Exercise in entertainment: The Same Scene Several Times
Which scene is the one you like? I'd love to know.
The rare post not on a typewriter. I know. I was writing this on my phone and in spare moments during terribly boring meetings.
Each post in this series will be the same scene written in a different style or tone. I have a story, but I do not know how I want to tell it. Tell me in the comments which of the various treatments you enjoy. If you have an idea for another way of telling it, suggest it in the comments.
Original Draft
The knocking was insistent and rattled the hanging dry erase boards on both sides of the dorm room door. The pounding paused a second and resumed with a hair less force and less clattering from the flimsy marker boards but no less insistence.
The sign said to call and leave a message on my answering machine. I had turned the ringer off on the landline phone I paid for in my dorm room.
I rolled over on my bed. It was dark in my dorm besides red numbers on an alarm clock, a few lights blinking on my PC, and the rim of hallway light filtering in around the heavy door. I could see the pair of shadows under the door and a swathe of darkness on the side of the door jamb that meant someone was standing just outside. I glanced at the clock, knowing I had stayed up to midnight.
“We’re closed,” I called out from bed. “Read the sign. I’m not printing anything for anyone. I got a test in the morning.”
“Hey, dude!” It was a stage whisper hissing near the doorjamb to be heard better. “It’s an emergency. Let me in.”
I couldn’t tell who it was, which meant it wasn’t an emergency to me.
“Baskins, if this is you, I’m gonna--” I couldn’t think of something suitably horrible. “Just go away. I need to sleep!”
“Please, oh god, I hear the elevator. Let me in!” The whispering had reached new heights of anxiety and panic.
I untangled myself from the perfectly acclimated and sleepy climate of my bed and walked to the door. I pulled the security latch back, and then I snapped open the deadbolt in a way I hoped sounded angry.
“Come on, come on, come on!” the whisperer insisted. I could see them wiggling the knob to open the door as fast as possible.
“What is this all about?” is what I meant to say.
The second I turned the doorknob a few degrees, the lock popped open and the door swung back to hit me in the face. I could feel the edge of the door crease the side of the bridge of my nose until it popped. The wood continued its trajectory as it smashed me on the one side just enough so the eye would have been black in a few hours if I hadn’t broken my nose. There was a flash of light as I stumbled back, swearing. My hands covered my nose, and I could feel the blood streaming down already.
“Holy shit!” I heard the person say in the same whisper.
Whatever I looked like, it was not shitty nor holy enough to be concerned enough to check on me first before locking the door. I heard them slam the door closed. It was latched, bolted, and locked before I regained enough composure to look up at the not-quite-intruder and assailant.
It was still dark in the room, but by the glow of electric numbers and diodes, I saw a low ponytail hanging over a slight shoulder. Their owner was wearing a T-shirt several sizes too big for their frame like kudzu hanging off telephone poles.
Their hands were soft with thin fingers, and were now placed behind my head and over my bloody hands and mouth.
They whisper shushed me with their head close to mine. Their breath was ragged, like they had been sprinting, and was warm but tinged with spearmint.
I froze. Anyone willing to smash my face and try to smother me in my own blood was the scariest person I’d ever met.
And my nighttime invader was scared of whoever made the new shadows that darkened my doorstep.
I couldn’t breathe out of my nose. It hurt to try and hold it to stop the bleeding. Tears mixed with mucus and blood on my face and the stranger’s hands. I could feel their nails on my cheek and the backs of my hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Just be quiet. They’ll go. Please be quiet.” They whispered as insistently as earlier, but were just a faint breath on my one ear.
I trembled as my jaw hurt from clenching and trying to not scream. I wasn’t sure if it was fright or pain or anger or partly all three.
The door handle fluttered lightly, and the figure outside tried to push the door in. The door’s hardware gave a thunk and rattle from the locks flexing in the frame.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I began to mutter faster and faster with gritted teeth. I was shushed again but I couldn’t stop my hot breath against my hands.
