Creative Response 2, Jill Ference

Author’s note

 Dear Fellow London Learners,

 I am proud of this piece because I made quite an effort to incorporate the craft lessons we have been learning, such as using time as a setting (by setting up the noisy, busy, 21^st century London) and using dialogue between characters, as well as using subtext.

  I am not entirely sure if I did the best job with the dialogue, I think I could have used more expressive words and made the characters interact more. What do you guys think? I am also completely unsure of how well I set up the scene where the man grabs Joann’s hand and puts it on his head…do you understand that he’s doing that in a friendly but bold and forceful way? How could I make that more clear, and how could I elaborate on the discomfort it causes Joann?

Also, does anyone think I went overboard with descriptions? Sometimes I tend to have run-on sentences and describe things that are already pretty obvious. Please let me know! Finally, I have never really worked much with dialogue and therefore am not familiar with the proper syntax. Did I successfully separate my paragraphs? Do you know who is speaking each time or is it choppy and confusing?

Stay Global, J

Jill

Searching for a Noiseless Chorus

               Whirl. Whirl. Whirl. Silence. Footsteps, shrieks of children playing outside, doors closing and squeaking, her neighbor’s country music was all suddenly filling up the room and invaded Joann’s ears.  Joann turned over to look at her fan. The familiar buzz had stopped. Plugged in, turned on, the tiny motor hummed. The blade did not spin. Stupid thing had stopped working, again.

              Joann had moved to London just six months ago, and was already wearing earplugs and headphones wherever she went. She was so sick of hearing noise all the time, never-ending noise that assaulted her ears when she tried to fall asleep at night. Friends had made her sleep playlists, bought her sleep machines that made noises of rushing waterfalls and calm rivers, and even bought her pairs of orange headphones that construction workers use. Joann could hear through all of it. Finally she decided that a fan could serve two purposes: blocking out the noise of the city she was so sick of, and keeping her cool. Her room was always so toasty, even in the winter. “Why me?” Joann puffed, thinking of the 10 block walk she would have to take, to the overcrowded store, with the fans all the way in the back, and the man at the register barely speaking English, or any understandable language at all, for that matter.

                 “Ugh…” Joann sighed as she lifted herself off the bed, and searched for her other shoe. She tried not to laugh at her neighbor’s awful singing on the way into the hallway. Slamming her door, jingling her keys, and jostling her doorknob, Joann added her own lyrics to the constant melody of the Apartment complexes on Marylebone Road. Car horns blared and voices became louder: Joann was no longer in her own world with the noise blocking buzz, she was now just a noiseless being among the constant symphony that is London.

    Joann sighed again. As she made her way into the tube station, her ears yet again were violated. The beeping of the oyster cards, the Public service announcements every five seconds, the bums jingling their coin cups, the trains squeaking on their tracks. All Joann wanted was to turn off all the noise she had to hear. She pondered if it was normal to wish to be deaf.

            “Excuse me miss, can you see anything on the back of my head?” Joann winced, not wanting to answer the old man with grey hair encircling the rough, liver spotted skin that was bare on the top of his head. She pretended to look at her mobile for messages, but the man continued to try to get her attention. Joann was never one to ignore someone, she hadn’t yet been a city girl long enough to acquire that skill that Londoners executed so flawlessly.

                  She turned, putting on her best London-er polite smile: “I wasn’t looking, honestly, but no I don’t see anything.” In one swift motion, the man grabbed Joann’s hand with his wrinkly, hair hands and then placed them on the cold, smooth surface of his head.

             “Right there. There’s a scar there.” Joann quickly pulled her hand away from this involuntary preview of old age and pulled some Germ-x out of her purse. As the apple and alcohol scented gel coated her hands, Joann counted the stops to the fan store to distract herself from thinking about all the nasty textures she had just involuntarily felt.

 

       The man continued. “I got that scar in the war, you know. Lost half my blood there.” Joann’s eyes searched for another empty seat, a futile effort on a Thursday afternoon when everybody was getting back to their after lunch meetings.

        Again, insisting on politeness, Joann smiled. “I didn’t feel anything.” She busied her hands to make sure the man would not try to grab them again. His blue eyes twinkled at her, and she felt like she was about to be in for a really long lecture. She thought of her dad, who would always turn the smallest train of thought into a grand philosophical discussion.

            “HA HA! You don’t feel anything? That’s the problem with all you 20-somethings. You don’t feel anything. You don’t have time to feel the sun on your back during your morning commute. You just don’t feel anything for the guy who works in cubicle 6 that’s been inviting you to have a pint for 3 weeks. You can’t even feel things that are under your own fingertips. Even misery and disgust are feelings, but you are all too damn busy and polite to admit you feel them.”

       Joann’s eyes filled with tears. She never felt anything, for anyone. She felt nothing for the breathing, vibrant city that was constantly trying to beckon her from her never silent enough apartment. Ever since she had moved from her sunny family home in California, everything was business. She turned to the man, confessing what took six whole months to come into conscious thought.

         “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. I tried.” He looked at her, puzzled, but enlightened. Looking up at the tube map, she mentally planned out how long she would have to sit on the circle line to make it close enough to Heathrow Airport. She started running scenarios in her head about how she would let her boss down easy. She delighted in the thought of getting a tea that she didn’t have to let stand for 20 minutes before trying to drink it