Short Story: Room 217

The radio blared through all 7,000 square feet of her newly built home.  The chandeliers made of real silver and the crystal wine glasses shook every time the bass thumped.  There was a mirror in every room of the house, no matter the size or location.  The kitchen had granite counter tops and state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances.  Her room consisted of a walk-in closet, a king bed and a flat-screen TV that covered an entire wall.  Hundreds of pairs of shoes lined the walls and half of her wardrobe was piled on the floor from picking out what to wear to work the previous morning.  It was impossible to find anything in less than 20 minutes with that many clothes.  But most importantly, her make-up.  She had numerous drawers full of different shades of foundation, powder, blush, eye shadow, eye liner, lipstick, and most of all, mascara.  She could not live without her mascara.  She had one in her bathroom, kitchen, office, purse, car, and coat pocket at all times.  She made sure she looked her best at all hours of the day, no matter what she was doing or where she was going.

The phone rang just as she brought the round black brush to her already mascara- covered eyelashes.  She rushed to her brand new touch screen phone buzzing on the granite counter top.  “Hello?” she squawked.  She hated getting interrupted while doing her make-up.

“Hi. Is this, um, Scarlett Cohen?” a concerned woman asked.

“Yes, this is her. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Hello, Scarlett.  My name is Margaret and I am the relations coordinator here at the Center for the Disabled in Greenfield, Ohio.  We received notice that your parents have passed away and the only other emergency contact on Kinsley’s file is you.”

“Excuse me ma’am, I think you have me confused with someone else. I’ve never heard of a Center for Disabled in Ohio, nor do I know a Kinsley.  I’m sorry but I really have to go--”

“We have on record that you were born on September 15, 1981, that your parents are John and Martha Cohen, you have Type 1 diabetes, and you are allergic to peanuts.  Is this not you?”

Oh my god.  She thought.  Why would a center for the disabled know so much about my life?  “Y-yes, that is me.  What can I help you with, Margaret?”

“Ma’am, you have a twin sister with down syndrome that needs your help.”

    All of a sudden, her whole life became a lie.  If her parents could lie to her about having another child, then what else had they lied about?  She started to question her childhood and who her parents had raised her to be.  What kind of people send their own child away to an institution just because she isn’t exactly who they pictured her to be?  Thoughts and accusations raced through her mind.  
    “H-hello?  Ma’am?  Are you there?”
    How in the world am I going to help her? I’ve never dealt with anyone that had a disability, much less down syndrome.  She thought back to high school when she babysat her neighbor’s kids for a couple hours one weekend.  If I couldn’t even handle two second graders on my own, how does this lady expect me to take care of someone who has down syndrome?  She thought about how much different her life would be, how many sacrifices she would have to make.
    “Yeah, I’m here.  So what kind of help are you thinking of?  Because if you need me to send like monthly checks or whatever to help pay for the cost of her staying there, then I can totally do that.”  She said, hoping that was what Margaret had meant by “help”.
    “Actually, we have the financial piece covered.  Before your parents passed away, one of them would come in at least once a week and visit Kinsley.  They would catch up on what had happened the past week, share stories, laugh, and just spend time together.  Since they are no longer with us and you are her only other living family member, we simply ask that you would give up some of your time to come in and spend it with Kinsley.  Visitors are one of the most important parts of our program here and it would mean a lot for Kinsley to know that she still has someone out there who cares.” Margaret explained sympathetically.
    “Oh wow.  Uh Margaret, can I think about it and call you back?”  She pictured her calender and everything she would either have to reschedule or cancel.  The visits would get in the way of her weekly facial and massage, her tennis matches would no longer be number one and her daily coffee dates would need to be limited.  This sure would make things different.
    She almost forgot she was on still on the phone.  “Yes, Scarlett, I’ll give you some time to process all of this and you can get back to me when you’re ready.”  Margaret said.
    “Actually, you know what? I’ll do it,”  Scarlett decided.  “When’s the first visit?”
    Margaret gave her all the details, dates and times, and said she would talk to Kinsley about her new visitor.  So this is really happening.  Scarlett thought.  I guess it’s time to go meet my twin sister.  
    Scarlett had never been so nervous in her entire life.  She tried writing questions down that she could ask Kinsley, but then threw them away, feeling stupid that she needed a pen and paper to talk to her own sister.  Well, here goes, she thought as she pushed past the clear doors into a part of her life that she never knew existed.  She scanned the room numbers above each door and finally reached 217, the last room on the second floor.  The TV was on and she could hear Hannah Montana’s voice coming from the corner of the room.  Scarlett pushed the door open and stepped inside.  
    “Hello? Is anyone in here?”  She saw a strawberry blonde head turn away from the TV screen and in her direction.  Kinsley.  Her hair was extremely thin, her almond-shaped eyes slanted upward and her smile was crooked, yet so big that it stretched from one ear to the other.  The moment that Scarlett saw her twin sister sitting there on the floor watching Hannah Montana, never happier to have a visitor than she was that morning, she changed.  She didn’t care about how much money she had in her wallet or whether or not she had enough mascara on.  No amount of mascara could give Scarlett what she found that day in room 217.

