Writing Examples
Constant
This example was written for a Prose class at Alma College. It is a fictional short story, though the characters are very human and placed in familiar modern settings. This story was written for my closest friend, and overall it is a reflection on how the powerful bonds of friendship strengthen and carry people through the troublesome times in life.
Constant
by Kacie Schaeffer
Trevor's keys clattered to the floor, protesting at his carelessness as they slid from his able fingers to ricochet off of the worn doorknob adorning the portal to his shabby apartment. He propped his head against the thin door, winded, and cursing under his breath he let the keys remain on the lint-ridden carpeting, which, he noted, had done little to muffle the clamor of his error. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, deliberately, before stooping to retrieve his keys. Juggling his groceries, Trevor jammed one of the keys into the lock and twisted, catching one of the textbooks that began to slide off the precarious perch formed by his knee. The door remained locked, stubbornly refusing him entrance into his own residence. Hugging his paper bags tightly in his left arm, he pulled the key from the lock, muttering as he recognized it as his exterior key, and fumbled through the jangling ring for the one he sought. He found it, thrust it into the lock, turned it, and the door swung open triumphantly as the tomes balanced on his thigh began to slip once again. He reflexively placed his hand over them, saving them as the grocery bag in his left hand tore itself from him, spilling its contents down the dimly lit hallway and leaving him with a pitiful shred of brown paper clenched in a white-knuckled fist.
He swore and kicked the basketball that had been nestled in his armpit until it, too, had decided to join the groceries in their uprising and evaded the laws of friction that held it in place. It hit the large pile of dirty laundry thrust into one corner of his dingy room and came bobbling back to tease his feet. He kicked it again as he swung his backpack, full to capacity with notebooks, gym clothes, and files from work, onto the futon shoved haphazardly under the grimy window of his living room. He flung his keys, the instigators of the whole situation, at his desk, missed, and heard them skitter across the bare floor to hide themselves from his wrath as he turned to retrieve his groceries. He threw apples and bananas into one of the already heavy paper bags that he had left in the hallway and carried it to the cluttered countertop that served as a place of repose for everything from important assignments and planners to empty water bottles and old Chinese take-out containers. He returned to claim his tomes, dry books with boring titles that cost at least twice as much as they were worth. "Mass Communication in Modern Technology" lay face down on the torn sack of goods; as he reached for it, he felt the heavy cover coat the entirety of his hand in a thick, greasy slime. Disgusted, he turned the book over, a sinuous strand extending from the grungy spine to the collection of ruined edibles by his door. He bent to examine the bag, placing his weight on the knees he had destroyed and destroyed again in the soccer matches of his youth. Gingerly, he pulled back a flap of the torn grocery bag and saw his dozen and a half eggs, shattered and bleeding out their worth in sticky yellow puddles.
Trevor stalked into his room and slammed the door.
He spent the afternoon bustling anxiously about his apartment, avoiding the papers and laundry strewn throughout both bedrooms and ignoring the "13" that flashed at him from his antiquated answering machine, a digital sign that seemed at once trite and mocking. He flopped onto the futon and stretched his arthritic knees, finally deciding to remove his expensive sneakers. They were a Christmas gift from his mother. He rubbed his thumb across the thick black leather before tucking them neatly beneath the futon and extending his legs to the beanbag cushion that served as a foot rest. It had once been the pride and joy of his undergraduate days, but now beans fluttered out of gaping seams as he shifted to fish the remote control out from the under the cushion where it had wedged itself. He flipped restlessly between channels and, unimpressed with the local programming and his television set's inability to receive decent pictures, he righted himself to observe the stack of videos he kept in the rickety cabinet beneath his VCR. He pulled out several rentals, realizing that they had been due back at the video store that morning. He considered the grace period extended to patrons of that establishment and was hopeful for the first time that day; he resumed his stormy state after an hour of searching for his elusive keys. Deciding to forego a formal dinner, he scoured his pathetic pantries and finally produced a box of Wheat Thins and some mozzarella cheese. While the selection was lean, he had the terrible feeling that preparing anything that might pass for a meal would undoubtedly lead to hundreds of dollars worth of smoke damage and several firemen tramping through his already claustrophobic space. And he couldn't handle that aggravation. Not tonight.
Trevor sighed and brought his crackers to the section of the living room that always bettered his mood. He had erected a glorious shrine here, and he prayed at it daily no matter what frame of mind he was in. It was dedicated to his computer, hand-built and tweaked for high-performance online gaming. His PC was his life. Every cent he had scraped together that had not been sucked into the black hole of tuition costs, rent, and car payments had gone towards building that machine. He thought that his computer lit up his drab surroundings; all day it quietly hummed away in its corner, radiating promises that always drew him to it. It was a portal to places he would never be able to see firsthand, a link to people he had known in happier times. He thought the god of his shrine very awesome indeed as he reverently signed onto his several instant messenger services and began his ritual of reading the away messages of all his contacts.
The appearance of one name gave Trevor thoughtful pause. DreamSea. He had been thinking of her frequently over the past few days, random memories finding their way to his conscious thought processes in moments of intense focus and repose alike. She had not been online in quite some time, which was peculiar as she was a fellow computer junkie and hardcore gamer. Oh, yes, she was a patron saint of the almighty desktop processor. Most of his peers had ridiculed him for his obsession with his computer—his standard reply was something along the lines of, "I'm a Telecommunications major, it's my job to be obsessive." Not her, though.
