April 11, 2006
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Jack and the Bonsai Tree
Ok so as I mentioned elsewhere, my creative writing class was cancelled today so I decided to go ahead and post the fairy tale today. The original story was obviously Jack and the Beanstalk, but I played around with it a little instead of just making it more modern. We only had to do the first few paragraphs of whatever story we chose so that’s why the story is incomplete. Anyways….
Back in the day there was a poor widow who lived in a run down apartment with her only son Jack. Jack had a lot of adrenaline, but was still very eager to please those around him. It had been a rough winter, and after it the poor woman had suffered from the flue. Jack sat on his butt all day doing nothing, so he and his sick mother grew poorer and poorer.
The widow saw that they would starve unless they sold their computer; so one morning she said to her son, “I am too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the computer to Best Buy for me, and sell it.”
Jack liked going to Best Buy to sell the computer a lot; but as he was on his way, he met a homeless man who had a bonsai tree in his hand. Jack stopped to check it out, and the homeless man yelled, ‘Bonsai! Bonsai!’ He told the boy that it was of great value and persuaded the naïve fool to sell the computer for the bonsai tree.
When he brought it home to his mother instead of the money she expected for her computer, she was pretty pissed and scolded Jack for his idiocy. He was very apologetic, and mother and son went to bed depressed that night; their last hope seemed gone.
Early in the morning Jack got up and went into the little area of grass behind the apartment. “At least,” he thought, “I will plant the bonsai tree. Mother says that it is just a common bonsai tree, and nothing else, but I may as well plant it.” So he took a stick, dug a hole in the ground, and put in the bonsai tree.
That day the each had only a bologna sandwich for dinner, and went to bed depressed, knowing there was nothing more to eat, and Jack, unable to sleep from grief and frustration, got up at dawn and went out back.
To his astonishment he found that the bonsai tree had grown in the night, and climbed up and up until it reached the roof of the apartment building. The branches had twisted together until they had formed quite a ladder.
“It would be easy to climb it,” thought Jack. And, with no further consideration, he at once resolved to climb it, for Jack was a good climber. However, after his foolishness about the computer, he thought he had better check with his mother first.
Yeah that’s as far as I went. I think he may have found garden gnomes living on the roof instead of a giant, but I don’t really know.
-Dan
Comments (3)
oh, that’s fun! made me laugh. Tim Gautreaux, an author, spoke to our class today and did a reading of his short story “Welding and Children” last night. I don’t know if you can find anything of his online, but he’s a good writer and very personable.
that is amazing! you should finish it, and i like the lawn gnome idea…
Well I thought it was good and it was fun to write too, but apparently it was supposed to be a far more drastic change into modern form. Think of the Leo DiCaprio romeo & juliet modernizing the classic(for good or worse I’ll leave to you). Anyways, it wasn’t for a grade, but it pretty much missed the point. Anyways….