raised to want more, that an empty highway can be full of promises. 

I count the miles in paragraphs, race medals, tolls – and wow some of those tolls have worn me down. . . 

Still, I pick myself up. I want to go out tonight. I want to find out what I got. Stumbling, fumbling toward ecstasy, one word, mile, breath at a time. 

I fill the tank. Study the odometer. Check my compass. Then fingers to wrist verify what I already know. Pulse is still strong. Country roads, I demand, take me home. Where’s that though?  So many miles to go before I sleep. I’d walk 500 miles. Scratch that. I’ll run/ walk and drive 500 miles and 500 more, because I’m not dead yet and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.  

 

 

 

 

(Mishmash of lyrics and quotes, some misremembered, from:  Tom Petty, The Police, Dixie Chicks, Gordon Lightfoot, Woody Guthrie, Ceelo Green, Emma Lazarus, Field of Dreams, Bob Seger, AC/DC, The Indigo Girls, Bad Company, Cheryl Crow, Margaret Atwood, Brandi Carlile, Jane Austen, Bruce Springsteen, Sarah Mclachlan, John Denver, Robert Frost, The Proclaimers, Monty Python, U2)

Flash Nano 25 Day 2: Something turns into something else

 Flash NANO 25 

Day 2 Prompt: Something turns into something else. 

 

Ugh. The alarm.  From under the covers, an arm. Alarm slaps off. 

You know what? I’m not doing this. I’m not getting out of bed. I’m retired. Sleeping in. 

The 300-pound orange cat has other ideas. He climbs on my chest, paws at my neck, then does a 180 so I can admire his substantial behind which is a breath away. 

I’m up. 

Stumble into kitchen, bathrobe on inside out.  300-pound orange cat threads through my legs. This is not helpful, I tell him. 

Defying all laws of gravity, 300-pound cat jumps on counter and glares at me as I throw a pod and a cup of water in the Keurig.  

“You are starving me,” his eyes say. 

When I open the pantry to get out his bowl and canned food, 300-pound cat jumps from counter – house shakes – and nudges me to move faster.

I submit the offering to him for his approval: Shredded Shrimp and Chicken. He headbutts the can. This is his people’s highest compliment. The headbutts continue as I fill his dish, so most of his foodums ends up on the floor, as usual. 

While he inhales breakfast, I gulp coffee. 

On the fridge there’s his photo, taken a few days before I trapped him last year. He’s peeking out from the drainpipe he called home for most of the first months of his life. A terrified baby then, fur matted, eyes wide, too thin. Claws like knives though. 

Finally, home safe with me, he got regular meals, a litter box to play in, a couch to shred, and a warm bed. Me? Tetanus shot, couple rounds of antibiotics, and a nice pharmacy bill for bandages and gauze. 

Patrick – yes, he has a human name and is more human than some humans I know – licks his plate until it sparkles then jumps into my lap with the gracefulness of a cat four times his size. 

My coffee spills. 

Who’s a good boy, I say.

He smiles. Can cats smile? Yeah. I think so.