Go back! Go back to Glendara! Those words had been a resounding mantra in her brain for months. After trying to ignore it, she finally gave in. It took longer to get here than she expected thanks to miles and miles of road construction that always seemed planned for the busiest time of the day. After many curse words and getting lost several times following all the detour signs, Casey Culpepper had arrived. The car idled at the beginning of the gravel road leading to her mother’s family home. This property had passed from one heir to another for over a century and a half, and it became her responsibility the night her parents died, along with a sizable trust fund. Well, here I am. Is this what you wanted—for me to return here, to this place? …show more content…
Up to that point, as doctors, they had spent her entire life working for a relief organization traveling all over the world providing medical care to those in need. It was a lonely existence for a child. They hadn’t lived anywhere long enough for her to make friends. That’s when she learned to use her imagination to occupy her time. On the flight home, her parents explained that they were going to stay with her Aunt Abigail in the country. It was her mother’s wish to spend the summer with her sister. It would be the first and last time Casey ever saw her aunt. Aunt Abby was dying from cancer. As a nine-year-old, she hadn’t noticed the synthetic wig and gaunt, ashen face of impending death. That was her first brush with loss, and now its ominous void had become a constant companion. She squinted through the windshield as she slowed the car to a crawl. The abandoned two-story Victorian structure stood resolutely at the far end of the lane. There were shafts of daylight that would occasionally break through the dark, gloomy clouds hanging as a backdrop in various shades of gray. It gave the house a sad and distressing presence that matched her …show more content…
No! Don’t go there. Don’t think of her. Not now. Concentrate on your objective. That’s what Dr. Cannon would say. Wiping a solitary tear, she eased out of the driver’s seat to walk toward the house continuing her assessment. Several roof tiles were missing having been whisked away by the elements and time. Broken windows appeared blank, like the lifeless eye sockets of an ancient skull. The solid oak door hung askew from its rusty hinges banging against the frame with each new gust of wind. Casey walked up the veranda steps imagining the many happy returns as well as sad farewells that had passed this way. She could almost smell, taste and hear the past as the sweet scent of magnolia, mint julep, and the murmur of a genteel southern drawl filled the air. Continuing up the steps, she touched the item hiding in her pocket. It had taken hours of rummaging through her parents trunks to find the envelope that contained this key. It stayed hidden as the opening was large enough to squeeze through. It had been painful digging through their belongings. What remained in those trunks was all she had left of her parents. With shaking hands and an aching heart, each article was lovingly touched. There was her father’s favorite jacket that had the faintest smell of his spice cologne, and her mother’s delicate perfume bottles that she painstakingly collected from the different countries they had
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
?The tenement was a long passageway of ruined houses, all exactly the same; small impoverished dwellings built of cement, each with a single door and two windows. They were painted in drab colors and their peeling walls were linked across the narrow passageway by wires hung from side to side. [She] walked deeper into the neighborhood, avoiding puddles of dirty water that overflowed from the gutters and dodging piles of garbage in which cats were digging like silent shadows. In the center of the little...
The swings creaked on the ice as Joe Bennett sat on one lonely swing dressed in black. Cold fingers ran to his mother's locket. His Mother Elizbeth Bennett's death crushed him like it crushed her. A man called in sick that day at the mines. He called she filled in for him and that was it. He couldn’t understand why it had to be her.
As Manley Pointer slammed the barn door shut behind him, the ladder to the loft collapsed to the floor. Hulga did all she could—scream. Minutes passed. Hours dragged on as Hulga continued crying for help. Deeming her efforts futile, Hulga wept. As the sun set beyond the horizon, Hulga’s eyes dried up. With no glasses and no rays of sun seeping in through the cracks in the roof, Hulga felt around blindly, gathering a small bundle of hay upon which to lay her head.
