Creative Response: Keep Moving, by Haley Petcher

Dear Classmates,

I didn’t necessarily pick this piece because it is my favorite of the two. I do like this piece, specifically the two main characters, Margaret and Oliver, but I think a few places need a lot of work. I think I’m happiest with how I portrayed them through their actions and small gestures.

I have a few areas I’m concerned about, though. Here are a few of my questions:

• Is it clear what she does to help and why she’s at the bombed site? I tried adding more information.

• Does the Stephen Crane bit work? I tried fixing it, but I still feel like it sounds awkward. I need something like it there, though. Margaret originally made more of a joke, and I had a stronger connection to the poem, but it didn’t fit. I do kind of want to “feel” of the poem in part of the scene.

• What can I do to make the last lines stronger? I’m struggling.

Thanks for your time!

Haley

P.S.—This is the poem I originally tried to use:

                          I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

                          Round and round they sped.

                          I was disturbed at this;

                          I accosted the man.

                          “It is futile,” I said,

                          “You can never—”

                          “You lie,” he cried,

                          And ran on.

                          —Stephen Crane

Keep Moving

                  

           It wasn’t the sun beating down on her but the lack of sun that made her weary. The sky was thick with grey clouds and ash. London, particularly wartime London, was different from her quiet city in Alabama, which she left only a few weeks ago. It was partially this difference and partially the strain—both emotional and physical—of her work that made her weary. In the days she nursed the living, but at night she sometimes carried the dead.

Since she was on the run, she had stolen a teacup from the hospital. She sipped her tea as she walked from the hospital to her next job at the nearest bombed site, and she cringed. She would never get used to this world. Her job schedules generally didn’t overlap. Margaret surveyed the scene. What was once an apartment building and a shop with an apartment was now rubble, like the remains of an ancient city found during an archeological dig. She could not make out the rest.

“Do you mind talking to that young man over there?” her boss said. “His mum and dad died. We thought he was part of the rubble until we found him underneath a steel table hidden by debris.”

            The young man sat hunched over with a blanket around him. He was gray—like chalk—from the ash. He looked about him as she approached but quickly returned his gaze to the edges of his blanket. He picked the fuzz off and flicked it onto the rubble.

            “Hello, I’m Margaret.” She down next to him. He didn’t look up. “What’s your name?”

            “Oliver,” he said and pointed to his ID bracelet. “Mum made me wear it. I told her I’m not a girl,” he said with a chuckle, “and that I’d just become a soldier when I turn eighteen next month. But she still used up too much money to buy it.”

            “I’m sure she just didn’t want to lose you.”

            He scrunched up his face like a rabbit. “Didn’t help her much, in the end. Still lost me.”

            She nodded, and they sat in silence. Another sip of tea caused her to cringe. Some members of her team took inventory of the bodies found. Others heaved pieces of brick walls from the street and sidewalk so that people could pass by. They walked to and fro like ants.

            “Look, can I help?” Oliver asked. “I’m strong. I can move bricks, no problem. As soon as they found me, they gave me this towel and forced me to sit down. I don’t need you to babysit me.”

            “Better that you rest.”

            “Soldiers don’t rest,” he said. “They find ways to stop bombs like this one.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

            “They try.”

            Again they sat in silence—watching, and trying not to watch.

            “Do you want my cup of tea? Y’all make it too bitter for me. I like it sweeter.” Margaret moved her mug in Oliver’s direction. Oliver nodded.

            “I like it bitter. My mum was making tea. Before the sirens went off.” He rattled his identification bracelet absentmindedly. “Mum said hope was in tea. And answers. I looked, but I never found any,” Oliver said, flashing a crooked smile.

            “It would be nice to find answers in a cup of tea. Britain would have won the war by now.” Margaret mirrored his tone.

            “Do you think we will? Win, I mean,” Margaret said.

            “Yes,” Oliver sipped his tea. “No. I don’t know. At least if I was fighting I would be doing something.”

            “Yes, something.”

            Oliver tapped his foot to a four-beat rhythm. He tapped his fingers on the mug. He looked toward the sky.

Margaret thought back to when she first arrived at her aunt’s home in London.

            “I’m hoping to hear about my younger brother,” Margaret had said. “He was in England when the war started and volunteered as an ambulance driver, but he’s missing.” Her aunt raised her eyebrows. “He liked A Farewell to Arms for all of the wrong reasons. He had to do something,” Margaret had explained.

            “It is futile,” her aunt had said. “You won’t find him.”

            “It’s not futile,’” Margaret had said. She had thought of Stephen Crane when her aunt said “futile.” “I’ll run on regardless.” A nervous chuckle. A loud swallow.

            “What you are really looking for is out of reach,” her aunt had said.

            Margaret looked at Oliver, still tapping his toes and rattling his identification bracelet, and stood up. She pulled the towel from him and used it to wipe the ash from his face.

            “I’ve changed my mind,” Margaret said. “Forget resting, we should keep moving. Help me carry the rubble. Some of it’s too heavy for me to carry alone. Besides, I can’t take hearing you tap your toes for much longer. ”