Writing from Life (Eventually)
However, my personal adventures have crept in over the years. “The School Car” is a fictionalized version of something that happened to me in elementary school. It made quite an impression at the time and has stayed with me over the years.
When I first began writing stories as a middle-grader, I didn’t write much based on my own experiences. Part of the fun and play of creating was how different it could be from my reality.
My first published short story Darker than the Night was published in 2007. It was a creepy little children’s story and I enjoyed writing to that age group and the little awakenings we start having as we get older. As I brainstormed other ideas for fun stories I could write, I kept remembering the old car just off the school property that captured my imagination as a kid.
Playground Dangers and Urban Legends
Pate Elementary had a huge playground. How the teachers managed to monitor us all, I’ll never know. Maybe they didn’t? (We all survived, somehow.)
It had all the classic death-trap-turned-childhood-gold:
- The merry-go-round where we gleefully slung each other off, skidding across the asphalt.
- The flip-bars where I mastered flipping one-handed, no-handed, and the “penny drop” (where you flipped yourself off and landed on your feet). I received my first noggin’ bump after landing head-first on the ground. I remember my art teacher telling me I looked like a unicorn. 🙂
- The metal jungle gym where we hung upside-down and flipped ourselves down to the ground. I slipped once and did a one-handed swing right into one of the metal bars. I became a unicorn again for a while.
- The monkey bars that we swung across, but also climbed up on and flipped off-why were we obsessed with flipping off of things!?!
- The metal slide that charbroiled your hands and legs if you were wearing shorts.
- The seesaw of crushed groins.
- I think there were also some pull-up bars, tires embedded into the ground, and maybe some downed wooden poles that we used as a balance beam.
But the best place? That was the hill.
On the left side of the playground, the ground sloped down a hill with lots of tree cover. It was a great place to get out of the hot sun and play hide and seek. It also had an awesome fissure in the hill that was big enough for someone who was “it” to climb in and run back and forth while trying to catch everyone else as they hopped back and forth over the little ditch.
Fun times.
The School Car: Fact, Fiction, and Fear
At the very bottom of the hill was a chain-link fence where the school property ended. Past that was an overgrown yard with an old rusty car sitting in the tall grass. Tales were passed around about the murders that had taken place in it. And while it didn’t happen often, it was a common dare to challenge other kids to run out and tag the car.
I remember being very curious and yet not wanting to get in trouble for leaving school property. “The School Car” is essentially the story of my encounter with the school car. Sometimes you just have to know the truth for yourself.
Want to Read the Story?
The School Car is a short tale of childhood dares, secrets, and the lines between imagination and truth.
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