MASH Writing

Okay, so for our last writing assignment of the year, my students were instructed to write an imaginative story. Thing is, I didn't want to give them something TOO easy. So I gave them a little challenge. Remember the game MASH? We used to play it as kids to find out who we were going to marry, how many kids we were going to have, what we were going to live in (Mansion, Apartment, Shack, or House), and so on. Well, their writing was a little spin on this game. Here is the sheet I created:

After assigning it to them, I sat down and wrote my own MASH story. Here is what I ended up with:

Protagonist: Jadax

Antagonist: Nora

Genre: Romance

Conflict: Betrayal

Setting: Forest

A - Alliteration (underlined in the story)

This is what I wrote:

I don’t know how I got here, but here I am – standing in the middle of Sterling Forest, staring into Nora’s bright green eyes.

Her brows pull together. “Jadax, I didn’t do it.”

“I saw you. His hands were all over you.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head like I’m the crazy one. “You don’t know what you saw. There’s nothing going on.”

“Then explain what I saw.”

She kicks at a tree root with her foot, and I know that nervous tick she gets when she’s about to tell a lie. “I’m going through a lot,” she finally says. “He was comforting me.”

I don’t know what to think. Nora had been acting strange for the past two weeks. She was ignoring my phone calls, not returning texts, and avoiding me at school like I had some sort of serious sickness. So I decided to follow her. It surprised me when she drove miles into Sterling Forest. What could she possibly be doing out here? But it could have been anything. Maybe she was in trouble. I kept my distance. Then I saw him. Brody Chase. The guy who’s been casing Nora for days. She’d told me she didn’t know him, but when I saw him step out of his car and walk with her into the trees, I knew there was something going on.

I crept behind them until they stopped, and I crouched down into the protective covering of foliage. They shared a few words, which I couldn’t hear from where I was hiding, and then he pulled her against him. Though I couldn’t see clearly from where I was, I knew a kiss when I saw one. Their faces were pressed together, and my hands balled into fists.

Fire shot across my face and my heart wedged into my throat. I wanted to leap from my hiding place and rip Brody’s lips off. Then he would have nothing to kiss with.

So I did. Well, I didn’t rip his lips off, but I jumped from my hiding place and crossed the distance between us like a bolt of lightning. Brody stepped away from Nora and held his hands up.

“Woah!” he said.

Nora spun around. “Jadax? What are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been ignoring me for weeks.” I nodded toward Brody. “Now I know why.”

I was so focused on Nora, I didn’t notice Brody slip away.

So here we are, the two of us, facing each other in the woods. And all Nora can say is Brody was comforting her.

“So, he uses his face to comfort you?”

She stops kicking the root and looks at me. “That’s not what happened.”

“Well, that’s what it looked like to me.”

She steps closer to me and I take a step back. I can’t stand this. We’ve been together for two years. Two years! Now this?

“It’s really not what you think, Jadax.”

“Give me a straight answer. You owe me that much.”

She looks down at her feet and sighs. “Two weeks ago I got a strange phone call from Brody. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but now I know. He’s…he’s…”

“What, Nora? Just spill it.”

She shakes her head. “You’re never going to believe me.”

“Try me.”

“He’s my guardian angel.”

I can’t help it. I’m laughing so hard I have to bend over because my stomach hurts. “You’ve got…to be…kidding!” I’m gasping for breath when the humor turns to anger. “Seriously?! Couldn’t you at least come up with something more realistic? If you’re in love with him, just tell me.”

“Jadax…”

She steps close and puts her hand on my face, but I can’t take the contact. I swipe her hand away.

“Please don’t do this,” she begs.

But I can’t. I can’t handle her betrayal. “I can’t do this, Nora. It’s over.”

She wraps her arms around me and starts to cry, and though I feel hot tears push at the backs of my eyes, I don’t let them fall.

“It’s not what it looks like,” she blubbers. “Nothing happened, I swear.”

But I know what I saw. At least, I’m pretty sure I saw them kiss.

Carefully, I pull her arms off of me and back away.

Tears spill down her cheeks and I feel my heart split in two.

“It’s over.” Though the words are final, I feel the resistance as they leave my lips.

I can’t breathe.

Two years. For two years I’ve done nothing but love and care for this girl, and she throws it all away.

I turn and walk back in the direction I’d come. With each step I feel a tug on my heart. A tug that is reaching for the broken pieces I left at Nora’s feet.

Just as I step out of the forest and turn toward my car, something drops from the sky and lands in front of me. A cloud of dirt chokes my vision, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. Once they do, I see Brody standing before me with a scowl on his face, and from his back extend a pair of incredible wings.

#writing #education #MASH