My friend Elizabeth and I are playing a game: once or twice a week, we pick a line from a song by Andrew Bird and write a drabble inspired by it (as loosely or as closely as possible). I think the goal of the project (besides doing some regular writing) is to see how differently we use the lines.
Anyway, the first line is "The sky is full of zeros and ones," from the song "Masterfade."
Zeros and Ones
“Son, let me tell you something. There’s two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers. You’re either a zero or a one.”
Sam’s dad put his arm around his son’s shoulders, but Sam knew it wasn’t an affectionate gesture. He didn’t know which kind of person it meant his father thought he was.
“You don’t want to be a zero, do you?”
Sam looked at his father and suddenly, for the first time, he saw him for what he really was: self-important, bigoted, a hollow shell. A zero.
Shrugging away his father’s arm, Sam turned and headed home.
Link to Elizabeth's story
1 comment:
I like yours; it's a lot different and a lot less literal.
I guess my one comment with it is that it seems like there's more here than can fit in one hundred words? The father's self-importance and bigotry barely comes across, and the importance of Sam's realization (did he fear his father? Idolize him?) seems almost completely lost except in very general terms. This feels like a small piece of a larger story rather than a stand-alone. Of course, that's probably perfectly reasonable for a 100 word piece, especially because the 100 words make me want to know more, which is perhaps the point.
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