So here are more of my writing assignments. Enjoy!
Something To Remember Him With (Second Major Writing Assignment)[]
Note: Rather than do a light-hearted comedy like my first writing assignment, I decided to do more of a dramatic story. This one is based on an incident that happened between me and an older gentleman, but with a few twists.
My Writing:
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER HIM WITH
If there was one thing that best described James, it was that he liked to remember. To remember a lot of stuff that happened in his life, he kept a lot of stuff in his room. Stuff that he knew he had to throw away but kept for significant reasons. A lot of the stuff that he kept included a rusty baseball bat, tons of books that he may or may never get a chance to read, tons of paperwork and receipts from different stores and organizations, and finally a ton of hats and caps that he would wear little to none. One of those hats was a cowboy hat that had belong to a friend of his named Derek McCormick.
Derek McCormick was an older gentleman who was long past James’ years, but was one who treated him as a friend. From what James could remember of him, Derek had dark brown eyes, a whitish-gray mustache, long side-burns that only people wore back in the 70s, and had one of those faces that was most distinguishable in a crowd. His hair was hard to describe as he had a cowboy hat on most of the time, but if James had to guess it was probably gray. He also wore a lot of clothes that no other person other than a cowboy would wear; western shirts, jeans ranging mainly from blue to black, and a bolo tie.
James never intended to have Derek as a friend. It happened one day during a festival, where Derek bought him an ice cream after he couldn’t afford to buy the ice cream himself. After that day, there was something about Derek that James liked. After talking to Derek and hanging around him at the church that they both went to, James soon looked up to him as a mentor of sorts. Perhaps a father figure that James would at least relate to as he had a shaky relationship with his own father.
It wasn’t long till Derek decided to give James one of his cowboy hats. “Keep it. It doesn’t fit me anymore,” Derek tells him. To this day, James has kept the hat and has not even wore it once. He kept it, even after the tragedy that befell their friend.
What was once a good friendship to James turned into a questionable one. Derek started treating him differently and even went as far as to treat him like dirt on the bottom of his shoes. In a fit of rage, James blew up on Derek so badly that it nearly scared him to death. Derek decided to keep his distance from James, not wanting to go anywhere near him. James soon saw the errors of his way and tried to convince Derek to give him another chance, but all Derek did was turn his back on James and ignored him.
To this day, James regrets his actions and has not seen height or hair of Derek as he went on to another church, possibly to get away from James.
….
James’ parents were about to have a yard sale a few days from now, and James had to find some stuff that he wanted to get rid of as his room was starting to become crowded. James dug through some books and put the ones he didn’t want into an empty box. He then moved on to his closest and tossed a few shirts that he didn’t care about wearing anymore. Then it was the hats that he moved onto next.
It was during this moment that he stumbled across the cowboy hat that Derek handed to him years ago. It was still in good condition, albeit a little dusty. James has not paid much attention to it ever since the incident between the two of them. In fact, he has been mostly busy with college to even play attention to the hat.
James took the hat off the hook that held it and looked at it, remembering the day that Derek handed him the hat, remembering the friendship that the two of them had. It was an odd friendship, one that shouldn’t have happened, but as of now he would trade anything to get it back. Trade anything to have his mentor back.
The hat was a very nice one. It was completely white with a black band wrapped around the dome part. It was the most priceless thing in his room, but it also was taking up a lot of space in his small room. James took the hat and dropped it into the box. He went back to the hat rack and took several more off. He was about to dump them onto the cowboy hat, cover it up, and hoped that it somehow would leave the room and his life, but for sentimental reasons he just couldn’t do it. The hat was the only thing left that reminded him of the lost friendship that he had years before. Though the hat also reminded him of the bad memories, to him it served as a reminder of his past actions.
Back then, James had a lot of anger issues that he needed to work out. Anger issues that neither Derek McCormick or James’ parents knew about. Now he was a mostly chilled-out guy, more mature than what people give him credit for since his incident. The hat served as a purpose: “Don’t just blow up on people. Think things through. Find alternate ways to solve a problem that doesn’t involve anger”. And to this day, James has not once blown up on anyone like he did on Derek.
James dropped the hats on the floor, picked up the cowboy hat from the box, and hung it back up on the rack. “Someday, I will earn your trust back, Derek,” James said to himself. “I’ve learned my lesson. I just hope it’s enough for you.”
My Church Sanctuary (Discussion Board #5)
Prompt: Describe a place that you know well.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Writing:
The one place that comes up in my mind right now would be my church sanctuary. It has red carpet floors, white pews with red cushions which match the floor, color-stained windows, huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a cross hanging above the Baptist tub, projectors to project the lyrics for the hymns, and walls that consist of either brick or white plastered walls. On sunny days, the sunlight reflects through this one stained window high above the room. This window consists of mostly red and yellow glass, and has another cross engraved in it. When the sunlight reflects through it, it’s beautiful to look at when in the room. Something to perhaps take a picture of if you happen to have your phone on you.
Turner Street (Discussion Board #6)
Prompt: I totally forgot how this prompt went. If I remembered, it was something along the lines of writing a story where the main character is either disconnected to the situation at hand or just doesn't understand what was going on. All that aside, here's the story.
