Gregg ran into room 215. Jeff lay on a bed in the far right corner of the room, looking out the window. His room overlooked the street outside. A nurse who just finished an overnight shift crossed under the streetlight.

“Jeff…” Gregg said to himself as he walked over to his brother’s bedside. Jeff was covered in bandages. There was no hint of his flowing brown hair he used to have. No one could tell who he used to be. Jeff thought about all he would ever be to these people at the hospital is a patient number. He would never be anything more to them. A doctor walked into the room.

“Doctor, can you tell me what happened?” Gregg said, wiping tears from his eyes.

“He was in a car accident. We’re doing everything we can to save him, but it doesn’t look good.” The doctor said, walking over to Gregg and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I know, they told me when they called. How long does he have?” Gregg said, shrugging the doctor’s hand off his shoulder. The doctor walked to the other end of his patient’s bed and picked up the chart. He looked over the small aluminum clipboard for a few seconds before putting it down and walking out of the room. Gregg couldn’t take his eyes off of the lifeless body. Jeff moved his right arm an inch or two toward his brother.

“I’m so sorry for everything, Jeffy. I shouldn’t have taken you for granted while you were here.” Gregg started crying more audibly. He didn’t know what he was going to do. His father died last year from lung cancer. And his mother died less than three months later from natural causes. Him and Jeff had no living relatives.

A nurse walked in to check on the other patients in the room. She didn’t say anything or look at Gregg the whole time she was in the room. Gregg put his hand on his brothers shoulder and let it rest there for what felt like hours. Thirty minutes passed before anyone else walked into the room.

“I’m sorry, but we’re going to need to move him…” a young nurse said to Gregg, gently caressing his shoulder. Gregg looked up. He wiped no tears away from his eyes this time. He looked down at his brother, at the nurse, and stood up. He backed away from his brother silently and watched as the nurse took him away.

Jane was twenty and had just graduated from a two year program at her local community college. She didn’t go away to college like most of her friends. Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to a big school, so she stayed home to save them money. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do when she first got into school, so spending a ton of money for a big name university and all the debt wasn’t worth it.

She started out the long process of leaving home by looking for a job. Jane graduated with a business degree, so she was looking for anything that qualified her for. She started off looking for jobs in Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Detroit. Detroit and Louisville didn’t have anywhere interesting. When she looked for jobs in Chicago and Indianapolis though, she found a ton.

One job she found was a secretary position for an accounting firm in downtown Indianapolis, Jackson & Jackson. It would’ve been a small start, but the pay wasn’t enough for her to be on her own just yet, so she kept looking.

The moon light hit a box and caught Jane’s eyes. She figured it was time she start unpacking. The box was filled with mementos from home. Here was her first trophy. The inscription on the bottom read “Jane Maxile: Second Place.” She won it in seventh grade at a statewide tournament. She dug deeper into the box and found old birthday cards she had saved from when she was a kid. One card from her grandmother held a special place in Jane’s heart.

It was a simple card, the front read “today you are nine, yesterday you were eight; today is your birthday, I hope it’s super great.” She knew it was cheesy, but it made her smile. Inside, her late grandmother wrote her last birthday greeting to her grandchild. This was the last card she ever wrote to Jane.

Jane put the cards and the trophy back in the box and picked it up. She carried it to her bedroom and put it down next to the bed. Then she laid down on her freshly laid sheets and put her head on her pillow. Tomorrow she would unpack the rest.

I was in preschool when my mom first started teaching me how to write. My class was right down the hall from her kindergarten classroom, so I would always go down after the day was over and see her. I had preschool at the Jewish Community Center in Margate, New Jersey, where my mom taught for seven years.

I wasn’t the best behaved child in preschool, and my teacher, Mrs. Lisa, knew that. She was always watching me to make sure that I didn’t do anything wrong. And it wasn’t strange that if she did catch me doing something, I would cry and run down the hall to my mom. Eventually, my mom set me straight.

One afternoon, after an especially bad day for little me behavior wise, my mom sat me down. She knew that I needed something to focus on, or I would keep misbehaving. So she put me at a table with a book and told me to copy what I saw. The book was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Even though I didn’t much like the book, I enjoyed all the pictures. I copied down the entire book onto a few pieces of scratch paper that my mom had given me, and that was how I began to learn to write.

This is me, Joe Clayton, learning to read in 3^rd person.

Joe was in preschool when his mom first started teaching him how to write. Joe went to preschool at the Jewish Community Center in Margate, New Jersey, where his mom had been kindergarten for seven years. After his class was over each day, Joe would run down the hall and wait in his mom’s classroom until she was ready to go home.

He wasn’t the best behaved child in preschool, and his teacher, Mrs. Lisa, knew that. She always kept her eye on Joe, because she knew him to be a troublemaker. Even though whenever Joe got yelled at, he would run down the hall to his mom. It took Joe’s mom to set him straight.

One day, Joe was especially bad. Mrs. Lisa told his mom about it, and she sat him down. She thought that his behavioral problems stemmed from not having anything to focus on, and so she made him sit at a table with a book and copy what he saw. The book was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Even though he didn’t enjoy the book, he liked the pictures. He copied down the entire book onto a few pieces of scratch paper that his mom had left him, and that was how he began to learn to write.

