Dialogue Essay – Birdseye View of Life and Death

4086 Words9 Pages

Dialogue Essay – Birdseye View of Life and Death

Episode One. A Prologue of Sorts. The camera eye sees everything, and sees it calmly and objectively. It pans slowly around the room, beginning at the coffin and the cluster of black-clad mourners gazing down at the body then continuing clockwise catching two or three-person clusters scattered around the room. It sees the pale cream-colored walls and the scarlet carpet. It sees everything in the circle of its passing and calls attention to nothing but the whole, until it reaches me sitting on a loveseat to the left of the deep-red coffin, a girl about the same age as me to my left. It zooms in on my face as I sit there, all emotion drawn out and dried-up ahead of time. Laurie squeezes my arm and lays her cheek on my shoulder. But the camera continues to zoom in on my gaze and cuts to the focus, my mother. It saw her earlier, but now it is beginning to make sense of the situation, catching the subtle details that tell the story. In silence the camera eye peers at her, zooming in inch-by-inch. Like everyone else, she is dressed in black, and like me she is emotionally exhausted. She tries to smile and be strong, but there is nothing behind it but weariness. In her face, everything is weary. And every few moments she presses a white handkerchief to her eyes to dry tears that aren't even coming out any more. Next to her, with his arm around her slumped shoulders is a balding man with one chin too many and a blushed face and a smile that might be able to pass as greasy if it wasn't so creepy and intrusive. He pulls her face to him and gives her a strong hug and tries to be there for her dry-eyed weeping. The camera cuts back to me and sees in my face a glimmer of emotion growing stronger momentarily: disgust.

He let go of Ma, and she stood up straight again. She hugged him one more time, briefly, and walked over to me. I quickly wiped the disgust from my face and tried to return the same weary smile she was giving me, but even in her worst moment, I couldn't hope to compare.

I stood up. "Hello, Ma," I said.

Laurie stood up with me, hugged me, and said, "I guess maybe I should go.

Show More
Related

  • Supply And Demand of Gasoline

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 2004, crude oil producers around the world expected a 1.5% growth in the world’s demand for crude oil. The actual growth rate was more than double the projections at 3.3%. This growth was due to rapidly industrializing of foreign countries such as, China and India. Therefore the lack of crude oil affected the supply of gasoline to consumers at the pump.

    Read More

  • Genocide in Darfur

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1898, Britain and Egypt took control over Sudan. This didn’t include Darfur, which was an independent territory ruled by a sultan. In 1916, Britain added Darfur to the territory it controlled. After World War II, in 1945, Britain and Egypt began preparing Sudan for independence. From 1945-1989, Darfur -remote from Khartoum and having invaluable resources- suffered neglect from all governments. Sudan has been independence since 1956. However, the journey that led to Sudan’s genocide in Darfur began in the late 1800s. It’s a complicated tale that involves conquest; internal politics; social, ethnical, racial, and re...

    Read More

  • Elizabeth Keble-Ross's On Death And Dying: A Brief Analysis

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most important formation of the stages of grief was formulated by Dr: Elizabeth Keble –Ross in her book “On Death and Dying “Dr: Kubler-Ross wrote about the stages that dying person move to go the way as they come to ideas. However, all her stages have since been rents by the big grief community as a means of explaining the grief ideas. coming to different ideas with dying is certainly a lost experience and a work for grief, so there is credit to this rending and reason to become popular with stages of Dr: Keble –Ross on the contrary not all people would experience these stages of grief , or , if all are experienced , they won’t expect to happened in this specific order. This is a compare the contrast paper on Keble –Ross, model in its

    Read More

  • Margaret Chase Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience”

    934 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kim E Nielsen. "Book Review of Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith, and: No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, and: Barbara Jordan: American Hero." Feminist Formations, Fall 2001, 205.

    Read More

  • Death, Life and Identity

    2256 Words  | 5 Pages

    A classical point of departure in defining Death, seems to be Life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of Life - or as a "transit zone", on the way to a continuation of Life by other means.

    Read More

  • Genocide In Darfur Essay

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sudan is the biggest nation in Africa and around six million people live in Darfur. The massacres in Darfur began in 2003 and still continue today. The genocide is let by equipped Arab soldiers (also known as the Janjaweed). The Janjaweed soldiers dismantled communities, corrupted the point of supply of water, killed, abused, and tormented innocent people. Millions of people in Darfur were left without homes and forty-eight thousand dead. Sudan has been in two civil wars since their freedom in 1956. There was then a fight for limited supplies and wanderers began to fight for land. This led to a war between North Sudan against South Sudan. In 1972, the first domestic war comes to a finish. Eleven years later the second, and deadliest, war begins. Over four millions were left without a home and over two million were killed in a span of twenty years. The government rejected any information of disturbance in Darfur. In 2005, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the North versus the South fight. South Sudan gained more legislative control in the agreement. In 2009, Sudan president Omar Bashir was wanted for felonies against mankind and later wanted for genocide. Omar Bashir has fled to different countries where he has been protected.