While sitting downstairs, Mrs. Mallard grieves over the loss of her husband, and over her new-found freedom. His death tears out everything from right underneath her very own feet. Dependent and heartbroken, everything she relies on her husband for has now become her responsibility. Weeping “with sudden, wild abandonment….,” Mrs. Mallard allows her emotions over her husband’s death to flow freely, thus...
And so here she was, in front of a small cottage she had rented the moment she had arrived. She know her grandma’s house too well—pass through the forest, near the brook. So as she settled to go to her grandma’s house, she checked to make sure that the basket of goodies was still with her.
Andrew Tucker was a young brave man in any normal circumstance. After all he had been through however, he was a very sadden man. He was overly exhausted, heartbroken and not sure where to go or what to do. He was in a strange place on a heavy hearted mission. He did not want to be where he was, but sadly he knew he had no choice. So he reluctantly pushed on.
The house was thickly made of mud brick and melded easily into the dirt around it. The only semblance of abandonment stems from personal knowledge of the house itself. We wasted no time entering, for the heat had become nearly intolerable. Nothing had changed since the previous visit so the exploring commenced immediately and naturally. The architecture was rounded like every other house in the town with archways leading to each room. Void of any furnishings, there was not much to look at or explore. The only thing left unknown was an old room with no lighting or windows that both of us were too afraid to
The reason that she was here was simple, but cost her much to say it. Her mother had died in a fire a month before, and her father had been a drunk who was hanged for murder three years beforehand. She had been invited to the Carew orphanage by her aunt who worked there and had done for over thirty years.
Dead? Polly’s dead?” I couldn’t have heard her properly. “Polly Logan?” The sweat on my neck turned to ice and I shivered. “Our Polly? That can’t be.” I tried to remember the last time we had played together. It was before she started working. Last Christmas—no, well before that. Her family had moved to San Francisco at least two years ago. She had been a cradle friend, the girl I played dolls with. We sang nonsense songs together when we baked cakes. I could see it then, my small hands and Polly’s together on the handle of spoon. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Mother led me inside by the elbow and I sat heavily on a chair. She quickly told Eliza what happened. “There was no doctor in attendance,” Mother explained. “She had headaches from meningitis, over half an out later, cried out once, and died in her own
………stood a huge old isolated and dilapidated mansion……… The walls were a stormy grey colour with old vines mingled throughout. The windows were cracked and the windows sills have ((rotted????)) . The walkway leading toward the house were cracked with weeds poking out of the cracks.
Unlike the sun, who she went to when she sought comfort, the ceiling acted as a distraction. She recognized every crack and crevice of the wooden surface better than she knew her own body. Each flaw told a story of the house's past. The way the wood dipped in the center after having a terrible rainstorm warp its material. How there was a gaping hole with jagged edges in the corner, where they had to remove a patch of rotting wood, and cover the hole with a plate of corrugated metal; which had rusted over the years, becoming a copper color which trickled down the neighboring walls, permanently staining them. She knew which places would leak when it rained and which water spots had grown the most as time passed.
Her jet black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. Hairspray made the loose curls keep, while the pins kept it in place. Makeup concealed the dark circles which preceded underneath her eyes. Her tear streaked skin soaked in the arid pressing powder as her aunty continued to paint her face as though she were a doll. Aunty May had put a lot of effort into getting Allegra ready today. She bought her a dress last week, a black one. It had lace sleeves with tiny flowers cascading down the middle. It reminded Allegra of her mother, of a time when she was truly happy.
For many people, an event of such significance as the death of a loved one, would be considered their darkest day. An individual's loss may lead to a bitter and pessimistic view of their world, finding fault with anything within even the most glorious of days. Paragraph five is vivid with pleasant imagery, as "new spring life," and "delicious breath of rain," become symbolic of Mrs. Mallard's release of her inner feelings. Hardly the reaction one might have expected. There are new hopes and aspirations ahead of her, not the direct opposite as one would assume. Yet, Mrs. Mallard is fearful of the feelings overcoming her, as if repressing a dirty thought. As if hearing the voice of society...