"There it was! Grandma was so nice.
As a child, she always spoiled me with gifts and sweets; always waiting to surprise me. Always beaming just as much as I was when I opened any sort of offering she presented to me. And there it was! The last gift, shown up four months late, yes, but that didn't matter.
I grab the gift and savagely tear open the wrapping paper! My insides are screaming 'Hail, Grandma' as I fold open the box that holds wondrous affection of my loved one. . . And there it was. A duck. Rubber, purple, and seeming to mock me with every squeak. She knew how I felt about ducks, geese, birds, the like. She knew what her own son, my dad, did to me while trying to play his fatherly role. How is shooting beautiful creatures such as these for fun considered fatherly? 'It's all for sport, son!', he said. 'A good lead in the head, as I always say, eh Champ?' No, not eh, dad, not eh.
She was just like him, I realized. She's just as bad as my bird-loathing father! And all these years, I'd never known. Every christmas that had passed by, it was all a lie! But things would change from now on, oh yes, Grandma, things would change."
You know, it's really interesting to look back on one's past work.
I wrote this monologue back in Ontario of this past March, and I was so proud of it. At Ontario, we had all been assigned certain workshops to attend while at the event, and Stephanie had been given a really interesting writing class. My friend, Mitchell, and I really wanted to go to that workshop. So after asking the event coordinators if we could switch our workshops, and being told no, we decided to say "screw you, rules" and attended the writing workshop anyway. I was so glad I did, because I learned some really great stuff and had a fantastic time. All of Ontario was fantastic, to be honest. I look back at it and realize that it was one of my most favorite moments of my high school career, and unlike most other events trips that I take with my friends, everything went right during that weekend. It was one of those times I wish I could relive exactly as I had lived it, because it was just that good.
BUT, moving on, I look at this monologue that I wrote, and I found so many mistakes with it. I tried to leave the writing and the choppy paragraphs just as I had originally wrote them, but I couldn't stop myself from changing some things. Still, you get the idea. And yet, mistakes and all, I am proud of this cheesy little monologue, as it sort of reminds me of why I write. For fun, for friends, and for the sheer love of seeing my imagination played out through words.
I said the other day on Facebook that I wish I could meet Mark Twain in person. I know this is impossible, because he is very much deceased. I could, however, visit his gravesite, but something tells me that I wouldn't get the same satisfaction from trying to hold a conversation with a slab of rock. But I think Mark Twain was an amazing person, and even though the South doesn't really interest me very much, the stories of Sawyer and Finn have always intrigued me, and after seeing so many of his dry humored quotes, the man seems like he was an amazing person. And as much as I would like to meet him, I'm not in a hurry to resurrect him from the dead just so I can ask him a few questions.
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