    Read More

  • Life and Death in Poetry

    2084 Words  | 5 Pages

    Life and death are two things that we as humans must all face. The road from one to the other, from life to death, is a long and at times, both joyous and painful one. Robert Frost’s poems are a prime example of these times and trials. The poems I chose for this paper highlight them, and with Frost’s allegory, they present a sort of silver lining to the string of dark and dreary words he’s pieced together for these poems. The depressing tone to the poems “Acquainted with the Night”, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, and “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowing Evening” could be attributed to the death of many of Frost’s family members, and how despite this he overcame it all, and at the end of his life, was a successful writer. These poems to not go into great explanation of the details of Frost’s life, however, I believe that they are representations of the things path that he’s walked, and how he viewed his actions and death in general.

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Oil Crisis on the American Economy

    5564 Words  | 12 Pages

    The Oil Daily. (2000, October 13). Heating oil prices ride crude rally to record high. Pp. 5.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Death

    1294 Words  | 3 Pages

    Why do always assume what someone is from when we first hear about them? A lot of us end up assuming what someone looks like as well as what they might be like. We always do this and it just isn't right to do that. We do the exact same with Death. Though not everyone will do this, there are some who will. Death is not all that his name says, but were blind to see past that.

    Read More

  • Waking Up in a Hospital Room: A Short Story

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Aunt Leslie then snapped me out of my deep thought asking whether I was okay. I told her I was even if it was obviously a complete lie. "So shall we go back to Geraldine tomorrow morning? Or would you like to leave in the evening?"

    Read More

  • Christianity Life After Death

    947 Words  | 2 Pages

    Christianity: Life after Death The life after death is an area of human consciousness we enter upon leaving this earth at physical death. Throughout history people have questioned if there is a new never-ending life after death or not. Along the way, many religions of world and various philosophers offered opinions and beliefs to answer this frequently asked question. But, many of the answers conflict each other making it even hard to solve it. "Belief in life after death is a source of personal security, spiritual betterment and optimism" (1 John 3:2). Nothing offers more courage than the self-confidence that there is a superior life for those who use the present life on earth to prepare for eternity and after death life. While some people believe it is nearly impossible to know whether there is after death life, belief in immortality is an eternal phenomenon. The belief in life after death is common here in the United States. Since most people do not believe their body lives forever, this life after death involves the person's soul living eternal life. The idea of a soul is very much common and a part of Christianity. The concept of soul certainly dates back farther than Jesus, since the ancient Egyptians prepared their Pharaohs for his journey in their life after death. According to Christianity life after death is personal life but within this life after death there are differences in Christianity. “Christians can be assured that death is not something to be feared. Instead, at death we arrive home in heaven. To live means we exist in a foreign country. Death has lost its sting and now is a victory through the resurrection of Jesus our Lord.” (Zukeran, What Happens After Death?) Christians were said to live like everyone else....

    Read More

  • What Is The Theme Of The Tell Tale Heart

    1375 Words  | 3 Pages

    The blue eye of the old man can be said to be able to see the evils in the narrator mind. The eye makes the narrator afraid because he thought no one could see the impurity in his character, and by the old man treating him nice is in a way poking fun at him. So he comes up with the idea to kill the old man to stop the cured eye from offending him. Poe precedes Dostoevsky and modern writers in exploring motiveless evil. The narrator quickly informs us that he killed the old man for none of the usual reasons but only because he could not stand the look of the man’s blinded eye. ( enotes ) The narrator is-in this case an unreliable narrator because he is not sane but pleads for others to think he is. Killing some because you didn’t like the way their eye look is not a sane thing to do. The narrator doesn’t even step back to realize the deed as murder or what the consequences would be if found out. Throughout the tale he is trying to prove, sanity exist within him as he depose of the body of the old man in a “sane” way. The narrator battles with his sanity showing, and asking along the why if they still thought he was

    Read More

  • Death In Life Essay

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.

    Read More

  • Life And Death Essay

    1153 Words  | 3 Pages

    The distinction between life and death largely relies on the current definitions of life and death. Illogically, there seems to be less disagreement about the definition of death, while the definition of life remains controversial. In a legally perfect world, the factors considered for declaration of death would be the same factors considered to define life, however, that does not appear to be the case. While the current definitions of death are fairly consistent but not free of conflict, the definition of life remains controversial.

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Death Is A Blessing

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    Of all concepts procured by mankind, the most singular of them is death. It is not solitary in its impact, for death, above everything, is the largest possible outcome of the world. It overshadows love, it overshadows hate, it overshadows life. Instead, it is singular due to its nature. Death is an outcast. Death is one. Death is the loneliest existence that anyone, human or animal, can ever expect.

    Read More

More about Dialogue Essay – Birdseye View of Life and Death

Open Document