Evan
The extant fragments
I began my writing career at age 3.5 with the help of my mom, who typed and saved my earliest musings on life, which I called “Evan’s Rules”. Thanks, mom.
All spelling errors have been left in to reflect verbatim transcription. Enjoy.
Fragment #1: Evan’s Rules - age 3.5
Don’t ever kick walls
Don’t ever kick people, especially our friends
We shouldn’t fight with each other
When we first pick something up, the other person shouldn’t grab it from them
We never karate people when we’re so strong
We never jump so high that we boing the wires
We never kick computers
We never, ever get a stick and scrape the walls by yourself because our mothers and fathers can put us in time out
We never should interrupt when other people are talking
You never um, kick chairs when somebody is on the chair
Um, we never ever jump too high so you can fall and boink your head and hit the ceiling and klunk it
We never, ever throw glasses at people
We never, ever kit people with books
We never ever smack people and say “shut up”
We never, ever when people put milk in a cup we never dump it on people
We never, uhhhh, bounce on, shake beds or smack them or kick them with our shoes
We never, never, uhhhhh, never, never, we never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, we never be mean mean to our friends. We be polite and say hello
We never, we never, ever kick screens and we never kick a desk.
That’s it. Print.
Fragment #2: Things I like - age 8
I Like sports, rivers, and computers. my favoret river is the hodson. I like pokemon. I have it on my gameboy and I have a lot of cards.
Fragment #3: Things I’m grateful for - age 10
The things im grateful for are…
Foods: Tofu, friut, chocolate, All organic food prodects (ecsept for meat), cos-cos.
Nature + Animals: Cats, foxes, racoons, ect (Anything that is cute and cudely, and doesn’t make a whole lot of niose), trees, wind, rocks, water, fire, actuwely I realy like all nature and would never harm it.
Technology: games that illigely downlode of the internet, E-mial (though it is allways nice to reseve a real letter)
General life things: humer, Books, I’ll say my family even though i’s cleshayed, fun sports, art, alter-egos, happy little children that like to play with you, small places that make good forts, daydreaming, strang insperations that make you want to do the impossible (in my opinion nothing is imposible), spiritual cretures, and candles.
Fragment #4: Thoughts on a book - age 10
Recently I went to Barnes&Noble and got a book called A Guide To Modern Science. The thing that caught my eye at first was this extremely humanoid robot named SARCOS. even though throughout the book there are sections that tell about more advanced robots (like R100s) SARCOS was undoubtedly the coolest.
Fragment #5: The “missing” chapter of Huckleberry Finn - age 11
In 1952 Jack Jefferson, Bob Billerson, Dan Danerson and Fluffy Flufferson started to clean up Mark Twain’s study. It was a tiny octagon shaped building which had just been moved to Elmira College. They dusted, they washed, but when it came time to bolt some boards down Fluffy discovered something. He looked at it closely but Fluffy remembered that that he couldn’t read so he asked Jack to read it.
“Okay, well, first there’s a note that says ‘In the narration of Tom Sawyer’” Jack said, “And then the chapter begins.”
Chapter 32
I had just found out that the reading of Miss Watson’s will was scheduled for that very hour. We all gathered—most of our town came, except Huck’s father and a few others. We were in the courthouse when Judge Thatcher called things to order. He started to speak.
“We are all very sad that Miss Watson had to go, but she was an old woman, and it was her time. I will now begin the reading of Miss Watson’s will:
‘To my sister, I leave my house and money.
To the church, I leave my bible.
To the Sawyers, I leave my books.
And though my life has ended, I feel it right to make other’s lives as full as they can be, so I’m taking this opportunity to free Jim, my former slave, into this world. If fo…’” He was interrupted by the crowd.
Most of her will was as expected, but those last words started quite a murmur! Some people making themselves a little more clear said aloud,
“But ain’t Jim missing? He could be dead for all we know.”
“Why not pass him down to one of us?” said others.
“He could even be potentially harmful,” said some others.
Even though I was probably one of the only ones, I thought it was kind of Miss Watson to free Jim. I just thought it was too bad Jim had run away so soon before he was freed.
“People, people!” said Judge Thatcher “Now I know this might be a little alarming but just wait until you hear this!
‘If for any reason you can not give jim the certificate of his rights (enclosed at the end of my will) ten people (whom I have chosen) must depart and spread the information around. Please, my town, give Jim a life!’”
Judge Thatcher paused while the silent church waiting in anticipation.
“‘Here are the ten people that I found most trust worthy during my life: Jeffrey Linga, Sophia Claoli, Linda Geron, James Neilor, Steve Matson, Matiline Lixie, Adam Mestiel, Alexander E. Cleast, Jack Seron and of course the wonderful Tom Sawyer… Goodbye my town.’”
I was speechless! At that moment in my life I wanted to be called anything but ‘wonderful’ or ‘trustworthy!’ I specifically told myself that this death wouldn’t slow down my life! Here I was not even knowing where I had to go; what if I had to go a thousand miles away?!
I went up to Judge Thatcher and asked “How do we know where to go?” He said that as a child I would be best off going somewhere familiar. The only place I could think of was around my Aunt Sally. It was as simple as that; I was destined to go a thousand miles away.
“Oh gee guys, thats swell! It a hole missin’ chapter a Huck Finn! What d’you reckon we sould do with it?” Asked Bob.
“I know!” exclaimed Dan “Lets give it to Joe!”
“But Joe is dead!” said jack
“Well, lets leave it at his house anyway.” Said Fluffy.
“Ok.”
And so the missing chapter was never found…
Fragment #6: Three dinner guests - age 11
The three people that I would want to invite over for dinner are:
Jet Li, because of his extraordinary martial arts skills I think he would be a great influence for me.
Mark Twain, so I could tell him how I wrote the “missing” chapter of Huckleberry Finn and just because he seems like a kind and funny person.
The third person I would invite over is John Lennon because I love his music and just because he seems like a sweet person.
Fragment #7: Thoughts on “The Pearl” - age 13
George Eliot once said the “The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” In John Steinbeck’s novel The Pearl the protagonist Kino more than sufficiently demonstrates this relation between choices and growth. Kino makes some such decisions with mostly negative outcomes but always with growth on his part.
Your 'fragments' are a treasure.