Analysis Of Blowing Up On The Spot

The short story “Blowing up on the Spot” by Kevin Wilson, is made to be magical fiction. The protagonist, Leonard, has a very lonely life in the short story, his little brother Caleb, is a talented swimmer with issues of his own since the passing of his parents. Joan, who is the girl he sees every evening after Leonard returns home from work is his only friend he seems to have, who is always there to talk to him. Leonard learns to find himself and forget the daily struggles of his over bearing life, allowing him to become who he wants to be again. Learning to love what you what you have in life, and to stop living in fear of what is to come. Leonard lives a lifestyle that is pointless and repetitive. His parents died due to spontaneous human …show more content…
Leonard always plays different scenarios of how his parents would have combusted. Some of them they were in an argument right before, others they were having a great night and in love as he thought they should be. There are so many ways Leonard is going through so many mentally defeating parts in his life with such little to hold on to. He now counts his steps everywhere he goes in order to avoid thinking that he is going to be the next person who combusts. His brother whom he had to take watch over, has become suicidal since the tragic event. Leonard works at a scrabble factory, where he has to sort through rooms of tiles that have the letter “Q” on them. He walks to and from work daily, still counting his steps, he lives a “. . . boring and unhappy life” (Wilson 27), and has no purpose. …show more content…
Without her, he would have been repeating his daily routine for the rest of his life. He needed someone or something to break his cycle of daily routines. Living in fear the way he did was never going to get him anywhere in life. As he and Joan talked about his parents it can only be assumed that she was the first person Leonard decided to speak to about the matter. He was unhappy and had no plans to change that at all, sometimes all a person needs is someone to hear them out in order to break a barrier that they have set for themselves. Now that Leonard has visited his parents’ tombstone, and thought of good memories he has finally let go and moved on. “There new things, good things, that I can see for the first time in a while. It makes me smile the finally understand this, that we only have the things that we are given, and we must be thankful for them, the tiny, almost imperceptible feeling on our fingertips” (Wilson 43). Leonard finally got a fresh start by letting love enter his life, being thankful for everything he still has, and no longer fearing what he cannot