Essays and Other Pieces of Literature
Dec 7, 2009 11:24:26 GMT -5
Post by Chromeo on Dec 7, 2009 11:24:26 GMT -5
This is half finished right now, but whatever. My assignment is to write out a 1000 word piece in the style of Atwood with one of the supporting characters as the narrators. Yes, my task is to write a "Handmaid's Tale" fanfic.
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The damn thing is digging in again. The wires inside the costume, I mean. I twiddle around with it briefly, but it’s useless. It probably wouldn’t even be that difficult to fix, with a bit of tape. Sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to make a point with the ill fitting satin and steel supports, just to remind us not to get too comfortable with our position here. Briefly I remember the old gowns the women of Elizabethan times used to wear. Reinforced with a steel cage to give it extra volume. You got a broken spine after wearing stuff like that for too long. I imagine they knew that even then, but any discomfort to please a man, eh? I looked down at my high heels. Some things never change.
Still, it could have been worse. I think back to my days in the Red Centre. Sure, they have Aunts with itchy stun fingers here too, but this place is nothing compared to the discipline we had back then. We couldn’t even be seen talking to each other without a night in solitary. Punished by isolation if you tried to communicate. That’s probably ironic, but I don’t really feel like making light of the place. I didn’t really get to know any of the other girls, except of course June… I wonder where she is now?
I think back to our days in University, before all this madness. It seems so long ago now, but my days at the publishing company can’t have been more than a few years ago. It’s strange how fast things happened. It took us two hundred years to get the rights we had then, only to have them torn away in a second. I still remember the news that night. The President shot dead, and the whole of congress too. Roadblocks and censorship, and then the jobs, within just a few weeks. The world did end with a bang after all. All that time I thought we were winning the fight, but in the end, the traditionalists were just willing to go further. I told June, I remember that. That this was it. I didn’t try to get away, I didn’t think I’d have had much luck as a single woman. Looking back, I know I should have done something, burned through the checkpoints, or snuck away to Israel with the Jews. But I just never believed it could go this far. You hear about it on the TV, sure, but doesn’t it always happen to somebody else? Not in my backyard, not on my street. So much for the land of the free.
As I take a toke on my cigarette I think of June once more. I remember sharing cigarettes with her outside our old college. As I think back to when I last saw her at the Red Centre, I absently pass the smoke to the “devil” next to me (what a joke, she’s the nicest girl you’d ever meet). I feel guilty that I never told her I was going to break out, but it was safer for both of us for her not to know. I’d like to imagine she found her way out of there too, but she always was too passive. She’s probably lying in some old creep’s bed right now. Then again, it’s hardly much removed from what I’m doing right now.
---
The damn thing is digging in again. The wires inside the costume, I mean. I twiddle around with it briefly, but it’s useless. It probably wouldn’t even be that difficult to fix, with a bit of tape. Sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to make a point with the ill fitting satin and steel supports, just to remind us not to get too comfortable with our position here. Briefly I remember the old gowns the women of Elizabethan times used to wear. Reinforced with a steel cage to give it extra volume. You got a broken spine after wearing stuff like that for too long. I imagine they knew that even then, but any discomfort to please a man, eh? I looked down at my high heels. Some things never change.
Still, it could have been worse. I think back to my days in the Red Centre. Sure, they have Aunts with itchy stun fingers here too, but this place is nothing compared to the discipline we had back then. We couldn’t even be seen talking to each other without a night in solitary. Punished by isolation if you tried to communicate. That’s probably ironic, but I don’t really feel like making light of the place. I didn’t really get to know any of the other girls, except of course June… I wonder where she is now?
I think back to our days in University, before all this madness. It seems so long ago now, but my days at the publishing company can’t have been more than a few years ago. It’s strange how fast things happened. It took us two hundred years to get the rights we had then, only to have them torn away in a second. I still remember the news that night. The President shot dead, and the whole of congress too. Roadblocks and censorship, and then the jobs, within just a few weeks. The world did end with a bang after all. All that time I thought we were winning the fight, but in the end, the traditionalists were just willing to go further. I told June, I remember that. That this was it. I didn’t try to get away, I didn’t think I’d have had much luck as a single woman. Looking back, I know I should have done something, burned through the checkpoints, or snuck away to Israel with the Jews. But I just never believed it could go this far. You hear about it on the TV, sure, but doesn’t it always happen to somebody else? Not in my backyard, not on my street. So much for the land of the free.
As I take a toke on my cigarette I think of June once more. I remember sharing cigarettes with her outside our old college. As I think back to when I last saw her at the Red Centre, I absently pass the smoke to the “devil” next to me (what a joke, she’s the nicest girl you’d ever meet). I feel guilty that I never told her I was going to break out, but it was safer for both of us for her not to know. I’d like to imagine she found her way out of there too, but she always was too passive. She’s probably lying in some old creep’s bed right now. Then again, it’s hardly much removed from what I’m doing right now.
Spinning round and round like the deadly hands of a radium clock. 
