Ryan Piquette
A Block
9/7/11
The arid climate and the hot air reminded Amir of being home in Afghanistan. As Amir walks side by side with his adopted counterpart Sorhab, he reminisces of life back in his home country. Times then were so simple and carefree. Amir’s enlightened thought bubble is soon disrupted though when he thinks back to the events that unfolded during the kite battles with Hassan. Amir’s mood suddenly turns to one of great despair and agonizing guilt. Amir knows that deep inside himself he still has a chance for redemption, he knows that looking after Sorhab will help console himself. The two proceed to the local park in Odessa County carrying their kite along.
Amir and Sorhab arrived at the park and to their surprise there were very few people there. Amir spots a young, muscular, white man flying his kite in the open field. He is wearing a football jacket with a panther emblem stitched into it. Amir is overjoyed when he sees the man with the kite because now he can battle his kite with the man’s kite. The man caught a glimpse of Amir and Sorhab and was displeased. Being from Texas the man was not too fond of other races beside whites being in the park. Amir and Sorhab approach the man calmly with no knowledge of him at all.
“Good morning!” Amir says as he unveils his kite and begins to get it ready for flying.
“Good morning,” Says the man.
“Have you ever had a kite battle before?” Amir questioned. “It was a game I used to play in my country, Afghanistan.”
“No, I’ve never heard of it but it sounds interesting,” the man stated.
“It’s very simple, we both just clash our kites in the air, and whosever kite breaks off loses. The loser must chase down his kite.” Amir informed.
“Sounds good,” the man exclaimed.
“By the way my name is Amir.”
“My name is Jerrod McDougal,” the man said as they both firmly shook eachother’s hands.
Amir cast his kite into the sky with Jerrod’s, and the battle began. Both stood on the ground fixed upon the kites in the sky, because to win a kite battle you must have immense concentration. Amir and Sorhab used Hassan’s special tactic that would be successful almost anytime.
“Have you lived in Odessa your whole life?” Amir asked.
“Yes I have. I was born here, went to school here, and I will remain here.” Jerrod proudly stated.
“Was that your school?...The Panthers.” Amir questioned, pointing at Jerrod’s high school football jacket.
“Oh, this was my team that I played on in my high school.” Jerrod responded.
“Were they any good?” Said Amir.
“Any good?! We only had all the potential in the world. We were literally so close to a winning a state title that it’s not even funny. We lost in the championship round! I still think about that game every day of my life, it changed my life, and my teammates lives forever. You see I’m from a town where football is our only life, we eat, sleep, and breathe football. For most of the guys in my school football is the only thing they have because we focus very little on academics. So, to lose that game affected us for the rest of our lives. I want to go back in time and change it so badly; you don’t even know what it feels like.” Jerrod exhaustingly stated.
“What do you mean?! I think about changing my past every waking minute! When I was younger my best friend and I were having a kite battle, just like how we are now. My friend was named Hassan; he was the best kite runner around. One day he went to go chase down a kite, and he didn’t come back for a while. I went over to see what was going on and when I got over to an alley I saw Hassan there. A group of kids were around him beating him and then they continued to rape him. I was too much of a damn coward to do anything about it. Hassan and I barely spoke again, and he just recently died amongst the upheaval in Afghanistan. I just feel awful every time I think about it.” Amir said sullenly.
There was a brief moment of silence as the two men just stood concentrating on the kites. Amir had the kite right where he wanted it and sure enough Jerrod’s kite went sailing away. Triumph filled Amir’s heart because winning this feels like his childhood when he would compete with Hassan. Jerrod’s first action was to run to the kite and follow it as it got blown away.
“Stop!” Amir yelled. “I can’t let you go alone; I will never let a friend go alone again.”
The End
The story is a happy one, and the feeling after reading it was somewhat uplifting. The image of the kites battling in the sky is clear in my mind. It is interesting how the dissimilar Amir and Jerrod became friends over a kite battle. The story made me think about how unusual the formation of friendships can be, it is not entirely unlikely two complete strangers could become friends.
ReplyDelete“Amir spots a young, muscular, white man flying his kite in the open field. He is wearing a football jacket with a panther emblem stitched into it.” This is a good example of descriptive elements within the story. I got a picture of a lone man in the field flying a kite. This was very crucial in the description of the setting.
The conversation between the two characters seemed pretty authentic. However the one thing that stood out as odd was how easily Amir told Jerrod the story of how he hadn’t had enough courage to spare Hassan. Amir didn’t tell Soraya about Hassan until a while after they were married. Also Amir probably wouldn’t have wanted Sorhab to learn about that fateful day until later in his life.
At the end of the story you wrote “The End”. Although there is nothing particularly wrong with writing “The End”, it is atypical of a short story such as the one you created. It was barely distracting as I only saw the text after a second glimpse at the essay. The last line of your story before “The End” was already a great closer.
I did like the story and it made me feel like life is hard but there are many things that are good in it, it also was a good story, the image that was in my mind was the kite battling, what the story made me think was the battle between each other should create tension but it really created friendship.
ReplyDelete"Amir cast his kite into the sky with Jerrod’s, and the battle began. Both stood on the ground fixed upon the kites in the sky, because to win a kite battle you must have immense concentration. Amir and Sorhab used Hassan’s special tactic that would be successful almost anytime." the setting that was best described was the start of the kite fighting, it gave me an image that so many boys with there kites all in the air fighter each other for the win and everyone disappointed if there line gets cut.
The conversation between the two characters seemed authentic but, there was one part that didn't make sense that was Hassan didn't have his back and wanted Amir to get hurt. this didn't make sense because he always has his back no matter what.
One thing that i found most distracting was the final sentence was a conversation line and not saying what will happen in the future. Also it doesn't tell what might happen latter or what happened in the past.
I. Your story, "Friday Night Kites" was very good. After reading it, I wanted more. it was very rich with description and detail. I could picture all of the characters, and all of the actions in which they were doing.
ReplyDeleteII. The setting was said, but it wasn't really detailed. The surroundings were, like when you said,
"Amir and Sorhab arrived at the park and to their surprise there were very few people there. Amir spots a young, muscular, white man flying his kite in the open field. He is wearing a football jacket with a panther emblem stitched into it."
I like this line because of the detail.
III. The conversation between the characters in the story did seem authentic. I only read one of the books you read, the kite runner, but the characters and dialogue seemed accurate.
IV. Nothing really was too distracting. However, the story was a bit confusing, because I didn't know the characters from the book I didn't read, so I wasn't sure what was going on all of the time. Overall, I really liked your story, good job.