Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion

Ryan and Stephanie, the images in these are great!

Thanks, M!

Wow, I agree with M!

Beautiful writing, Ryan and Stephanie!

an angel in the
snow, made by a child who now
cries at the window.

Nice, Kat, and poignant! That will be a challenge to follow.

That was awesome, Kat!

Thanks, M. I know you can do it, though :D

Nobody’s at home,
my little one, for all their
worldly cares are done.

Tears drip from his face;
silence fills the halls.
Black enfolds his world.

Ajay wrote: "That was awesome, Kat!"

Thanks Ajay :D



No shafts of sunlight
left to brighten up his world.
The snow is melted.

Playground stands empty,
wind cries alone. From childhood
our children have flown.

The swings creak gently,
like memories forgotten
and stashed in the dark.

Such beautiful writing Kat, M & Stephanie. I am in awe...

Memories drift close,
then vanish. Small ghosts, blown on
a subtle night air.

You too, Ryan.

Everyone is on a roll here! Brilliant, guys!

O sweet! the music
she would sing, the bashful ghost
on the creaking swing.

Clever, clever M! Only you could manage to tie the last five haikus together in one...stunning!

Thank you, Ryan! I must be honest, though. It’s the coincidental parading itself as cleverness.

Incense smoke, a hint
of thyme. All that remains now
of two lives entwined.

Very nice, Ryan! I’m trying to figure out how to follow that one.

Wow, Ryan, that's brilliant.

She was incensed. It
was just a joke. But what spewed
from her ears was smoke.

Thanks :) Very nice, Al!

Two lives joined, bask in
golden sun. Two hearts in the
night, beating as one.

With one heart, they must
atone for their sins, since they
are Siamese twins.

One lone heart remains,
even when they other fades.
And death comes knocking.

Sins too great, for one
heart to bear. The wall, so high
an end to despair.

But light filters through;
the room becomes heavenly.
And peace fills their soul.

I walked toward the light,
thinking, “I’m dead.” Then, “Oh, no!
Why is the light red?”

Ahaha, M. That's great XD

A red light flashing,
bright. Mars? A lesson now learned-
avoid seedy bars.

But how my throat burns!
Vengeful seed from the red fruit.
Catastrophe strikes!

OMG! Look at what have you guys been up to! These have been divine, funny, clever, brilliant, Zen, amazing! A truly fantastic delightful sequence to read!


The dead pan mourner
Lightened her lips with the taste
Of pressed apple skins.

The grappa she sipped
Burned with the pain the grapes felt
at their being pressed.

The ice rink that was
Sank into the thawed mud pond
With what was once hard;

The skates that once swung
In the hands of the tall girl
became with her ghosts

Walking the knife's edge,
edging towards a wakeful
leap off the cliff's face

Hunting sunlight's ghosts,
the fragments of memory
danced like fruit flies.

Thank you, Al. But the entire sequence from everyone was simply amazing!

Good luck with your presentation tomorrow. Practice Christa's suggestions and before you begin, think of me, the mad Uncle, and imagine my teacher energy.

And I'm reading and commenting on your philosophy paper. Hopefully I'll be done before I drop, too.

I just finished commenting on your paper. (I liked it a lot!)

And I am so glad you are going to rely on us here in the WSS to help you with your presentation: we have your back, and know your abilities. Now it's time for me to hit the kip. Good night.

And summer breaks through
with it's sun lighting the cliff.
Cool water around me.

My body encased
in the smoothest atmosphere.
My lungs free to breathe.

Rays of light touch the
water's sparkling, wavy edge.
Air renews my face.

Ghosts walk on water,
their white, ripped dresses trailing.
Their voices sing light.

And sweet moonlight comes,
yawning over the landscape.
Ghostly rays touch me.

This thread’s been busy!

Guy wrote: “. . . And I am so glad you are going to rely on us here in the WSS to help you with your presentation . . .”

