Until then, here's a piece I wrote last year for a workshop I took at Ryerson. The teacher had us read Tobas Wolff's short story Bullet in the Brain, and asked us to rewrite the final portion of the story.
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Anders did not remember the infinite
days of his youth spent hunting in the woods for pirate treasure. He returned with broken pieces of glass
smoothed by river water, moss covered stones, and colourful feathers left
behind by mountain birds. Each night
while his mother tucked him, he would tell her fanciful stories about the
origins of each extraordinary piece. She
would perch on the edge of his bed and listen, seeing the glass pieces with new
eyes after hearing her son insist that they were crystallized teardrops of the
River God, sad because winter was coming and would soon muffle the river's song
with snow.
Anders did not remember the day he
climbed onto the roof of his childhood home wearing cardboard wings covered
with the feathers he had collected in the forest. He ran along the rooftop, whooping with
excitement as he felt the air rush past his face. Anders came to the edge of the roof and
without hesitation flung himself into the sky.
His heart lurched when he flapped his arms furiously a few times and
then realized his arc was leading him downwards instead of up.
Anders did not remember the month he
spent in the hospital, his arm so badly broken that it required metal pins to
set it. His mother never left his side,
always making comforting excuses for his father's absence. He did not remember seeing tiny flashes of
light dancing outside his hospital window at night, fairies come to entertain
him through the long, lonely hours.
Anders did not remember the many
evenings he spent in a quiet park near his dorm room, studying in the solitude
of a circle of rocks where he was convinced the King of the Elves held court
once a month. Gone from his memory were
the philosophical arguments he had had with the wind in that very glade, one of
which inspired his PhD thesis – Magic in the Real World: The Role of Superstition
in the Age of Technology. Gone too was
the day shortly thereafter when he decided to become a book critic, bursting
with excitement about all the stories he would read. He did not recall the years that followed
during which he made a name for himself as a gentle and fair critic, one that
illuminated the wonder in even the most subtle plots. The years flew by, and at this moment of
death, he did not remember struggling to make mortgage payments, or his wife
being infuriated when he took their daughter out to hunt for forest gnomes long
past her bedtime. Nor did he remember
the years after that when he struggled to make child support payments to an
ex-wife who soured the mind of his daughter with bitterness and the sentiment
of harsh practicality over hopeful wonder.
In his last moments all he
remembered was the sun in his hair, cool water on his hands, and bending over
the bubbling river as he fished for its tears.
