Kingfelix01
05-22-2007, 10:11 PM
Hey, this is a very short story i wrote for my creative writing class. I am currently a senior in highschool and have been spending alot of time trying to improve my writing. This story was actually created using six themes from various post secret cards posted outside our classroom. For those of you who dont know postsecret is a website where contributers send in postcards with short, often unspeakable but easily relateable secrets. We did the same activity at our school and later we had an assignment where we were required to write a story based around six random post secret cards. This is that shorty story, please be as honest and insightful as possible. Thanks a lot!
The post secrets i used to construct this secret were:
"Thongs are gross and uncomfortable"
"Im afraid I will never be as good as my brother"
"I pretended to be sad when you died, but i'm not"
"People say I look sad when I don't smile, good thing i smile a lot!"
"I will make a difference...thats a promise!"
I forget what the 6th post secret was...sorry
All of the partners were gathered around a perfect circle table made of incredibly expensive granite. They faced each other with furious and investigative eyes, each glance etching eons across the universe, stars melting and pulsing for every sight drawn. Today was a day of changes. The company was plummeting into financial ruin. The company was an underwear manufacturer. Which may sound humorous, but was a matter of fiscal life and death for those locked in this hectic session.
“Thongs are gross and uncomfortable,” Spoke one of the executives, a younger woman, reciting data from recent focus groups.
“We’ve been using those focus groups for years,” flashed back another executive, a condemning looking older looking man, “and look where it’s gotten us.”
“What we need to do is innovate, do something revolutionary.” Said another executive, a tall young man, freshly out of college.
Eventually the feigned atmosphere of polite discourse collapsed on itself and voices assaulted from all angles.
“Listen to the consumers!”
“Revolutionize the undergarment sales landscape!”
“We have to restructure our whole business model!”
These people, now struggling for their futures, from afar would appear to be an extremely focused and well put together group of human beings. Having climbed to the top with passion and precision judgment. But there were lies on the surface and each person in this circle had all the sicknesses a person could inherit from the world. But unlike those who struggle and compensate these people were driven by their torment. Each one secretly chugging away with their own torture. It would be easy to see these people as fakers and robots, but their secret damage is just as real as anyone’s. And it did scratch at the surface, from time to time.
Some of this fit with the most common assumptions about what kind of pain well polished people like this hid. Like Angela Roberts, the young woman enforcing the value of focus groups. Angela Roberts grew up like anyone would assume a woman who ended up in her position would grow up. She had a loving father and a forceful mother, in a large and clinical home, developed as part of a large housing sprawl on a swamp. What Angela had learned from her mother was the power of a smile, and how to wield it. There would be those in her life who would be cynical about her attempt at winning them over. Mostly men frustrated by the lack of sincerity from her smile when they saw it distributed to everyone else around them. But for the most part her smile disarmed and propelled her. Angela was an intelligent girl and a kind one too, but it was her smile that people would remember most. But now, at this stage in her life Angela had a new dilemma. She felt a vacancy in her life. She had a boyfriend, who (she would often tell herself and others) was perfect for her. And yet it seemed like there was about 10 miles of desolate concrete between her and feeling anything genuine for him. She wanted to desperately and she saw no reason not too. The chemistry was there, but it was as if she didn’t know how to receive and emit all the warm feelings she craved. Deep down there was a thesis, that she dreaded and barely let creep to the surface, but she could feel and dread it. Some part of her knew that after a life time of being pleasant she had forgotten how to be real.
Then there was Rodney Darvin, the 78 year old senior of the executives. Rodney’s pain was the most bittersweet of the whole group. At the twilight of his life Rodney had intended up very far from his dreams. When he was a young man he would speak passionately about the flaws and injustices in the world. Nothing gave him more joy than focusing on and being reminded of all the good he knew about and was going to do. On his last day of high school he signed many of his friend’s year books saying “I’ll make a difference, that’s a promise.” But after college Rodney quickly and painfully discovered that the landscape of good intentions in his mind and the landscape of the world were two vastly different things. And so slowly, year by year, he got stretched a little further from the place he felt most pure and alive. It became a sickness for him, constantly having to remind himself that he was always loosing touch, but reassuring himself that he would find himself again. So after 55 years of losing touch with himself life had become about compensation and distractions. Now he fought passionately against his company relying on focus groups.