I draw the line, however, at writing research papers for people. I don’t do that sort of thing anymore.

I never have, M.

Stephanie, your haiku is an epitome of serenity. Lovely.

Thanks, Guy! That was what I was going for.

I really liked yours too. It sumarized a lot of the other haikus but moved the subject forward. Nicely done!

I was trying to be funny. The wonderful thing about writing papers for other students is that the grade risked is someone else’s. Once I did one about the process of using half-tones to convert Civil War photos to lithographic plates in nineteenth-century books. It was something I knew nothing about. I made it all up, including the sources.

You made up the sources?

That was actually the most fun part! He asked what he should do if the teacher insisted on seeing his sources. I told him he should tell her they were rare books gotten through inter-library loan, and that they had been sent back.

Now that is funny! And confirms what I discovered a long time ago about doing 'original' research: you can prove anything about anything because no matter the topic, there will be some kind of 'source' that will support your pre-formulated argument. It makes finding the 'truth' about anything nebulous!

Haha. Nice, M. Clever.

So true, Guy.

I should never have told anyone that.

I didn’t do that kind of thing regularly or for money, and I should probably explain. My roommate, who knew I was an English major, had been complaining that his English professor did no work. He showed me the instructions the class had been given for writing a research paper. I was outraged.

Hardly anything had been left up to the student. There had to be a certain number of sources of various, specified kinds. It was to be a short paper with, necessarily, an extremely narrow focus. The strengths of the assignment were its weaknesses. The professor got papers written to her specifications, so she didn’t have to take much time grading them; but those are the kind of assignments that most effectively strip away any individuality the student might otherwise have invested, so it can be difficult to tell how the papers got written.

It seemed to me that a professor so disinclined to take time with research papers would be unlikely to check sources, unless some blatant violation were thrown right in her face, and the undergraduate professors there didn’t have assistants to do their scutwork for them.

In the dorm room, I read through the instructions. Jose sat there and watched with amusement. I settled on a very narrow topic that seemed obscure and that I thought would be difficult to find sources for. There were no personal computers back then, no Internet. All the sources had to be gotten from the library.

I told Jose I would do it as an experiment, to see if I could beat the professor at her own game. Jose said he had nothing to lose, and agreed to turn the paper in exactly as I typed it. I had a lot of fun writing it. As I went from paragraph to paragraph, I explained to Jose what I had in mind, in case the teacher questioned him. It took me a couple of hours to write it. There was only one draft, and Jose turned it in.

I got more nervous about it over the next few days. What if the professor found out? Jose could get expelled, and possibly me, too! It would be a peculiar case. There was no plagiarism involved.

It was a relief when Jose got the paper back. I could hardly believe that it had an A on it.

Excellent! It is so funny you've shared that story, because recently I was reading Chomsky quoting George Orwell's criticism of modern university intellectuals for having become mouthpieces and apologist for their masters.

I’ll quickly add that, in all the years I was in college and graduate school, I hardly ever came across a professor, a lecturer, or a teaching assistant, who wasn’t hard working and of excellent character. Jose’s professor was a rarity.

Very interesting story. How in the world did you come up with that idea?

Stephanie, when I saw what the professor was getting away with, it just made me mad--the way any abuse of a position does. There was no way to strike back. Many students in freshman composition classes are happy to have less work, so the teacher probably got good reviews at the end of each semester.

The whole point of the research paper is to teach the student to narrow a topic; how to find, classify, and use sources; how to list bibliographical entries; how to do a rough draft and revise it. Instead, the professor had given the students a carefully devised instruction sheet that saved the students most of the work necessary to become proficient at writing a research paper. The motive, of course, was to save the professor the work involved in grading research papers.

You asked how I came up with the idea. It happened on the spur of the moment.

That teacher sounds rude. I would hate to have one like that. Fingers crossed that I don't get one when I leave!

When you leave? I thought you had gone to a college up north.