Assignment 1 (I hope)
By Kate Kirk (ladyblue@iquest.net) word count = 599
plot=because
I have been really stumped about what to write for the first assignment because, as a total beginner, I don't really understand the concepts I have been reading about. On my ninth or tenth reading of Assignment 1, I noticed that, if you were confused, you could use Jack and Jill or Adam and Eve or Samson and Delilah.
Upon further reflection, I think I realize that what is wrong with the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. I never could figure out why Jack fell down and broke his crown, and I always wondered why. I think, after reading some of the materials (and I could certainly be wrong) that this is a problem with the plot=because structure of the story. So I am attempting to fix it.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after
"Jack, please go up the hill and fetch a pail of water."
"Jill, we're watching the game!"
"Jack, if you want food during half time, you have to fetch some water for me to boil the hotdogs in."
"Jill, we are WATCHING the GAME!!"
Jill enters through the archway from the cabin's kitchen, unplugs the TV from the power generator, and removes the aluminum foil from the TV's rabbit ears. In response, Jack gets out cards and begins to deal seven-card stud to his three friends.
Jill gets a brilliant smile on her face. "I know! I'll cook the hotdogs in beer!"
Jack throws the cards down. "Oh, no, you don't! What a waste of good beer!" All Jack's friends agree that it's way too far to the liquor store to waste scarce beer as hotdog-cooking fluid. But no one volunteers to go up the hill to fetch a pail of water.
Jack grabs a plastic pail and runs out the back door. Hurrying up the hill so as not to miss more of the game than he has to, he fails to hear Jill yell at him that the pail last held weed killer and to rinse the pail carefully. Knowing Jack, Jill realizes that he has not heard one word she said. She rushes up the hill after him. Losing sight of him as he tops the crest of the hill, she runs as fast as she can, which leaves her no breath to cry out a further warning.
Too late! Jack, thirsty after his climb, pumps a small amount of liquid into the pail and gulps it down. In the ensuing convulsions, Jack grabs Jill and holds on to her. After cracking his head on a low-hanging branch, both fall over the cliff on the far side of the hill. Fortunately, Jack, already mortally injured from the poison and the blow to the head, falls on the bottom, breaking Jill's fall. Unfortunately, Jill is also knocked unconscious, and Jack's friends, after cooking the hotdogs in beer after all, play seven-card stud into the night, leaving Jill to die of hypothermia.
So ends the saga of Jack and Jill.
And the moral of the story is: Don't go up the hill to fetch water. Drive to the liquor store to fetch more beer.
Copyright © Kathryn Symmes Kirk 1999 [I think I read somewhere we were supposed to include this?]
[Author's comment – it seems odd, doesn’t it, that the water would be on the crest of a hill? Wouldn't you think a well or a pump would be in the valley??]
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