Chief Piece: “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”
Write your piece in the space below. Work on being as descriptive as possible, using visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory imagery to bring the location to life and fully expose how the Chief would see it. Think about what you want to expose about the KO location and the people in it as well.
I sit cross legged on the ground and wrap my arms around my knees; hence, pulling into myself attempting to make myself appear smaller. I still don’t understand why I was invited to “courageous conversation”, but the the hate the machines spew isn’t as loud in this room so I prepare to remain as long as possible. I almost desperately want to lounge on the deep couch; I want to relax and stop pretending to be stupid; I want to ask these kids what a “courageous conversation” is. I don’t give in to my desires and tuck my head down onto my knees pulling in even further to avoid the detection while kids walk in with their lunches. My mouth is watering because of the smell and I can taste the salt swirling in the air and seasoning the entire office. The sugar joins the group dancing with the salt in the air.
Short red hair, glasses and pink everything don the child who begins the meeting and to my utter shock appears to lead the meetings. I was certain that the well dressed man sitting cross legged in the chair congruous with the entrance would be the conductor. He is the only adult in the room and that usually implies authority but he sits among them. In fact, there don’t appear to be any forced divisions in the group. Everyone is comfortably sprawled on the available surfaces including the couch, chairs and like me the floor. The small girl with red hair who is apparently the leader introduces herself as Shelby to me. The other kids in the room all seem to know her and are unfortunately more interested in me. There isn’t anyone to tell them that I am deaf with me so I am faced with a predicament. Do I keep up my facade? I can’t sense the combine for possible the first time in my life. I heard it’s evil mutterings as I walked through the school's cafeteria to arrive at this destination; tables with boys who all wore the same garbs all adorned with the whale; tables of girls tapping on little black boxes. They were consumed by these rectangular machines as they slowly extracted their souls turning them into heartless robots for the combine.
I am catapulted back into the room when a girl taps my arm and notice the entire group is looking at me expectantly. Shelby realized that I had missed her question and says, “What pronouns do you prefer.” I’m being tested and don’t know the answer. In that moment I chose to pretend I still hadn’t heard her and try to be obviously def. She asks if she had somehow me and I wonder when the last time someone had been concerned about putting me down. The white people often discriminate against Native Americans and while in the Hospital I use my ethnicity to sell my story in this room there were many people of color and they don’t judge others like them.
I love your description/portrayal of Shelby and Mr. Feder! I also liked how you portrayed the GSA as a welcoming, casual place, but you still managed to show that it can be a little uncomfortable/intimidating to go to a meeting if you've never been to one. I also think that this is exactly the way the GSA would react a newcomer (down to the casual staring and pronoun preferences). With Chief, I thought the 'redemption arc' (for lack of a better term) that he took was interesting. I feel like if he was going through this, he would stop pretending to be deaf. I could tell that he was uncomfortable with the less rigid social structure at KO, and was very confused at the fact that people went out of their way not to offend him. I particularly liked the line about the girls tapping their little black boxes and boys with the whales. Both of these enhanced the preppy side of KO (an allusion to Vineyard Vines and iPhones).
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