The ground rumbled and shook as the 9:30 Friday night, frightfreight train barreled down the east side tracks. The grinding snarl and rhythmic clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack grew louder as the engine pulled its cars along the slaloming S-curve that cut across Old Route 22. The cry of the whistle began its lone, sorrowful warning as the train approached the road. Everyone in town called the crossing Dead Man’s Curve. The whistle wailed on for what seemed an eternity as the intersection was pierced by the light of the locomotive, and the rumbling cars swooshed through the chill night air.
A flurry of bats rose into the gloaming, their twilight feast briefly interrupted, before settling back to the serious task of catching and consuming a million swarming bugs plucked right out of thin air. Their sheer winged shadows made a moving lacework across the silvered quarter moon rising silently above the inky black lake. Most of the village houses rose dark and dormant around the lake. A few cast streaks of golden light across the softly rippling water from their windows. Only one lone cottage was set back against the rising foothillfoot hill on this side
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She staggered as she tried to keep the mug from slipping over the edge and pouring the dredges left in the bottom onto the thinning weave of the rug. In her little bout of indulgence, she had forgotten to hold herself in her shadowform. Her body had thickened, grown heavier and more present than she should have allowed. So much present that the cup did, in fact, slide over the edge, clunk to the floor, and spill the last few dregs onto the floorboards.. The thunk woke the bird, which Youngest had always always, always longed to stroke and hug and become friends with. But, whenwithhich Patience, assured her was very much against the
When she was gone, he lay for some time staring at the water stains on the gray walls. Descending from the top moulding, long icicle shapes had been etched by leaks and, directly over his bed on the ceiling, another leak had made a fierce bird with spread wings. It had an icicle crosswise in its beak and there were smaller icicles depending from its wings and tail. It had been there since his childhood and had always irritated him and sometimes had frightened him. He had often had the illusion that it was in motion about to descend mysteriously and set the icicle on his head. He closed his eyes and thought: I won't have to look at it for many more days. And presently he went to sleep. (93)
The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s pleasure hurried to dress himself that might it sooner begin. He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must really be made to tell. Here she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is torn and tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the sportsman stand in the door together and question her, and the splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh. But Sylvia
Reinhardt, Richard. Workin' on the Railroad; Reminiscences from the Age of Steam. Palo Alto, CA: American West Pub., 1970. Print.
3.?Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its rings of crimping-pins. To Ethan, s...
“I didn’t see—anybody. There wasn’t nothing, but a bunch of steers—and the barbed wire fence.” (94) His desperation and loneliness overpowering all, Adams takes up his initial idea of running down the hitchhiker, but his momentary traveling companion does not see the victim, claiming he was never there. Now in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the hitchhiker doesn’t wait for Adams to make a stop before appearing; his form and face flit by every other mile. (96) Learning of his mother’s prostration and the death of Ronald Adams, the protagonist leaves the audience with his last thought: Somewhere among them, he is waiting for me. Somewhere I shall know who he is, and who . . . I . . . am . . .” (97) Alone, without the willpower to fight for survival, the main character fades into a mist of doubt and helplessness.
...ces an extensive dialogue within the text with an image of the train, arousing a modern anxiety of doom: the destructive capabilities of rapidly growing technology are seizing an innocent and aweless existence.
Patrick’s muscle tightens as hear Mary coming closer to him. Is she suspecting something? He thought nervously, what should I do now? What should I say? He was lost in his thoughts when Mary walked up behind him and swung the big frozen leg of lamb on the back of his head. Patrick’s vision suddenly when darken and t-- to the ground with the sounds of overturning tables and crashing
else was able to see. The parents of the victim "Hope" were filled with revenge
Reading and understanding literature is not as easy as it sounds. Being able to dissect each piece of information and connect it to the overall theme of the story takes lots of rereading and critical thinking. Reading the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes lots of critical thinking and understanding the literature in a different point of view than the average reader would. The theme of this particular story quickly came to mind after initially concluding the reading, the author is trying to convey that nobody can escape death and how thoughts in the mind are so substantial in the consciousness that it can take over the reality. The author comes to this theme by incorporating specific literary elements such a symbol, irony, and narration. These are important because they make up the theme by bringing the necessary elements together.
The second level was as a messenger of religion, a messenger of God. For the
One of the more romantic elements of American folklore has been the criss-crossing rail system of this country – steel rails carrying Americans to new territories across desert and mountain, through wheat fields and over great rivers. Carl Sandburg has flavored the mighty steam engine in elegant prose and Arlo Guthrie has made the roundhouse a sturdy emblem of America’s commerce.
Lucille Fletcher’s story “The Hitchhiker”, is a story that creates fear in the hearts of some people. And not just any fear, a fear that would impel even the strongest man to go insane. The main character, Ronald Adams, had that fear, with seeing a hitchhiker more than ten times drove him to almost getting hit by a train. Fletcher creates an effective, and suspenseful story, with the use of elemental plots.
As I waited for the 6 train, I walked to the spot to get on, calculated purposefully to the exit of my final destination stop. To ignore the homeless people in the way of where I am going, I turn my music louder, look down, and walk faster. Once I arrived at the stop, I grounded my feet at where I presumed the train doors would open so I will be the first to get on. As usual, I was the first to step onto the train. I went in slowly, snooping for a seat. As I looked down the row of people, like stalks of corn, I was pushed. Shoved into the train by hands clinging onto my shirt, I looked back in disgust. An old lady, arms still stretched from pushing me, looked back and mouthed, “Thank you.” Furious, I thought, did she really just thank me
About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes---a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars cr...
As the first rays of the sun peak over the horizon, penetrating the dark, soft light illuminates the mist rising up from the ground, forming an eerie, almost surreal landscape. The ground sparkles, wet with dew, and while walking from the truck to the barn, my riding boots soak it in. The crickets still chirp, only slower now. They know that daytime fast approaches. Sounds, the soft rustling of hooves, a snort, and from far down the aisle a sharp whinny that begs for breakfast, inform me that the crickets are not the only ones preparing for the day.