Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.
Continuing a scene from The Long Dark in Mikey’s point of view. Mikey is trying to make sense of the adults’ conversation over dinner after the loss of a crawler and one of its crew.
The conversation around him seemed to have moved away from Ambrose, away from things that made his mother cry. Back to the trek. The terrifying unknown reached out to engulf Mikel, but he needed to listen, to learn how to deal with this impossible threat to his stable life.
“The Company will send new equipment.”
That was Georgina. She always seemed to know a lot of things Mikel didn’t, but then she was so slow at seeing the connections between the things she knew. Once he had the facts, Mikel was always faster at solving problems and drawing conclusions than Georgina. That troubled him, too. Teenagers weren’t supposed to be better than grown ups.
That’s ten sentences. The scene continues ...
“It’s hell trying to get even a handful of spares to keep things running, but they always seem happy to replace whole units when they finally fall apart.”
Another anomaly. Somehow this one seemed important, but Mikel couldn’t see where it fit into the pattern of life, home, and safety. Why is it easier to replace a whole rather than a part?
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12 comments:
That teenager sounds sharper though.
Sometimes having a different perspective helps to solve things. Nice snippet!
Hmm. So is it important that they replace whole units rather than parts? Is there something useful about the defective units they get back? This snippet raises some interesting questions.
Hi Ian - it's interesting having the two approaches - Georgina's = grateful they can still operate ... while Mikel's being much more analytical ... and as Ed says ... raises some interesting questions.
Take care and all the best - Hilary
Teenagers ALWAYS think they know more, but in this case it might actually be true. ;) Great snippet! That final line definitely raises some questions.
Alex, he is indeed!
Jessica, that's why companies with diverse workforces are generally more profitable than those with just like-minded people.
Ed, they don't get the broken units back. It's the same thinking that makes it so hard to repair rather than replace in our consumerist world - profits.
Hilary, that's a good way of looking at it.
Julie, this is showing up the difference between knowledge and intelligence.
He's certainly dissecting the conversation in impressive fashion. Enjoyed the snippet!
You've written Mikel as a perfect example of someone whose brain is wired differently than most everyone else.
A throw-away culture motivated by profit. How sad. How familiar...
Excellent snippet, Ian!
When you fix one part, it seems that another part will fail, then you fix that part, then another part fails. May as well replace the entire unit and save the time of endless repairs since that one initial part will trigger that dominoe effect. That is the theory.
Veronica, he has to, to make any kind of sense of the adult world.
Teresa, sadly, the difficulties Mikey faces are faced by a lot of people in the real world.
Jeff, are you telling me you replace your car every time one part breaks? That could get a bit expensive, but I bet the car makers would love it :)
He sounds like a sharp teenager.
I like how he's trying to make sense of things he doesn't understand. Not a lot of people see the need for that.
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