Response to 1-900

Bausch does not convey imagery in the traditional sense; all images are described in the dialogue, and they tend to be vague. What’s more, it tends to clash—Sharon’s prurient descriptions stand in contrast with scenes from John’s pathetic life, such as him kicking down a door to get to his children or him sitting alone in a mostly unfurnished apartment. In fact, most of 1-900 is a study in contrasts. Sharon’s brief silences are emphasized out next to John’s rambling, and her pragmatic view of the world (she says that “[It’s a strange world out there] only if you let yourself think about it too much.”) stand in juxtaposition with John’s befuddled philosophy. By playing up their differences, Bausch makes the most of a story that consists entirely of dialogue. The speakers are invisible. John only describes himself in the loosest terms, and even if Sharon/Marilyn discussed her appearance, she would probably be lying. Bausch shows that while description can be an important part of a work of fiction, it is not strictly necessary.

Bausch also has a non-traditional protagonist. While John, who is only arguably the main character, is worthy of pity, and maybe even empathy, he is not particularly admirable or likeable. He seems to irritate everyone he comes into contact with. He is utterly lacking in any sort of clarity. And he is, in the end, calling a phone sex line. But Bausch makes it work. Even though readers may not like John, they probably at least feel bad for him, so forging ahead in the story lets the readers see if his troubles are resolved, or at least mitigated. The patent absurdity of the story is compelling, as well—regardless of the readers’ familiarity with telephonic prostitutes, a man asking for “phone friendship” is certainly novel.

Possible Postcard Short Short Draft

I think I should want to be a bear, to wear a suit of fur and possess teeth like fine ivory specimens.

I would not be the sort of low class bear that roars and bites of people’s faces. I would be a bear of utmost politesse. A gentleman’s bear, who carefully sorts through campers’ cars saying, Oh pardon me, don’t worry. Just looking for snacks, I’m on my way out. I appreciate the hospitality and the beef jerky.

I would go to college for a degree In Ursine Studies and I would hang my diploma in my tasteful bear cave, where my classy bear friends will eat hors d'oeuvres and talk about Art.

Or, I don’t know, maybe I’ll go into Dance.

Emergency Response

The dispassionate narrator of “Emergency” emphasizes the strangeness of Georgie, mainly because he is the only person who can pierce the narrator’s fugue. When Terrence comes into the hospital with a weapon protruding from his eye, the narrator doesn’t comment on it. The dialogue conveys everything readers need to know, but the narrator himself says little. However, only a page prior, when Georgie is weeping and mopping up invisible blood, the narrator compares his posture to that of “a child soiling its diapers”. Here, Georgie is a pitiable figure. At the end of the story, the narrator notes that “Georgie had said something that had suddenly and completely explained the difference between us.” He is making profound insights into his and Georgie’s personalities when he otherwise withholds his judgment on almost everything else.

Johnson uses an interesting confluence of setting and character. The narrator is so distant because working in a hospital has seared away empathy and critical faculties. What’s left is numbed by drugs, which are available to the narrator because of where he works. People are not affected only by the people they are with, but by where they are.

Johnson also makes good use of the grotesque. A fair amount of imagery in “Emergency” is out and out revolting. Georgie looks like he is defecating himself early in the story. A man enters the emergency room with a knife running through his eye and into his brain. Georgie runs over a rabbit, then dismembers it and pulls underdeveloped fetuses out of its womb. All of these are gruesome, but they are detailed. The hospital is vaguely described, so when  Johnsons provides pockets of gore-spattered significance , they are all the more memorable. Terrence is not one of many imperiled victims. He is wheeled around in what seems to be an almost empty hospital. Georgie’s attempted rescue of the fetal rabbits takes place on a road barren of details, save for alarmed passers-by. The relative detail of these events, as well as their shocking nature, underscore their importance.

Another Rather Short Story

I wasn't quite happy with the other short short story.

