Unfilled
It’s summer, but the AC feels cold. Is it because of the fog outside? Maybe summer is over. I pull out a wrinkled cardigan I wore yesterday from my backpack.
The classroom is full of toys. I have a lot of baby toys at home too! It’s not mine anymore, though. They’re hers. My baby sister’s. She can’t even sit up yet, but I know I’ll have to share all my things soon. Probably everything. But it’s okay, because I’m not a baby anymore. I’m a big sister now, and everyone says big sisters share.
The teacher walks in with a tray. I see Soboro buns, with crumbles on top. The biggest one has to be mine. I reach for it before she says we can. The bun smells golden. Not the color, but the feeling you get when your baby sister finally goes to sleep.
I take a big bite, and I chew fast. I don’t want to, but I do. It doesn’t taste much now, just soft, quiet, and filling. No one is asking me to share this. No one is looking at her instead of me. It’s like the bun sees me. But it’s already gone. Should I have another one? I think maybe no, but my hands move faster than my head. Before I think, I find myself chewing already.
The two massive Soboro buns feel like two heavy stones. My tummy feels warm at first, but now it is weighing me down, like I’m sinking into the floor.
The teacher starts reading Bible stories to us. It’s about King Solomon. I read this story to my sister yesterday! She’s probably napping right now with her tiny fists clenching her fluffy pink blanket that bundles her up. She can get sick easily, that’s what they say.
King Solomon could have asked for anything, but he asked for wisdom. But I would ask for something else, like my own blanket, or a room just for myself. Maybe even bedtime stories from Mom and Dad, just for me.
I press my hands to my stomach and try to sit still, but it starts to ache. My legs feel tingly, and I try crossing them the other way. It doesn’t help. I don’t know if I should tell the teacher. Oh, but she is taking the tray away now.
Should I ask for one more?
What started my writing was an old memory of mine. I was having fun watching old videos of me and my sister, and one video made me remember a small fragment of what happened when I was 4 years old. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IonpaIYDTxvdtXaAsG8_3JHuswLE5eJz/view?usp=sharing
In this video, my sister takes my drink. I think I want to share, but she just takes it, and I give it to her. And there’s this brief moment where I look really sad (around 6 – 7 sec), and that facial expression sparked a memory.
My younger sister was born that summer when I was four, and I loved her so much. I would read her books, give her a hug, talk to her, and sing to her. I was proud that I became an older sister! But I think I was very upset, or even jealous of my sister, that my sister took a lot of the love and attention that was “supposed to be mine.” The sudden hollowness (compared to the love I used to receive that was solely towards me) was so unfamiliar to me. This jealousy and my desire to be a good big sister kind of clashed, making me find something that could fulfill me with food. I don’t remember the details, but I remember my mom receiving a concerned call from my kindergarten teacher telling her about how I am eating way too many Soboro buns. This memory inspired me to write this very short story.
Also, you will see the notes (above) I took in the process of developing and understanding my character. Doing this, I felt like I was acting. Though I didn’t have a lot of experience acting before The Wizard of Oz, when I was playing Dorothy for 7 months, I found myself spending quite a lot of time trying to understand why she speaks this way, why she acts this way, and what her intentions are behind whatever she does. I also tried to figure out her habits (of speech and movements), tone, personality, and so on. The process I am going through now feels really similar to this. And I actually enjoyed it! I also felt empathy, since I haven’t tried to reflect on the specific event from far away, objectively. Moreover, the chapter called “Set Design” in Bird by Bird was super helpful. It was fun to design the setting like a “set designer,” which is how Lamott describes it. Reading this chapter, I realized the importance of setting. I was always avoiding story writing because I was afraid I wouldn’t have a good plot. But now I realize that setting is also a crucial part of a good story. For my short story, I also had it designed. Though it is not very detailed, it helped me build on ideas from it.
Because that I was aiming to write my short story in the style of Sticks by George Saunders, I referred to the story a lot.
To get a better idea and to break the story down a bit, I also looked up articles that analyzed how we had written the story in detail. Also, the articles helped me realize there shouldn’t be a single sentence that doesn’t contain anything, especially when I am trying to write a very short story. No sentences should be empty. I realized I have to be super efficient with how I write sentences, how I choose words, and how I assign meaning.
My goals:
- The audience needs to understand the character for her, since she herself doesn’t understand what’s happening inside her.
- Effective use of a child narrator to tell a story (that looks a bit dry on the surface but has a lot of layers)
- Unique, distinctive voice (distinguish her from me)
- Indirectly show uneasiness and discomfort
- Imitate George Saunders’ writing style in Sticks
- Use symbolism and the character’s periphery
- Relieving some of the negative emotions I had stored inside me for a long time through writing like Niall de Búrca
I was successful in imitating the writing style of Sticks, though I have room for improvement. Through reading and researching, I realized that the key parts of his story are to use maximum impact sentences and the power of objects/periphery. I have shown this through concise sentences that reveal a lot implicitly and indirectly.
For example, the last sentence, “Should I ask for one more?” implies that the Soboro bun is just a temporary substance that can fill immediate hunger and that it doesn’t last long like actual love. This is an example of a maximum impact sentence because with these 6 words, it encapsulates the symbolism and the theme of the story.
Also, like the pole in Sticks, I have used effective symbolism that I think worked well. Soboro bun acts as an object that replaces love/attention that temporarily filling the need. Two massive Soboro buns still leave her “unfilled”. King Solomon was an effective symbol as well in communicating her ultimate desire.
Moreover, “It’s summer, but the AC feels cold. Is it because of the fog outside? Maybe summer is over. I pull out a wrinkled cardigan I wore yesterday from my backpack,” this part is a great way I discovered to show the uneasiness and discomfort. This sets the atmosphere from the beginning, making sure the story builds up from discomfort.
To distinguish her from myself, and to make the reader understand her on a personal level, I developed a “self” or a “voice” for my character. The child’s voice, I found, was also effective in telling the story with underlying complexity. I am glad that I spent a lot of time figuring out her voice, her personality, and detailed information about her, because it made the writing process easier and logical for me.
Overall, I am very happy with my writing as it fully met all the goals I had set before I wrote this story!