Corrections

It was a dark and stormy night.

Strike it out. Cliché. The pen wanted to rest, the weight of the cap fixed at the end dragging it towards the ink-filled paper. The fingers tighten around it: poised over “night” but urging the hand to move on.

He walked into the room...

Z’s eyes behind the glass crutches perched on her nose stop at “room” and gaze at the pile of scripts lying menacingly at her right hand. So he walked into A room or THE room on a dark and stormy night? Does he know what he might find or is this all new, uncertain and potentially dangerous?

Do we find ourselves in stories or do we walk into them, bruising our souls against the unexpected?

and walked towards the old, wizened, weary piano.

Circle “walk”. Side note – Use other words. The pen underlines “old, wizened, weary piano”, stretches it to the margin and draws a question mark. An afterthought – why is the piano weary? Is someone playing it? If old is enough, why wizened? – appears under it. Try alliterating with “walking”.

They call her a purist. Her colleagues. They are only fifteen they say, this is being too critical! Don’t crush their spirits. Z smiles as she imagines herself trudging over their so-called egos, crying fe fo fum, watching gleefully as their ‘creativity’ is washed away in the purple waves (you cannot use red ink for corrections anymore) that spread from the margins - underlining, circling, crossing out, spilling over the ink-dampened assignments. A violaceous tsunami flushing away the nascent genius of this young person. Z wonders why any criticism is always just that. Criticism. (Say it how you will, with an exclamation mark or a full stop at the end; it is never a compliment)

If I don’t tell them the difference between 'Let’s eat, grandma' and 'Let’s eat grandma', who else will? The thought twists her lips into a grimace and creases her forehead. I picked the Devil’s job, Z murmurs.

Teaching how to write stories to a class of video-plagued teenagers makes you question the purpose of your existence. Or how you make sense of your existence. Z had relied on books and words. TV viewing was time-tabled and only available on the aforementioned device. Back then you carried the world in your head, through words. You remembered and recalled and described and narrated.

Do they even need to be taught how to write? Z leafs through the unmarked scripts, noticing that she has only read the opening lines of the first one.

The man after walking towards the piano looks at the window and then turns around because he hears a sound. He is filled with horror but he returns his gaze to the piano.

How do you return your gaze after witnessing something that filled you with horror? Z’s eyes widen in disbelief and her hand rushes to support her head that droops in dismay. Horror! Surely this child meant something else, right?

How do you learn meanings? More importantly how is one taught the meaning of words in these woebegone days of SATs and standardized testing?

Well, I could say meaning is arbitrary, but that is a result of reading Derrida in your twenties tinged with despair triggered by a boyfriend who is sapiosexual and poly-amorous.

He suddenly feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around to see his long dead friend standing behind him, smiling from ear to ear.

Dead friend died very happily it seems! The pen scribbles – build anticipation by creating a suspenseful atmosphere – when the buzz of the phone on silent makes Z sit back up in almost canine alertness. Dogs can move their ears, Z thinks. They can cock an ear and swivel it in the direction of the sound, while slowly baring their teeth in readiness for possible or imagined attack. There is a message for Hair Loss Treatment. Z winces as she recognizes the cosmic cruelty, a phone company that cares about your sparse mane just as much as your mother who is even now updating your profile on matrimonial websites.

Happy dead friend smiles as he greets his gaze-transferring-despite-horror- friend standing by the old, wizened piano! Maybe it is a pleasant story after all. Don’t crush their spirits, Z hears her colleague’s voice in her head.

But friend has been murdered by the man who walked towards the piano. And there will be revenge. And the body will be discovered in the morning.

I see… and the piano is there for…Feng Shui?

One down, nineteen to go. Z has aged and the crow’s feet at the edges of her eyes have deepened from all the squinting at the terrible handwriting.