Explanation

    The aspect about the American Experience that my story’s theme makes a statement about is that Americans spend too much time caring about material things and the way that they look, rather than on relationships and what really matters in life.  In the beginning, Scarlett is only focused on her looks, how much stuff she has, and how nice her house is.  When she finds out that she has a twin sister with down syndrome that her parents gave up when she was born, she starts to question her parents and her life.  But when she is asked to take time out of her busy schedule to come and visit Kinsley, she is hesitant because she would have to give up a part of her glamorous life.  When Scarlett finally decides to be a part of Kinsley’s life, she realizes that she would have missed out on something that means so much more than all of her material things.

I also enhanced my story’s theme by using dialogue, specific characters, and objects as symbols throughout my story.  The dialogue helps draw the reader in because it shows how the characters are feeling and helps the reader connect to each one in a different way.  It also makes the story seem more real because people are actually having a conversation and sharing their emotions.  The characters enhance the story because they all have different feelings and descriptions and it gives the story depth.  The main symbol throughout my story was the mascara.  It symbolizes all material possessions and how Americans care so much about what they look like.  In the end, however, Scarlett trades her mascara for Kinsley.  She is giving up her material things for family, relationships, and what really matters.

Overall, I wrote this story about this theme because as Americans, we are starting to lose sight of what is most important in life and we take our families for granted.  My story shows that everyone needs family to survive.  In the end, Scarlett finds that she needs Kinsley more than Kinsley seems to need her.

Hyperlink Task

Kevin wrote about vegetarianism and why people should keep eating meat.  What if there was a story where people turned into the animals that are used for the production of meat - cows, pigs, etc.?  If we all had the chance of being slaughtered and killed so that humans could eat us, would it make us think differently about vegetarianism?  Imagine a world where we were the ones being eaten, not the ones eating...

Phil wrote about video games.  What if there was a world where every day, we were in a different video game? We would wake up one day and be thrown in the middle of a violent killing spree, and then the next day we would be jumping over barrels and unlocking secret doors with Mario and Luigi... An author could use this kind of story metaphorically in a lot of different ways.


Zac wrote about coral reefs and how they are being destroyed by overfishing.  One metaphor for this issue could be that we are all coral reef/the fish that live in them, and the fishermen are all of the bad things and problems in our lives that are "destroying" us.  We try our best to dodge them and survive, but sometimes we don't get so lucky and the fishermen catch us...

Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage

    Imagine that you have just found the love of your life.  Maybe what they say is true, love at first sight does exist.  You would do anything for this person and you already know that you want to spend the rest of your life with him/her, but there’s just one thing holding you back.  Your partner is the same gender as you are and millions of people around the world are telling you that it is wrong to love him/her, that homosexual relationships don’t matter as much as heterosexual relationships, and that you don’t deserve to get married.  Deep down, you know that you love this person with all of your heart and that love is still love, no matter who it is between.  The debate over same-sex marriage has gone on for too long and it is time to incorporate equality back into this country.  Same-sex marriage should be legalized!

    There are numerous reasons why same-sex marriage should be legal, but one of the most important is that it is a constitutional right.  Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that same-sex couples shall be denied the right to marriage so therefore, banning same-sex marriage should be considered discrimination (Driscoll).  In their article, Driscoll and Stingl state that the Constitution simply says that “by the most succinct definition, marriage is a legal contract between two people that is sanctioned by society.”  If marriage is a legal contract between two people, then why does it matter what two people it is between?  And whoever it is between, society is expected to support that contract.  When talking about interracial marriages in 1967, the Supreme Court said that states could not “define marriage in ways that violated core constitutional rights and that marriage should not be defined by the federal government” (Rauch, “A More Perfect Union”).  It isn’t fair to say this about interracial marriage, and then not support same-sex marriage in the same way.  By denying same-sex marriage and defining it as illegal, core constitutional rights are being violated and we are going against our own Constitution.  

