Jack and Jill Revisited

...

I remember one college instructor I had who liked to hand out a particular assignment. I think he did it partially because he knew it was a good writing exercise, but also partially because he usually got a chuckle from the results.


So here's how his assignment was usually explained. Take a very short story, a nursery rhyme, or a proverb . . . and rewrite it in the style of several famous authors. More than trying to get you to write material that was original, the idea was to make you really learn how to be observant of how certain authors write and what makes their styles unique.

So I decided recently to revisit that little exercise.  I tried to think of a nursery rhyme that wouldn't be too complicated (or long) to write in another's author's style. What I decided to go with is "Jack and Jill." You know . . .

Jack and Jill,
Went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down,
And broke his crown,
And Jill came running after.

Once the material is chosen, you then have to choose several "famous" authors whose style is usually easy to recognize. Being a sci-fi nut, my first thought was to do Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, or Phillip Jose Farmer . . . but I realized that most of my friends probably wouldn't even know who those authors are.  And it's also nice to throw in someone who's not really an "author", but who has a certain style that is easy to recognize.

The "authors" I decided to go with are Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Erma Bombeck, and Andrew Dice Clay. After about 60-90 minutes of pecking away, the following is the result.


Dr. Seuss

A bright sun rose across the meadow.
It was bright and yellow.
Bright! Bright! Bright!
Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!
And on that meadow came two kids,
Knowing why they came, only they did.
In their hands an empty bucket.
On their shoes some hairy schlunkets.
To make those schlunkets from their shoes go,
Jack and Jill must find some H2O.
So merrily they climbed the hill,
Jack skipping and followed by Jill.
Jack laughed and pointed and said,
"Come, Jill. There's water up there on top,
But Jill could not answer or smile,
Because Jack fell down and went kerplop.
One must always pay attention
When walking on shoes with schlunkets
For if you don't, your feet will slip,
And falling onto your head, you'll thunk it.



Stephen King

An ominous hill rose before them, seemingly mocking their quest and the pursuit of the sweet elixir they sought. Jack was a former auto mechanic whose love of sleek and sexy Ford Mustangs and disdain for foreign automobiles somehow always got in his way. Here he was now . . . traversing through the ravaged countryside in search of water for the broken down Volkswagen Bug that lie two miles in the distance, steam spewing from its hood as if a dragon wheezing through its last breath. Jill, a former supermodel, tagged along despite his objections, but there was no way she would have remained alone in the car with the fingers of dusk crawling toward them.

"Fuckin' figures", Jack mused to no one in particular. "The only time the bitch doesn't have a couple bottles of that Evian shit with her." The only item of use was a yellowing popcorn pail. Jumbo-sized. He silently thanked his luck for having bought the largest size of popcorn bucket he could have when he last took her to the film festival in Bangor. A sitting (or rather, suffering) through another showing of "Titanic" had demanded the sort of distraction required when faced with having to sit through yet another movie starring that pud-fucker, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Jack stopped suddenly, his head tilted slightly to the side. You could almost see his ears twitching to pick up the slightest sound.

"What's wrong, honey?" Jill asked.

"Shhhhhh!!!!" Jack hissed. "Jesus-jumped-up-Christ-on-a-popsicle-stick, shut the FUCK UP!!!!"

Jack stood frozen for a few moments. Moments that went by. Ever. Too. Slowly. He could have sworn he heard something. A slithering sound, something almost primeval. The kind of sound that the reptiles must have heard when man's distant ancestor crawled out of the ocean for the first time.

Jack regained his composure and straightened his posture from one of readiness to relaxed. The sun had nearly set, and the shadows were simply releasing childhood fears and memories. Yeah, that's what it was, he said convincingly to himself. He eased his grip on the bucket's handle and resumed the journey toward the top of the hill where he had seen an old-style well complete with hand pump.

As he neared the crest of the hill, he heard a muffled gasp behind him. He began to turn around, fully expecting the object of his lust to be cowering from some flittering mosquito, when something whipped around his ankles and yanked his feet out from under him. His feet whipped out in front of him while his torso was still in mid-air, making him appear to have the sleek moves of a young Jackie Chan. Before gravity took hold and brought his ass back home to the ground, he was violently yanked sideways. His skull slammed with a sickening, squishy sound into a large granite stone that jutted out from the ground. Jack now lay motionless. Ironically, the amount of brains he had bragged about possessing to Jill now seeped slowly onto the ground, creating a small creek of glistening, red gore. The last sounds he heard were of another whipping sound followed by the slap of soft flesh and the scream of a very terrified woman.



