“God, please give me your blessing” Andy whispered, standing before the small white two story country house in the anxious dark of the night. The dim lights from the curtain drawn windows cast a warm look over the lawn before him. There was only one thing on Andy's mind. He hadn't seen his daughter Cat in months, and only bad news filtered through to him from the tiny countryside town's residents. His daughter's life was more important than his own. There were multiple ways this could all end, yet none looked good. Andy was going to end it here and now, his terms, his way.
Andy's shin-high leather boots quietly crushed the gravel and dirt beneath him as he slowly walked towards the house and up the steps of the old worn front porch. There could have been someone sitting on the swinging dark white bench amongst the shadows for all he could see, but Andy crept forward; his eyes only focused on the door.
The cracked white paint chips and slightly rotten wood of the front door blasted into the house, as Andy's boot bashed the doorknob, like the crackling sound of a hammer striking the back end of a bullet in it's chamber. The soft light of the living room hurt Andy's eyes for only an instant. The young man standing in the living room next to his wife, turned slowly towards Andy as if the air had turned into a thick gel. The youthful woman in the rocking chair held her baby to her breast, not making a sound. It was her eyes that reacted to Andy's sudden intrusion, becoming wide with shock.
Point and pull. The slug from Andy's shotgun instantly turned the young man's face into a bloody mess of meat and bone. That beautiful face that once preached to the small circle of members in their “church” was now utterly destroyed. Blood and sk...
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...ng politics with him in their home back in Oklahoma. He saw her on sunny graduation day laughing with her other university classmates. So happy. So bright. But this faded young woman before him was his daughter now. Andy’s tears wet the hair of his grandson as he gently kissed the baby’s forehead. He then weakly turned to kiss his daughter’s forehead. “Come back to us…” he whispered with strained breath. Andy let his body weight slowly pull him to the floor, his back soaking in the warmth of his own blood. The blue and red police lights flashed through the second floor bedroom window, alternately lighting up the face of the resting father, the hollow daughter and the baby. Streaming through the bullet holes in the wall, the cool fresh outside air soothed Andy’s failing lungs. The strength went out of Andy’s body as he closed his eyes and prayed softly, “God save us.”
The night was tempestuous and my emotions were subtle, like the flame upon a torch. They blew out at the same time that my sense of tranquility dispersed, as if the winds had simply come and gone. The shrill scream of a young girl ricocheted off the walls and for a few brief seconds, it was the only sound that I could hear. It was then that the waves of turmoil commenced to crash upon me. It seemed as though every last one of my senses were succumbed to disperse from my reach completely. As everything blurred, I could just barely make out the slam of a door from somewhere alongside me and soon, the only thing that was left in its place was an ominous silence.
After feeling ostracised by the township, the alienated Brennan family are driven to leave the town of Mumbilli at 4:30am. With hardly any peer support, Tom begins to lose his sense of security, resulting in his transformation into an unconfident teen who is afraid of public opinion. It is no wonder that Tom is unable to move on in his new town as he is being held back in fear of revealing his past. Burke tactfully illustrates Tom’s emotional kaleidoscope through phrases such as “I felt the knot snap” and “my guts landing at my feet” (Burke, pg 172) when reflecting on the accident. On the contrary, with encouragement from family members, Tom begins to step out of his comfort zone and face the future that is to come.
Filled with a plethora of themes and convictions, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men excels in its endeavor to maintain the reader’s mind racing from cover to cover. The setting is the Texas-Mexico boarder; the story embodying a modernized western-themed Greek tragedy filled with drug runners and automatic weapons. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran, finds himself on the run from forces that seem to be an instrument of karmic consequence. While on the run, Llewelyn is given the opportunity to end the madness that has arisen so immediately in his life. But he doesn’t. Instead he braves on, defying his own advice, and persistent on luck, only leaving him a misfortunate ending. To fully recognize the circumstance the novel surrounds itself in the reader must digress into the thoughts of the town’s Sheriff, an old vet just like Llewelyn, named Ed Tom Bell. From there and with a deep analysis of Llewelyn Moss, McCarthy succors light to why such an assessment was made amongst the lawless violence that has entered this town.
John cleared his throat and continued, “At 10:55 Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated,” A unanimous gasp rose among all the men. Pure shock, that’s the only emotion I felt at hearing this devastating news. I had followed Harvey Milk’s career since he had been elected roughly a year earlier. Harvey Milk being the first openly gay man elected to public office had made tremendous leaps for the gay community. “I’m giving you all the rest of the day off to call your families and tell them you love them. In times like this it’s important to remember and cherish the things that we do have,” Everyone dispersed, gathered their things and began to file out of the door. I stayed where I was too stunned to move. Soon John and I were the only people left in the
Destiny stayed in one the most dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit. A couple days couldn’t past, without seeing or hearing about a fight or killing. She feared walking home from school everyday. She was seventeen years old, a senior in high school, who could only read at an eighth grade level. Since her mom was never really around, she would have to stay home from school to look after her baby sister.
The contrast between the, “boyish”, junior officer his mother had shown him in photo and the roughness he had witnessed absolutely, “mortified”, him. He even questioned his father’s right to belong in his mother’s household. However, he later proceeds to describes his father’s initial perception of him being a, “beamish three-year old he might have not looked forward to,” and states that his father was, “obviously unused to children anyway.” The similarity between the father’s initial view of his own son and his initial reaction to his father’s arrival serve as foreshadowing to his conclusion made in the third segment of the
Suddenly her bed was empty. Her room was empty. The nametag on her door was gone. Annie slept most of the weekend and, one day, just didn’t wake up. She was gone. I was shattered. ================
Over the coming months, Alice faces her friends and family, who look and treat her differently after the rape. She faces the criticism from her family and fellow officials who question the act. Sebold deals with th...