This is the commentary on how these two perspectives worked.

Writing in 3^rd person allows for more mobility between characters. 1^st person was very restricted and only let me write about my own thoughts. 3^rd person allowed me to develop more characters than just me. However, 1^st person let me develop the character of ‘me’ even further.

This woman wants a better life for her daughter. She wants clothes and food and shelter for her family. She ‘s thinking back to her childhood, thinking about her house and her clothes. She’s already done more for her daughter than her mother did for her.

The daughter can’t know any of this. Maybe when the young girl grows up, the woman will sit her down and have a conversation with her about how she should be thankful for everything that she has been gifted to have. And tell her the story of her own troubled childhood, to put in perspective how she has grown up.

But she will never tell anyone what really happened. The pain and the suffering she endured at the hand of the Serbs. She was born in Bosnia in the late 1980’s to a poor Croat family, right before the Bosnian War broke out between the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Croats. Growing up in a wartime environment, especially a civil wartime environment caused a poor childhood to be made even worse.  She’ll never tell anyone of how the Serbs came into her house and attacked her father. How they raped her mother and collected the children. She’ll never tell anyone how they sold her into slavery and how she was forced to work fourteen hour shifts before she was given a break.

All of her desires in the world now involve her making a better life for her daughter. She desires for her daughter to get an education and not be subjected to what she herself was subject to growing up.

She misses her parents, and she misses her country. She hasn’t returned to Bosnia since leaving the country on a dingy fishing boat.  One day she hopes to bring her daughter to her native country and let her feel the native land under her feet. She wants her daughter to grow up proud of where she comes from, but not be party to the violence and heartache that she was as a child.

The daughter will want this too, when she’s older. She will hear the story of her country’s civil war and feel for her ancestors. She will want to see where her grandparents would have lived if they were still alive today.

But none of this is imminent. For now, all this woman wants is to hold her baby and be thankful for every moment that she is alive.

 
This seemed like a cool beginning at first, but it’s actually just a conversation I overheard in the stairwell of Jefferson this morning. I thought I could develop the story from a third person limited point of view. The fact that I know nothing about Tim slowed the process a bit. I wanted to write about someone that I could really describe, so I decided to make Tim a new person. The story is also now going to be told from Tim’s point of view.

TAKE TWO

 
All I have been able to think about all morning is that song…
“Now I just met you, and this is crazy,” I sang out loud to my friend Peter.”
“Damn Tim,” he said, “you’re gonna get that song stuck in my head too. Quit it.”
I just wanted to share the joy of the catchy song, it’s actually not to bad once you listen to it. Say what you will about the cheesy lyrics, the girl can sing. And call me crazy, but a song that is catchy and gets stuck in everyone’s head is a good thing, right?
Anyway, the only problem I had with this particular song is that it was completely dominating my thoughts. For some reason, all I could think about was this song. I thought that maybe if I took a break from studying and tried eating with people that the song would leave my head. So far it’s been of no use.
I called Peter to eat, partially out of habit, and partially because of this need for a distraction.

 
This beginning, to me, has much more potential to blossom into a story than the first one. Investigating the advantages and disadvantages of certain point of views in this assignment taught me just that. I now understand that the first person point of view leaves what else is happening in the world and inside the heads of other characters a mystery. This mystery is solved by the use of third person omniscient, which allows access to all thoughts from all characters. I like writing third person more than first person.

I saw you every morning when
I was a child.
You were just inching toward
the bottom of my window.
When I was six,
my parents and I traded bedrooms.
The tree I saw every morning
I now saw only when I was in the kitchen.

Once when I was nine, I climbed you.
It didn’t end well. You were left
with a broken limb,
and so was I.
What I couldn’t figure out
was why my parents cried
for me and not for you.

But the years turned
and we each grew taller.
I grew to the black mark on the kitchen doorway,
while you grew to block my parent’s window,
on the second floor.
Now I only see you in the summer,
and I’m okay with it.

- Joe Clayton

My life has never followed any rhyme
or pattern. I fear that I will always be
useless. Unless I can free myself from my mind.

When I was young, my life had no design.
All I wanted was a whole family tree.
But, you know, eventually, I’ll be just fine.

I have figured out theirs, but cannot find mine.
She says there is still an inkling of hope for me…
I’m useless. Unless I can free myself from my mind.

My notes look like a penny, without the shine,
a mirror of my mind, an evil sea.
But, you know, eventually, I’ll be just fine.

I know I can do more than sit here and moan and pine
for her dancing eyes. I am lost hopelessly,
uselessly, unless I can free myself from my mind.
But, you know, eventually, I’ll be just fine.
- Joe Clayton

These stimulating friends trap me
in a comfortable and familiar place,
surrounded by flashing lights.

Anytime I try to leave,
I see how uneasy and sad life can be
without them.

I’m so high,
flying through the clouds
they try to make me land…
But I’ll never reach the moon
without them.

Now I’m losing everyone,
except my “teammates.”
As long as I’m rich,
I’ll never be
without them.

What would my life have been
without them?

‘Home run king,’ ‘the best ever,’
could I have been the best
Without them?

-          Joe Clayton

Too rigid and straight
Everything is aligned
Bottom: medical text
Middle: family pictures

Top shelf: Empty