A Snippet of My Writing!
As some of you may know, I took creative writing this past semester and it was seriously so great. Not only did I learn a lot about writing and editing, but I was also able to experiment with a bunch of different genres and really push myself as a writer. Then, at the end of the semester, we all had the opportunity to revise a piece of our writing and submit it to be published in the college newsletter. So today I thought it would be fun to share a little bit of my writing with you! This piece is something I wrote and may or may not turn into a book some day. Enjoy :)
On my ninth birthday, Daddy was frozen.
It wasn’t his fault, Mom always says. He
didn’t mean to defy the Rulers.
But he did.
I trace my pinky finger down my window,
clearing a path through the dirt and grime. The glass is cold beneath my
fingertips, the frigid air breathing frosty breaths onto the outside pane.
It’s cold when they freeze you. At least,
that’s what I’ve heard people say. The blood in your veins turns to ice so you
can’t escape, then cold water fills up around you until you can’t breathe. And
then there’s nothing. Some say it’s quick and nearly painless. Others say it’s
slow and agonizing.
I shiver slightly and pull my sweater
around me tighter, hugging my arms to my chest just as my door panel slides
open, and my FatherBot enters.
He looks just like my real Dad, only
instead of warmth and love inside, there is nothing but a robotic skeleton
beneath plastic skin.
“Good morning, Aneira,” it says, its voice
monotone and emotionless. “Happy birthd-d-d-d-d-day.”
I groan to myself and roll my eyes as the
FatherBot twitches and jerks, sliding off of my bed and skirting around it.
Stupid piece of junk is glitching yet
again.
“Happy birthd-d-d-d-day, Aneira, happy
birthd-d-d-d-day hap-hap-hap-hap-hap—.”
I groan loudly and tug the bottom drawer
of my desk open, rooting through a messy array of screws, bolts, and various
robotic parts. The FatherBot continues to twitch as its voice box skips and
repeats.
“Hap-hap-hap-hap-hap—”
My fingers find my multi-tool just as my
mother comes into my room, breakfast in hand.
“Oh,” she moans, watching as I hurry to
pry open the panel on the FatherBot’s neck. “Just smack it a few times, dear,
that usually works for me.”
Finally, the panel opens. I press the
reset button and the FatherBot’s voice box quickly cuts off.
Once again, my finger lingers by the
on/off switch, anger and desperation tempting me to turn it. For the sake of my
mother, my sanity…
My dad.
I just want to turn the stupid thing off.
“Annie,” my mother warns.
I swallow hard and close the panel again.
The FatherBot promptly turns and returns to its charging station in the hall to
reboot.
“I bet nothing would even happen,” I
grumble, crossing my arms and sitting down on my bed again. “We could just turn
it off for an hour or two. I mean, how would they even know?”
Mom sighs, setting the plate of food on my
dresser.
“You remind me of your father more every
day,” she whispers sadly, sitting down next to me, and I wince.
My mother has aged tremendously over the last
nine years. When I was younger, her hair was the same chestnut color as mine.
Her deep brown eyes were young and bright, and the skin around them was fresh
and flawless.
But then Dad was frozen. Then the
FatherBot was required to be installed in our home.
Now my mother’s curls are gray, and her
eyes have lost their gleam of happiness and hope. Her skin is wrinkled and sags
in places, and when she moves it’s as though every inch of her throbs with
pain.
Needless to say, my mother lost much more
than her husband when Dad was frozen.
She forces a small smile at me, and for a
moment I wonder if she realizes that I’m analyzing her.
But then she says, “Happy birthday, Annie.”
And immediately, I shake my head.
“We’ve talked about this. No birthdays. I
don’t want special treatment, or food, or…anything.”
Mom frowns at me, and when she does it
almost seems pained. “Sweetie—”
“Happy birthday, Aneira.”
Immediately mom and I jump at the
FatherBot’s sudden and unexpected reappearance, staring at us both with robotic
camera eyes on a face that’s supposed to look like my dad.
But my dad didn’t have robot eyes. His
eyes were blue like the sky and warm like the sun. His skin was warm and soft,
not artificial and cold.
“I’m turning it off,” I say again,
watching the FatherBot clank back down the hall.
“He,”
my mother corrects. “And rules are rules, Annie. If we turn him off we’ll be—”
“Frozen?” I snap, but right away I wish to
take the words back as I watch ten thousand emotions cross my mother’s face.
She swallows hard. “—in trouble with the
Rulers.”
I close my eyes and nod slightly. “Right.”
Quiet fills the room again as I run my
fingers over the tool in my hand. It’s just like the special tool my father
used to use when he’d work in his workshop late at night.
Only this one he made special for me. This
one he made for me after he was sentenced, during the long and agonizing wait
for the day the Rulers decided would be his Freezing Day. And of course, that
day just had to fall on my birthday.
I wince again, closing my eyes.
Gosh, I hate birthdays.
Gosh, I hate birthdays.
My emotion must show on my face, because
suddenly my mother’s chilled hand wraps around mine. I look up to see a shaky
and tired smile pulling at her lips. And since I know that these days it takes
nearly every bit of her strength to smile, I finally let my walls come down.
I sigh and wrap her in a tight hug, her
body so much thinner and frailer than it used to be.
“Thanks, Mama,” I whisper. “For breakfast,
I mean. It looks great.”
At that, she lights up. “Oh, do you think?
I…I know I’m not as great a cook as your father was, but I did try my best.”
I snort softly, taking a bite of toast.
“You’re better than the stupid robot, I
can tell you that.”
Mom frowns again. “Aneira, you have to
give him a chance. He’s been here for years, and you just…you won’t even try to
like him!”
I roll my eyes. “Mom, it’s a robot.
There’s nothing to like.”
“…Annie, he…it’s dad, honey—”
“No, it’s Dad’s memories implanted in a
carbon-fiber robotic skeleton covered in synthetic skin and fake facial hair.
It’s not Dad, it’s…it’s not Dad.”
Quiet fills the room again, and my
mother’s hand suddenly squeezes mine.
“He would’ve been proud of you,” she
whispers, something like hurt teeming in her voice. She kisses my head and
slips out, closing the door behind her.
Outside, the snowflakes have begun to
stick to the window. I step towards it again, rubbing my finger across the
multi-tool still closed tightly in my hand.
“Make a change,” reads the tiny
inscription he carved for me on the bottom. I snort softly, looking out at my
world outside. The exact same world my father left the day he was frozen.
“Proud of me,” I mumble, shaking my head.
He would never be proud of me.
Because the world is the same, despite
what he taught me. Despite what I know. Despite the thousands of times my dad
told me to change the world, I haven’t lifted a finger. I haven’t made the
slightest bit of difference.
Because fear has a way of coiling itself
around a person and choking the life out of them slowly. Fear of failure. Fear
of the world.
Fear of sharing the same fate as my
father.
And if the fear of being frozen has
immobilized me for this long…
Then odds are there
is nothing in this world that will change that.