3 Minute Fiction

Jaime sat next to the window. He always did this after he came back from school. The bus stop below his apartment was empty, like always. No one ever seemed to use that stop anymore. A collective feeling of great emptiness emanated from the whole area. The buildings across the street were decrepit, with aging yellow bricks chipping while the windows were hidden away by masses of broken boards. The bus stop’s sign was bent from the imprint some drunk’s car had left. Next to the sign, a shelter was filled with trash some hobo had held dear enough to sleep next to. Jaime absent mindedly wondered where the inhabitant had gone, but didn’t dwell on it long. Conditions in Jaime’s apartment weren’t much better. The apartment was small, and his room was smaller. There was just one grimy window in the kitchen, peering out over the quiet city. Piles of dirty plates lay in the rusty sink. Jaime gazed longingly at the plates, hunger controlling his mind. His stomach rumbled, releasing a spasm of pain in Jaime’s abdomen, but he was used to the feeling. He wondered how long it would take his mom to come home. Getting up, he checked the fridge for the tenth time, still empty. Worth a shot, Jaime thought to himself. Even the candy he had hidden from his mom since Halloween had finally been exhausted. The water had stopped working too, but Jaime dismissed it as the building’s old infrastructure simply collapsing again. He figured when his mom came back she would berate the aged building superintendent in her rasping high pitched voice that she used whenever she got angry. Her voice was harsh and grating from years of smoking. At least she’s stopped drinking, well as much, Jaime thought. She worked a dead end job as the waitress of a Mexican restaurant several blocks away. It didn’t bring much money home, but sometimes his mom brought back a bunch of extra money from what she told Jaime was “favors, honey.” Jaime climbed back up to the window, legs dangling off the grimy sill. His attention returned to the street and realized that it had been a long time since he had seen a car, several days in fact. Actually, now that he thought about it Jaime hadn’t seen anyone since he woke up on Tuesday, which must have been...three days ago. He had accidentally slept in on that Tuesday although his mom should have already returned by the time he woke up. So he decided to ditch school for the day since his mom obviously was giving him a free pass. He stayed home playing by himself in the vacant lot outside, he never felt very comfortable with other kids. The next day he woke up to discover his mom wasn’t there again, but it still hadn’t concerned him since he always left for school before his mom came back from work anyways. Jaime also thought it was weird that school had been closed for the last three days. Just then there was a pounding on the door. Jaime leapt up from the window, excited and hopeful that his mom had arrived home. He rushed towards the door, but stopped just short of the handle. Beyond the wooden frame he heard a menacing growl, the kind that sent a cold, shivering feeling creeping down your spine until you could hardly stand. Every ounce of Jaime’s body told him not to open that door, but he did it anyways.

He couldn’t even get out a gasp of horror before the end.

Classmate I am Thankful For: Jennifer Hernandez

Jennifer and I have been friends since we both first came to Whitney Young. We were both in 7th grade and neither of us knew too many people. Both of us were on bus...um actually I can't remember which bus it was, but we were on the same bus. Very quickly we became friends along with the other kids on the bus, and they were some of the first kids I knew that weren't from the other schools I went to. Going into Whitney I actually probably knew more kids than anyone else. I went to 3 different grade schools, Bell, Decatur and Edison, and around 20-25 kids from these schools were going to Whitney. But I didn't have very many classes with them, almost none in fact. This made my situation kind of awkward, because I didn't know most of the kids in my classes. But Jennifer and her friends made a nice bridge for me to make new friends. Some of my best memories and most vivid experiences from 7th grade are of that bus and all the great times we had there. One of the most clear memories I have is the time half our bus got in trouble. Like serious trouble though, as in suspension. See our bus was normal length, but it was some kind of handicapped bus so the back half had no seats. The bus didn't have enough seats for all of us, so we sat in the back. Actually we sat there even if there were enough seats, we thought we were really cool. A lot of us used to play this game where we would taunt the cars behind us. The activities were not always the most appropriate suffice to say. Eventually someone called Mr. Swanson, the then director of the Academic Center, and half of us got suspended and Saturday schools. I didn't very actively participate but it was a lot of fun to watch and talk to all the other kids. We did prank calls, yelled at kids outside with our whole bodies hanging out of windows, ate ice cream, and a bunch of other dumb stuff that really helped me move into Whitney more comfortably. Jennifer was someone that I could talk to and be friends with no matter what. I am really thankful for all the fun times we shared, they were something I looked forward to all day in 7th grade.