My Writing:
Steven and Jill were walking home from school one day and decided to go down Turner Street. Usually, their parents told them never to go down Turner Street as there has been a high number of muggings and murders along that street, but today they decided to go down there as they hoped that it would be a short cut for them to get home before it started raining. “How bad could it be?” Steven asks his friend. “Let’s just see,” Jill replies.
As they walked down the street and towards the ghetto, that was when Jill started regretting her decision about taking the short cut. Steven on the other hand didn’t really care, even when they got eye-balled from the local inhabitants and some prostitutes, who probably thought about asking Steven for some fun time had he not been a minor. After a while of walking, they both then turned down into an alleyway and continued walking until they came across a dead body. The body was lying in a pool of blood, streaming out of a neat round hole on the side of its skull.
“That’s disgusting,” Steven says aloud, not showing any form of emotion. No fear, no sorrow, nothing. “What are you, a sociopath?” Jill then angerly asks him, but with a hint of concern in her voice. Just when she was about to pull out her cellphone and call the police, a tall man came barging out of a nearby door holding a gun in his hands. They both started running for their lives, not knowing if the man was chasing them or not. Jill ran out of fear, but Steven only ran because he didn’t want Jill to go off on her own.
After about ten minutes of running in terror, they both made it to their neighborhood and stopped at an intersection to catch their breaths. Both teens were sweating something awful and both their clothes were soaking wet as it started raining after their mad dash out of the ghetto. “We are never going back down Turner Street and through that neighborhood again,” Jill says while taking deep breaths. “Meh, it doesn’t matter to me,” Steven says before continuing his trek home. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Jill asks, puzzled about his statement. However, she never got a reply from him.
The Town Of Doom (Third Major Writing Assignment) []
Note: I switched things up and wrote a horror story for a change.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Writing:
THE TOWN OF DOOM
One day after school, Darrel decided to take the long way home just for the heck of sightseeing. He wanted to go down an old asphalt road that he spotted while driving to school one day and decided that today was the perfect time to do so. He heard from some of his peers that no traffic goes down that road and that it led to an abandoned town that has been left vacant since the early 2000s. With some time to kill, Darrel wanted to go see what this abandoned town looked like. He followed the asphalt road that had tons of cracks and potholes and looked around as he passed by old powerline poles and huge pine trees. This road has seen better days, Darrel thought as he continued driving. About ten minutes has passed when he drove over a hill and finally approached the town.
From what he could see at the top of the hill, the town looked like any other ordinary town. It had a bunch of homes as well as a main street that seemed to stretch for a few miles. This is so cool, Darrel thought in his head. An entire town for me to explore. I wonder what kind of things I will find down there. He then lightly pressed his foot on the gas pedal, and he let his car gain speed as it rolled down the hill towards the town.
He sped past some abandoned homes, looking at their conditions as he passed by them. Like the road that led him to the town, the homes too have seen better days as their conditions were deplorable. Some of them were missing either their front doors, their windows, part of their roofs, or even their sidings. Some homes were even at the point where all that was left of them were their foundations.
He then turned down the main street of the town where there was a bunch of storefronts right along the sidewalks, only with their windows boarded up with either plywood or two-by-fours. Seeing all this for the first time, Darrel could not help but think about all the fun he was going to have exploring the town. It’s going to take me weeks to explore this entire town. Man, am I going to have fun? Darrel continued thinking. However, before his imagination could get the best of him, he heard a loud bang and smoke started flowing out from the hood of his car. “Damn it, my car,” Darrel says aloud in utter surprise. He quickly pulled his car over near an abandoned hardware store, put it in park, and shut off the engine.
He quickly jumped out of his car, popped the hood, and went to the front of the car to check what was wrong. He lifted the hood and was greeted with a huge puff of whitish-gray smoke as it quickly raced past him and into the air. He looked everywhere for the source of the smoke, but could not find where it was coming from. Leaning against an old powerline pole, Darrel could not help but think what he was going to do next. There’s no way I’m going to drive my car in its current condition, not unless I want to ruin the motor. Looks like I’m going to have to call my dad. Hopefully, he can come find me and help fix my car. I just hope he knows this town’s location.
Darrel pulled out his cellphone and dialed his home phone number. Just as he pressed the call button though, his phone displayed the message on its screen: “You are unable to make your call at this time.” “Double damn it,” Darrel says aloud. He slid his phone back into his pocket and started pacing around his car, not knowing what to do. He had little to no knowledge when it came to fixing his car, and he could not get a hold of his dad. What am I going to do? he thought to himself.
For what seemed like ten minutes of inadvertently digging a hole in the earth with his pacing, all Darrel did was look to the ground and thought about what he was going to do. His first idea was to walk all the way back down the road that got him there and hopefully make it back to the highway, but he felt that he would not make it before dark. He then thought about the idea of finding an abandoned car and using it to get back to the highway. Who’s going to be dumb enough to leave an operational vehicle around here? Darrel then asks himself. He was quickly running out of ideas when he banged his head against the nearby powerline pole.
