In this creative writing project, students had to write about an issue that affects children from a innocent, naive point of view, and from a cynical, experienced point of view.
This is one of the stories they wrote:
INNOCENCE
Once upon a time there were two children, Me and Jeff. We were brothers that helped each other with different tasks. Once in a while they could hear they parents fight, arguing about their financial situation and their marriage. Their marriage wasn't in the best moment, as you could presume by now, because of serious problems they were having.
I remember being 9 years old, people would always tell me that I was a great guy, that I always helped people with things they needed. I wasn't in the best shape, which meant that I was a bullying target at school. At school people would make fun of me, because of my weight, but that didn’t really bother me.
My brother, Jeff, always had big dreams, he always aimed high but as our parents were not as rich as the other parents Jeff could not be what he wanted to be in school. Many boys in his school played football but as he was not as good as the other boys he could not play with them and he lost his interest in football.
Steve and Alex, our parents, were great parents, until Steve stopped going to work. They had reached a point in their marriage where they couldn’t stand each other, because of issues they were having, so they would always fight, scream each other and never reach an agreement. This would not only affect their lives, but also their children's lives.
One day, me and Jeff were on our way to school and I was thinking that, I liked going to school as I felt that there everyone liked me as I would help my friends, making them laugh in the process. Jeff wasn’t so happy doing so, since he couldn't do or be what he wanted to.
That day my friends decided to play a game called “Run for help’, this game consisted of running the fasted as you could to help others, but in this case, no one needed to be helped, my “friends” were only making me run around and since I was fat, they thought it was funny as I thought that it was funny as well.
At one point during the game one of my friends asked me if I liked playing the game, I answered that I liked it as I felt as a great part of a big group of friends
that gave me attention, more than anyone else then.
Jeff, on the other hand, had a completely normal and boring day; he couldn't do want he would like to, which was play and practice football with his friends, he felt excluded from his group of friends, because he wasn't able to be like then, which made him upset, this scared him as he knew from personal experience what hate could do.
Inside the classroom we didn't have a problem, we were great students and were fine with people around us. My teacher thought I was a great, intelligent boy. Jeff’s teacher thought he was a great student but a little quiet. Both were able to socialise and even make friends, at least that was what I thought I was doing... meanwhile Jeff was having fun with their actual friends. They we were both great students after all, we had good grades, helped others, were always up to date with their studies and most important their we were happy, well at least I was. But everything changed at home.
My parents stayed at home. Alex, our mother, because she wasn’t allowed to have a job, and Steve, that was looking for a job. They would never stop arguing, and sometimes Steve would even threaten Alex. But that wasn’t the worst, this hate between the parents caused us children to fight each other, because while I supported my mom, Jeff was in a way induced to support his dad, once Steve was very persuasive and was able to manipulate Jeff’s opinion, but dad couldn't do it with me, I was too innocent to understand, so instead I decided to support my mother, because I thought it was the right thing to do.
Back to that day, that night was different, we were all peacefully eating dinner, laughing together with mom, but that night dad; dad was quiet, always looking down, that was when I suspected that bad things were going to happen. We continued eating, and all the sudden, dad stood up, and just started walking to the dishwasher, putting his dishes in and went upstairs to his room. Even though nothing happened my mom looked scared, at the time I wasn’t able to understand what scared my mother, we washed our dishes and went to bed, at one point during that night I woke up, could hear my father crying on the master bedroom, I went there and mom was dead on the ground with a knife stuck on her chest, I went to dad and asked him what happened to mom he just answered, I spared your mom from doing the paperwork.
P Barrada, P Yavarfar, G Russo
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