I come home alone to a series of dark rooms. I fashion an easy supper of sufficient nutrition. I sit on the couch and turn on the television. A square jawed man in a suit tells me to have a good evening, America; tonight on Channel Seven we hear from authorities concerned with a new drug concocted from table sugar and acrylic paint, often abused by middle school students. In other news, the Federal Drug Administration has detected exotic bacteria causing numerous and excruciating symptoms in spinach, chicken, ground beef, peanut butter, chocolate bars, tapioca pudding, and other foods, more details at eleven.

I set down my dinner.

Locally, several witnesses have observed a lamp-eyed creature with the gait of a wolf mauling pet dogs in a nearby subdivision. Expert cryptozoologists believe it to be the third cousin of the Jersey Devil, and think that it may have a taste for human flesh. A serial killer yet to be apprehended by spotlight-bearing helicopters and K9 units (as recorded by the indefatigable Channel Seven News Team) was seen in the area yesterday. Police say he favors crawling into residences through unlocked windows and murdering his victims in gruesome fashion with his signature circular saw.

I wonder why I have not yet purchased a dog.

The inoffensively attractive anchor leans forward and says that a gentleman with long pale pianist’s fingers and feverish eyes will sprinkle anthrax spores onto a Luddite manifesto (wrathfully composed on an antique typewriter) before mailing them to you. He says that a strange new disease, incubated in the fecund backwaters of rural China has made its way to the United States of America, where it is has hospitalized hundreds. His muddy eyes and neutral expression and Midwestern accent suggest that he thinks I have little chance of survival. He tells me that scientists believe that an asteroid the size of the African continent is now approaching Earth. Impact is imminent and ineluctable. Here comes the end.

Short Short Exercise

     The first time I see him he is in his garage, transformed into a slouching blue specter by the chilly radiance of his portable TV. I wave to him, but he doesn’t look up. 

I never see him out of that plastic lawn chair, and when he leaves his garage door open, I can hear laugh tracks and gun shots long into the night. 

He’s standing in his driveway. He had seemed so fatigued before, but in the daylight he is young. And angry. He is arguing with someone, a woman. I pass by on my bike, and they both fall silent, watching me as I pedal.

He shouts at me from his chair to come, come look at this. I dither, because this seems like the beginning of one of those Stranger Danger videos from middle school, but it isn’t dark yet, and there are people out on the street. His garage is dim and the floor jangles with cans and bottles. Martha Stewart is on, stuffing something into a turkey. They want you to think you can have this, he says. That if you work hard enough, you can have the nice house and the nice garden and the family of five. You never have it. He burps. Just thought you should know. Never, never, never.

The next day the television is on the street, its screen smashed, its cord limp. I guess he wasn’t interested in what it had to say.

Lydia Davis' "Television"

The dispassionate narrator is one of the most striking elements of Lydia Davis' "Television". While she knows that her mother "is in love with an anchorman," and her husband "sits with his eyes on a certain young reporter and waits for the camera to draw back and reveal her breasts," she does not cast judgement on either of them. In fact, she spends more time thinking about commercials than her husband's extramarital interests. Davis demonstrates that narrators can be alien and pathetic simultaneously—while the speaker is cold and alien, her story still has emotional weight, especially when she desires approval; she is child-like when she says that, "We listen to the ads until we are exhausted, punished with lists: they want us to buy so much, and we try, but we don't have a lot of money. Yet we can't help admiring the science of it all."Davis has created a character that is more or less impossible; someone completely anodyne and antiseptic, anesthetized by the glow of the television. She shows the value of unconventional narrators.

Davis' setting is also particularly interesting, mainly because it barely exists. There is a television, and people are watching it, but everything is disjointed, mercurial, and strange. Early on, the narrator mentions dead people walking by her window, and while this does not happen witin the context of the story, it still creates a ghastly image. The game show contestant's father also lends "Television" a surreal air; he is moist and corpulent and silent, but the narrator's family is still fascinated by him.

"Television" ignores or rejects many treasured conventions of short stories. The narrator does not possess a particularly probable personality, and the setting is minimalistic and strange, but Davis maintains a sense of cohesion and internal logic. She preserves the fictive dream. While having realistic and relatable characters and detailed settings are both meritous, their presence ought not be taken for granted.