Dialogue Experiment

Dialogue Experiment

I wrote this for English class. I was supposed to write a dialogue between three historical figures, arguing about some poignant issue. I put it into a scene, gave my characters some life and some relevance.

I was very happy with what I wrote and I read it in front of the class. Everyone seemed to be shaken by it, good or bad. No one else wanted to read after me, one girl even said because she couldn't compare.

I'm not going to brag about myself and I'm sorry for dumping another school assignment in here, but I was truly pleased with what I wrote. This is a new style of writing I am trying out, where I just throw in too many adjectives and technical jargon and go with it. I did this for my last op/ed and a few other things and it seems too be working.

That is why I am sharing it. I know there are a few technical errors, and I could edit it a third time, but no thanks.




Beforehand, I was running on three hours of sleep for the last thirty-six hours. Finals week. A caffeine buzz that gutted my stomach; ripped me in two. Despite the health affects, I was studying some liberal doctrine on censorship in the schoolroom. When the clock struck two a.m. I drifted into a blur of psychotic delusion.
This is a mostly true dream I had while suffocating in my own psyche.
Sen. Joseph Raymond McCarthy was there, playing chess on a TV tray with Oscar Wilde. Mark Twain was there, carving into the wall with a Swiss army knife. The room they were in looked like the darkened captain's quarters on a steamboat. The windows were cracked and black-green with the stains of the ocean.
I was hiding in the closet, afraid that they would smell me out. I do not know what I feared from them, but I was bleeding from my ears and that seemed to provide an adequate explanation.
The chessboard was made out of ice. Wilde had his opponent on the run with three pawns and a half melted rook. His king was a puddle.
They were discussing theater for a while; Twain was off in his own little world, stabbing the wall. Between puffs of a clove cigarette Wilde would call McCarthy by his middle name, Raymond. Their dialogue was muddled, like I was hearing filtered underwater.
They got on the subject of censorship because recently one of Mark Twain's novels had been removed from school libraries across the country for being 'vulgar'. Raymond had a large smile that could have been cut from glass, it was so sharp.
"I couldn't be more pleased," he smirked. "Check."
"What's wrong with the book that makes it so dangerous?" Wilde asked.
"Well-"
"Will anyone really be hurt by the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?"
"Don't be melodramatic. The book itself is not dangerous, it's the language used in the book. It's an idea that could directly lead to violence, hate crimes and racist divisions." Raymond was yelling but from what I could hear it was like static on an FM dial. Twain was pounding his head against the wall and Wilde castled a third time.
"How does a book cause hate? How will a word used in historical context teach someone to hurt another?"
"The word 'nigger' devalues the black man. Teaching our children to devalue other people obviously causes violence. It even starts wars!"
"Really? That seems difficult to prove."
"Was not the American Civil War encouraged by Uncle Tom's Cabin? I mean, in a good way."
Twain shouted from his wall, "The Civil War was fought over taxes and secession, not slavery. Certainly not a trite, little book." He pounded his head again, and I could hear it crack louder than anything else. Wilde and Raymond ignored him.
"I meant it seems difficult to prove that the book teaches us to devalue each other, not that miseducation leads to war. However, censorship IS miseducation. I think more damage has been caused by censorship than from it." Wilde said patiently, chewing his cigarette callously. "The Nazis censored books, even such as the Bible. It is with an unavailability of diverse thought that any evil begins."
"America is not the same as Nazi, Germany, not even close!" Raymond pounded a fist against the chessboard.
"Imitation is the highest form of flattery."
Raymond was so silent the only sound was from the splintering of Mark Twain's forehead. The cherry in Wilde's cigarette crepitated in his clenched hand.
I began choking on something, material liquid, gas and solid all at once. Plasma asphyxiation. I hacked up dissolved wedges of my own trachea. Black bile dribbled out my lips, the taste of a concussion. The three in the other room heard me but chose to ignore the gurgles in the closet.
"Some," Raymond said. "Sacrifices must be made."
"Censorship is thought control. You would slaughter the mind on the altar of freedom?"
"Would you rather have our children hating and killing one another?" Raymond seethed in and out like a humidifier, visible clouds of gas seeped out his teeth.
"Your solution to the social ignorance of racism is to hide it? Outta sight, outta mind, right? You don't have to burn the books, just remove 'em?" Wilde played his pawn a space forward.
"Exactly! You do have some sense." Raymond laughed and more bile came out my mouth at the same time.
"Well, what about the damage your own life's work caused? Your mad raving about communism hurt people, perhaps even more than Twain's book ever will. I think we should censor that too, then." Wilde stood up. "Checkmate."
Mark Twain turned from the wall. His forehead had a gash like the entrance of a cave, with a waterfall of blood oozing out like a red carpet. His eyes were burning oil.
"George Bernard Shaw once said, 'assassination is the extreme form of censorship.'"
Twain pulled out a revolver and opened the chamber. He inserted one bullet and spun the cylinder. He held the weapon against Raymond's teeth and pulled the trigger.
I heard an explosion, but woke up before I witnessed a result. I was drooling on myself in a stupor of over-stimulation, dazed by a fit of narcolepsy.
The sun was rising.