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Scene of Memory - Andrew Rodebaugh

Posted by Andrew Rodebaugh in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

I was in my bedroom in middle school if I remember correctly. That’s when it came for the first time. I was really falling behind in school. It likes that.

Crawling around in my room. A monster... I guess you could call it that. It’s a quiet creature. It’s large but yet hard to see. And makes a statement without making much noise.

I guess that’s why I was the only one who noticed it. The fear it caused me was not the fear that makes you scream or fear for something or someone. But just the fear that shuts you down and makes you cry. That’s all I could think of doing.

I told my parents and they were upset. Not at it but at me for being silly.

My father yelled at me “Excuses and lies. Ever since you got that C. But out of all your lies this one takes the cake.”

“There's a lot going-” I was interrupted.

“Bull crap. Absolute bull crap.”

I look over and creeping around was it again. Knocking around objects and making a ruckus. No one noticed but I was scared. I remember running to my room and slamming it. Of course, my parents thought it was because of them but I was hiding from my fears. The door gave me protection from it. Whenever it came I went to my room to hide from my fears. Until I was banned from my room causing it to follow me around my everyday life. I had no safe space in my room to wait till it left.

People started to notice that I was not the same. The ruckus caused by it was blamed on me and caused me to slip. Doing worse and I had no support.

I wanted to get rid of it. Get it out of my life once and for all. There were solutions to getting rid of it but I was blocked access from them. They didn’t see the reason why I needed them because the problems caused by it was me.

Now because of that time I am stuck where I am now. It grew bigger and started to hurt me. There is no way I can stop it now. Because of me.


Authors Note:


This piece is something I put a lot of time thinking about how to convey my memories of the lack of support and the pain caused by my “monsters.” It is a depiction of my depression and anxiety that has followed me around. My first draft was a conversation between a therapist and the main character but, it was suggested that I make it more of a monologue. The image is one I found online that I think represented the "controlling nature" of depression.



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KGK Memory Reconstruction

Posted by Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

IMG-5556
IMG-5556
​Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh
Ms. Pahomov
College English
12/16/18

December 17th, 2018. Colorful birthday candles sit on top of my favorite double chocolate cake. I look up from the smoke that sings the remembrance of the flame and see all the smiling faces. How did I make this much progress?
December 17th, 2017. I had a vanilla cake from Shoprite. Only one candle for my 16th birthday. We watched a movie I remember hating, so insignificant I don’t remember which one. My little cousins screamed from all the sugar. Went to bed that night and tried to recover from the disappointment by watching Netflix. I didn’t feel better. 
Last March I was failing junior year. That May, my only escape from stress was laying in my pajamas. Every day I ate Rice Krispies for breakfast and soup for lunch. My birthday came and no friends were at my party because I didn’t have any worth inviting. I wasn’t sure I was worth being friends with. 
December 17th, 2016. There were “friends” staring at their phone and making fun of my old furniture. My parents tried to build up my self-esteem by inviting family members I never met, to make me feel I had a crowd cheering for me. In the end, I put up a facade, holding up applause signs to fake happiness and please strangers. 
April 2016, I constantly felt awkward, ugly, and uncomfortable. September, my family got a dog, that was the only highlight of the year. 

This year was celestial. I saw something I had never seen before. The look of genuine love on guests’ faces was shocking to me. I thought this look didn’t exist, something I made up. The guest list included my mom’s side of the family I actually like and some new kids at my school that are now my best friends. 
This year I found joy in the small things; repainting my room, watering plants, coupons at my favorite store, watching the sunrise on train rides, and meeting new people. 
Tonight, I will end my night in a bubble bath, a big bowl of ice cream, and listening to my favorite songs. The perfect day needs a perfect ending. It took me so much energy to get where I am. Something that couldn’t be measured in miles, inches, or pounds. 

Authors Note-
These events are not based on my life, only some small things I like to do or typical “teenager” things. Since the next step is coming close to all my friends, classmates, and I, I have been very inspired regarding how far we have come and how much we have grown. I chose to use shorter sentence structure and more poetic descriptions to mimic the way Margaret Atwood creates scenes in The Handmaid’s Tale. I incorporated lots of different events from the main characters life to mimic when Bromden was being electrically shocked and had lots of memories flood back from different points in his life. The image I made is based off the story I wrote and te events that occured between the years. I did the first two in black and white and finally introduced color once the character's life became better.

Turmoil in Orlando

Posted by Afi Koffi in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

Reconstruction of Memory

No I don’t believe it. What would Ramone be doing in front of my job in Orlando? Oh shoot, he looked at me. What do I do? Smile? Wave? Stupid. What if he doesn’t remember you? Or worse, what is he does?



“What the heck, Bash?” Ramone was yelling at me even though I was the one who just got hit with a football. I was distracted. What was I looking at? “Get your head in the game, the chip is this weekend. Prom can wait.”

That’s it. I was looking at the prom banner going up. I didn’t have a date yet and it was weighing me down. “Man shut up, ain't nobody worried about some dumb prom. Go long.”

“Sure. See the one in the pink shorts? That’s all me.”

