Magical Realism, Part 2

This is the second and final part of my magical realism project. In this version of the story, there is magical / unexplained stuff mixed in with the actual story.

When my dad was six years old, he went with his family—his sisters Laura and Susan and his parents Malcolm and Eleanor— to the New York World’s Fair. Afterwards, before heading home, they stopped at Jones Beach on Long Island. That was where my dad saw the ocean for the first time in his life. He and his sisters were fascinated by it, and, not having bathing suits, went wading as deep as their parents would allow them. But despite their efforts to keep dry, they quickly got soaked due to their inexperience with the ocean. After that, they gave up on wading and began playing around in the water, splashing each other and diving under crashing waves.

Their parents watched them, having long since given up on trying to keep them dry. After a few minutes, Eleanor noticed something strange about the water. Every time a wave rose up to break, it would—so fast it was almost impossible to see— become almost black in color. She pointed this out to her husband, who also began to watch carefully. They noticed that the flashes of black were only happening on their stretch of beach—there was nothing wrong with the whitecaps far out at sea or the other waves further down the beach. But then another family arrived, the parents settling down on the sand nearby as the children ran to the water. As soon as the first child leaped into the ocean, the waves there began to do the same thing. Nervously, Malcolm called Tom, Laura and Susan out of the water and told them to play in the sand.

So the children turned to fort-making and sand-ball fights. The grown-ups retreated up the beach so as to keep clean, but kept two pairs of wary eyes on their oblivious children. Within minutes the kids were covered with sand from head to toe. But to their parents’ consternation, they returned to the water after Laura got sand in her eyes.

Their parents watched the waves—which, in their area, had returned to normal after their children had left the water—as the three kids dove in. Sure enough, the black flashes started immediately. Just as their mother was going to call them out of the water again, there was a shriek from down the beach. Eleanor and Malcolm looked over to see the family who had been sitting near to them hurrying back to their car, the father carrying one of the girls, whose foot was bleeding very badly.

Eleanor and Malcolm looked at each other nervously. A bleeding foot could be caused by a rock, coral, broken glass… it was nothing that couldn’t be easily explained. But water flashing black was different.

So they gathered up their towels and umbrellas, and loaded their soaked and sandy children into the car. On the ride home, they patiently listened to the endless chatter about the sand, the waves, and the water, not saying anything about the strange things they had seen.

Magical Realism, Part 1

In English, we're currently learning and writing about magical realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_realism) in connection to another theme; family stories. We were told to choose a family story and write it out, and then rewrite it adding elements of magical realism. This is the first part of my magical realism project-- the story as it happened, with no imaginary elements added.

When my dad was six years old, he went with his family—his sisters Laura and Susan and his parents— to the New York World’s Fair. Afterwards, before heading home, they stopped at Jones Beach on Long Island. That was where my dad saw the ocean for the first time in his life. He and his sisters were fascinated by it, and, not having bathing suits, went wading as deep as their parents would allow them. But despite their efforts to keep dry, they quickly got soaked due to their inexperience with the ocean. After that, they gave up on wading and began playing around in the water, splashing each other and diving under crashing waves.

Their parents watched them, having long since given up on trying to keep them dry.

Water fights quickly ensued, and then fort-making and sand-ball fights out of the water. The grown-ups retreated up the beach so as to keep clean, but the kids had no such intentions. Within minutes they were covered with sand from head to toe. After Laura got sand in her eyes, they returned to the water and the still-novel idea of waves, which they had never seen before.

Finally, after several hours, their parents intervened and reluctantly loaded their soaked and sandy children into the once-clean car. On the ride home, they patiently listened to the endless chatter about the sand, the waves, and the water, until finally the kids succumbed to their exhaustion, and fell asleep.