A Twelfth Grade Writing Assignment

Page one of a writing assignment in 1988.

This was how my 17-year old brain thought when given a writing assignment in English class. The assignment was to describe a room using as many adjectives as possible, but without making it sound like shit. I chose my bedroom, though the bits about the drum set were in my mind. It was turned in on March 4, 1988. I thought I was edgy and cool then because no one seemed to understand what I was writing. I got an A. That’s all that mattered at the time.

Ms. Prather was always a hard-ass. She constantly pushed me to be better at writing as a senior in high school. Everyone hated her. I disliked the constant coffee breath. Whenever she bent over to talk to you, there was a whiff of coffee from her cup and then the smell when she began to speak. I didn’t like the constant griping about my writing, but I didn’t hate her like my classmates did. I knew and understood she was trying to help me even if I was frustrated at the constant critiquing. When I went to college the following Fall, my professors were impressed with how well I wrote. To this day, I still credit Nancy Prather for molding me into the writer I became.

Ms. Prather’s comments on the draft I turned in for class in 1988. I did receive that “A” for the assignment.

A Twelfth Grade Writing Assignment

A terrible sight lies outside the window. A huge black cloud hangs over the sky, like a classroom blackboard, with all eyes upon it. The thick, gray smoke from the plant down the road slowly sucks away the breath from the life existing nearby. Brilliant, pastoral, and lively maple trees no longer blossom; now they sway in the wind like a corpse floating down a river.

Inside, brilliant streaks of colors jump off the wall. That red, the deep dark red, drips like blood, oozing from a vein. The yellow and black stripes are like a sleek tiger running through the pale green forest, with dark and light blue shining above like the sky on a cloudless day. Toward the center of the room, that magnificent drum set sits, with its deep black cylinders and shiny metal rims, awaiting for a lonely souls to come and try it. Those immense cymbals reflect the moonlight onto the wall, and that sleek tiger begins to run again.

The moonlight shines almost completely on the seat, as if god himself expects someone to sit there. The sticks, positioned almost perfectly in the center of the head, are green, like the grass on an early Easter morning. Nothing and no one can come withing reach. As the sticks strike the toms, the heads shake, creating a deep, soothing sound within the cylinders. Disturbance is nowhere to be found, for it is shut out along with the rest of the world.

There is now a new one, where only musicians can go. Jazz, Blues, or Rock can be played in the this tiny world, but no one can hear, except the musician. Then, once again, that presence is near and the music can be shared. Soon, light shines through a window, and out the other, with the sound of the music riding away on a wave of sunlight. But that presence is still there, it is always there, just watching; nothing more.