#8 Rhetorical Question

#8 Rhetorical Questions: Write a fragment of story using mostly rhetorical questions. You can write a plain vanilla sentence that is not a rhetorical question every five or six sentences. 500 words:

Why does the summer taste so delicious? Why doesn’t it when it doesn’t? Who cares? He didn’t. Why care about summer tasting like anything? Why care in general? Isn’t caring for bears? He loved that cartoon growing up, owned about fifty of them. Why can’t the summer taste like care bears? What do care bears taste like? If a care bear falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does anyone care?

His line of thinking was taking a turn for the deranged, he knew, but what else could he do?

What is the essence of a question? What is the essence of their answers? Why does the world revolve constantly around questions and answers? Ultimately, do any of the answers matter? Do answers tell people where to go, what to do? If all it took were questions and answers, why were things so horrifically messy right now?

He thumbed through the pages of the novel, trying to concentrate on the typeface, trying to make the odd assortment of letters form into words and sentences and thoughts and maybe even some answers but probably just more questions.

What if there were no more questions asked ever? What if the answers simply appeared without being prompted or invoked? What if they grew on trees, were raised in farms, some of them organic and insanely overpriced? What if low income areas suffered from a lack of answers because the residents weren’t wealthy enough to afford them? Were answers the ultimate answer? Were questions obsolete?

The tea kettle on the stove started to announce its presence, screaming that his water was ready, ready ready ready READY READY READY.

If water boils in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it eventually give up? If a person keeps asking questions, and nobody is around to answer, do they eventually give up? Why give up? Why give up your time? Why give up your money? Why not go live in the forest? Would living in the forest give you the answers?

He poured the hot water over Earl Grey as the questions continued to surface and swirl, turning off the burner and slowly walking back to the sofa, sitting, once again picking up the book that was supposed to be so much better when read while drinking a cup of Earl Grey.

Which was it better to obey, the letter of the law or the meaning? Which was it better to follow, your head or your heart? Which was it better to have, love or wealth? Did everything have to be binary? Did life have to be split into question/answer, love/wealth, head/heart?

How did things get so serious? How did philosophy come from carebears? How did he get here, in this apartment, drinking this tea, thinking these thoughts? Why did summer have to be so inquisitorial? Nobody expects the summer inquisition.

Why did he have to be so weird? Why couldn’t he ask normal questions with normal answers? Why didn’t he have the normal answers? Why wasn’t he normal?