On the opposite side of the table, preaching about revolution and restructure, and presenting himself way to stereotypically was Michael Yukri. Michael was from a wealthy family; his parents had founded (together) and established the world’s second most profitable chocolate company. Michael grew up with one other sibling, a brother, David. From a young age a quite conspiracy had haunted Michael, that his brother was immensely superior to him, and that his parents barely attempted to act otherwise. The crueler part was how good David was to Michael. It made Michael feel sick and confused for hating David for the way their parents treated him. As he grew older this feeling cemented within him until, like most of us do, he no longer recognized it as a problem. It became part of the machinery that ran him. Trying to get the upper hand on his brother and the recognition of his parents became a yearning that was painful and secret, almost even to himself. On his own he was incredibly successful, making 7 figures a year at the age of 27. Against the measure of his brother and parents (he secretly and destructively assured himself) he was infinitely worthless.
And the last occupant of this meeting was Shirley Yeltsinger, a secretary, reserved and ignored in a corner, recording the minutes of this fierce meeting. Shirley was never hurt that she was virtually ignored but the important people that surrounded her. I’m doing my job, just like everyone else, she would constantly remind herself. And she felt special being surrounded with such important people. She would often entertain her family with stories of their meetings, speaking with passion, as if she had been sitting in that granite circle. Shirley had always been an agreeable person all her life, passive and never confrontational. Sometimes even to a frustrating degree, especially for her husband and teenage daughter, who worried she was keeping something repressed. What worried them most was the way she interacted with her mother. Shirley’s mother was a first generation American who had emigrated from the Middle East when she was 14. The harsh circumstances of her life had turned her into a harsh person. In many ways Shirley was a legacy of her mothers struggling life. What concerned her husband and daughter was not jus the way her mother continued to monopolize her life at the age of 74, but the way Shirley passively lived with it. They found her quietness extremely discomforting, worrying she was suffering privately and secretly. Recently Shirley’s mother had died from a stroke, and what neither her husband nor daughter knew is that Shirley was secretly celebrating. As she pleasantly and habitually made breakfast every morning, thru her ignored days at work, and subtle evenings Shirley was quietly elated to be free from her mother. Just as quietly as she had accepted her harshness she was celebrating her death.
The executives of the underwear company continued to churn in debate, unable to produce a consensus.
The post secrets i used to construct this secret were:
"Thongs are gross and uncomfortable"
"Im afraid I will never be as good as my brother"
"I pretended to be sad when you died, but i'm not"
"People say I look sad when I don't smile, good thing i smile a lot!"
"I will make a difference...thats a promise!"
I forget what the 6th post secret was...sorry
All of the partners were gathered around a perfect circle table made of incredibly expensive granite. They faced each other with furious and investigative eyes, each glance etching eons across the universe, stars melting and pulsing for every sight drawn. Today was a day of changes. The company was plummeting into financial ruin. The company was an underwear manufacturer. Which may sound humorous, but was a matter of fiscal life and death for those locked in this hectic session.
“Thongs are gross and uncomfortable,” Spoke one of the executives, a younger woman, reciting data from recent focus groups.
“We’ve been using those focus groups for years,” flashed back another executive, a condemning looking older looking man, “and look where it’s gotten us.”
“What we need to do is innovate, do something revolutionary.” Said another executive, a tall young man, freshly out of college.
Eventually the feigned atmosphere of polite discourse collapsed on itself and voices assaulted from all angles.
“Listen to the consumers!”
“Revolutionize the undergarment sales landscape!”
“We have to restructure our whole business model!”
These people, now struggling for their futures, from afar would appear to be an extremely focused and well put together group of human beings. Having climbed to the top with passion and precision judgment. But there were lies on the surface and each person in this circle had all the sicknesses a person could inherit from the world. But unlike those who struggle and compensate these people were driven by their torment. Each one secretly chugging away with their own torture. It would be easy to see these people as fakers and robots, but their secret damage is just as real as anyone’s. And it did scratch at the surface, from time to time.
