The undeniable truth

Eniola Obafemi

The Reveal

Colton was intently reading the newspaper at night when Sarah, his wife, made a disgruntled comment, “Honey, there is something on my mind. Can we talk for a minute?”

            “Right now,” Colton replied rather irritated, “I am reading the paper; I am sure that can wait.”

            “But I am tired of waiting night after night honey. Please….. I need to get this off my chest.”

            Colton took off his glasses slowly; displeased and annoyed with her response he exclaimed, “Okay! What is the problem that you cannot seem to get off your chest? You can clearly see I am extremely busy.”

            The room was silent for a few minutes, and then in a low hush, Sarah replied, “I am pregnant….”

            “I am so sorry," he sneered sarcastically  "I did not hear you the first time. You are what?” yelled Colton.  

            Filled with fear, Sarah did not reply. She just stayed still for a moment. With a head of steam coming out from his ears, Colton exclaimed, “Since when did you know about this!”

            “About three weeks. I am so sorry I did not tell you earlier.”

            Colton looked at her in disgust and remarked, “Honey, I am so sorry I yelled at you at first,” he replied in a lower tone, “I have a lot on my mind and it has been a tough week for me.”

            “It is okay babe; I just wanted to let you know. Actually, I thought you would be really excited,” she replied.

            Colton looked up to his wife and remarked in a low whisper, “I am really excited for you honey,…..for us. This is one of the happiest days of my life and I am happy I am sharing it with you.”

            Sarah moved closer to him and rubbed his back with a delicate touch. “Honey I have been planning for the child too, where the crib will be and the clothes she would wear”
            With a distressing look, he starred at her and muttered "Did you just say 'she'."
            "I beg your pardon honey," she replied with a glow in her face.
            He shot back, "No, I did not say anything."

            Sarah returned back to rubbing his back while Colton ducked his head between his head and a tear drop cascaded down his eyes; because he knew he had been cheating on Sarah.

An unimaginable life

Extremely vivacious and boisterous, I consider my inexplicable charisma spontaneous. I am an immovable force who has fought wars in the Balkan and Congo. I am an irresistible individual who derive pleasure in scaling walls and crushing massive blocks of ice located in the North Pole. I speak 50 different languages fluently and in my spare time, I just love to eat a sandwich.

Billions of individuals have fallen at the power and strength that I possess. Billions of individuals have noticed my name and personality on the front cover of Times magazine and the Rolling Stone. Billions of people have been associated with me, for I am the head of an underground military organization. Billions of people wish they were me.

Occasionally, I enjoy the cool summer breeze and late night walks on Saturdays. On Sundays I partake in deadly missions, more deadly than the killing of Osama Bin Laden. But I do not suffer from post traumatic disorders. After my missions, I embark on a run to the peak of a mountain on the Alps to have my Zazen. Yes, I do speak Japanese. When I am bored, I build railways more than 100,000 feet, in my swimming pool. Then, I shower.

I invent gadgets before they are invented. I break records before they are considered broken. I create slangs before they are used. I am my own person. But I still hug my mother when I get home.

In the late 90’s, I freed Nelson Mandela from jail although people say he was released. Manchester United tried to recruit me at the age of 8. I declined. Remarkably, I am the subject of major researches and -documentaries  which all led to production of sport drinks. I reincarnate political and religious figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln for a 5 minutes evening discussion. Barack Obama is my brother.

My deft touch and quick thinking while playing soccer made the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi to retire. I was tagged the next big thing in soccer. I possess a 58 inch vertical, but you do not see me bragging about it on a college application. I have defeated great Chinese opponents in games of ping pong. I love the taste of KFC chicken nuggets and Wendy's baconator. I have a .6% body fat.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prize for single-handedly for the killing Moammar Ghadafi was no big deal. Winning Beyonce 6 Grammys awards in one night for writing and choreographing all her songs was okay. Winning a Jiu Jitsu contest in Taiwan and lotto 649 was amazing.  But the game of tic tac toe stands to be my major foe. It is ridiculous.

I have lived with monks for 2 years, wrestled bulls, maintained a 4.2 grade point average, separated siamese twins and danced with Michael Jackson. Next on my resume is to have the experience of attending college.

Writing Elements

ELI

          Elements in writing are masterful in conveying ideas. A silent room in a hospital is the setting of the short story Eli, from Vincent Lam’s novel, Bloodletting and Miraculous cures. A notorious man named Eli, is arrested by two officers, a male and female, and brought to a hospital for medical attention to be given by Doctor Fitzgerald. The short story illustrates the use of three key elements: foreshadowing, theme and conflict.

       

         The author uses the element of foreshadowing to make the reader think ahead and anticipate the conflict, dilemma or predicament. This type of the device comes in play at first when Eli has a conversation with the doctor in the silent room. After the conversation, the doctor learns about some information on how Eli attains his cut on his head and later confronts the police officers. During the dialogue, the female officer emphasizes that the doctor should “watch [himself] with Eli” telling him that “[Eli] is quick.” As the story develops, the statement then proves to be a turning point in the short story. As the doctor stitches the cut on Eli's head, “[he] [lunges] quickly” with a “flashing surge of movement” to take a bite out of the doctors hand. The new cut on the doctor’s glove is later identified to be contaminated with HIV. 

        
             The author heavily explores the theme of deception. Fitzgerald as a doctor, is being extremely deceitful. Although doctors are under oath to treat all patients equally, Fitzgerald is hurting Eli indirectly. After being bitten by Eli, he makes a proposal to police officer to brutalize him, inflicting on him “multiple bruises on his limbs and torso.” Additionally, the theme of deception comes in play when the police lie to the doctor about Eli obtaining his cut on his head by falling down while in custody; but Eli later reveals to the doctor that the police hit him with a “sucker punch” because he did not answer an interrogation question. The main truth is that the two professions, the doctor and the police, will never reach a true solution for a problem if they keep deceiving each other.
     
          Equally important, conflict is a very useful element that the author employs. First, the author engages the reader by using conflict between doctor Fitzgerald and the police officers in form of a dialogue. They both keep valuable information from each other; the officers conceal the fact that Eli was brutalized by them and the doctor never reveals to the officers that Eli has the HIV virus. This leads to a series of confrontations between the two occupations and brings about minimal trust. Additionally,Vincent Lam utilizes the conflict of the doctor versus his thoughts. In this case, the doctor has an internal conflict when he tries to decide what will be best solution to be given to Eli to make him "learn respect" after Eli took a bite of his hand. Also, the doctor has to choose between 'creating clean paperwork" for Eli and inflicting pain and suffering on both Eli and the police because he blames both the parties for the bite on his hand. Later on, he chooses inflicting pain on Eli by darting a "tongue depressor.... further into [Eli's] mouth" until he grunts and gags for while as well as planting a "scissors on the stretcher within the reach" of Eli's right hand so as to cause suffering to the police officers.

         Thus, the elements Vincent Lam employs in his short story which include foreshadowing, the use of theme and conflict, are the three key writing styles that brings out a deeper understanding of the relationship between the doctor, officers and Eli. Also, these writing components reveal the motive of each character in the short story which readers realize and anticipate the next possible predicament or dilemma in the story. This goes to show that the uses of writing elements are extremely important in bringing out the main issues in a piece of writing.