Suffering from the death of a close friend, the boy tries to ignore his feelings and jokes on his sister. His friend was a mental patient who threw himself off a building. Being really young and unable to cope with this tragedy, the boy jokes to his sister about the bridge collapsing. "The mention of the suicide and of the bridge collapsing set a depressing tone for the rest of the story" (Baker 170). Arguments about Raisinettes force the father to settle it by saying, "you will both spoil your lunch." As their day continues, their arguments become more serious and present concern for the father who is trying to understand his children better. In complete agreement with Justin Oeltzes’ paper, "A Sad Story," I also feel that this dark foreshadowing of time to come is an indication of the author’s direct intention to write a sad story.
Before the day of Peter Houghton’s school shooting, Alex Cormier worked as a high-ranking judge at the local court. As a former public defender, Alex worked hard to earn this new position. Alex, a single working mother, told a coworker “but I’m good at being a judge. And lousy at being a mother” (Picoult 297). She felt more comfortable from a judicial standpoint than a parental standpoint, which affected her daughter negatively because Josie needed her mother’s true physical presence and emotional support. Josie did not need the stress of her mother trying the case, but instead needed the tender love that Alex does not feel she can give. Alex excelled at “transforming herself into the person she needed to be before she left the house,” (Picoult 5) incidentally pushing her daughter out of her tight circle of importance. Alex then becomes stuck in the mi...
David staggers into the kitchen of the old wooden home where his wife is washing the dishes. As she scrubs a pot he can see that she is raw with exhaustion and jittery with coffee. David holds the letter out to his wife, not wanting to meet her eyes. He stammers that it’s time to move and sell the farm, ashamed that there is no other option. When his wife lifts her head from the notice, the turmoil he was feeling was not reflected in her face.
The phone fell from the woman's hand, landing with a loud crash on the tile floor and busting to pieces. No matter how hard she'd try, she couldn't help the sobs that escaped from her mouth. They became louder and louder, until suddenly they came to a stop. All emotion flooded from her body, and she lay there motionless on the tile. Her two young children hovering over her, fear evident in their eyes. She sat up, grabbing her two young children into her arms, hugging them tighter than she ever had.
I wearily drag myself away from the silken violet comforter and slump out into the living room. The green and red print of our family’s southwestern style couch streaks boldly against the deep blues of the opposing sitting chairs, calling me to it. Of course I oblige the billowy haven, roughly plopping down and curling into the cushions, ignoring the faint smell of smoke that clings to the fabric. My focus fades in and out for a while, allowing my mind to relax and unwind from any treacherous dreams of the pervious night, until I hear the telltale creak of door hinges. My eyes flutter lightly open to see my Father dressed in smart brown slacks and a deep earthy t-shirt, his graying hair and beard neatly comber into order. He places his appointment book and hair products in a bag near the door signaling the rapid approaching time of departure. Soon he is parading out the door with ever-fading whispers of ‘I love you kid,’ and ‘be good.’
She slammed the door behind her. Her face was hot as she grabbed her new perfume and flung it forcefully against the wall. That was the perfume that he had bought for her. She didn't want it anymore. His voice coaxed from the other side of the door. She shouted at him to get away. Throwing herself on the bed and covering her face with one of his shirts, she cried. His voice coaxed constantly, saying Carol, let me in. Let me explain.' She shouted out no!' Then cried some more. Time passed with each sob she made. When she caught herself, there was no sound on the other side of the door. A long silence stood between her and the door. Maybe she had been too hard on him, she thought. Maybe he really had a good explanation. She hesitated before she walked toward the door and twisted the handle. Her heart was crying out to her at this moment. He wasn't there. She called out his name. "Thomas!" Her cries were interrupted by the revving of an engine in the garage. She made it to the window in time to see his Volvo back out the yard. "Thomas! Thomas....wait!" Her cries vanished into thin air as the Volvo disappeared around the bend. Carol grew really angry all of a sudden. How could he leave? He'll sleep on the couch when he gets back. Those were her thoughts.
There was an impending doom coming to the small town of Calamity. Unbeknownst to the citizens it would come firstly upon a church on the outskirts of a town. A few people were inside as the doom came closer. Preacher Tom was the first one in the church to sees what would haunt the town and was scared out of his wits. He pushes a young woman out of the doorway as he speeds into the church. He continues to bar the door and close up all of the windows as the surprised group stares on at him with suspicion. He dropped to his knees and prayed as a loud noise echoed through the building. The crowd began to scream as the windows rattled and the building swayed. All of a sudden, a whimper could be heard from the back side of the building. The sound was unmistakable, it was the tiny voice of little Lisa Cunningham. Mrs. Hamm hobbled quickly over to the door before anyone else could react. She threw the door open as Father Ted finally came to his senses. Lisa flung herself through the door into the arms of Mrs. Hamm. Father Ted lunged for the door and slammed his shoulder into it right before an unknown force bashed against the other side. Mrs. Hamm grasped the child as and attempted to console her as a sharp pain erupted in her breast. She looked down and saw a dark stain growing on her blue dress and jerked the child away. Everyone’s eyes went wide as they saw the scene unfolding before them. Lisa stood smiling; face covered in blood, and began to laugh hysterically. Mrs. Hamm was becoming hysterical as well, as she noticed that one side of her chest had become smaller than the other as a huge chunk had been bitten away by the child.