The Most Disturbing Thing I Wrote in Elementary School

By Lee Kirschner

Looking back on one’s old assignments can be a rather humbling process, as I’ve learned these past few weeks. There are certain things in there that you wish you could just unsee, and your mental image of yourself becomes significantly altered. One that contributed to this feeling was a story entitled “Attack From a Sack.” Before I provide any context, I just wanted to put it out there that this was written as a personal narrative. 

The premise of the story centered around a dream I’d had a few years before I wrote this (which was circa third or fourth grade). It was Harry Potter themed, because of course. In the dream, I arrived home from a Harry Potter type quest, and people were throwing a party to celebrate my return. Someone led me over to a corner where there was this line of sacks that looked sort of like the ones you use in potato-sack races–I have truly no idea why. Anyway, I opened the first sack and boom!--Voldemort jumped out and attacked me. I started running and at some point I essentially just hid under blankets waiting for him to kill me, and that was when I woke up. 

To make things minimally better, I clarified that this was a dream when I wrote and recorded my personal narrative. Yes, recorded!--that was part of the assignment. I had to make a video of myself reading my narrative for my peers to comment on. Of course, theirs were all of more normal topics–a visit to the beach, a friend moving away. I distinctly remember watching theirs and having no self-awareness whatsoever how unusual mine was. Oh yes, a jellyfish sting, a soccer game, a dream about Voldemort jumping out of a sack and attacking you…all very normal stories for an elementary schooler to write. 

Anyway: if you’re planning to dig through your old school assignments, for whatever reason…proceed with caution.