Reconstruction of Memory: Bea Gerber

Posted by Bea Gerber in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

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There were pieces everywhere. Sharp, shattered, sparkling. The music masked the clatter, but only long enough to shield younger eyes. Some things take time to understand. The room filled in and flowed out, buckets, bags, and rags trickling with them. I am cold, but it was summer, and I had been warm only seconds before.


My happiness drained through my toes. The shouting was loud but I wasn’t listening, there were too many busy faces and furrowed brows to distract me.


He went straight through it, I heard, but I couldn’t see him. I searched for his tangled blonde mop but he had already disappeared. They whizzed around. Suds flew. Towels rolled. Bodies on autopilot. An organized frenzy. I couldn’t control the mess. It was going to last longer than the blood. My skin crawled.


He was rescued. Removed and absorbed. No longer at stake. We picked his pieces off the floor. Removed the evidence. We rescued him from second death but we were still in danger. I hated that he put me in danger.


My time there had been long and short. Summers don’t last forever but they happen every year. Each time it feels like we never left our bubble in the woods. Our own heated snow globe. But his hand broke the glass. He shook too hard. Disturbed the comfortably settled dust. We let him. So we fixed it. Patched his hand and the door. Closed the young eyes. Shielded him by shielding ourselves. Everyone is affected by weak links.


Plastic protected my bitten fingers from the glass but I was still bare. At mercy of another; powerless to change his mistakes. The bass still bumped, matching my heart beat. I had to walk away. Find comfort in less danger, away from the shards, away from the glares. I wanted to be warm again. But that was too much to ask.


The chaos chilled me no matter how many layers I put on. I wasn’t protected anymore. But that is life. The fog lifts on everything eventually. If you don’t prepare for the worst, you will be left cold, shivering. It took too long for me to see this. Took shards covering the floor where children played. They would never know. They didn’t have to know. We glued their snow globe back together with our stories. We kept them warm.



Author's note: I took a lot of inspiration from Kesey because of the format of this assignment. I liked that there didn't need to be much context, so I could be as vague and sharp as I wanted because I didn't have to tie it back to a full story. I tried to take some of his stylistic elements: short sentences, blunt phrasing, reactions in the moment mixed with reflective ones, sharp scene changes. I wanted to confuse the reader by throwing them into something hectic. I also tried to humanize things to make them relatable, and I tried to use contrast with warm and cold like Atwood does to show how situations change from ideal to scary in seconds. I tried to give away as little as possible so that you would feel the emotions and the scene itself wouldn't really matter. 

Comments (4)

Afi Koffi (Student 2019)
Afi Koffi

You were successful in getting the reader to focus on the writing rather than the story itself. I worked really hard to read between the lines of this piece but in the end, it didn't really matter. I'm wondering a lot. What's going on? is the first one that comes to mind.

Eric Valenti (Student 2019)
Eric Valenti

Your use of emotions and well thought out descriptions really captivated me and created this mysterious tone. The story is a bit of confusing because the writing is so vague but you captured the Atwood side very well by writing in such a vague manner.

Christina Santana (Student 2019)
Christina Santana

Bea, I thought this was great! You did an awesome job at replicating Kesey’s writing style. It was easy for me to see your use of the elements you had mentioned in your author’s note, and it made your decisions seem much clearer after reading your piece. I love that you decided to focus more on the moment and the feeling it brought you rather than focusing on the moment itself. It made reading much more interesting. As for things I want to know, I would like to have a little more content as to what caused the chaos. I think it would have aided in emphasizing the moment's importance. Other than that, great job!