In the desert stood a small and polite town. The low-slung houses nestled in beside each other burned a crisp white in the noon sun.
The stripes were not so visible on the back of his neck as across his little bare arms.
The sun was still high but the shadows were casting further by the hour.
His clothes, covered in torn holes revealing a constellation of scabby scars mixed with brown and purple markings.
The boy in the pram held on to the balloon’s ribbon so tightly with his chubby little fist that the skin around his knuckles began to pale and blotch. His eyes remained fixed on the balloon above him as his eldest brother pushed him through the maze of deserted streets. The sun was high but the narrow rows of flat-topped houses three or four stories high cast welcome shelter from the sun.
They headed toward a bright opening cut into the cool shadow between two glistening blue and white houses. The dust was kicking up and onto the main street. The street was just as empty as the others, but wider and the sun came beating down on them both.
The boy never let his eyes move from the big red balloon. Soon the black asphalt of the street became gritty and then a little further paled with dust and then great washes of sand slowed the wheels of the pram to a near halt.
The boy’s brother bent his back into the pram and looking straight down he felt his feet slide around in his shoes as he pushed and when they reached the heavier drifts he turned the pram about and pulled. His head beaded with sweat stung his eyes. He stopped for a moment to choose an easier path through the sand but the street ahead was getting deeper with it. Deep between the houses.
The boy’s brother looked down at the boy and then up to the bobbing balloon and th...
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...he last ray of sun and burst into a burning red with a golden crest right the way around it. The little boy opened his fist and let the ribbon run between his thumb and for finger and the balloon was free. First it went up and then caught by some turbulent wind was thrown down toward the ground and just before it hit it swung up again and flew off toward the town. Still very low, it trailed over the roofs weaving between television aerials and became very small and then it cut a shadow against the sky that became a dot and then it was gone. The little boy watched after it.
The little boy sat back down in the pram and found the freshest sandwich and took a bite and chewed and then put it away again. His brother pulled the wide cork stopper from the wine bottle and gave it to the little boy. The boy took a swig and made a face of disgust and then took another swig.
Filban said the home had a yard that was overgrown. “The trees and bushes were overgrown, and the house was dark,” Filban said. “And the windows were covered.” She and her sister slept in the front bedroom of the house. She remembers the bedroom having a large, floor-to-ceiling window. She said you could look out and see the wra...
Lucie Brock-Broido’s “The Halo That Would Not Light” is a poem about the loss of childhood and its inevitable end. When one is born “the (raptor’s) beak (lets) loose of you” (ll 1-2), and drops your tiny body into the “scarab-colored hollow” (ll 3-4). The raptor letting the tiny body loose into the scarab colored hollow alludes to the old nursery stories of the stork delivering babies in cribs for their new families. When children are young they often have positive outlooks on the world and believe that everything is possible, like the magic in the “hollow hat” (l 13) or the “cardboard box” (l 5). They believe strongly in all in possible wonders of the world and it isn't until their “endless childhood” is finally “done” that they loose the
Imagine a teenage boy who is isolated on a faraway island, without food or water. The hot and sticky weather is intolerable, but the rampaging storms are worse. He quickly develops malaria and diarrhea, and on top of that, blood-sucking insects and menacing reptiles lurch beneath his feet. He has no idea what is coming, but he needs to survive. This is the story of a young boy who has to travel to the other side of the world to realize that everything can’t go his way.
already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones were bare; his arms had been attacked in several
His mouth spread open slowly and his chest rose as he breathed in a deep, lazy yawn. He stretched his thin arms high above him, and smiled as he felt his muscles tense. He fisted his hands and rubbed them over his eyes to help unglue his lids stuck shut. His eyes received handfuls of dirt and the boy blinked wildly to cleanse them out.
My brother and I push the rusty metal of the way and we climb through the hole and finally we start running. The guy starts chasing us then my brother and I climb over a fence and run into the forest. When me and my brother go into the forest we find this dog. My brother say’s it’s so cute then I say do you want to keep him and my brother say’s yes. So we start walking with the dog then we see the dust and we try to find a place to hide. Then the dog runs away and my brother and “I say comeback.”
A red balloon floats from the boy’s grasp, as tears run down his face, all of the boys around him hit him and pull at his things. All except one, who stands in the back, Jon Huntman, He doesn’t understand why his childish need for torture and fun have subsided, he just felt pity for the boy. Years then past, his feelings of love and regret grew stronger each year. He no longer wanted pain for others, he had a good job and a wife, and he felt bad for past deeds and wanted to correct his wrongdoings. One day in his late 30’s he went to the boy’s house whom he had stood and watch get bullied, and hung a red balloon on his door. Growing mentally and becoming a better person is the best thing about growing up, as Jon did.
The narrator was eight years old and her brother was three when her mother died. They were raised by their father, maternal grandfather, and an old ranch hand named Chubb on land fenced in order to keep other people's cattle out and the wilderness in. On some nights, she recalls, the two children would go running through the moonlight, “through owl-call and cricket-chirp and frog-bellow… There is no other way to explain it: we'd run until Mother was alive. It was like blowing air on a fire, bringing coals to flame. We'd run until we ignited… in her presence. Something was out there - something just beyond” (104).
Around midnight on the fourth day, the boy and his family members awakened again. This time they went with the family of the house's owner to a bus station where they took the bus going northward. The boy was very happy because he was free at last to play as a normal child again. On the way, everybody was fascinated and hypnotized by the scenery along the road, especially the kids because it was the first time they had left the cosmopolitan city for the countryside.
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
They all went to the window and looked outside. The crayons outside were running around and screaming uncontrollably. In the distance they saw the edge of the cloud getting closer and closer to them. Crayons of all colors were falling off the cloud left and right. Disappearing into the ground. There was nothing anyone could do to stop that.
After a long day’s journey on the road for time that never ticked, I slowly opened my eyes that weighed about a pound of bricks. The morning light glowed through the curtains as I tried to get out of bed. Shaking like a leaf on a tree, I finally found the strength to rise up and gather my clothes for the long exciting day ahead.
First of all the boy learns that life throws many curves. All the boy can think about a...
The light from the sun reflects off the pure white wall, illuminating the room. The dust floats, undisturbed by the empty house. This is what I see as I launch myself out the door, into the hot summer air, into the sounds of playing children.
As I walked I let my eyes close and my feet feel the groove in the gravel. My mind, still asleep, dreamt of breathing. The lining of my father's old coat escaped inside the pockets and caught my fingers, which were numb from the cold. I would have worn gloves but the sun would be unbearable later in the day. The clouds would rise over the mountains and disappear and the birds would slowly become silent as the heat settled in. But for now it was just cold. I tried to warm my neck by breathing down the collar. It smelled like diesel and sweat.