Reading Response 2

Sometimes narratives only as long as six words can tell an extensive or impacting story. In my opinion the full extent of these stories are left up to the reader’s imagination. The story “I couldn’t believe she’d shoot me.” By Howard Chaykin and “TIME MACHINE REACHES FUTURE!!!...nobody there…” by Harry Harrison, both containing the entire narrative in their titles, can really tell an imaginative story if left up to the reader. For example, the first one could have a surrounding story of a man’s lover shooting him for something he had done wrong, or for a wrongful purpose on the female lover’s part. And in the second one, a man or woman could have taken a time machine to the future only to find out that at that point in time the world was already a post-apocalyptic wasteland. A story with the words “To save humankind he died again.” By Ben Bova could entail something of a martyr figure of a human dying to save humankind from the sins of the world such as Jesus Christ did. These stories all show how short narratives can really have a deeper meaning than just the few words that you see on the paper.

Another type of short narrative exists in FOUND magazine created by Davy Rothart and Jason Bitner. They created a magazine that contains short narratives, lists, and other organizations of words that have been randomly discovered from all over the place. “Stupid, Stupid, and Stupid” by Jarrod, is a poem from a handmade poetry book made by five year olds. It goes “Stupid, stupid, and Stupid decided to destroy the world. They took a big bomb And threw it up in the air. It came on them. They got killed. The end.” This story, even though created by a five-year-old, could describe a deeper meaning of foolish humans creating and using nuclear weapons, eventually destroying the entire world on accident. These short narratives also show how small stories such as these can have an impacting meaning, even if only written by a five-year-old.

Also, implied stories, or stories with deeper meanings can be found in pictures that contain little or no words as well. A Polaroid snapshot called “SCIENCE” that was found as well shows a girl sleeping on top of her science binder and homework while a frilly appendage covers the middle of the photo. It appears to be some type of alien specimen or deadly plant. The photo could show some sort of story where a girl has fallen asleep while doing her boring science homework and now is about to be punished for it by a being of science.

In “FAMILY”, a comic strip on the cover of “The New Yorker” from November 27th, 2006, shows both pictures and words used together to show a short narrative. A punk teenage girl leaves her family thanksgiving dinner because they would not make the food the way she liked it. She goes and hangs out with her friends talking about how someone was “emo” and then sitting down at a small restaurant with her friends talking about being thankful that there’s no slavery anymore. I think that this story has a deeper moral meaning of how families don’t really stay and eat together on Thanksgiving or any other given day. It shows how the normal traditions of family get-togethers are not really as present as they were in the past.

All in all, narrative stories can be explained in only six words or one picture, or both, and still have a full developed meaning, at least to the reader’s imagination.