Desmond Chevelle, the celebrated scholar and writer of countless works of literature delving deep into the social, political, and spiritual issues of the modern age, is also the subject of several multi-million dollar films, and a generous philanthropist giving it all away to hundreds of charities world-wide. In his youth he traveled the world collecting new species of medicinal herbs and gathered a religious following in India. He went on numerous psychedelic explorations into new realms of consciousness enabling him to transcend time and space on his moped and later on paint what is now considered one of the great masterpieces of our modern time. In his prime, Mr. Chevelle also founded his own political party and traveled to Mars and back in time to find the cure for cancer as well as invent the first ever teleportation device. In his later years he took up teaching at Oxford where he created much of his literature now considered classics and inspired generations of students. Mr. Chevelle is now retired and living a quiet life, choosing to spend many of his days at his summer home in Montana where he gardens and digs holes through the lithosphere to new worlds. Often, visitors will find him in the garden shed out back reminiscing about the adventures of his past and sitting in a bag of manure or tucked away in the corner with the hoes and rakes, the dirt from Mars and scars from past explorations still evident on his exterior.
No clue what I was going to say about a shovel when I picked it up until I decided to take a similar approach as the last story about the sculpture sort of having a consciousness. I basically took the approach of one of those short biographies you see on the backs of book covers about the author. I think biographies especially the short ones on the backs of books tend to make the person seem more accomplished than they really are, so in that way they're a sort of fiction. Of course the absurd idea that a garden shovel is like this really accomplished renaissance man is definitely fictional and maybe a bit satirical. Anyway I think it makes the shovel out to be a pretty awesome one that you'd want to own and have an interesting chat with.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your story! Your approach was interesting, I like how you made the shovel the main character, instead of just an object the characters interact with. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this one. It was whimsical, not overdone, and I felt like it stayed true to the style of the examples we read. (Not that it's a bad thing to stray from those examples, necessarily, but I feel that if you'd put this up for sell with, say, the tiny jar of mayo, it would bring in as much.) Nice name choice for Mr. Chevelle, too. Haha.
ReplyDeleteGreat work here, Emily! You make a really great point about the fictional qualities of the biographical note. Michael Martone, who'll be visiting Berry in October, wrote an entire book of fictional "Contributor's Notes" about himself, so you've got great company. The wildness of Mr. Chevelle's deeds is a great quality here, and I really appreciate the matter-of-factness of the presentation as well. One thing I'd consider in revision is developing the fiction of the piece's "realism" with even ore precise details, providing names for the herbs, films, locations on Mars, for example.
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