KGK Memory Reconstruction

Posted by Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on Sunday, December 16, 2018 at 6:14 pm

Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh

Ms. Pahomov

College English

12/16/18

December 17th, 2018. Colorful birthday candles sit on top of my favorite double chocolate cake. I look up from the smoke that sings the remembrance of the flame and see all the smiling faces. How did I make this much progress?

December 17th, 2017. I had a vanilla cake from Shoprite. Only one candle for my 16th birthday. We watched a movie I remember hating, so insignificant I don’t remember which one. My little cousins screamed from all the sugar. Went to bed that night and tried to recover from the disappointment by watching Netflix. I didn’t feel better.

Last March I was failing junior year. That May, my only escape from stress was laying in my pajamas. Every day I ate Rice Krispies for breakfast and soup for lunch. My birthday came and no friends were at my party because I didn’t have any worth inviting. I wasn’t sure I was worth being friends with.

December 17th, 2016. There were “friends” staring at their phone and making fun of my old furniture. My parents tried to build up my self-esteem by inviting family members I never met, to make me feel I had a crowd cheering for me. In the end, I put up a facade, holding up applause signs to fake happiness and please strangers.

April 2016, I constantly felt awkward, ugly, and uncomfortable. September, my family got a dog, that was the only highlight of the year.

This year was celestial. I saw something I had never seen before. The look of genuine love on guests’ faces was shocking to me. I thought this look didn’t exist, something I made up. The guest list included my mom’s side of the family I actually like and some new kids at my school that are now my best friends.

This year I found joy in the small things; repainting my room, watering plants, coupons at my favorite store, watching the sunrise on train rides, and meeting new people.

Tonight, I will end my night in a bubble bath, a big bowl of ice cream, and listening to my favorite songs. The perfect day needs a perfect ending. It took me so much energy to get where I am. Something that couldn’t be measured in miles, inches, or pounds.

Authors Note-

These events are not based on my life, only some small things I like to do or typical “teenager” things. Since the next step is coming close to all my friends, classmates, and I, I have been very inspired regarding how far we have come and how much we have grown. I chose to use shorter sentence structure and more poetic descriptions to mimic the way Margaret Atwood creates scenes in The Handmaid’s Tale. I incorporated lots of different events from the main characters life to mimic when Bromden was being electrically shocked and had lots of memories flood back from different points in his life. The image I made is based off the story I wrote and te events that occured between the years. I did the first two in black and white and finally introduced color once the character's life became better.

Comments (2)

Vivian Pham

I think that you did succeed in your writing when taking inspiration from One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest form when Bromden was being shocked and a lot of memories came back all at one time. I did feel like you conveyed and used Kesey's technique in providing the character with memories that occurred all at once with all different significances.
I loved all of the memories that you incorporated, I think it would've been eye catching to expand more on that last moment because it seemed to be the most significant.

Eric Valenti

I really appreciated the use of food in the first few "diary" like entries you had in your writing, it was interesting how adding that item sort of set up how the day would go and how you felt. You definitely captured the poetic style of Atwood's writing in your memory.