Slow Motion Moment (Coursera)

The assignment:

I would like you to write what I call a slow motion moment. Write 300-700 words describing an action that takes ten seconds of real time. You may write it from either the first person (I) or the third person (he/she/it/they). No interior monologue is allowed. That means we don’t get to hear what a character is thinking (if a character is indeed present). We can only see what he or she is doing or seeing. It’s important that you stick to only about ten seconds of real time. Jump right into the description with your first line. Do not provide context or describe other events that happened before or after these ten seconds. Remember, you may not allow the character to remember past events, to wonder what is happening elsewhere, or to ruminate in any way. Basically, you are describing only the concrete, material details of the event.

Here’s a snippet of a slow motion moment, from Ian McEwan’s A Child in Time. This is a description of an awful encounter on the road with a truck:

“… He was preparing to overtake when something happened – he did not quite see what – in the region of the lorry’s wheels, a hiatus, a cloud of dust, and then something black and long snaked through a hundred feet toward him. It slapped the windscreen, clung there a moment and was whisked away before he had time to understand what it was. And then… the rear of the lorry made a complicated set of movements, a bouncing and swaying, and slewed in a wide spray of spark, bright even in sunshine. So far Stephen had had time to move his foot towards the brake, time to notice a padlock swinging on a loose flange, and ‘Wash Me Please’ scrawled in grime.’”

Some events – like car accidents – do seem to occur in slow motion. Often they are momentous. But they do not have to be as dramatic as a car crash – take for example, the first glimpse of the person you would someday marry. Here are some examples of other interesting events that take less than 10 seconds, which you could describe. Feel free to steal one of these, or make up your own!

Getting slapped

Hitting a deer with a car

Going downhill on a rollercoaster

A kiss

Pulling a trigger

My Submission:

The air around Jackson immediately fled upwards as the water rapidly surrounded him on all sides, filling in the space where the air had once been. It poured into place as his body sank further into the water. The force of his jump into the previously calm pool caused millions of bubbles of air to rush upwards, released like small, rapidly ascending beads of light as the sun shone through them. Jackson opened his eyes quickly enough to see the bubbles rise, looking like shooting stars in an alien world, all heading towards the air above him. The floor of the pool danced with electric light as if pulsating with energy. The cool water muted the world around him, and he quickly hit the bottom with his body. Holding on to his breath, Jackson slowly rose again towards the surface of the water, floating upwards as if gravity had suddenly lost all its power over him.

His back broke through the surface. The cool air mixed with the warmth of the midday sun and gently blew over him. He lifted his head out of the water and took in a deep, slow breath as he slowly treaded his way to the shallow side of the pool. When he felt his feet meet the bottom of the pool, he paused and looked into the fir trees surrounding his backyard, slowly bending in the wind.

Result:

The assignments are peer-reviewed. Even though I missed the minimal word count, I received a passing score of 1 out of 1 point.