Rachel Barton

Haphazard

Revised Version

            I had never felt so exhausted in my entire life.  Sleep was now a stranger, visiting only for short conversations: turbulent, but conversations nonetheless.  It definitely was not the same as before.  What was once a restful sleep became a distressed visit to another, darker world full of uncertainty and a strangely obscured apparition recurring in my dreams ever since I began my new life in the city.  Even so, sleep was still one form of escape—a familiar place to retreat to when I could actually get there. It has become my realization that life could be better spent dreaming, even as unsettling as my dreams would usually arrive.  Many times, I would have trouble falling sleep, but this time I was so worn down it became quite easy to nod off unawares. 

            Suddenly, I was jerked out of my dream-world by frigid blasts of morning mist raking over my skin.  As if the uninvited chill wasn't enough to wake me from my solace, I found myself choking as I inhaled a large puff of smoke so forcefully dispersed and drawn to my face by the rapid rush of air.  Sitting up startled in the cold leather seat and trying to bring relief to my burning lungs by means of a slight cough, I saw her quickly flick her cigarette out of the car window.  I was rather annoyed by her stubborn refusal to quit her nasty habit.  However, it was kind of comical to me, seeing her trying to hide it by struggling to manually roll up the window of the burnt orange '89 mustang she had treasured since high school.  Talk about bad timing, I thought, the window’s stuck again!  How hilarious! 

Attempting to be resourceful, she had put that old car together herself—a compilation of miscellaneous parts from the junkyard.  I remember how much time and effort she put into the hunk of junk.  She dubbed her creation Pumpkin Guts, against my suggestion of the name Frankenstein.  As if a cute little personification could make him any more reliable anyway.

            "Hey, how's the life of the non-smoker?" I asked while still maintaining my cough in an attempt to enhance my question.

            Anna merely replied with a sarcastic "Ha, ha, Charlotte.”

I suppose she had to find a means of escape somehow.  She has always been the defiant type and I couldn't see her any other way.

            "So, Miss Insomniac, so you finally fell asleep, huh?" Anna asked me.

            "Yeah, Anna, you are, after all, my most boring cousin."  Truth be told, she was the polar opposite. 

Anna possessed one of the most colorful personalities I had ever gained the privilege of encountering. Since neither of us had any siblings, we relied on each other for entertainment growing up in the same rickety country cottage.  I remembered spending hours with Anna just cutting loose and making a fool of myself; that was certainly not something I would do when we were apart.  Strange as she was, part of me didn’t like being separated from her, which was why my spirits rose when I found out we’d be living so close to each other in the city.  Many times, I saw her presence as my escape from the mental vexation I was faced with at home.  I had always been considerably interested in her quirkiness, for reasons unknown to me until I claimed a major in psychology at Houston Community College.

            Anna took a quick look at me in my long polka-dotted nightshirt and ironed black work skirt I had thrown on to make myself seem at least partially presentable for the ride.  I was still wearing my pink, striped toe-socks I normally wore to bed.  I didn’t know if she could tell, but I was a bit peeved at the fact that I barely had enough time to pack when she called my cell phone at 4 A.M. to steal me away from my dad’s apartment.  On any normal occasion, there’s no way on earth that I would be caught trimmed with such attire in public. 

“The shade of those bags under your eyes really complements your fashion sense, Charlie.  Are you trying to ward off sleep dressed like that?” Anna taunted, taking advantage of the situation.  However, the tone of her voice was a bit shaken.  I sensed a strange apprehension in her. 

            “Anna, are you alright?”

            What followed was an empty silence.

I peered over to the drivers’ side to catch a glimpse of her expression.  I wondered what was going through her mind.  Mine was racing with questions.  Why had she gotten me out of bed so early just to go for a joyride?  Where were we headed?  Was there another problem with her boyfriend that I was unaware of?  She appeared contemplative and intense: lost in thought as her short, dyed jet-black hair danced in the breeze that reached through the still partially-cracked window she earlier gave up on closing completely.  I could feel the jolt of ole’ Guts as Anna threw him into the next gear, pressing hard on the accelerator, suggestive of her agitated mood.  It was now a little after 4:30 in the morning and we were flying down the highway moving out of the city.  The roads were sporadically speckled with vehicles of morning commuters racing to their daily vocations, the headlights of which looked to me like speeding UFO’s hovering hesitantly in each lane.  I could feel the tension as we wove in and out the lines of them.   Fortunately, the traffic was moving steadily; it seemed like Anna wouldn’t have given a second thought to plowing down any unsuspecting sluggish drivers.

            "Where exactly are we going?" I finally mustered up the nerve to ask.    