“They’re all in pink shorts.” See, Jada, his new fling was on the cheerleading team. Fling is a nice way of putting it. He didn’t see her the way I did, couldn’t treat her the way I did. She and I never put a label on it so it wasn’t cheating, really, it was an agreement we made. Harmless. How were we to know it could cost Ramone everything? “I said go long,” I shooed him away and  blew Jada a kiss. He wasn’t supposed to see.

“Man, what the f--” That was the last thing he said before getting by a truck. He didn’t make it to the championship game. Or to prom. Last time I checked, he was still Philly. I ghosted Jada at prom, graduated and never looked back. How do I bring myself to speak to him now? My best friend who I placed in a wheelchair. I visited him once in the hospital, didn’t even go into his room. I couldn’t see him like that. I turned to leave but I guess he could feel the deceit in the air. He yelled after me, “Bash? Bash. SEBASTIAN!”



“What man? What do you want from me? “

“Chill man. It’s me Ramone. Don’t you recognize me?”

“Oh hey.” Of course, How could I ever forget?


Author's Note:
Thanks for reading! In this piece, I attempted to take a familiar feeling of uncertainty that comes from when we see someone we haven’t seen in a while and dramatize it. This story is about two friends with a tough past who meet obscurely and is something I think people can relate to. In reference to the mentor text, I incorporated pieces of inner, self conscious dialogue as well as had external surroundings play into the memory itself. For my Audio companion, I chose Adele’s ‘Hello’ because it encompasses the feeling of regret that Sebastian has throughout the story.


Reconstruction of Memory

Posted by Julia Furman in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

“When I lose something, I always try to think back to the last time I saw it. When I go back to that place, I usually find what I lost.”

The last time I saw my father…

It was clear from the start that this advice wouldn’t be very helpful. The most recent memory Julia had of her father was years ago - only a few days before he went missing. This memory had returned to her only just last night - the first of her personal memories. Perhaps the others would return to her when something happened in the present to trigger it. There was only one way to find out.

She thought back to the day when she was young… five or six. She had walked into her father’s… study? Yeah, study, he was a scholar. Is a scholar. Why? She had a nightmare, and was in need of his company. Did she go to her mother first? No, she had no memories of her mother. She never knew her. He held her in his arms with a loving embrace for a long time. She remembered snuggling closer to his chest, feeling the soft fabric of his sweater on her cheek, hearing the beat of his heart, and feeling a wave of comfort wash over her.

Julia started to cry. As she stood there in the field, her own father was being held prisoner somewhere on this land. A prisoner of beings that would not hesitate to kill him if it would benefit them in some way. She had no clue where they were keeping him, or if he was still alive. But even if she would never see him again, at least she had something to remember him by.

Julia’s mind came back to the present. She wiped the tears from her eyes, and she and her companions moved on, even more, determined to find the one who could just be her only surviving parent. She had to save him. He had to see him again. And she will risk it all to do so. Even her own life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2kTtW5f56I

Thank you for taking the time to read my piece. This is actually supposed to be a small part of a larger story, so that’s why it doesn’t feel quite complete or why some details aren’t quite as explained. If you are interested in learning more about the story, feel free to come talk to me. For my audio companion, I decide to use the song Hymn for the Missing by Red. Since the main character has a missing person in her life, it was kind of fitting. I can imagine one of them singing the song to the other.

Shamus Keough Reconstruction of Memory

Posted by Shamus Keough in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

I remember when the doctor told me I wasn’t going to live. I was an overweight man living in Detroit, living in an average house with my wife and child. While I was overweight, I still tried to get to the gym on weekends, and when ever I had freetime. I wasn’t the best with working out, but I always made sure I ran a few miles on the treadmill. I thought it would be interesting to try out running and see if I could lose some weight as well. The next summer after I started training I had already set up the idea to run a half marathon by some point in my life.

By the second month of training, I was starting to be really proud of myself. I had been doing some long runs, and at that point my farthest run had been nine miles. I was happy, and so was my wife, everything was going great. Until the doctor visit the next week.

I had gone to the doctor after work one day because I felt a little bit like I was starting to get the flu. I got to the doctor’s office and described how I was feeling to the doctor. The doctor said “Well… it might be a cold, but I just want to check if it could be something else. Would you mind taking an mri really quick?” I said sure, and got into the machine. The mri ended a few minutes later, and the doctor came into the room with a sad look on his face.

“I’m so sorry… it’s what I thought it might be. You have blood cancer.”

I later found out that I had only a few more months to live. I didn’t know how exactly to react, all I knew was that I was going to finish that half marathon I promised to my wife. I kept on practicing, every weekend, and any other free time I had. I had been practicing so much, I knew I was going to do his best, and even if I had to, make it the last thing I did in my life.

Author’s Note

The plot of the story is partially based off of my first experience running a half marathon. My first time running a half marathon was pretty difficult, so I tried to have my main character also have a hard time training at first. I had Terry start out training and have some trouble at first, which I can admit I also had some trouble when I first started running. After Terry starts running, I added him being diagnosed with cancer because I wanted to make Terry have some extra struggle with his training. I had the idea of him being diagnosed with cancer because I also had cancer when I was younger.


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2018-19: 1st Semester

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