The idea for this piece sprouted entirely from the first line. That happens sometimes, you know; something sticks in your head and there's only one thing to do with it. Before you know, it's spiraling outwards into 900 words. Speaking of numbers, I have no idea how to treat them when writing. I've long thought they look better when written out, but when confronted with a number like 300,000 that takes so long to get through either way, I haven't a clue. Speaking of things looking better a certain way, I don't use quotation marks to signify dialogue, because I think they look weird and break up the flow of a sentence's aesthetics, so I use a capital letter instead to signify the start of dialogue. I also don't separate it out from the structure of the paragraph. I know it looks like a typo. I know it's easy to get halfway into a sentence of dialogue and not realize—I like it that way. People I consider Real Authors do this sometimes; admittedly, they do it better than I do. Maybe it's just a phase, maybe I'll grow out of it. Or get better at it. Some young people experiment with their sexuality while they're finding their place in the world; I swear off quotation marks.
It is appropriate that they were testing the air raid/tornado warning sirens while I was writing this, because that is one sound that I closely identify with my grandfather's era. Schoolchildren diving under their desks in grainy black and white, as if that would protect them from a nuclear blast. Would it be better, in that scenario, to just sit there patiently and confront your firey radioactive demise with a bit of dignity? As far as my own subjective perceptions of dignity go, my grandfather didn't die a very dignified death. He didn't go out in a blaze of pointless glory, but he sure wasn't going to let a quaint concept like dignity get in the way of staying alive as long as possible. Up until his very last, the very last thing he was going to do was accept that he was going to die. On the occasions when we could understand his speech, he spoke almost exclusively of leaving the hospital. He was always asking what car we came in, to gauge whether there was room for him and the specter that loomed overhead. He treated the hospital like a prison, which it was in many ways, but he also treated his ailments—and by extension, his life—as a prison of their own. I think it is regrettably natural to have a hard time accepting that that is one prison from which there is no escape.
Style guides answer those pesky questions about numbers and quotation marks, Steven. In this class, we rely on AP style, which tells us that ages are always written as numerals; spell out whole numbers below 10 and use figures for 10 and above. Don't randomly capitalize. Use quotations to signify verifiable direct quotes. If you're paraphrasing, summarizing or relying on memory, don't use quotes and don't use it in dialogue.
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