Some of this fit with the most common assumptions about what kind of pain well polished people like this hid. Like Angela Roberts, the young woman enforcing the value of focus groups. Angela Roberts grew up like anyone would assume a woman who ended up in her position would grow up. She had a loving father and a forceful mother, in a large and clinical home, developed as part of a large housing sprawl on a swamp. What Angela had learned from her mother was the power of a smile, and how to wield it. There would be those in her life who would be cynical about her attempt at winning them over. Mostly men frustrated by the lack of sincerity from her smile when they saw it distributed to everyone else around them. But for the most part her smile disarmed and propelled her. Angela was an intelligent girl and a kind one too, but it was her smile that people would remember most. But now, at this stage in her life Angela had a new dilemma. She felt a vacancy in her life. She had a boyfriend, who (she would often tell herself and others) was perfect for her. And yet it seemed like there was about 10 miles of desolate concrete between her and feeling anything genuine for him. She wanted to desperately and she saw no reason not too. The chemistry was there, but it was as if she didn’t know how to receive and emit all the warm feelings she craved. Deep down there was a thesis, that she dreaded and barely let creep to the surface, but she could feel and dread it. Some part of her knew that after a life time of being pleasant she had forgotten how to be real.
Then there was Rodney Darvin, the 78 year old senior of the executives. Rodney’s pain was the most bittersweet of the whole group. At the twilight of his life Rodney had intended up very far from his dreams. When he was a young man he would speak passionately about the flaws and injustices in the world. Nothing gave him more joy than focusing on and being reminded of all the good he knew about and was going to do. On his last day of high school he signed many of his friend’s year books saying “I’ll make a difference, that’s a promise.” But after college Rodney quickly and painfully discovered that the landscape of good intentions in his mind and the landscape of the world were two vastly different things. And so slowly, year by year, he got stretched a little further from the place he felt most pure and alive. It became a sickness for him, constantly having to remind himself that he was always loosing touch, but reassuring himself that he would find himself again. So after 55 years of losing touch with himself life had become about compensation and distractions. Now he fought passionately against his company relying on focus groups.
On the opposite side of the table, preaching about revolution and restructure, and presenting himself way to stereotypically was Michael Yukri. Michael was from a wealthy family; his parents had founded (together) and established the world’s second most profitable chocolate company. Michael grew up with one other sibling, a brother, David. From a young age a quite conspiracy had haunted Michael, that his brother was immensely superior to him, and that his parents barely attempted to act otherwise. The crueler part was how good David was to Michael. It made Michael feel sick and confused for hating David for the way their parents treated him. As he grew older this feeling cemented within him until, like most of us do, he no longer recognized it as a problem. It became part of the machinery that ran him. Trying to get the upper hand on his brother and the recognition of his parents became a yearning that was painful and secret, almost even to himself. On his own he was incredibly successful, making 7 figures a year at the age of 27. Against the measure of his brother and parents (he secretly and destructively assured himself) he was infinitely worthless.
And the last occupant of this meeting was Shirley Yeltsinger, a secretary, reserved and ignored in a corner, recording the minutes of this fierce meeting. Shirley was never hurt that she was virtually ignored but the important people that surrounded her. I’m doing my job, just like everyone else, she would constantly remind herself. And she felt special being surrounded with such important people. She would often entertain her family with stories of their meetings, speaking with passion, as if she had been sitting in that granite circle. Shirley had always been an agreeable person all her life, passive and never confrontational. Sometimes even to a frustrating degree, especially for her husband and teenage daughter, who worried she was keeping something repressed. What worried them most was the way she interacted with her mother. Shirley’s mother was a first generation American who had emigrated from the Middle East when she was 14. The harsh circumstances of her life had turned her into a harsh person. In many ways Shirley was a legacy of her mothers struggling life. What concerned her husband and daughter was not jus the way her mother continued to monopolize her life at the age of 74, but the way Shirley passively lived with it. They found her quietness extremely discomforting, worrying she was suffering privately and secretly. Recently Shirley’s mother had died from a stroke, and what neither her husband nor daughter knew is that Shirley was secretly celebrating. As she pleasantly and habitually made breakfast every morning, thru her ignored days at work, and subtle evenings Shirley was quietly elated to be free from her mother. Just as quietly as she had accepted her harshness she was celebrating her death.
The executives of the underwear company continued to churn in debate, unable to produce a consensus.