This also deprives same-sex couples of the many benefits that come along with marriage.  Heterosexual couples take simple things like hospital visitation rights, shared insurance, joint adoption rights and residency rights for granted where homosexual couples can only strive and dream for those benefits one day (Bonauto 739).  Taylor McClellan, a student at Fairview High School, discusses the struggle that her family goes through on a daily basis when dealing with the lack of legal benefits for a homosexual parent.  Her father has been openly gay for several years now and has been in a committed relationship with his partner, Michael, for almost 3 years.  When asked how the legalization of same-sex marriage would affect her family, Taylor said:

“I would have a new step-dad!  And my dad’s partner could become a US citizen by marriage.  Now he has a student visa and we always have to deal with the fact that he could be sent back to Canada at any time.  I just want my dad to be happy and to be able to express his love for Michael in every way” (McClellan).

Taylor and her family shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not Michael can stay with her father in the US.  It is not right to deny someone the right to marry, take them away from the person that they love, and send them back to a country where they don’t want to be just because they aren’t attracted to the opposite sex.  This is morally wrong and they shouldn’t have to earn these rights, they should be given to them just as they are given to heterosexual, interracial, inter-religious, and inter-cultural couples all the time.
    You can’t put a barrier on love.  Same-sex marriage should be legal because marriage is about love, not who it is between.  Marriage is the “ultimate expression of love and commitment” and same-sex couples should be able to experience this as well (Bonauto 739).  Many people who oppose same-sex marriage, like Ron Crews, believe that marriage is mainly about being between a man and a woman because that has been the “legal, social, historical and theological definition throughout the ages” (739).  What people like Crews may not understand is that “homosexuals seek not to redefine what marriage is.  Instead, they seek to modify civil marriage to include them” (Mount).  Again, this is another form of discrimination, excluding people because they are different.  In an effort to support his claim, Crews says that “deliberately depriving a child of a mother and father is cruel and unfair” (739).  Research shows that a child need two loving parent to flourish, not necessarily that a child needs a mother and father to flourish. Children need the example of healthy, long-term and committed relationships regardless of gender.  If a child learns how to be responsible and faithful from two men rather than a man and a woman, it shouldn’t matter who teaches him.  All that matters is that that child is learning what is important in life, that he knows how to treat the people around him and that his parents love him.  Crews also states that “only the union of a woman and a man, with immutable XX and XY chromosomes in every cell of their bodies, representing the two halves of the human race, can make a marriage and produce the next generation” (739).  Here, Ron Crews is implying that the main purpose of marriage is reproduction and since homosexual couples can’t reproduce, then they shouldn’t be allowed to get married.  So what about childless, heterosexual marriages?  If the main purpose of marriage is to reproduce, then should these couples that don’t have children be denied the right to marry as well?  Of course not.  This supports the fact that the real definition of marriage is about love, and not reproduction or who it is between.  Everything is bound to change in some way over time and same-sex marriage is only a slight modification to the so-called “original definition” of marriage.
    Many people who oppose same-sex marriage make the argument that it would increase the divorce rate and weaken marriage as a whole.  “Opponents also see marriage having a shaky foundation in its current state … They see divorce as a major problem with marriage.  The addition of gay marriage to the mix would weaken it even further, perhaps to the point of collapse” (Mount).  This assumption is absurd and unreasonable because it is completely subjective.  In fact, the opposite is true: “It is the absence, not the presence, of same-sex marriage that is undermining traditional unions” (Rauch, “The Marrying Kind”).  Gay and lesbian individuals long to have and be a part of a family just like anyone else, and since same-sex marriage is illegal, they have resorted to trying to change who they are in order to achieve that goal.  In the past, it has been common for homosexuals to enter into heterosexual marriages just that so that they can start a family, only to realize that they are living a lie and end up getting a divorce.  This is one reason the divorce rate has increased.  If same-sex marriage was legal, gay men and women wouldn’t have to force themselves to marry someone they aren’t attracted to and they could marry the person that they really love, causing the divorce rate to decrease.  Making the assumption that same-sex marriage would weaken marriage is disrespectful to same-sex couples and it implies that they aren’t capable of true love and life-long commitment.     

Marriage is one of the most important aspects in a family’s life and every family deserves to be a part of that, no matter what their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender.    Same-sex couples just want to be accorded the same opportunity as everyone else:  “We want the licenses, the vows, the rings, the honeymoons, the anniversaries, the benefits, and yes, the responsibilities and the routines” (Rauch, “The Marrying Kind”).  Same-sex marriage is just another piece to the puzzle and it will only make this country stronger;  “Someday conservatives will look back and wonder why they undermined marriage in an effort to keep homosexuals out” (Rauch, “The Marrying Kind”).