Jacob’s Escalator

c.
(I’ll number the questions I pick for clarity)
1. Describe your favorite pair of shoes:
They’re my only pair, really; they’re kinda dirty but faithful, brown leather boots. They’ve got nice grips on the bottom. I wish they weren’t so hot and muggy after you’ve been walking or running for a while on the inside, but that happens. The laces are ratty and both ends are missing their plastic tips, I had to put little knots on them.
4. What’s your favorite food?
Ice cream, strawberry ice cream, in just a tiny bowl with sprinkles and a neat little curl on the top, and I love to put well-chopped nuts on top of it… Mmm, I love it.
5. What’s your least favorite food?
I can’t stand fries, french fries, that kind of thing. All that salt and grease runs over my tongue and it makes me want to throw up, the salt seems to rake at my mouth… ugh.
6. What’s your favorite season?
I’d have to say my favorite season is fall. It’s cooling down outside, so it’s nice, and the clouds make it so that the sun isn’t too harsh in your face. The trees are really pretty, and the ground makes a nice sound when you walk on the leaves that’ve fallen off.
8. Favorite restaurant?
I gotta love Red Robin. To me, Red Robin is where you go when you’re doing great. When I’ve got enough money to invite my friends to a dinner at Red Robin, or when someone invites me there, I book that night and I write “good night” on that day on my calendar. I don’t even care about what I eat there; it’s just such a warm, lighted place, and I’m used to hanging out and laughing with my friends there. There’s just no substitute.
10. What’s on your bedside table?
I keep an old stereo there, a digital alarm clock without a sleep button, a couple of pictures of me and my girlfriends having a good time downtown and such, and I’ll usually put my cell phone and such down on the nightstand, too.
12. What’s your favorite athletic activity?
Running, I love to run. Especially early in the morning when there’s only a little light and it’s not warm, but just a little chilly, just enough to give you goosebumps when you go outside. It’s much nicer to run in the morning than it is to walk in the afternoon.
13. What’s your favorite place to shop?
I really like the mall in general. It’s sort of a single store to me, with all sorts of little divisions – here’s a place for clothes, here’s a place for toys, and so on. My favorite division, I think, is the food court, ‘cause who doesn’t like to eat? All the people and the lights, or skylights depending on which mall you’re in, and all the plants around you that’re just kinda friendly… And there’s a fountain in some. It’s just a really pleasant, calming place to be.
15. Favorite music?
I like slow hip hop when I’m working, fast classic rock when I’m running, and rap or hip hop in general when I’m just relaxing. It’s nice to lay on your bead and rhyme with the best, nodding your head to the rhythm with your eyes closed so you can see the crowd in front of you… I like Eminem best, ‘cause he’s funny. He’s fun to rhyme to at home.
17. What time do you like to get up in the morning?
When it’s warm, I get up at about four in the morning. I have to shower myself awake every morning, but once I do that, I’m ready for a nice run and to get off to work. If I have a job that day, that is. If I don’t have a job I’m in for a rough day, so it’s a lot harder to get up and sometimes I don’t manage it until seven or eight.

d.
For this one, I started direct, then shifted to indirect. So they’re meant to be read together, but I’ve separated them for the purpose of this assignment.

What’s kind of cool is that I didn’t do that on purpose.

Direct:
Nadia sighed. “So how much for the whole yard?”
“Well,” the man replied mildly, looking out at his vast and unkempt garden – Nadia compared it distastefully to her hair on a bad morning – “if you do a good job, twenty, twenty-five bucks?”
Nadia turned around. It took a lot of concentration to give him a calm and friendly gaze rather than the icy one she badly wanted to show. She was not willing to pull weeds and trim grass in the hot sun for twenty bucks. “For all that? I don’t mean to imply anything, but that seems a tad cheap to me… I mean, if you hired a landscaper for this – ”
“Are you gonna do a landscaper’s job?”
“Well, sure! And I’m not gonna ask you to pay me as much as you’d pay a landscaper, y’know, but… A girl’s gotta make a living, too, you know.” She couldn’t help but feel a sense of dark pleasure at her carefully manipulative tone; she loved to play dice with her voice like this, to see how much more she could pull out of her ‘employer’.
“Yeah, and it’d be nice if you got a job like the rest of us,” the man said darkly. Nadia carefully held in her sigh. “But… just ‘cause you’re sweet, I’ll make it sixty.”
Sixty was doable, Nadia decided. It’d only take her about four hours to take care of this lawn. If she could coax sixty or more out of two more yards, she’d have a hundred and eighty to two hundred dollars just for one day. “Thank you. I’ll get right to work.”
“If you ned anything, let me know.” The man smiled and walked back into his house after Nadia gave him an affirmative nod and pulled in her earbuds, letting the music wash into her ears and directly into her head, telling her body it was time to work. She gave the lawn before her an appraising, searching gaze. As most of the days in summer, she figured the sun was gonna be a bitch for this one. “No point in slacking,” she murmured.

