closed-captioning, and the latest films are shipped with s ubtitles. These are priorities.
The nightly news subtitles are garish, accurately transcribing slang and expletives, spelling “ ask ” with the last two letters reversed. I understand the romantic use of portraying society as it is, but I fear. I fear for a generation growing up reading such nonsense. I fear for the children who wil l learn this as their language.
I fear we ’ ve been given a chance to once again embrace true art, true language as the Renaissance poets meant it to be, and we ’ re snubbing it.
My books and stories still do not sell and I don ’ t know how to teach sign language because I am still learni ng it myself. I am going broke. As are many.
I wince at the store, as I buy my whiskey , and see people passing notes to each other, tiny communiqués rife with abbreviations: What u do 2nite? How R U doin? Call L8R. I have made it a game to guess what they are saying, what the real words used to be. Sometimes I figure it out, sometimes I ’ m baffled. Always I ’ m annoyed.
As I walk by the park on the way home , I watch the deaf children, those original deaf children, play ball and flash signs to each other. Their hands are graceful and swift, bobbing and flexing with fluidity, each finger a tiny ballerina. I see them roll their eyes at strangers, the newly deaf, who destroy their art form by creating their own, more vulgar, variations of the lang uage. I feel for the children.
Their art is being bastardized.
The source of the sound was never discovered. For all we know, it is louder and shriller than ever before. Not one single human on Earth can hear anymore. But sound still exists. The animals will come if you call them. Just the human race was punished. No one has an answer why. I suspect…because we took advantage of our gift.
I sit at my computer , continuing to write, hoping someone will read this or anything else I ’ ve labored over , hoping I can re vive the art of our written word. As I type I watch the captions on the television scroll by. They are misspelled, full of slang I do not understand, and mixed with numbers and symbols that supposedly make them easier and faster to read by a world of morons.
I have no idea what they ’ re talking about.
I am in Hell.
THE PINCH
Nicky was walking out of the candy store with his best buddies, Greg and Willy, when a little boy with an eyepatch ran up and pinched him on the arm.
“ Son of a— ” shouted Nicky, rubbing his flesh, jerkin g away from the strange boy. He watched as the skin on his bicep turned pink before his eyes. “ What did you do that for, jerk? ”
The little boy, a few years younger than Nicky and his friends, stood alone on the street, his messy hair blowing about like a miniature wheat field. He laughed the way little boys do when they don ’ t understand they ’ ve just done something wrong. Probably he had seen it on a cartoon or in a comic book, thought Nicky, and was imitating some character. Greg had a little brother who always did annoying things like that, which was why they never included him in their activities.
Nicky contemplated hitting the boy, at least shoving him, but knew that if his mother heard he was in a fight he ’ d be in a world of trouble. After all, he wasn ’ t even supposed to be at the candy store; it was on the main road and he was forbidden to ride his bike past the end of his residential street. If she knew he ’ d punched some kid on the main road, he ’ d be grounded for sure. And being grounded during the summer was a real bummer.
The flesh on his arm began to itch, and a bead of blood formed on the wound. For a little kid, thought Nicky, he sure pinches hard.
From the salon next to the candy store a bug-eyed woman appeared and grabbed the little boy ’ s arm, yanked him away. For some reason Nicky couldn ’ t decipher, she wouldn ’ t look the boy in the face as she yelled at him, just
The nightly news subtitles are garish, accurately transcribing slang and expletives, spelling “ ask ” with the last two letters reversed. I understand the romantic use of portraying society as it is, but I fear. I fear for a generation growing up reading such nonsense. I fear for the children who wil l learn this as their language.
I fear we ’ ve been given a chance to once again embrace true art, true language as the Renaissance poets meant it to be, and we ’ re snubbing it.
My books and stories still do not sell and I don ’ t know how to teach sign language because I am still learni ng it myself. I am going broke. As are many.
I wince at the store, as I buy my whiskey , and see people passing notes to each other, tiny communiqués rife with abbreviations: What u do 2nite? How R U doin? Call L8R. I have made it a game to guess what they are saying, what the real words used to be. Sometimes I figure it out, sometimes I ’ m baffled. Always I ’ m annoyed.
As I walk by the park on the way home , I watch the deaf children, those original deaf children, play ball and flash signs to each other. Their hands are graceful and swift, bobbing and flexing with fluidity, each finger a tiny ballerina. I see them roll their eyes at strangers, the newly deaf, who destroy their art form by creating their own, more vulgar, variations of the lang uage. I feel for the children.
Their art is being bastardized.
The source of the sound was never discovered. For all we know, it is louder and shriller than ever before. Not one single human on Earth can hear anymore. But sound still exists. The animals will come if you call them. Just the human race was punished. No one has an answer why. I suspect…because we took advantage of our gift.
I sit at my computer , continuing to write, hoping someone will read this or anything else I ’ ve labored over , hoping I can re vive the art of our written word. As I type I watch the captions on the television scroll by. They are misspelled, full of slang I do not understand, and mixed with numbers and symbols that supposedly make them easier and faster to read by a world of morons.
I have no idea what they ’ re talking about.
I am in Hell.
THE PINCH
Nicky was walking out of the candy store with his best buddies, Greg and Willy, when a little boy with an eyepatch ran up and pinched him on the arm.
“ Son of a— ” shouted Nicky, rubbing his flesh, jerkin g away from the strange boy. He watched as the skin on his bicep turned pink before his eyes. “ What did you do that for, jerk? ”
The little boy, a few years younger than Nicky and his friends, stood alone on the street, his messy hair blowing about like a miniature wheat field. He laughed the way little boys do when they don ’ t understand they ’ ve just done something wrong. Probably he had seen it on a cartoon or in a comic book, thought Nicky, and was imitating some character. Greg had a little brother who always did annoying things like that, which was why they never included him in their activities.
Nicky contemplated hitting the boy, at least shoving him, but knew that if his mother heard he was in a fight he ’ d be in a world of trouble. After all, he wasn ’ t even supposed to be at the candy store; it was on the main road and he was forbidden to ride his bike past the end of his residential street. If she knew he ’ d punched some kid on the main road, he ’ d be grounded for sure. And being grounded during the summer was a real bummer.
The flesh on his arm began to itch, and a bead of blood formed on the wound. For a little kid, thought Nicky, he sure pinches hard.
From the salon next to the candy store a bug-eyed woman appeared and grabbed the little boy ’ s arm, yanked him away. For some reason Nicky couldn ’ t decipher, she wouldn ’ t look the boy in the face as she yelled at him, just
Similar Books
Celestial Love
Juli Blood
Bryan Burrough
The Big Rich: The Rise, Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
The Creative Fire: 1 (Ruby's Song)
Brenda Cooper
Becoming a Lady
Adaline Raine
Malarkey
Sheila Simonson
Victim of Fate
Jason Halstead
Gibraltar Road
Philip McCutchan
A Father In The Making
Carolyne Aarsen
Just One Night, Part 3: Binding Agreement
Kyra Davis
11 Eleven On Top
Janet Evanovich