A Start

Below is my start to an imitation of Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills like White Elephants."

The boy across the booth from his grandparents seemed cheerful and distracted. Across the road there were steaming potholes and roaring trucks and the Whataburger glistened through spectacular turmoil across highways in his mind. Far along the wall through the glass there was a radiating glow from the sun and its reflections, created through myriads of twisting transience, stopped by the quick glance of the child in awe of movement. The Grandparents and the patrons around them looked with a twinge of moderate longing at his wonder. There were many diners and the crowd in Whataburger watched quietly in sweet remembrance. They peered at the innocence of vast inquisition and continued dining in nostalgia.

“Where did they go?” the granddad asked. He seemed smitten by his story and listened on across the booth. 

“Umm around there,” the boy said.

“Let’s get desert.”

“Three cones” the grandfather said to his spouse.

“Chocolate ones?” the grandmother asked with a grin.

“Yes, three chocolate cones.”

The grandmother brought three cones to them and some paper napkins. She cleaned the sandwich crumbs and fry wrappers from their table and smiled at the grandfather and his patience.

“They flash like small stars” he said.

“I can see that,” the grandfather ate his cone.

“Yeah, you always could.”

“You love space,” the grandfather whispered. “When ever you want you can go flying up there.” The boy stared with a broad grin. “I’d love going to space” he said. “How should I start?”

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s a School.”

“Can I go there?”

The grandfather uttered “someday” with a laugh.

The grandmother supported him with her sweetness.

“Fourteen years.”

“He would probably get early admission.”

“And scholarships.”

“Don’t you think it’d be nice?”

“I’m not sure,” the boy said “Do they work at NASA?”

“You could someday.”

“You want to go stargaze?” asked the grandmother.

“Yeah, after dark.”

“That sounds like fun,” the boy said and jostled his dangling shoelaces.

“It’s the best after midnight.”

“Okay” said the boy. "Night time’s best then. Especially when the fireflies I’ve been catching float around, like boats.”

“Ooo, could I help?”

“I think so,” the boy said. “I love catching bugs. You’ll like chasing them too maybe.”

“Well, lets clean and wipe that chocolate off.”

“Okay, fine. You are tickling. You think if I acted like really good, dad would come?”

“It’s not you.”

“I know, but maybe next week? Its just a night—looking for stars and catching some fireflies?”

“I don’t know.”

The grandmother half-smiled across at the boy.

“He loved you,” she said. “He didn’t really want to leave then. He just needed a break from the busyness, from the weight.”

“Do you want anything else?”

“No thanks.”

The glinting sun pierced the boy’s eyes through the doors.

“The weather’s beautiful and calm,” the grandfather said.

“Very beautiful,” the grandmother agreed.

“He’ll be just fine over time, honey” the grandfather whispered.

“It isn’t right a boy by himself.”

The boy ran ahead of them his lighted hair shining softly.

“I think we can do this, hon. We’ve already raised two. Let’s just be there, his new constants.”

The grandmother felt her smile emerging.

A Few Imitations

Writing Sideways Imitation Exercise 

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby Passage:

And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.

Breakdown:

And as (Pronoun) (Verb) (Place), (Verb-ing) (Preposition) (Article) (Adj) (adj) (N), (PN) (V) (Prep) (Possesive noun) (Adjective) (Time) (PN) (Adj) (V) (Prep) (Article) (Adj) (N) (prep) (article) (Place) (Prep) (Poss N) (N). (PN) (HV) (V) a (Adj) (N) (Prep) (Place) (adj) (N) and (PN) (N) (Modifier) (HV) (V-ed) (adj) (place) that (PN) (HV) (Adv) (V) (prep) (V) (PN).

Imitation:

And as she glanced over, smiling with a bright gleaming visage, she peered on Brooklyn’s morning, early it gently rose with a radiating sienna hue above the city across its edifices. She had seen a divine eclipse on Brooklyn’s concrete shore and her wonder seemed to burn so brightly that her firery inquisition over took it. 

Atwood Passage Imitation:

She was an Acrobat in Chains

She is waiting hesitant, expectant, anticipation

For then she appeared to have the boldest act

Impending freedom and unfathomable anxiety tangled about her

suddenly, like her racing heart, she sunk around a brass ceiling fan the actor which functioned as an executioner:

There in the room (sanctuary or prison) hanging but, in the hall, right outside what seemed to be an adolescent’s bedroom, an exhausted encouraging mom.

Outside the room there was an option, but inside it, a solitary grave. 

Hemingway Passage Imitation:

The sun bursted like popcorn splitting outside its shell which bounds out over the kettle.

A kernel which was scolded but its intricate center split through the heated seams.

Clouds clumped and shrouded around the auburn orb distantly along the horizon, glittering throughout the dew drops atop the cotton.

They performed a dance across the field in their radiant reflections.

The glimpse disappeared over beyond the plain upon the breath of the evening.

Then was the twilight, a starry stillness, blinks emerging from the pitch.

For darkness was the coach, a driver and a transient moonlit memory like a reaper across the lively field.

A nightly reminder beckoning beyond into the deep as daylight recessed.

It seemed the funeral before the rising morn.