Indirect:
She immediately hunkered down near the garden and began pulling out innumerable weeds. The soil hadn’t recovered from the sprinklers, and she had no gloves, so her hands rather muddy rather fast. After a while of pulling and moving and pulling and moving, her back began to ache, and she made little grunting noises as she stretched out to reach a weed just barely within her grasp, prefering that stretch to moving her entire weight with stiff and burning legs. Every few moments she’d pause and clear her forehead of sweat, looking at the lawn, judging how much more there was to go. Every few times she paused, when she went back to work she’d mutter some oath about how it was the hottest day she’d ever seen, even though she knew well that it had been hotter yesterday. As she got towards the last bit of the garden, leaving neatness and order in her wake, she began to lighten up a little and move faster, looking forward to being done, and enjoying a wash of pride in her work, no matter how simple.

2 –
a. and b.

Christian is a picky eighteen-year-old student who wants to make it through college looming before him with as many scrapes – close, but not too close – as possible, and as much fun as possible.
Christian is an expert at impressing people, specifically at taking simple things and making them seem so interesting and amazing, whether by a burst of vocabulary and comparison or just by motions and a well-picked target.

c.
2. What car do you drive?
My dad’s old purple Mustang Convertible from, like, the seventies. I have no idea how it’s still so clean, I fill it up with food and junk and still the seats don’t seem to stain or anything. Not that that’s bad, mind you. Girls seem to like purple, anyway.
5. Least favorite food?
I’m allergic to peanut butter, so anything with peanut butter in it is bad. My least favorite is Reese’s, because it torments you with chocolatey goodness, but in reality it’s a trap.
6. Favorite season?
I like winter, because of snow days and because girls like to snuggle when it’s cold out. It’s not so cool when girls start snuggling with each other, though.
7. Favorite place to vacation?
I went to San Diego one summer, and that’s still the best place in the world in my opinion. I like the sun and the beaches. And all the girls, but that’s fine anywhere.
8. Favorite restaurant?
I love Sonic – take a bunch of friends and their girls out and hog half of the lot, and just hang out and listen to the music and eat. It’s like hanging out at a party but you feel cool ‘cause you’ve got a car. ‘Course, we all have to have convertibles.
11. What’s on the top shelf of your refrigerator?
That’s where I keep all my soda cans. Gotta restock my supply every week or so. The M-D is to the left, the Coke is in the middle and the Mug’s is on the right. Take your pick. It’s public domain and all.
12. Favorite athletic activity?
I like to dance. Girls love dancing, of course, so you dance with girls. But aside from that, it’s fun to dance to show off and such anyway. And sometimes to dance with other guys just to be funny.
15. Favorite music?
Rap when I’m out to party, heavy metal alone. Things like Metallica, or Slipknot on my really bad days… when I need to pretend to hurt things, you know. Everyone has days like that.
16. Favorite ice cream flavor?
Who in this world doesn’t like chocolate? I think it tastes best with hot fudge and some fruit. Chocolate makes everything better. It even keeps you awake, if you eat enough of it.
17. What time do you like to get up?
My favorite time to get up is two o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when all the fun stuff actually starts happening. The best time to be awake is from two to about four in the morning, that’s about the time when people are partying.

d.

Direct:
Christian finished restringing the guitar and put it back in its holder dully. Musical instruments did not interest him very much. It was his job to make sure everything was in tune and in working order for customers, but – and he wasn’t ashamed to say so – he honestly didn’t care enough to tune most of the instruments and he had to be told to restring things. Just as long as he collected a paycheck it was fine with him.
He cast an unruly gaze towards the sales counter. The manager had been called over for something yet again. The idiots at the counter had no idea how to run a register (which was fine with Chris, because neither did he), so the idiot manager had to come out every few seconds to sort things out and then scold Christian for pretty much no reason at all. The paycheck was the binding force, Christian had concluded. Without it, he and this job would have no relationship at all.