            "Anywhere but back there," she replies hastily—haphazardly spoken as if I had offended her with my inquiry.  Sometimes I don't know what to say to her.

            "Do you think Bart noticed us leaving?" I said to break the impending silence.  That was probably not the best question to ask. 

            "She immediately replied, "I don't care if he did.  I need a break.  He needs to learn that I'm not going to stick around and put up with his crap forever!

As to what crap she was referring, I rationalized that it was better left unsaid for now. Sometimes I wondered how Anna could live with him; I knew she couldn't stand his immaturity.  I guess they shared a common factor of emotional instability.  He being an individualist 23-year old progressive rock musician playing gigs in Houston and she being a slightly neurotic 25-year old college art student with tattoo artist aspirations certainly created an interesting couple.  His passion for loud, complicated musical compositions and her affinity for flames, skulls and roses was what I would call a wild combination that never failed to engage my intellect. 

Many times, Anna’s inconsistent behavior and feelings would cause her to act eccentrically and Bart was often prone to angry outbursts and unstable emotions. Even considering Anna’s disposition, I thought Bart to be the most unusual.  I could understand my cousin, but for a tall, dark, and intimidating guy with Anna’s fearsome artwork sprawling up and down his strong arms, I always thought Bart was too emotional and temperamental.  Many times, he would be over-zealous about his musical endeavors and a little less than enthusiastic about his relationship with Anna, which caused many of their routine spats.  Despite their frequent arguments, I often enjoyed hanging out at their downtown apartment and observing their antics.  There was never an absence of interesting psychology to analyze between the two of them.  Peculiar as they were, I took a strange sort of comfort in their company.  Luckily, they were never far away—my dad’s apartment was only a block down from theirs.

            Anna liked to push limits; poor old Guts struggled to match the speed she was intending to get out of him.  I could sense her rage.  It was printed clearly on her face by the tightness of her lips and the intensity that burned in those piercing green, catlike eyes partially hidden beneath her messy bangs and the usual mask of thick, black eyeliner. 

After a couple more minutes of contemplation, she broke the silence she left after her last emotionally charged statement.

“Maybe if I disappear for a while, he’ll finally see me!” Her words flew like the paint she would often throw and spatter against canvases.

In an instant, though, her rage dissipated as she cracked what anyone who didn't truly know Anna might call a maniacal little smirk—but I knew better.  That was just Anna.  She was a girl who would rather laugh than cry at her problems.  I knew she wasn’t crazy, she just never deemed it appropriate to constrain any aspect of her personality, no matter who was in her presence.

            We drove for two more hours, not saying much.  Spring break had just started, so I didn’t need to be concerned about missing my favorite psych classes.  Any other day, I’d protest such a random road-trip, but I could tell that she needed me there. 

            Good, I thought.  At least school’s one less potential worry to keep me up at night.

            We were finally out of the city now and I determined from the farmland slowly appearing that we were headed to Bastrop, the small Texas town where Anna and I had grown up together.  Immediately, the mere prospect of seeing our old hometown again brought back fond childhood memories in my mind.  I could see us spending hot summer afternoons together swimming in the lake, adventuring through the pine forests, and cool evenings running through the field behind our house capturing unsuspecting fireflies in empty glass mayonnaise jars left over from past family reunion picnics.  Contemplatively scanning through my memories as if my mind’s eye were flipping through an old photo album, I found Drew.  I had not thought of him in a while, mostly because I chose not to.  But now I was lost in thought of him: my first high school boyfriend, and after the break-up, my last one.  My dad wouldn’t have it any other way.  My relationship with the opposite sex seemed to be the only thing he would be involved in when it came to my life.

            Being shaken out of my daydreams of the boy I once thought I loved by Anna running over a pothole in the pavement, I remembered.

“I probably need to be home before Wednesday evening,” I said cautiously.  “I don’t want my load of homework to pile up too much.”  I didn’t know if she’d even reply.

            “Oh, ok Charlotte, If I were you I would want to make a speedy return to my drunken father as well.  I’m sure Rick’s worried sick about you.” 

I didn’t respond.  Her comment perturbed me, but I said nothing in his defense.  How could I?  There was nothing to be said.

            We turned past the old vacant gas station and down the gravel road leading up to the tiny neighborhood where we had spent our childhood and high school years.  We pulled up to an old house that obviously hadn’t seen a lick of upkeep in a while.  Of course, I immediately recognized exactly what this was. 

Getting out of the car, I coughed a bit; it seemed that old Pumpkin Guts’ tires had kicked up a thick cloud of dust that lingered in the still air when we had stopped.  Looking over towards Anna, I was unable to fully read her.  She had her head slightly tilted to one side, revealing that same strange little smirk: the one she would often use as a psychological dam to constrain the flood of tears seeking to surge forth like a flood from those striking eyes.

