June Exercise(s)

Style "Practice Writing Good, Clean Prose."

The exercise is just to write a short story (probably a short-short) using words of only one syllable.

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Character "The Hospital Room."

The room has one large window. It is 7:30pm, July 3rd, a cool, breezy day, with the vivid colors of clear summer everywhere outside--trees and grass with late sun on them, blue mountains in the distance. Inside the room are these objects:

A metal-framed hospital bed
A nightstand with water glass and plastic pitcher, bowl of fruit, and small clock radio
A TV on an apparatus, supported in the air over the bed
A small trash can with a plastic bag in it
A hardback chair
A box of Kleenex
A pastel of cows standing in a grassy field, with sun and mountains beyond

1. Describe this room from the point of view of a young man who has come to visit his wife, with whom he is very much in love, after the successful and relatively painless delivery of a new baby they both have wanted. She is in the bed, with the baby, and everything is happy, if slightly scary, since they are young and this is a new experience together. Deliver what he feels through what you say about how he sees the room.

2. Describe the same room, at the same time of evening, same conditions, same light and warmth everywhere, except that now a deeply loved man or woman is dying in the bed, and you are looking through the eyes of that person's offspring. This dying is the natural end sort of dying--the person is quite elderly but loved. Deliver what the offspring feels through what you say about how he/she sees the room.