“Ouch,” he says while putting his hand over his bruise. Raising his right leg, he was about to kick the powerline pole out of frustration when a new plan dawned on his mind. He lowered his leg and quickly looked up the powerline pole and saw what he hoped for: a telephone line which connected to some of the stores around him. “At least one of these old stores must have an operating phone somewhere,” he says aloud. He could be wrong about that, but he knew he still had to look or else he was going to have to spend a cold, lonely night out there in the town, which was something that he did not plan to do.
He first went up to the hardware store and tried to pry the plywood planks off the doorway. Despite it looking rotted, it was still tough for him to pull off the door. I’ll just check the next store then, Darrel thought. The next store too was hard for Darrel to enter as the two-by-fours were nailed on tight. You got to be kidding me, Darrel continued thinking. The next store was also impossible for Darrel to enter. Not going in here either, he thought. He tried each store on the main street, losing hope as he found a new store that he could not enter. He was about to give up when he noticed the last store on the main street in the form of a gas station. Please let there be easy access to this building, Darrel thought as he approached the building, passing through tall weeds and piles of junk left to rot under the sun.
He approached the front door of the gas station and noticed that it too was boarded up with plywood. Unlike the plywood on the other stores, this one really looked rotten and easy to break. He took hold of one side of the plywood and tried to pull it off the doorframe, but only got himself a splinter in the process. He grabbed hold of the other side and yanked on it some more, but it still would not budge. I hate plywood, Darrel miserably thought. He started to look on the ground for anything that he could use, but all there was on the ground were old paper cups, glass shards, and tons of weeds all around the rusty pumps. He then went around the back to see if just possibly the back door wasn’t boarded up. A glimmer of hope emerged in him as he saw the back door was wide open and not boarded up. However, his glimmer of hope soon turned into a chill down his spine just as he entered the back room. Beyond the back room was yet another door, but with some yellow light creeping in the dark through the cracks. Something’s not right, Darrel started thinking. Why would there be light in the other room? Is somebody here?
Darrel slowly approached the door, not sure of what he was going to come across when he opens it. But just as he made it near the door, his foot got caught in an unexpected hole in the floor, causing him to trip right into the door, knocking it off its hinges and right into a scene so horrifying, Darrel could not believe it was all in front of him. All spread across the room was tons of blood splatters accompanied with human body parts. Arms, legs, and torsos hung from the ceiling on bloody red hooks, broken reddish-brown bones carelessly tossed across the room, and in one of the corners near Darrel were decaying heads with flies and maggots swarming on them. The room also stunk so badly, it literally made gag for air. “Oh my God,” Darrel screams while backing away from the horrific scene, not noticing the blood stains all over his clothes after falling into a huge blood puddle.
Darrel turned his head and saw a dark figure crouching in one of the far corners away from the only light source, chowing down on a supposedly human part. The figure turned his head and noticed Darrel on the floor right before getting up onto his two feet, grabbing a chainsaw from a nearby table. Just when the dark figure stepped into the yellow glow, that was when Darrel got a good look at the individual. The stranger was nearly as tall as the ceiling, which had to be about six feet tall. He wore a raggedy pair of jeans that was covered in holes and blood, was shirtless, exposing a hairy, fat stomach, and wore a mask over his face. It was not an ordinary mask though as it looked like a rotting head of a bull with its horns intact, but Darrel was not too sure as he slowly backed away from the stranger. “Fresh meat,” the stranger says in a low tone while turning on his deadly weapon.
Darrel got back on his feet and quickly ran out of the gas station with the stranger hot on his heels. He made a mad dash back towards his car, hoping that it would start so he can escape. Forget ruining the motor. I’m getting out of this hellhole, Darrel thought as he quickly raced back to his car. He hopped into the driver seat, closed the door, locked it, and tried to start the car up. Three times he turned the ignition, but rather than hearing the roar of his car starting, his car stuttered and died, leaving him more exposed to the stranger. “Start, damn it. Please,” Darrel begged with tears flowing down his face. An unknown amount of time has passed before the blade of the chainsaw came crashing through the windshield, nearly missing Darrel by an inch.
He hopped out of the car and ran for his life, back down the road in the direction that he came from. While running, Darrel could not help but think about how stupid he was for taking the long way home. I’m so freaking stupid, and now I’m going to die, he thought as he ran with all his energy. After a while of running, he tripped yet again, this time on a rusty can, straining his ankle. He got back on his feet and tried hopping away, but it was futile as the masked stranger eventually caught up to him. Without thinking, he turned into an alleyway with a brick wall for a dead end.
No, please God no. Out of all things that I could run into, it had to be a dead end. Darrel turned around and saw the stranger on the other end of the alleyway. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see what the killer will do to him. Every second that Darrel had his eyes closed, he could hear the chainsaw’s buzzing getting louder as the stranger got closer. “I’m going to enjoy feasting on your body when I’m done with you,” the stranger says to Darrel, but Darrel did nothing. Neither did he say anything. He just waited for the stranger to make his move. Will I die very quickly, Darrel thought in his head, or will I die slow and painfully? In a matter of seconds, he was about to find out.
I should’ve never come to this town of doom.
(UNFINISHED)