She had spent many hours debating the practicality of flat-panel monitors over flat-screens with him while denouncing track mice as the spawn of Satan and vehemently supporting her claim that standard keyboards were the cause of 115% of the cases of carpal tunnel worldwide. He had never managed to win any computer-related arguments with her in all the time that he knew her, not even the one including her suppositions as to keyboards and their effects on the human wrist. He had researched platforms and harddrives and CPUs in his spare time in high school in an attempt to one-up her when the lunch conversation turned to technical speak, but she always left him short-handed. It continued that way into college, when he built his very first powerful computer from funds given to him after graduation. He had called her in his excitement from his dorm room, and she had answered, her voice tired from her first term at school but cheerful nonetheless. "Can you believe my motherboard clocks in gigahertz?" Trevor had asked the loaded question somewhat arrogantly, knowing she would be impressed. He pictured her broad, beautiful smile and felt her wink over the phone as she simply stated, "Mine uses hyperthreading."
After that experience, he gave up trying to outmatch her. He figured that even if he did manage to outclever her, he would stand no chance against her charm. She had a way of resolving situations so that everybody saw her point of view and accepted it. She attained more victory in everyday conversation than he could hope for in several lifetimes. She had been like that since the beginning of time, the very first day of Kindergarten. "Kailynn Christiensen Shepperd," the teacher had called from her roster, carefully enunciating each syllable of her students' full legal names, and she had raised her hand and exclaimed, "Present!" Instantly her warm, glittering eyes and benevolent manner set her apart from the dozens of other children in the class. By the end of the first day, she had the entire class wanting to play with her at recess. By the end of the second day, she had the second Kindergarten teacher's class begging her to spend time with them. By the end of the third day, she had each and every one of them convinced that they all wanted to play tag together, cooperatively and without any squabbling. The end of the first week saw the teachers involved as well.
Trevor smiled faintly as he recalled the frequent hide-and-go-seek tag wars that were held every morning and afternoon at the public school he attended so long ago, in a dream perhaps. Kaye had always sought him out when she was the tagger. He had spent entire recesses scouring the playground for the perfect hiding spots and stealing away to them unnoticed, knowing that sooner or later she would allow herself to be tagged so she could hunt for him. She always found him, no matter how far across the playground he ran or how tiny his foxhole was. Every recess it was the same, crouching in anticipation, scarcely daring to breathe until at last Kaye's clear, shrill voice rang out from behind or above him, "I found you, Trebor! Tag! You're it!"
Trevor allowed himself to chuckle, flinging himself back in the oversized office chair that allowed him to fully appreciate his gaming experiences. Kaye could not pronounce her "v"s properly at that young age despite her precociousness, so he was always Trebor to her. Her classmates laughed at her speech impediment, and she laughed with them. He had always wondered if they had ever hurt her feelings in their callousness. Once, during a typical game of tag, he had watched as one of the fifth graders pushed her into the mud and sneered at her ineptitude in wielding the English language. Trevor had come running from his haven in the tire swings to help her to her feet, and had even offered to beat up the kid who had humiliated her so. She had smiled, placed an earthy hand on his chest and said, "Found you, Trebor! Tag! You're it!"
Kaye always smiled. Nothing ever seemed to bother her, so sure was she that the game of life had only good things in store for her to discover. He wondered about her. He wondered how she could smile so constantly. His thoughts grew jaded as he rationalized his history and compared it to hers. She had never had to worry about whether or not her parents could afford to put food on the table; she never had to wonder whether her brother had made it through a day of class without being expelled for the possession of a weapon, or an illegal substance, or a wicked temper. She never had to pray that her father would consume so incredibly much alcohol when he returned from his dead-end job that he would be too unconscious to beat the people who loved him.
Still, he considered, she had endured her own share of hardship. She had been highly successful all throughout high school until her senior year, when she took a class in which the professor did not distribute anything above an A/B. The loss of the four-point she had traded years of restful nights to maintain had crushed her, he knew. She suffered from fainting spells and seizures that were intensified by her overcommitment to life in general, and people close to her betrayed her trust while her relatives and childhood friends died. Of all these matters, she spoke not a single word to him, choosing instead to hear of his dream family, his dream girl, his dream computer. Her enchanting smile encouraged him to speak of these subjects, making him believe that his dreams were the only topics in the universe that mattered. And she had always been there to support him as he pursued these dreams against all odds.
Trevor closed his eyes. Kaye had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly how to keep him from throwing in the towel. For knowing him. He recalled her annoying tendency to complete his sentences for him. Frequently, she was aware of his mood before he even had a chance to see her. So attuned to him was she that often a single glance diagnosed all his worries and a cheerful comment put them at ease. When compliments and words of encouragement were not enough, her actions gave him strength enough to dare to place hope in the future. He remembered the dark evening when he had phoned the police and his father, his breath permeated with liquor, was finally arrested and charged with assault and battery. She had driven fifteen miles on rain-slick streets to meet him and take him to the local truck stop where he could recount the events uninterrupted into the dusky hours of the next morning. At his uncle's funeral, she stood by his side though she had never met the man. When he broke the news that he was planning on proposing to a girl from the university, she was truly excited. She was likewise devastated when the woman broke off the relationship before he had the chance.
Trevor opened his eyes and leaned forward in his sturdy office chair. A flashing icon next to her screenname indicated that she had sent him a message. He double-clicked on it and read it aloud to himself.
"I found you, Trebor! You're it!"
In all the tumultuous, painful moments of his youth, she had been constant. And she was here again, when he needed her the most, connected to him through an Ethernet card and cable on this disaster that the world called a normal day. He did not know what he had done to earn such devotion, but he thanked her silently for every moment she had been a part of his life and invited her into a game.