Sunday, November 8, 2009

REWRITE THEME WEEK TEN

“Where were the goddamn Advil?” she muttered, tearing the bathroom apart. The pain was crippling, she couldn’t even stand up straight it hurt so bad. She found the bottle, wrangled with the cap, and dumped some in her hand. Three, four, it didn’t matter, Advil wasn’t going to stop this pain. Why hadn’t she called the doctor for pain medicine?
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The substitute called the class to order. God what was he going to lecture on? She had only gotten the call two hours ago and had no idea what the topic was supposed to be for the day. If only it weren’t coming to the holiday season he could have said no, but the money was tight and with three kids Christmas was going to be tough.
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“What was that noise?” she wondered through a foggy head. The meds had finally kicked in and all she wanted to do was sleep. Somewhere in the room music was playing, but she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Not only that, she didn’t care. Thank God she had remembered there were pain meds left from the last time. Three hours had been enough suffering. Screw the music; she wasn’t waking up for anything.
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“Why the hell wasn’t she answering her phone?” he wondered. He had to figure out whether to give the exam that was in her lesson plan. It was already made but the students were trying to tell him it was open book, and knowing her he really doubted that. Besides that, after the exam what was he supposed to do? She had a lesson plan, but her hen scratch was undecipherable.
************
She felt so much better. The pain was gone, now all she needed was a shower. She threw on a robe and headed for the bathroom, hot water was going to feel so good. As she walked by her desk she noticed the message light on her phone was blinking. She picked up her phone and noticed there were six missed calls from the substitute. “Oh God, what had happened?”

2 comments:

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  2. I got stuck on that 'she' in the second vignette. I know it was a typo/mental lapse but that's the sticking point the writer has to expect when the reader is an English teacher. I also got hung up on the ending quotation. No reason to put those quotation marks in--italics maybe.

    I think these work better than the earlier version--glad you salvaged the Advil material.

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