Erma Bombeck

And then there was the time when newly-wed Jack and Jill Schroeder (can't help but thinking of the "Peanuts" character) were in dire need of refreshement. Of course, you would think that Jack, being the hunter/gatherer type, would be more than happy to ask his lovely, new bride to take a load off of her dogs while he sought out water to quench her thirst. But these are NEWLYWEDS, people! It could be that their young love was so strong that neither wanted to be apart for more than a moment. More than likely, Jack, being internally torn between that of yuppie and Cro-Magnon man, was afraid that a Prince Charming would happen to pass by in his absence and woe Jill from him before he'd even had a chance to lug her across the proverbial threshold.

So merrily our young couple begin their trek up the hill to the water fountain nestled so romantically next to the park's gazebo. All that's missing is the dreamy theme music as they walk up the hill. You'd think that one of them ought to be able to at least hum a nice tune. I mean, their last name is Schroeder! Sorry. Digressing again to childhood cartoon memories.

Nearly halfway up the hill, Jack pulls out his Burger King crown, knowing full well (ha! Well. Water. Get it?) that Jill has a deep, secret fear of the Burger King character that litters the television airways these days. He stops and stares at Jill with that patented dead-pan stare. She stops, looks at him, and raises an eyebrow unapprovingly. He begins to hum the Burger King theme. (Say, I guess one of them does have some small talent in the musical arenea!) I won't even tell you what he says next. Let's just say that it's sufficient to mention that Burger King serves "Whoppers."

Whatever it was that Jack said . . . Jill's reaction made it obvious that the honeymoon was now over . . . already. With a few choice words and phrases uttered under her breath, Jill hastened her pace. With the joke that had gone over badly now over, Jack made a last-second rush toward his bride that would have made Walter Payton envious. The only problem . . . he didn't notice a nice pile of doggie doo that his left foot stepped into. He slipped and performed a cheerleader-style split that sent his crown flying. The jewels on the makeshift paper crown were safely flung from Fido's droppings. The other jewels possessed by Jack were not quite so fortunate.



Andrew Dice Clay

So I'm walkin' in the park and I see this couple walking hand in hand up this hill. And I'm thinkin' to myself, what a faggoty pansy this ass-pumper must be. I mean . . . if the bitch has got a spare hand, I'd have somethin' a little more meaty to put in her hand if I was him, so what's this asshat's problem? Then I notice, oh fuck, it's not a fuckin' couple. It's my poker-buddy Jack and his hot cunt of a 16 year-old daughter, Jill. Upon further examination, I see Jilly-baby has got a cut or some kind of shit on her forehead, and the bitch is bleedin' from her noggin' as if her skull is having a fucking period of its own. Yeah, I'm fuckin' observant like that, ya know.

So I'm wondering if ol' Jack has hauled off and smacked the bitch because she's scoping out the hung studs in the park or if the uncoordinated cunt has just tripped over her goddamn tampon's string and fucked up her head because of it. Well, they're getting closer to me and I see the little bitch is crying like Mother Teresa holding some starving, 3rd-world newborn. Now, Jack is a good poker buddy. And I don't mean it as in "poke her, Buddy!" I mean as in the stupid fuck is too clueless to know he can't play poker for shit, so he's always good to fleece for a ten or twenty spot every Friday night. But the motherfucker owes me $35 from last Friday because I let him play on credit. Like I'm the fucking Bank of America, right? So I figure I'm gettin' me a little poontang from his sweet-cheeks daughter, Jilly, or he's givin' me my $35.

I'm friendly and all. I say, "Howdy fuckin' doo" and all that shit, but he's blowing me off like a $200 hooker, telling me he's in one fuck of a hurry because he wants to get his little girl to the park's medical station to get some water and a damp, fuckin' rag to put on her boo-boo or some shit like that. I'm the fucking Dice-man, right? So I don't take that shit from nobody. I haul off and bitch-slap the fuckstick all the way down that fuckin' hill. He falls down and covers up like George Foreman when Evander Holyfield knocked the shit out of him, so I literally kick and roll his fat, fuckin' ass all the way down the hill. I mean, $35 is $35, after all.