[Critique Group 1] Marcia September submission

[Marcia Wick]

Measuring Words

Marcia J. Wick, The Write Sisters

September 2018

Word Count:  295

 

As a school girl, I mastered the art of cursive writing, spinning words like
silk thread across the blank page. The empty lines on the looseleaf paper
beckoned like a road map.  My pencil pressed looping letters onto the
pliable surface; tilted words advanced left to right, curling and crashing
like ocean waves onto the shoreline. I rested my pencil and turned to the
typewriter in college. It was like changing the channel from classic rock to
heavy rap.  Aaa.bbb.ccc. The alphabet was scattered willy nilly like tiddly
winks on the first keyboard I fingered. Punching buttons, I struggled to
string the erratic letters, like popping corn, into a recognizable
pattern.bat.cat.bad. Metal hammers striking a ribbon of indelible ink
pressed sharp-edged shapes onto the page, marching in line like stilted
soldiers to an uncertain future. 

 

Over time, my brain connected the random dots and the cadence of keystrokes
smoothed. The typewritten words appeared more credible than handwritten
notes; the serif strokes seemed more serious than smudged pencil. Ideas
floated off the page like a butterfly on a breeze. Although the typed copy
was resistant to erasure, my editor still struck out unnecessary words with
his trusty #2. 

 

Transposed into newsprint, my stories scattered like pollen as newspapers
flew onto porches and sections were strewn about kitchen tables, coffee
shops, and board rooms. Paragraphs pulsed off the front page, taking flight,
conjuring images in the reader's eye. 

 

Again, time warped my words like plastic in the microwave. Massive
distribution channels and the proliferation of photographs and graphics
trivialized the copy. Social media minimized the meaning of the words. Like
mosquitos swarming your eyes and buzzing your ears, the only course was to
lock out the digital chaos, the truth vanishing before the end of the story.

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