"The Line"

One of my creative writing assignments is called "The Line."

I give them the title, which is "The Line" and then they have to create the story.  I'm always interested in what they come up with.

The title is vague enough for them to go in any number of directions. Past versions I've seen deal with a lousy pick up line, a line of cocaine, a person at the finish line of a marathon, a man signing his life away on the dotted line, a person crossing the line between right and wrong, a number of sports stories, a man going nuts as he waits in line at Walmart, and more than a few fishing stories.

Here is one story that I had saved from a previous creative writing class.  I've no idea who wrote it, but it's not half bad.


The Line

Bolt.  Crack.  Zip.  Tighten the nut.  Move on. 
Bolt.  Crack.  Zip.  Tighten the nut.  Move on.
Bolt.  Crack.  Zip.  Tighten the nut.  Move on.

That is how I spend eight hours a day, five days a week, two hundred hours a month, two thousand-four hundred hours a year, or 100 days straight of boiling, cracking, zipping, tightening, and moving on.  But I'm never moving anywhere.

I've been working on the assembly line for 8 years now.  What was a summer job turned into a life. 

How the hell did I get here?  One minute I'm a junior in college with a C average in political science, the next I'm an eight year veteran here.  Still, how the hell did I get here?  I'll tell you, a penchant for two for one bar pours at Slims on Tuesdays.

Joe, who now has a middle management position at a company in the cities, got me started.  He dated this girl named Cindy who worked there.  So he dragged me down there.  Well before I knew it, I was dating Cindy's friend, Michelle, and I wasn't just spending Tuesdays there but Thursdays too, Bladder Buster night.  Two months later it was Mondays too for football.  By the end of that regular season, I flunked my first semester.  By the Super Bowl, I was considering dropping out.

Then Michelle and I broke up and I started spending five nights a week at The Keg and Cork.  Thank God Michelle graduated that spring.  I could go back to Slims.  I think she is living in Ohio now.  An anesthesiologist.  I think.