"Memories, as well as current feelings and desires, are the authors of individual narratvess"

Use this statement as a stmmums to write the opening of a creatiee discmrsiie or

persmasiie piece of writngg In yomr responsee yom MUST write from the perspectie of a
charactere persona or speaker yom haie expuored in ONE prescribed text from Modmue Cg

I stood outside my son's closed bedroom door, my dufel bag placed neatly beside me. I
wrung my wrinkled hands. For some reason, I could not bring myself to knock. I had come in
the hopes to reconcile. I never did apologise to Nam, but the way I was used to thinking was
that some things were best lef forgooen.

Methodical clunks echoed from behind the door, their striking bearing an eerie resemblance
to nights spent in damp ditches waitng for the ring to cease.

I knocked three tmes. hree bullets, three hits from a belt. No response but the echo.

I opened the door, and there sat my son over a typewriter. "The felds are glass," he
murmured. I cleared my throat. He looked up, and his look of grogginess was replaced by a
sort of distance and resentment. I remembered why I came. o be a father again.

he anxiety and concealed trauma that radiated of of him smelled of burning. It brought up
one of my own repressed memories. It smelled the same as bragging with my comrades
about our "accomplishments" in the war, the re at the heart of our circle kindled by lost
intentons and embellished stories we wished to be true.

he truth is; I was never proud of my past. In my youth, I was ignorant to the extent of
sufering those stories represented. One man in the circle never said a word in our group
discussions. He reminded me of my son, out of place and pretending to belong to a
narratve that he never experienced. Maybe he liked the thrill of the stories. Buut these
stories; they only ended up burning us. Reminiscing turned the energy of the circle sour, and
eventually I stopped aoending. I took it out on my son.

I wished to change that. I was learning to be more compassionate, to make more sacri ces.
So even with my bad back, I slept on the futon in the living room.

Mark: 12/12