Writing Sample #1 - Fiction

He had a face that would have been expressive if occupied by another soul at some other point in time, but the face was occupied by him here and now and, as such, remained immobile. Lines around his eyes and mouth insisted that this hadn’t always been the case. They were adamant that this stoicism was situational, not characterizational. His eyes, however, respectfully disagreed; they gazed, blue and flat, at his black and white shoes.

The bench shifted underneath him to accommodate the new weight of a man sitting down to his left, and a pair of brown, leather shoes settled in aside his own.

“What a cliché.” He said without looking up.

“Two old men sitting on a park bench.” Replied the brown shoes.

They were quite for awhile.

“How are the kids?” Asked the man.

“They’re all fine.” Said the brown shoes. A round, paper package slid into his vision. “Cold cut.”

The man took it, and the crinkle seemed obscenely loud. He straightened up slowly and leaned back against the bench, looking straight ahead. They began to eat.

“Julia called us last night.” Said the brown shoes around a mouth full of bread.

He continued to chew and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“She’s in Colorado now.” He seemed to be waiting, but only stale silence found him. “Anyway…”

A breeze meandered between them, carrying a literary platitude of children’s laughter and the scent of sunshine. The man registered a trickle of sweat bead down his hairline. His joints ached.

“I’m retiring.” He said when he’d finished his sandwich and leaned back over his knees to watch his shoes.

The brown shoes now took on the unnatural stillness. “Alright.” They said.

“I’m tired.” Said the man.

There was no reply.

“It’s time.”

Nothing. The man’s long nose itched. As he reached up to scratch it, he felt something wet dissolve between his gnarled fingers and was surprised.

“What will you do?” Asked the brown shoes finally.

The man did not answer right away. He watched the wetness evaporate in the breeze and sunshine. “I don’t know.” He said at last. “I’ll watch television.” He regretted the words as soon as they reached his ears sounding hollow and brittle, reflecting him too honestly. “I’ll sleep.”

“You’ll sleep?” The brown shoes had an uncomfortable finality.

The man thought to himself about how old he was. How old they both were.

“Yes. I think I’ll sleep.”

“You could take that trip to Florida.” Suggested the brown shoes hastily. “You always talked about traveling.”

“No, I don’t think so” The man sighed. “She was the one who wanted to travel, I was always happiest at home.”

Happiest didn’t seem like the right word, but he couldn’t think of a better one.

The brown shoes were silent again and the man raised his head to look out over the park. When did parks become a refuge for youth? he wondered to himself. Everywhere he looked was a sea of children with their dogs and twenty year old executives in pinstriped suits. Young men and women were holding hands, playing Frisbee, strumming their guitars under the cypress.

The man could have sworn that the parks of his own youth had been filled with old men. Nothing but old men who played chess, smoked cigars and talked loudly at each other about politics. As a boy, they had seemed like aliens; like creatures from a distant planet who came to earth to smell funny and talk funny, who always carried with them some kind of magical twinkle along with the caramels in their pockets. They had been smiling.

There were no caramels in his pockets.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The brown shoes spoke up.

“That’s okay.” Said the man. He watched as an ant tried to burrow underneath his sole. “I didn’t expect you would.”

“So why tell me?”

“Small talk.” He said, sinking his head further between his shoulder blades in a motion reminiscent of a shrug. “Forty odd years of mutual, personal interest.”

“Not to talk you out of it?” Asked the brown shoes.

“No.” The small smile felt foreign, more like a grimace on the man’s thin lips. The ant gave up and began the long trek around his heel.

“Well then…” The brown shoes moved further into the pathway as the man in them leaned back and extended his legs. The groan was so familiar that he barely registered it. “Come to dinner.”

The voice was lackluster. The man thought about this request, and about how many times it had been made before. Through the years, sitting at a dinner table with other human beings had become a concept, a philosophy read about in books and academic journals. The way of the future, perhaps, but old dogs and new tricks…

“No. Thank you.”

“No,” agreed the brown shoes.

Writing Sample #2 - Philosophy Paper

The You/Me Phenomenon

Homo Sapiens are evolutionarily inclined to social groups. It has been encoded in our DNA through millions of years that our reliance on each other leads to a greater chance for survival. But society has changed, become more focused on individuality, and we now covet that elusive quality known as self reliance. Our necessity for other human beings has not diminished, but our motives and self images have changed. We no longer rely directly on those around us for survival, but for information, perspective, and personal gain. Through our social interactions, we learn things about ourselves that we would otherwise have no opportunity to explore, or even realize. For instance, the development of an enemy brings you face to face with your own code of conduct. Do you confront the enemy head on, or do you ignore them to the best of your ability? Do you yell at them, make snide remarks, talk behind their back, or freeze them out? What kind of person are you? These are traits that would otherwise never be considered or consciously revised if not provoked by an outside force. Friends, however, do not just allow you to view yourself from an outside perspective, they act as a mirror. Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard and countless others would agree that friends are those in whom you see some part of you. They are ‘other selves.’