My assailant was looking back at the door, so I could only see the dark outline of a messy ponytail and felt strands of fine hair waving in the breeze from the air conditioner vent above us.
I heard another door open and close in the hallway. Someone’s voice rose indistinct and obviously annoyed. By the grumpy rumbling voice I heard, I expected it was Jeremy asking what the noise was about. The shadows of the feet at the door disappeared.
Jeremy was a football lineman on a Division 1 Texas university team. He was a gentle giant off the field and only seemed outgoing when talking about football or Magic the card game. Everyone listened to whatever Jeremy wanted to talk about because he was nearly four hundred pounds and could dress up as Andre the Giant for Halloween.
Another door opened and closed, and the only thing I could hear was me trying to mouth breathe as I was waiting for my nose to clot and the invader’s mouth breathing which slowed and gave a shudder. Their hands dropped from my head and they slumped over to sit on the floor with their head down. It was like a sack of carrots being dropped to the ground with thin limbs piled around them.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked in a thick voice, like I had a cold. The bleeding had stopped with all the pressure from two people’s hands.
I stared down in the dark and saw the faint red light shine off a pair of wide eyes looking up at me. Her stray hair still waved and there was the glistening of tears across her cheeks. Her hands were covered in my blood and it stained the front of the oversized t-shirt she was wearing. The hems of her jean shorts were just visible at the bottom of the t-shirt, and thin legs ended in a pair of cheap Old Navy sandals.
She kept whispering, but as her voice rose a bit, it was gravely as if she’d been screaming at a concert all last night.
“I’m so sorry, “ she said again. “You’re the printer guy, right?” She used her sleeve to wipe her face, not knowing a bit of blood on her knuckle transferred to her face. “I thought you were open twenty-four hours.”
I stepped back from her and thought I hit one of the three desk chairs with the back of my legs. It scraped across the tiled floor and stopped as it hit the next chair. Besides the bunk bed and single bed, the dorm only provided three chairs and a wall length, built in desk or counter as the extent of furnishings.
“Look,” I started. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to sit down.
I missed the chair.
“Oh, shit!” she said again. I landed on my backside, heard a metallic ringing, and passed out.
I awoke in the recovery position in a bed. It wasn’t the single bed I normally used, but the lower bunk bed still in my dorm room. I’d had two roommates when this semester started, but both moved out within two weeks. I swear it wasn’t because of me and the copier machine I brought to the dorm room. There was a blanket over me and sunshine shone through the edges of blinds on the window I had never bothered buying curtains for.
The back of my head now also hurt. Pain radiated from the spot where my hair parted, or would part after this, and I felt my pulse in my head.
I lay facing the doorway and pushed myself up on my elbow. On the single bed I normally slept in was the woman wearing my Metallica concert t-shirt. It was not as large on her as the previous shirt had been. She herself was asleep on her side, and her hair fell randomly around her. She was trim, had black hair, and a lighter skin color suggesting she was descended from Southeast Asia.
On the floor between the two beds which were arranged at a right angle in the corner, I saw a roll of paper towels and my spray cleaner normally kept in the bathroom. The floor looked clean in the middle of the room, but the trash can near the door was full of bloody paper towels. Shirts and some sweatpants hung over the sink’s edge like they were drying.
I looked down and realized I was shirtless and in my boxers. My head hurt from the jerkiness of my movement, so I groaned as I lay back down. I chewed my lip as I was trying to think fast.
The sound caused the woman to stir, and I froze. She obviously had helped clean up, and that was great, but why also strip me? I looked at the clock and panicked.
It was 8:43 in the morning. My first test in calculus 2 started in 17 minutes. With my head pounding on the back and in my face, I stood up cautiously and walked over to the storage that lined the wall opposite the counter desk. A wardrobe space was within, and I started pulling a pair of shorts and a different band T-shirt on.
The next one will be published within the next two days.
Sincerely for now,
Tea