Friday, July 10, 2009

A priest and a doctor at the doctor's office

We did something a little different in my creative writing class today. I think the girls really liked it. We took two very distinctive but different characters and placed them together in a common, but unique area. We discussed some of the following:
-A priest and doctor at the doctor's office
-An old lady and a serial killer in line at the grocery store
-An actress and a farmer at a dress shop

I wrote with the ladies...and this is what I came up with.
-A pregnant lady and an archeologist at the library

Ella went there to find a book on inducing labor, for she was two weeks overdue. She had never been to the library before. She wasn't the reading type. But, today, she was so desperate to find a solution to her nine-month-two-week-old problem that she found herself surrounded by shelves of books and quiet people.

Everyone looked the same to her--old, with grey hair and dark-rimmed glasses. All of them had their noses burried in books too big to hold--all except one. This man had brown trousers on and was covered in dirt. He wore some type of toolbelt and his handkerchief peeked slightly from his pocket. He was kneeling down frantically looking through the many books scattered around him on the floor.

Ella watched him through the slot in the shelves. He looked distressed. She wondered what could have possibly been so urgent for this man. Suddenly, Ella began to have labor pains right there in aisle F7--just one aisle away from the frantic man. She fell do the floor in pain. At the sound of her thud, the man looked up from his books searching for the source of the noise. He peeked throught the shelves and saw her laying there.
"Psst...Are you okay?" he asked.
"No! I'm in labor, you silly man!" she screamed.
Without thinking, he went back to his scattered books and began to clean up, stacking them one on top of the other.
Irritated, Ella inquired, "What are you doing?"
"I don't know. I'm an archeologist. I only deal with fossils, not living beings--and especially not ones in labor!" he replied.
It finally made sense to Ella--an archeologist.
"Well at least call for help, please" she said.
The man ran to the front desk and told them about Ella. He came back to gather his books and Ella pleaded with him to stay by her side until the paramedics arrived.
That day a baby was born listening to stories of secret hidden treasures of the lost world in the public library.