Connecting with Stefani Freele’s “People Who Sit In the Car While Someone Else Runs In”

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we often forget about how the everyday motions of the world can play a part in our lives. A simple trip to the store gives you a glimpse into the lives of dozens of strangers. You observe their behavior and wonder what their lives may be like. I know that I myself do this type of thing all the time.

Stefani Freele’s story in Volume 17, number 3 of Five Points does a great job of describing this very feeling. Her narration of a simple trip to the grocery store becomes an in-depth look at the lives of everyday people that you could see anywhere. There is no need for overt details, which serve as nothing more than fillers.

Through her short, direct descriptions we get a sort of in the moment playback of the surroundings that we have all experienced before. I think that this aspect of her writing is what makes her story so compelling. The narration itself is told from an observant perspective. We don’t get names or personality traits, but somehow readers can easily relate to the scene being described on the page. We’ve all been the person running into the store, who apparently is the one witnessing all the action, or the person who sits in the car and watches everything from a distance.

Freele’s story is simple, yet incredibly captivating in its simplicity. The images she provides on the page are incredibly vivid to the reader and set the scene perfectly. We get to see everything from the front seat of that car, and Freele even makes it so that the reader could imagine any scene they want. The story is almost interactive in the way it makes the reader feel as if they are a part of the story, rather than just reading it off the page.

Te’Anah Owens is currently studying Creative Writing at Georgia State University.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.