“So, I hesitated.  “I know it’s been hard for you since she’s been gone.”  I could empathize; although my mother wasn’t dead (at least, not that I know of), when she decided she no longer wanted any part of our lives, I knew I felt a similar emotion—like I could no longer see the world in the same light. 

            Anna replied, “Yeah, she left the house in my name.  But you know better than anyone… there’s know frickin’ way I would ever stick around here too long!”

            It was then that I finally felt compelled to ask.  “So, then why, all of a sudden, are we back?” 

Revision Account

When first writing my fiction piece, I was unsure of how to begin—just as I had been in writing my poetry submission.  However, with some thought I finally decided to write about a scene from the perspective of an analytical persona as she interacts and with her cousin who is seemingly her opposite. This is the first chapter of a book that I am intending to finish, and is also the first fiction piece that I have ever written.  I took advantage of the knowledge of how many artistic people think and behave to write Haphazard.  The idea for my main character, Anna, was a compilation of different people’s characteristics that I know, including my own.  I thought I would tell the story from the perspective of the opposite type of personality: the left-brained psychology major. 

Since I presented the piece in class, I was able to make some good revisions and obtain some great comments.  During the Creative Writing class workshop, I was given many helpful suggestions about how to revise and edit my work.  Some of the major recommendations were grammatical. Dr. White helped me out by describing when to use the demonstrative pronouns that or which.  This came in handing in revising my fiction submission.  Also, I had to change the arrangement of some commas and take thoughts presented in the story out of quotes.  Instead, I chose to italicize the thoughts.

They advised me on how to make some of the sentences read more smoothly.  This included taking out some of the unnecessary wordiness in a few of the sentences.  For example, in the first two sentences, I was advised to change “I had never felt so exhausted in my entire life up until this point.  Sleep was now a stranger to me, visiting only for short conversations: turbulent conversations, but conversations nonetheless” to “I had never felt so exhausted in my entire life.  Sleep was now a stranger, visiting only for short conversations: turbulent, but conversations nonetheless.”  I think this suggestion, in particular, really helped me emphasize the idea of sleep being personified.  Taking out the phrase “to  me” in the first sentence made it read more smoothly, also. 

            Another change the class advised was for me to change the dialogue between Anna and Charlotte in the second paragraph of the first page to emphasize Anna’s comebacks to Charlotte’s comments.  To this effect, I made the following changes:

BEFORE:

"So how's the life of the non-smoker?" I asked while still maintaining my cough in an attempt to enhance my question.

            Anna merely replied with a sarcastic "Ha, ha.”

I suppose she had to find a means of escape somehow.  She has always been the defiant type and I couldn't see her any other way.

            "Hey insomniac, so you finally fell asleep, huh?" Anna asked me.

            "Yeah, Anna, you are, after all, my most boring cousin."

AFTER:

"Hey, how's the life of the non-smoker?" I asked while still maintaining my cough in an attempt to enhance my question.

            Anna merely replied with a sarcastic "Ha, ha, Charlotte.”

I suppose she had to find a means of escape somehow.  She has always been the defiant type and I couldn't see her any other way.

            "So, Miss Insomniac, so you finally fell asleep, huh?" Anna asked me.

            "Yeah, Anna, you are, after all, my most boring cousin."

The class really responded positively to how descriptive the scenes and characters were, so the next thing I did was give even more descriptive qualities to Anna’s relationship with her boyfriend, Bart (and amusingly enough, even the one she has with her orange mustang).  I changed a large amount of Charlie’s narration to give more balance to her understanding of Anna and to clarify how far their relationship spans:

EXAMPLE:

Anna possessed one of the most colorful personalities I had ever gained the privilege of encountering. Since neither of us had any siblings, we relied on each other for entertainment growing up in the same rickety country cottage.  I remembered spending hours with Anna just cutting loose and making a fool of myself; that was certainly not something I would do when we were apart.  Strange as she was, part of me didn’t like being separated from her, which was why my spirits rose when I found out we’d be living so close to each other in the city.  Many times, I saw her presence as my escape from the mental vexation I was faced with at home.  I had always been considerably interested in her quirkiness, for reasons unknown to me until I claimed a major in psychology at Houston Community College.

