Personal Fictional Writing Essay Example for Free

Personal Fictional Writing Essay Imagine you are Ralph on the island; write a series of at least three diary entries, which record important episodes during your stay there. Include in the entries your changing thoughts and feelings about what occurs and about yourself and the other boys with you. Diary Entry 1: Chapter 5: Beast from water I just do not understand. It is not meant to be like this. I mean, everything requires improvisation. I call a meeting and all of them, Jacks group of boys, think that they are there to make jokes. There is no time for fun, but business. I tell them about the huts and how they are unstable, but they remain pessimistic as if they have something better to do. What can that something be? Hunting. Well, Jack seems to think so. He said that he would hunt down the beast. Really, we do not even know if the beastie truly exists. Jack is so aggressive, marching on an army of anarchy among the boys to hunt down an imaginary beast. Mass hysteria erupted when one of the diffident littluns, Percival was his name, said that the beast came from the sea, like a giant squid. I really do not know what has gone into their poor, innocent souls, torturing them like that. The fear of the boys is mounting, day after day. Well, perhaps there could be a beastie. I know that even I am not immune to fear. Nevertheless, Piggy says there is no beast, so there isnt. Piggy knows. I mean, he is intelligent unlike me. He can think and make decisions without being unsuccessful with his natural, intellectual ability. He would be so much better at being chief than I am. It is just inequitable that Jack bullies him. But what can I do? Do I really want Jack on my back too? Its enough I cannot stand having him within a one-metre radius of me. Moreover, Jacks focus on hunting will prevent all of us on this island from leaving it and seal our fate as no more than animals. I just cannot help realising this. However, Jack and his hunters do not. It is simple to them: fear ferments and spreads in the group, so they result to violence and hunting as a solution to the obstacle. They do not care about where they use the lavatory, about keeping the fire going, or most importantly, getting rescued. Even the rules they do not care about. I am very frustrated. I just cannot stand this any more. Without my rules, there will be disastrous consequences to everything Jack and his hunters do. My rules keep the boys tethered to some semblance of society, but they seem oblivious to it and are willing to drop the rules like a hot pan. Life on this island just seems to get harder by every passing day. With Simon wandering off at night, no wonder the littluns are frightened. However, I should not let that bother me. On this island, there are by far more important things to do, like being rescued. How much boys on this island do believe in ghosts? What are the children on this island? Humans, animals, or savages? Piggy was head-on right by yelling at them. Surely, there are not any ghosts or beasties on this island, because Piggy told me so. He tells me everything, and everything he says is true. It has to be true. I feel as if I should step down as chief, for once and for all, but Piggys already warned me that if I do, Jack will become leader and the only thing he will lead us to do is hunt. But being rescued is better than hunting and I, for that matter, want to be rescued and back to my old life: with my mother and father. It is dreadful here. I try to shut my eyes of the surroundings that envelope me, and force the image of my life before this tragedy. Nothing. There is nothing to see. This life is like a virus, invading and sweeping the happy memories of my life before until there is nothing. I thought life here would be different, better somehow, but it seems that I got the contrary. Now, everything on this island makes me feel depressed. Even my own physical appearance, especially my hair; it has grown shabby and uncomfortably long. I have all grown shabby with neglect. With all the oppressive responsibility weighing down on my shoulders, I wish that the ground now would open up and swallow me down into its depth, to close me off the problems on this island, which I face. Diary Entry 2: Chapter 7: Shadows and Tall Trees This is it. A change from this place will do us all a whole lot of good. I have become so dirty and unclean over the past few months, that the conditions that I take myself for now is normal. The rest of the boys seem to take these conditions as normal too. The longing that I have for a deep, hot bath to purify my body and wrap me up in its enclosing warmth is unbearable. Every thing seemed to have been going well, but every step I take on this island to please Jack, just defines the how hard it will be, when you try to break the boys away from Jacks spell-binding habit: Hunting. Not that I am complaining. I followed the hunters today and the view that is to be seen on the opposite side of the island is utterly different to the view that is observed from the side of which we have settled in. However, although there are spectacular sceneries that can be viewed from this island, there is no place like home. The ocean is like a thick wall, an impermeable barrier, preventing my and the other boys escape. Simon seems to think that we will leave the island eventually. But I doubt that will ever happen. Simon is so batty. Now, with Jack thinking himself chief, everything is impossible. But I have to say, I did enjoy myself at the hunt. It was breathtaking. Originally, we were meant to be hunting down the beast, but Jack suggested that we could also hunt a pig in addition to continuing our search for the beast. It was smashing! I was excited so much that I was caught up in the adventure; I threw my spear at the boar, and hit it. But I suppose it was not much of a hit; it only nicked his snout. That was the first time I took aim and I cannot believe my luck. It has to be good marksmanship. I felt so exhilarated during the hunt, as the primal appeal of killing pigs dawned upon me. At least I have something to be proud of, other than some cut by a boars tusks. Jack thought that it was necessary to point the wound on his left arm out to the crowd of boys. I cannot understand Jack. He has such an eccentric personality; predictable though, he would not actually change much from his self-centred self. I hit the boar but he still pays the same attention as if I were thin air. The boys are impervious too, when they are around Jack that is. It is like he has the glamour that allows the other boys to be absorbed in him. No matter how much attention you persist or demand to acquire, the power that is bound inside Jack will not give in. I tried to show the boys that I was a good aimer, even though it was my first time hunting, but it was useless, like I said. Jack and the boys were truculent when they closed on towards Robert. They started chanting, Kill the Pig and I guess they were caught up in their momentum of chanting, that they actually started jabbing Robert with their spears, at first in jest, then with a more dangerous