Sammy, lurking in the shadows of a dark alley, waited for his next “subject.” Seeing a familiar face he sprung from his hiding exclaiming, “Alexis! How are you?”
Alexis, turned to her friend and said, “Just a mo’ gal, gotta’ go talk to this…boy.”
Sammy, offering a hand said, “Alexis, who’s your friend? “
Before Alexis could reply, her friend stepped forward, took a look at Sammy’s hand, but did not reach out to it. She looked Sammy in the eye and said, “They call me Mariah, who you be?”
“Samuel Charles Kingston Landermier the Fifth, at your service, madam,” Sammy said with a little bow.
“Yeah, quite the charmer, this one is,” Mariah said as she looked at Alexis and rolled her eyes while pretending to gag.
“Enough chit-chat ladies, now if you would come with me,” Sammy said as he beckoned them towards the alley with a flick of his hand.
“Oh, no way am I goin’ down there!” Alexis shrieked.
“Yeah I gotta agree wit’ my gal, here, there is no way I am placin’ a foot in that filthy place!” Mariah said in a forceful tone.
“Very well, all the better that there are witnesses,” Sammy said. He noticed the look Mariah and Alexis shared between each other –utter fear. All it took was a simple glance to communicate such a strong emotion. Sammy paused, but then continued, “So, do you young women know anything about active or passive voice?”
“There is nothin’ wrong wit’ my voice!” Mariah answered. Then, noticeably unhappy with her distraught answer, added, “Scum.”
“Okay, so you both, hopefully, know that the voice of a verb shows whether or not the subject is performing the action. A verb is in the active voice when its subject performs the action. A verb is in the passive voice when the subject isn’t performing the action,” Sammy said happily, “Let’s do an example, it that okay with you two?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever it takes,” Alexis said as she took a small and unnoticeable step away from Sammy. Mariah offered a mere grunt.
“‘Steve built the house.’ This is active voice because the subject, ‘Steve’, is performing the action. Here’s another: ‘The house was built by Steve.’ The person doing the action is now an object of a preposition, and is no longer the subject. Well, that’s all for now girls, too-da-loo!” Sammy said as he shrank back into the shadows.
Mariah and Alexis turned and walked away, when Alexis said, “Wow, that wasn’t so bad. I’ve heard rumors about him being mean and crazy, but things aren’t that bad.”
“Yeah,” Mariah added, “He seemed a bit like he’d lost his marbles, but fo’ the most part, he seemed sane. You know, besides his obsession wit’ verbs.”
Back in the alley, Sammy was skipping around singing in a strained voice, “Verbs, verbs, verbs! I love verbs! They make the world go round, round, round! Verbs, verbs, verbs, verbs, verbs, verbs! Oh how I love their sound! Verbs, verbs, verbs…”
YOU ARE READING
The Verb Story
Short StoryLook, I know a bunch of you will see the title and be like "Eeew verbs. I am NOT reading about THAT." Well, give it a chance, will you? I promise it won't feel like you're in school. So, I'm going to let the description be after this, to see how man...