One of my major concerns with my story was that it had so many possibilities to consider for an outcome.  I was not completely sure of which direction I wanted to take the story.  I like what I had written so far, but I needed ideas for what was to occur next.  Since I had merely prepared the first chapter, the class gave me many suggestions on which direction to take the successive chapters that would follow the one I had already written.  This was the most helpful form of criticism they could have given me! They gave me some ideas such as elaborating on why Anna does not want to live in her old house, details of how her mother died, why Charlotte’s mother abandoned her and her alcoholic father (more details on the father), and adding scenes where Drew, Charlotte’s former high school boyfriend, comes into the picture.  Another idea presented to me was to create some type of a bond or connection between Charlie and the old house.  One of my classmates, Amber Buitron, suggested that Bart could be portrayed as a struggling rock star with a drug problem.  She characterized his persona as being abusive or violent, young, immature, or unfaithful.  I’m sure I’ll be able to fit some of these suggestions into my next chapters.

Another possibility that came up in class was that Anna could be running away because she finds out that she is pregnant and Bart reacts in an immature manner.  My class said that she could be returning to her mother’s old house because she is concerned about starting a family with Bart.  She could be looking for a place to do so, but could also be cautious or concerned about returning to a place with so many bad memories of her mother’s death attached to it.

For the most part, the class reacted positively to my fiction submission and encouraged me to proceed with it.  I was also happy with the way it came out.  After the revisions, my opinion of the current manuscript is better.  I like the additional descriptiveness of the work and think it definitely reads better.  It’s not as wordy as it’s beginning state.  In addition, I have been given many more ideas about how to form the remainder of the story, thanks to the in-class workshop.  Since it’s part of a larger work, there are many more possibilities ahead to explore.  I don’t think this manuscript needs any further development.  I have read over it many times and  have actually changed it a bit more each day since the workshop.  I would hope, if the final work is good enough, that I could submit it to some sort of publisher.  As the class pointed out, there’s not telling where a story can go after it’s finished.  I would hope to do something with it in the future since I intend to finish writing it, but I am unsure of what to do currently.  It all depends on the outcome of the work and the responses that it gets later down the road.

Original Fiction Manuscript to compare:

Haphazard

            I had never felt so exhausted in my entire life up until this point.  Sleep was now a stranger to me, visiting only for short conversations: turbulent conversations, but conversations nonetheless.  It definitely was not the same as before.  What was once a restful sleep became a distressed visit to another, darker world full of uncertainty and a strangely obscured apparition reoccurring in my dreams ever since I began my life in the city.  Even so, sleep was still one form of escape--a familiar place to retreat to when I could actually get there. It has become my realization that life could be better spent dreaming, even as unsettling as my dreams usually arrived as.  Many times, I would have trouble falling sleep, but this time I was so worn down it became quite easy to nod off unawares. 

            Suddenly, I was jerked out of my dreamworld by frigid blasts of morning mist raking over my skin.  As if the uninvited chill wasn't enough to wake me from my solace, I found myself choking as I inhaled a large puff of smoke so forcefully dispersed and drawn to my face by the rapid rush of air.  Sitting up startled in the cold leather seat and trying to bring relief to my burning lungs by means of a slight cough, I saw her quickly flick her cigarette out of the car window.  Although I was rather annoyed by her stubborn refusal to quit her nasty habit, it was actually kind of comical to me, seeing her trying to hide it by struggling to manually roll closed the window of the old '89 mustang.

            "So how's the life of the non-smoker?" I asked while still maintaining my cough in an attempt to enhance my question.

            Anna merely replied with a sarcastic "Ha, ha.”

I suppose she had to find a means of escape somehow.  She has always been the defiant type and I couldn't see her any other way.

            "Hey insomniac, so you finally fell asleep, huh?" Anna asked me.

            "Yeah, Anna, you are, after all, my most boring cousin."  Truth be told, she was the polar opposite. 

            “The shade of those bags under your eyes really complements your fashion sense, Charlotte.  Are you trying to ward off sleep dressed like that?” Anna joked.  However, the tone of her voice was a bit shaken.  I sensed a strange apprehension in her.

            “Anna, are you alright?”

            What followed was an empty silence.

I peered over to the drivers’ side to catch a glimpse of her expression.  I wondered what was going through her mind.  Mine was racing with questions.  Why had she gotten me out of bed so early just to go for a joyride?  Where were we headed?  Was there another problem with her boyfriend that I was unaware of?  She appeared contemplative and intense: lost in thought as her short, dyed jet-black hair danced in the breeze that reached through the still partially-cracked window she earlier gave up on closing completely.  I could feel the jolt of the car as she threw it into the next gear, pressing hard on the accelerator, suggestive of her agitated mood.  It was 6 a.m. and we were now flying down the highway moving out of the city.  This road was littered with vehicles: morning commuters racing to their daily vocations.  I could feel the tension as we wove in and out of traffic.   Fortunately, the traffic was moving steadily; it seemed like Anna wouldn’t have given a second thought to plowing down any unsuspecting sluggish drivers.

