Response to "Incarnations of Burned Children"

The story starts off as a peaceful normal day until a shrill scream cuts through the air. The Daddy (as the man is referred to throughout the entire story) rushes in to check on the noise. He finds his child wailing and the Mommy trying to calm the baby down. The Daddy pushes her aside and tends to the baby, which is where we find out that scalding water had been dropped onto him. The story flows as a constant stream of events. Long sentences filled with conjunctions makes up most of the story and the entire three page story is only one paragraph long. The way the story rushes through the story helps build a sort of tension in the reader. The characters are never truly named other than with words such as Daddy and Mommy which gives the story a type of disconnect that I think works. There is no dialogue in the story, which adds to this. The only time we hear anything about speaking is when we hear about the mother says “their God’s first name.” It makes the situation the parents are in seem much more urgent. The Daddy skims over some details but the detail put into the wounds that the child has received it very clear. We see the child’s skin turning pink from where the scalding water had washed over him. The child’s screaming becoming hoarse as the parents realize that the water had spilled into the diaper. The Daddy then picks up the baby to rush him off to the ER. He leaves with the baby, “burning rubber” from his tires as he speeds through town, leaving the door to his home swinging open as he rushes out. The Daddy seems to be very annoyed by the Mommy’s inattentiveness and the fact she allowed the baby to be hurt.