Macbeth: Was it worth it?

An interesting notion to say the least when discussing this is the value that we assign to human life. As soon as one begins to consider this question they automatically begin assigning value to human lives. Is one life equal to one year as king? Is someone else's one life better than another's? Macbeth evaluates this question extensively really up until he decides to kill Banquo. It's an interesting thing, human psychology on murder. After a while the killer just stops caring entirely. Sometimes they even begin to enjoy it, like their whole life revolves around it, depending on it to hang onto their remaining sanity. Macbeth portrays this right up until the end. Underneath Macbeth's facade is a slowly deteriorating mind that becomes increasingly paranoid and obsessed with murder. This is often referred to as Antisocial Personality Disorder. People who are seemingly normal on the outside, in fact often very charismatic, intelligent, and even with families, who are on the inside a mess of evil intent and madness. I learned about this condition while reading about famous 70s and 80s killer Ted Bundy. Bundy had this same disorder. For years Bundy had a secret life of murder, rape, and pathologically psychotic episodes despite in his normal life seeming like a perfectly normal man. In fact he was the least likely suspect for someone who would do these things. Bundy was a law school student, bright and engaged. He worked with politicians and was regarded by many to be a kind and compassionate individual. Crazy as it may seem he even worked as a suicide hotline operator and was described by his co-workers as empathetic and caring. Macbeth is seen in the same light. He is a cold blooded killer on the inside, but outside he seems like a model man. Someone who is just, noble, righteous and brave; all the good qualities of a Scottish aristocrat. I think when we begin to look at Macbeth's view on the worth of killing it slowly devolves from convenience to enjoyment. Bundy did the same thing. He originally killed his rape victims simply out of convenience of not having a witness, but told interviewers that he later killed for the killing itself. He had an almost cultish worship of his victims, making their murders and deaths rituals, building shrines at their bodies and returning often. He killed because he needed to, it was all he knew. Macbeth originally killed out of desire for power, but slowly devolves to killing out of sheer paranoia, eating at his sanity and driving him into insane blood lust. Because of this he no longer evaluates like we would this situation. We don't take the joy of the murder into our account of the pros. We think of the power, wealth, etc. that stands to gain. But Macbeth thinks on a different plane than that. 

Now the question comes to me, would I follow Macbeth's footsteps? The answer for me would unconditionally no. To be honest, I feel from a religious and moral standpoint that taking another human's life is simply wrong, and should thus be avoided at all costs. Not only that but that we would even consider this question is I believe morally bankrupt. I mentioned this during our class discussion, but as soon as you begin to evaluate from a consequentialist standpoint this question, you are immediately placing value on someone else's life. This is something we talk about in Debate on occasion. Consequentialism could be compared to Utilitarianism. We must weigh the outcomes of two options and discover which choice results in the best world. I think that a question like this needs to be denied in all circumstances. Something that asks you how many lives you would sacrifice to gain for yourself is no matter what going to be wrong, and even stopping to begin considering it makes you corrupt too. The question often complicates itself though. What if you could sacrifice one man to save 10. Or what if you could sacrifice a city to save the world. The list goes on but as the impacts get larger for others the consequentialist approach gets more difficult to ignore. This is a question I can't answer as easily as the first. But ultimately Macbeth-ish actions are wrong, and that's just it. Killing some dude's "babes" and wife is pretty messed up, and everyone can agree with that. And if you chose to go through with it anyways you're going to have to live with the guilt forever, and that, is the worst punishment of all.

