Stoner

Letter to Benjamin
Dear Benjamin, Hi! It's been a while; actually a really long while. I haven't tried to contact you or be near you since that night at your movie showing (which I hear was amazing); in fact, I avoided you at every cost. Well, now that I see your name everywhere, in all the movies I chose to see at the theatre, I decided I should write to you and tell you the one thing I never did. As a big movie director in Hollywood I am sure you see people in worse shape than I was in high school. But believe me, I now realize I was in pretty bad shape. In high school, life just isn't fair though. I couldn't deal with it. There are those who can (you) and those who can't (me). So I escaped...into oblivion. After wasting my high school life in a blurry fog, induced by who knows what, I finally had the realization of what my life was like for the past 6 years. Booze, drugs, partying, the list goes on. But one day, as I sat in an almost empty movie theatre, I saw your name flash on the screen...Directed by... and I freaked out. You tried to save me. You tried to love me. You tried to see me for someone I could be. That day, I quit. Cold turkey. Quit it all. So after all these years, your words and actions finally came through to me. And for that, Benjamin, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Forever indebted to you, Colleen

Obituary/ eulogy for Colleen Minou Today we remember the life and beauty of Colleen Minou. She was a young girl, almost a woman at the unlucky time of her death. She was a free spirit, doing what she wanted whenever she wanted to do it. We were never quite sure what kind of state she would be in, her couldn’t quit her love of drugs or alcohol, her sometimes only solace in this life. She was sober for a few months with the sympathetic help of her friend Ben, but unfortunately it didn’t last long. She went back to her old ways, drinking and drugs which brings us to her death. She was found last Saturday morning in her boyfriend’s car, dead from an overdose. She supposedly went over to a friend’s house, had a few beers, but wanted to leave and so she “borrowed” her boyfriend’s car and drove to a hill overlooking the city. She then decided to take a few hits of cocaine and mixed it with a few bottles of beer. The time of death has not been stated from the police yet, but it looks as though it was only an hour before they arrived at the scene. We are hoping that she was not in too much pain. You will be missed, Colleen. So sorry that we couldn’t help you in the way that you needed.

I choose to use the obituary/ eulogy style of writing for my response because I felt like if the story were to continue, this would be the next step for Colleen. She seemed to be on the path of self destruction and it wouldn’t end until she died. I feel like this genre response would be a way to use a creative outlet and use my own mind to continue the story with what I was left with in the end. I think that most people would say that Colleen would die an early death because she didn’t really care about anything or herself. I think that by recognizing some main points from the book one could still take this piece to a personal creative level. The way that I did this was by mentioning her love of drugs and drinking, how she tried to quit once with the help of her friend Ben and how she eventually went back to her old ways. By adding her death to the mix, the obituary is the obvious choice for writing this story.~Kayla