The value of this lies in the idea of self love. Aristotle argues that “…blessedly happy and self-sufficient people have no need of friends. For they already have [all] the goods, and hence, being self-sufficient, need nothing added. But your friend, since he is another yourself, supplies what your own efforts cannot supply” (Pakaluk, 63). Friends allow us to love ourselves to an extent that we can not accomplish alone. For instance, the happiness one feels through aiding another, through being relied upon. This is also why we are only capable of maintaining a limited amount of true friendships at one time. The need for friendships is directly proportional to the amount of empty space or loneliness inside ourselves. When we are able to fill that space with sincerely meaningful relationships, we become sufficient on within those relationships, and no longer require anyone else.

Does this mean that the perfect friendship would, by definition, lead to its own end? After all, if a friendship were to eradicate that space and loneliness, eventually the need for even that relationship would dissipate, for we would become Aristotle’s blessedly happy and self-sufficient person, with no more need for the presence of others in our lives. I don’t mean to say, however, that friendships “cure” the empty space, so much as they allow us to acknowledge it. We are able to fully appreciate where our gaps are, which helps us to better navigate through life. To recognize the need that exists within us is enriching and valuable, but to eradicate that space has been the goal of religion, science, and philosophy for as long as we humans have suspected that we are fundamentally alone. It drives us to ask questions and seek out the company of others until we can find that mythic, superlative answer or other half that will finally let us rest, feeling complete and loved. Without those things, our need for others will not dissipate, and there is no inevitable end to a friendship.

Writing Sample #3 - Screenplay

EXT. STATE PARK
JACK and SUSAN are hiking with CARSON trailing behind. They are obviously adept hikers, but CARSON is wearing flip flops and jeans, and is covered in a sheen of sweat.

CARSON
Ick.

They ignore her.

CARSON (CON’T)
Has no one else noticed the correlation
between sun exposure and skin cancer?
I’m pretty sure some doctor wrote about
it somewhere.

SUSAN
You have sunscreen.

CARSON
I’m also pretty sure there is a
correlation between excessive
exercise and arthritis.

SUSAN
Exercise actually decrease your
chances of getting arthritis.

JACK shoots SUSAN a look that says ‘stop encouraging this’.

CARSON
Not excessive exercise!

JACK
Car, I guarantee you that your definition
and the medical definition of
excessive differ greatly.

They walk in silence for a while.

CARSON
I forgot about all these mosquitoes.

JACK
Do you want to go home?

CARSON
. . . no.

JACK
Then shut your trap and enjoy the scenery.

More silence.

SUSAN
My father wants me to ask Deborah to
come out.

JACK
And how would she afford that?

SUSAN
I think the implication is that we
would pay for it.

JACK
Of course it is.

CARSONS’ eyes close as their arguing voices fade away, obviously not wanting to hear anything else about the situation.

INT. CARSONS’ ROOM – LATER THAT NIGHT
The clock reads 2:42. CARSON lays in bed, eyes wide open and panicky. Her breathing is shallow and she is perfectly still for a moment before she flings her bed covers off.

INT. CARSONS’ CAR
CARSON is driving down an empty road in pitch black. The music is loud and upbeat and the windows are down, reminiscent of the opening scene, but this time it is so dark that the only thing to see is the road in front of the headlights, the white line ticking by. Her eyes are still wide.

INT. A DINER
Soft jazz is playing on the overhead stereo. CARSON sits in a booth by herself drinking coffee. She is reading the menu even though an empty plate sits beside her, and drumming her fingers on the table. She pours a sugar packet into a little creamer and shoots it. She colors with the crayons they give to kids on the back of the menu. She looks up and sees a group of three men her fathers’ age. They are dirty and unkempt, but they are laughing together over big plates of meat. One of them catches her eye in the middle of a laugh, winks, and goes back to his conversation. Her eyes begin to droop.

INT. CARSONS’ ROOM
CARSON is asleep on top of the comforter. The light is barely filtering in through the windows, and the clock reads 5:17. The birds begin to shrill, and CARSONS’ eyes pop open.