No New Tale to Tell

Greed is a hard topic to talk about. Of course we can simply define greed as "desiring something you don't have", but is that completely accurate. When we apply greed to human nature and modern society it manifests itself in very different forms. Greed doesn't necessarily need to be for yourself, greed also doesn't need to be for a bad cause. Greed is a wide and far-reaching subject that is not so easily classified by the definition we are pursuing. For instance a mother sending her child to a selective enrollment school is greedy because she desires her child to be more successful than others and have advantages that others do not. By that child taking a seat in the school, it means some other child is denied that future. Greed is present in almost all human actions. Desire for pleasure, the ultimate goal in life is only attained by greed. Everyone wants to feel pleasure in their own respective way or form, and this desire is greed in essence. Greed is as natural to humans as breathing and is ultimately inevitable. Because of this greed really isn't such a bad thing after all. Greed saves people from dangerous situations, it allows people to think rationally and make good decisions, it lets us advance further as a species and has helped the human race more times than ever would be countable. There are very important events in human history that have been caused by greed, that resulted in general good. For instance, when the US entered WWII out of desire to keep its control over the Pacific it resulted in the end of the Holocaust, the destruction of the Nazi regime, creation of the United Nations, liberation of millions of people, saving the Chinese-Sino people from Japanese torture, and establishing a new world order of democracy. At the same time this greed for territory led to 2 atomic weapons being used, widespread genocide, destruction of families, property and lives. I do think there is merit to an argument that greed causes evil, but it is definitely an overstatement to say greed causes all evil. In fact, greed alleviates much evil in human lives and is an essential part of our existence.

Truth

Truth is an important concept to keep in mind while reading the story of Grendel. While I read this story and hear the discussion in class I can't help but feel that everyone gives Grendel a little too much credit. The guy is definitely lonely and confused, but you mean to tell me that his situation justifies his systematic murdering of hundreds of people, torturing humans like the hero, and his self-pitying and "I know everything" attitude really annoy me. It seems to me that the truth in the story of Grendel will never truly be known to anyone besides the dragon. The dragon is a really mysterious character, and I think in some ways represents a "God" figure or at least a deity of some kind. His attitude of world-weariness, omniscient knowledge, and unbelievable power makes me feel he is some sort of representation of a god, good or bad. He tries to teach Grendel of the truth, but he simply can't understand, and I think the minds of Grendel and the humans are doomed to misunderstand the truth as they only care about surviving and benefiting themselves. The truth is why both sides fight. Grendel fights for his "rights" so to speak. In other words he fights the humans because he despises them for rejecting him and hates their attitudes towards the world and each other. He justifies his "stupid war" with these claims and thusly justifies massive, uncontained genocides of the other species. This to me is probably the worst thing that has happened in the story, and pretty much destroys any credibility Grendel would have had otherwise. I get where he's coming from but his means do not justify his ends. The humans fight to protect themselves at least from Grendel, but they also fight their own, out of mindless desire to gain more pleasure for their own use. But if Grendel never interfered with their business in the first place they would never attack him anyways. For instance, after that run-in with Hrothgar and his men in the forest the humans never came after Grendel again. In fact, they never even came into contact with Grendel until he came over to them. And he thinks they are barbaric and evil but what would you do if a 12 foot monster carrying a dead naked body with him, roaring at the top of his lungs came over to your front door. Grendel should have thought this out before going over to them. Even more so, instead of taunting the hero at the mead hall after he discovered Grendel could speak, he should have tried to communicate and understand the "truth." In the end no side is right, and no side knows the whole truth about the other.