            "Where exactly are we going?" I finally mustered up the nerve to ask.    

            "Anywhere but back there," she replies hastily -- haphazardly spoken as if I have offended her with my inquiry.  Sometimes I don't know what to say to her.

            "Do you think Bart noticed us leaving?" I said to break the impending silence.  That was probably not the best question to ask. 

            "She immediately replied, "I don't care if he did.  I need a break.  He needs to learn that I'm not going to stick around and put up with his crap forever!

As to what "crap" she was referring, I rationalized that it was better left unsaid for now. Sometimes I wondered how Anna could live with him; I knew she couldn't stand his immaturity.  I guess they shared a common factor of emotional instability.  He being an individualist 23-year old progressive rock musician playing gigs in Houston and she being a slightly neurotic 25-year old college art student with tattoo artist aspirations certainly created an interesting couple.  Many times, Anna’s inconsistent behavior and feelings would cause her to act a bit eccentrically and Bart was often prone to angry outbursts and unstable emotions. I thought it unusual; I could understand my cousin, but for a tall, dark, and intimidating guy with Anna’s fearsome artwork sprawling up and down his strong arms, I always thought Bart was rather over-emotional and temperamental.  Despite their frequent arguments, I usually enjoyed hanging out at their downtown apartment and observing their antics.  There was seemingly never an absence of interesting psychology to analyze between the two of them.  Peculiar as they were, I took a strange sort of comfort in their company.  Luckily, they were never far away—I resided in my dad’s apartment which was only a block down from theirs.

            Anna liked to push limits; that poor old mustang struggled to match the speed she was intending to get out of it.  I could sense her rage.  It was printed clearly on her face by the tightness of her lips and the intensity that burned in those piercing green, catlike eyes which were partially hidden beneath her messy bangs and the usual mask of thick, black eyeliner. 

After a couple more minutes of contemplation, she broke the silence she left after her last emotionally charged statement.

“Maybe if I disappear for a while, he’ll finally see me!” Her words flew like the paint she would often throw and spatter against canvases.

In an instant, though, her rage dissipated as she cracked what anyone who didn't truly know Anna might call a maniacal little smirk--but I knew better.  That was just Anna.  She was a girl who would rather laugh than cry at her problems.  I knew she wasn’t crazy, she just never deemed it appropriate to constrain any aspect of her personality, no matter who was in her presence.

            We drove for two more hours, not saying much.  Spring break had just started, so I didn’t need to be concerned about missing my favorite psych classes at Houston Community College.  Any other day, I’d protest such a random road-trip, but I could tell that she needed me there. 

            “Good,” I thought, “At least school’s one less potential worry to keep me up at night.” 

            We were finally out of the city now and I determined from the farmland slowly appearing that we were headed to Bastrop, the small Texas town where Anna and I grew up together.  Immediately, the mere prospect of seeing our old hometown again brought back fond childhood memories in my mind.  I could see us spending hot summer afternoons together swimming in the lake, adventuring through the pine forests, and cool evenings running through the field behind our house capturing unsuspecting fireflies in the empty glass mayonnaise jars left over from past family reunion picnics.  Contemplatively scanning through my memories as if my mind’s eye were flipping through an old photo album, I found Drew.  I had not thought of him in a while, mostly because I chose not to.  But now I was lost in thought of him: my first high school boyfriend, and after the break-up, my last one.  My dad wouldn’t have it any other way.  My relationship with the opposite sex seemed to be the only thing he would be involved in when it came to my life.

            Being shaken out of my daydreams of the boy I thought I once loved by Anna running over a pothole in the pavement, I remembered.

“I need to be home before 8 Monday night,” I said.  I didn’t know if she’d reply.

            “Oh, ok Charlotte, If I were you I would want to make a speedy return to my drunken father as well.  I’m sure Rick’s worried sick about you.” 

I didn’t respond.  Her comment perturbed me, but I said nothing in his defense.  How could I?  There was nothing to be said.

            We turned past the old vacant gas station and down the gravel road leading up to the tiny neighborhood where we had spent our childhood and high school years.

“So, I hesitated.  “I know it’s been hard for you since she’s been gone.”  I could empathize; although my mother hadn’t died, when se decided she no longer wanted any part of our lives, I knew I felt a similar emotion—like I could no longer see the work in the same light. 

            Anna replies, “Yeah, she left the house in my name.  But you know, there’s know frickin’ way I would ever stick around here too long.

            It was then that I finally felt compelled to ask.  “So, then why, all of a sudden, are we back?”