Indirect:
As Christian turned back to his work he let loose a dull sigh, and headed into the back area of the shop, concealed behind the guitar maitainence desk. It was there that the drum kits and stands resided. He let a hand glide over a cymbal; it shook with a concealed urge, not-so-concealed in Christian’s devilish grin. He slapped it as hard as he could; a rough crash rang through the room, looming as the cymbal’s vibrations died ever-so-slowly. The manager overrode it with howling retorts, which Christian ignored, whistling and casting uncaring looks back at his boss.

3 –
Oh dang…

First Person:
I used to be an excellent April Fool’s prankster. I boasted a record of zero failed pranks for ten years out of seventeen, and I made about five pranks a year. I’d thought that this year wouldn’t be a big deal, I was just upping the ante as I always liked to do.
Well, I was mistaken.
That girl who’s had her eye on me since the first day of class, that girl that winked and blushed and giggled when I was around, with a sweet voice and a happy set of green eyes, I’d decided that she was the perfect target. It was obvious what she wanted. It was also obvious she knew she’d never get it.
Well, I cornered her with an innocent question, just wondering what was wrong with this computer – then I moved into action; I grabbed her hands and pulled her around, and before she could react I pulled the prank. I gave her the kiss I knew she’d been longing for since we met.
But she beat me as soon as I started. Her lips were magnetic, soft and irresistable, and her arms hurled themselves around me; I was beat, and the prank was shattered. Not because I couldn’t pull it off, but because I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t mean what I did. I could only continue, and watch like a hapless witness as a roaring affection I didn’t remember having before rose up inside me.

Third omniscient
The boy thought he knew he had the advantage. Ten years of pranking experience – that’s a lot, and that’s time to pull off a lot of different pranks. He figured that it was enough that the trump prank of the year was within his grasp.
Never, he thought, had the circumstances been so perfect. The girl from third period had cast him little affectionate glances all year. She would fantasize about embraces and kisses and dates with him, with his charming wit and humor always present, and she didn’t think anyone could see. He had seen, and decided to take advantage when such an opportunity was given.
His simple question caught her off-guard. She didn’t know what to expect when he pulled her into an unoccupied classroom asking about a computer problem. She had, frankly, forgotton the date, and its importance. Her imagination ran a little wild as she moved to look at the computer he had shown her; she blushed in a pointless attempt to calm it.
Pointless because he grabbed her and made imagination reality.
For a moment she was too shocked to act; she immediately embraced him and returned the kiss, and that caught the boy off-guard. He realized in an instant the depth of her affection that he hadn’t seen before from the surface, and they shared their emotions, sincere and unadulterated, for several wonderful moments.
Then the boy ended with a meek “Oops.”

Third Objective

The girl walked into the room with a wary aura, but not the right kind; a wariness against the self, not another. A wariness watching for revealed emotions, rather than attempted tricks. Her ‘suitor’ maintained a concerned and confused face up until his victim glanced at the computer he had brought her to; then it switched to a triumphant and mischievous gaze. There was a moment of confused motion and then they locked lips suddenly, allowing the girl only a moment of shock before she was lost in the assault; yet you could almost watch the tide turn, and see the prankster become the victim, as his body softened and began to sneak into a more intimate hold.

My favorite POV was first person. That provided the most intimate and detailed view of the situation. As a story paragraph, I think that would be my first choice; it was a nice perspective to see from that gave a clear understanding of the circumstances, and it provided insight into the two character’s personalities.
However, I have to also defer to Objective’s merit. Third person objective presented a beautiful view of the abstract idea concealed in the story, providing a bit of a metaphor of how puberty and love can sneak up on you and ruin things just as you think you have them mastered and figured out. While that kind of a prose work is not one I like to make, myself, I think that the paragraph produced is still very valuable and very effective.
Third person omniscient, while it’s my favorite view to use in general, is ironically the one that I like the least of the three paragraphs here. I think it may be because I overdid it a little, but tended to want to gravitate into the boy’s point of view more than the girl’s. By trying to spread it out, things got a little confused. A third-person limited view would do much better here than an omniscient, and I think the produced effect would be a lot like first person, only a little bit more objective.