Modern Grendel

I think the modern day Grendel is very subjective towards change, and usually it isn’t represented by just one person, but rather a collective, country or group. Not only this but the perspective and “sides” so to speak is very important. I think a very interesting area for this Grendel situation is the US and Western Powers or the “good guys” or “Beowulf” so to speak and then the “Grendel” figure of the Muslim Middle Eastern countries. Due to biased and misinformed observations and generalizations by our governments, media sources and age-old opinions fueled by ancient feelings of racism, anti-muslim, and a whole lot of misunderstanding the general Muslim collective there has been demonized by the West and portrayed as our “enemy.” One country specifically demonstrates this demonizing process the best; the country of Iran. For over a century Iran has been a victim of foreign powers, whether by the hands of their fellow Muslims or by some strange and distant Western colonial government. Before the 20^th century they were ruled by the Ottoman Empire. However once the great liberators of the UK and France defeated this regime it seemed that they would finally achieve freedom, right? Wrong. They simply traded one overlord for an even worse one. The UK ruled Iran without really showing much care for the people and extracted oil relentlessly to fuel their own interests. Then WWII strikes and the UK goes bankrupt, so they are forced to dismantle their magnificent empire and release most of their former colonies and territories. Iran is once again put into a false sense of freedom. Post-WWII the US is in desperate need of oil, so the leaders of the US take advantage of the disastrous political system of Iran and force in their own puppet figure to rally support and take over. They, no we, fuel this power-hungry dictator’s efforts by supplying him with weapons, money, soldiers and international recognition. This leader would become known as the “Shah” of Iran. He and his son would rule Iran until the 70’s. The US used this puppet as a tool to ruthlessly force Iranians to extract oil year in and year out for the new US leisure life style and war machines. Not only this, but the Shah maintained his power by having his soldiers (armed with US issued weapons of course) inhumanely control his citizens and enforce violent military rule. This made anger quietly brew within Iranians for decades until finally they revolted and a massive, and incredibly violent civil war broke out, followed by worse wars with Iraq and continued rioting and confusion. Eventually the people, tired of war and violence, rallied under their common banner, one that to them represented peace. The National Islamic Party won the election in Iran and turned the country into a Islamic Republic. Now not only on top of all the crimes the US has dealt to them, they also support Israel, which is an entirely separate but just as serious crime. But now that they’re no longer firmly under US hegemonic influence, they are considered a loose cannon. So the governments of the West label them terrorists and dangerous, unstable powers pursuing dangerous weapons with monstrous mindsets bent on destruction of all that is good and holy to us. Both Grendel and Iran are pictured by the “good” and “innocent” citizens of Denmark and the US as horrible monsters with no reasoning for their destructive tendencies. The truth behind their pain is forever lost though, as they are butchered by our armies and “heroes” defeating evil once again, preserving our regime of lies for a little longer. 

English III Blog Post: Me

So I guess to start off I'll tell you that I'm 15 years old, and a sophomore. I'm a Roman Catholic and of as far as I know Irish descent. I went to the Academic Center here at Whitney Young and I've so far attended this school for 4 years. Whitney Young is probably my favorite out of the 5 some schools I've attended, and I'm impressed with the variety of classes, technology, activities, and just general niceness. I'm on the Varsity Debate Team here at Whitney and am currently preparing to go to Niles West for our first tournament of the year next weekend. Last year we won the city championship, and we won the state several years ago. I guess you could say it's a sort of dream of mine to win the state championship. You see, policy debate as a competitive activity is naturally biased towards wealthier suburban communities. For instance our school, doesn't have a single full time coach! But the (arguably) best school in Illinois (and Illinois is a very tough state for debate, especially with Northwestern here) Glenbrook North  has 10 full time coaches! It would be difficult to explain the specifics of what the coaches do that make it so unfair, but I'm sure you can tell that 10 is better than none. Anyways, I also really like acting and have been in a lot of professional productions. My last one which I finished up with in July was a performance of Brighton Beach Memoirs by Neil Simon in which I played the main character Eugene. If you've read the play or seen it then you know what it's about. I personally thought it was a great and funny play that was an excellent experience. The guy who played my brother Stanley was one of the swordsmen at the Bristol Renaissance Faire which was actually, like (sorry), the coolest thing that had ever happened to me. Yeah, I really love the Renaissance Faire, which kind of makes me a little weird I guess, but I don't dress up or anything like that! Anyways, Brighton Beach went on for about 3 months then ended. I got some good reviews from the Sun Times and Tribune. Hedy Weiss even called me the "Best Eugene Ever!" It was a lot of fun. I've also worked for the Court, Theatre Wit, and starred in a movie featured at the Sundance Indie Movie festival. My favorite class right now is probably either this one, or AP World History with Ms. Boyle. Least favorite would definitely be Pre-Calculus as I'm awful at math in all forms and loath it wholly. So, I just checked my word count and I'm over 430 words now, so I'll wrap it up. I'm excited to see where our British Literature takes us, and my mom says that the books we're reading are good. Hope to have a good year I guess!