So, here's a sample of a project I started a couple of weeks ago. Where do you think the story should go from here?
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Kirsten sat in her car, staring up at the bleak building. She remembered the way it was when she first saw the school. When she finally moved to the sidewalk, she felt almost overwhelmed by a sense of inhospitality that seemed to radiate in waves from the abandoned school.
“Wow!” she muttered to herself. “I always knew this job would be a challenge, but this place has absolutely no charm, no warmth. Where should my design even start?”
The young professional had been hired to create a design plan for converting the old school into an extended type of group home. Residents would share a bathroom with an adjoining studio apartment, where their caregivers would live. The idea was to allow adults with special needs great enough that they could not manage in a traditional group home to still be able to live outside of a regular institutional setting. Kirsten was charged with making the place “habitable, hospitable, and homey,” according to the owners.
This place terrified me when I was a kid, Kirsten thought, and I don’t see anything here to change that! Those bricks make the place look like a prison, and there’s no character to the place at all. This project may do me in.
She walked up the broken sidewalk, seeing what used to be flower beds on each side; the dirt was littered with broken glass, cigarette butts, and things Kirsten wasn’t interested in identifying. “How could Missy and Michael think this could ever be a welcoming place to live? It’s awful,” she thought, “just like I remembered.”
Memories flooded over her, flashing through her mind like a movie. She saw herself, small and frightened, sitting in the hallway outside the principal’s office. She heard the social worker tell the principal, “The father murdered the mother, right in front of the child. She hasn’t spoken to anyone since; the only sound she’s made in two months has been the night-time screams. There’s no family members to take her in, and all of the foster homes we’ve tried have been unsuccessful because of the night terrors and the mutism. The child will likely be placed in a state home, but my supervisor wants to let her try attending a public school between now and then.”
“We can put her in some special classes; since they are much smaller, she shouldn’t be too frightened by them,” the principal said. “Our counselor is terribly busy, but we’ll get the child on the schedule as soon as we can. Has she been in school before?” The social worker shrugged and then shook her head.
“We don’t think so,” she said.
Not once did either of them use my name, Kirsten recalled. And none of the teachers ever did, either – only that one aide, Mrs….Mrs….what was her name?” She thought a moment longer. Mrs. Marivale – that’s it. She’s the only one who ever seemed to really care.
She fumbled in her purse for the large ring of keys the owners had given to her. Inserting one into the front door lock, she continued her reminiscing. To be fair, the teachers were overwhelmed. My “small” class had 30 kids in it, and every one us had what would be called “special needs” today, most of them pretty extreme. I don’t think the staff had time to care; they were stretched to the breaking point, just trying to get through the day.
She walked down the hall to where she remembered the cafeteria being. Missy and Mike, the owners, envisioned opening a restaurant for the community in there, as well as using it as a dining room for the residents. There would be one volunteer assigned to each worker; the volunteers would actually be responsible for taking orders, but the residents would hand out menus, deliver drinks, and serve the meals. Some would be able to run the cash register, although they would likely need help making change and such. The couple had visited a similar café in a smaller Texas town, and they fell in love with the idea. Over time, that expanded into providing housing, as well.
For just a minute, if she closed her eyes, it was like Kirsten stepped back in time and heard the noise from lunchtimes gone by. She remembered that her class was the first for lunch, so they had the cafeteria to themselves for 10 minutes or so. During that time, it was a relatively peaceful place, but, when the other classes began coming in, Kirsten recalled, it became a scary place. All the loud voices reminded her of that night, and she would sit in terror until her stomach rebelled.
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