intent. He was yelping so much that I though my ears would give out. Instantly, all the excitement that I had in me from the hunt vanished. I was so glad that Robert escaped their grasp. I did join them with this too. I didnt know what was happening to me. The urge to kill was too overpowering. For all I know, we would have killed him. Jack was so self-absorbed, taking himself seriously, that he said that they could use a littlun next time to dress up as a pig, so that they can actually kill it. That was such a sick idea. They are taking a life away. The matter of life is not a game. However, the boys enamoured by Jacks statement began to laugh. This was not funny. They had to be reminded that this is only a game. I am starting to get concerned about the increasingly violent and impulsive behaviour of the hunters. Killing the littluns is trivial compared to what these hunters are capable of. We started climbing the mountain, as evening fell, and I realized that we would not be able to get back to the beach until morning. I did not want to leave Piggy with the littluns all night. I thought it was too much responsibility for one to handle, but I suppose Piggy would not mind; he will work things out easily. But Jack did not address this concern for Piggy kindly; he mocked me about it. What good chief would he make if he does not treat the boys with respect? But luckily Simon offered to go and inform Piggy of our whereabouts. Jack was still on his frenzy of hunting a pig, in the dark. Surely he could see that it was not a suitable time to hunt, but he is so impulsive that even he will not be blinded by the darkness that encloses the island. I thought that if we hunt in the morning it would be more apposite. He does not even think twice when I speak to him. I am chief, he should listen to me as any other boy on the island does. Giving the new understanding that Piggy provided me with, and sensing the hostility from Jack, I knew that he loathed me. I asked him why but he had no answer. What would he answer if he had one anyway? I never showed him any hatred but if he wants me to play his game, I will play. He was so pressing to climb up the mountain, even though most of the hunters were tired and, of course, afraid. It was unveiled in their eyes. At that moment I thought of going back myself too, but what Jack said obliged me to remain. He said that I was afraid. I am not afraid more than he is and he knows that, but he just doesnt want to admit it. I was surprised that my voice actually balanced itself proportionally, so that none of my reluctance or weakness showed. I was almost motivated by it. Just moments before this, Jack was accusing me of being afraid and now he was. He claimed that he saw something bulge on the mountain. Of course, due to my newfound bravery, I agreed to search for it immediately. But while I had a mask of bravery composed on my outside, inside I was not sure of what to do. Not sure about whether I should take a step forward or backward. What to do if the beast attacks me. It was so frustrating that it felt like the anxiety was scratching my brain away bit by bit. It seemed at the top of the mountain that I was paralysed. But I realised, eventually, what I was doing this for. To show Jack that I am not scared like he claims. So I fused my hatred for him, with my will and took two steps forward. That is when I saw it. My legs gave out under me, like an involuntary reflex reaction, but a button inside triggered me to get upon my feet as quick as I can and escape. It seemed like hours had passed in those few seconds for me to get over the shock of what I had just observed. It was like a huge rock thing and it bowed, and when the wind blew, it lifted its head to reveal a ruined face. It was unapproachable. Terrifying. I realised that the horror witnessed by the littluns in words, is inconsequential, in comparison to when you view the beast yourself. I am glad it is over for now, but I have a deep feeling that this thing, beastie, will not take long to return its visit. We must get prepared. Diary Entry 3: Chapter 8: Gift for the Darkness No one believes me. Even piggy. He was sceptical of the whole idea of me witnessing a beast on the top of the mountain. What angered me more is Jacks assurance to the group of boys that the hunters can defeat the beast. But are his hunters any good when faced with a beast that even the bravery of me, Roger and Jack could not defeat? His hunters are merely boys with sticks. I was right to point this out to him; he cannot be so ignorant of the beastie. Piggy said that I should not have called his boys that, but honestly, what choice did I have! And he never left it there either. Oh no. He called me a coward and accused me of calling the rest of his hunters cowards too. What right does he have to call me that? He even said that I am not a proper chief. As if he would be better than me as chief. All he cares about is hunting, hunting, hunting, and nothing else. If this is how he wants to live his life, then I doubt he will ever have a life, since he will be spending the rest of it on this doomed island. Adding more to this, the punch from the whole of this meeting came when he put my position of being chief in a vote, between him, and me to the boys. It is so hurtful when I think about it; I cannot believe that he holds such a grudge against me, that much to challenge my position of being chief. I have not did anything wrong to him. But, I guess I should not be so surprised. Its so Jack. Whenever he comes across something that he cannot stand, he feels compelled to sweep it out of his way. In this case, it is me. Oddly, I do feel sad and uneasy due to him leaving. I, certainly, was not expecting him to leave so quickly. Especially crying. The thought of him crying has never crossed my mind at all, even though I have been living with him for several months. It is not like him. He was always that kind of person like a rock, with his weaker feelings and emotions imperceptible, no one would have thought that he would be exposed so easily like that. Relieved that he left, Piggy and Simon seemed untouched, as if a burden has been lifted away from their shoulders. I guess they are calm now, since all Jack would do is pick on them, as they are the weaker vessels of the boys. Piggy tried to make me realise that there are potential benefits from Jack leaving, but I have this strong feeling inside me, telling me that something ominous is about to happen, resulting from this predicament. I just cannot put my finger on what is going to happen. He said that now we can start focusing on the fire more. Now that the fire has been built on the beach it may be difficult to see from far away, but at least somebody will keep it going. At least there is a trace of hope of being rescued. However, I really doubt that most of us will actually be rescued, as just after the building of the fire was done on the beach, I noticed several of the biguns missing. I did not know what to do. I felt as though Jack had taken part of me as an equipment to equip himself for evil and savagery on this island. The more I come to think about it, the clearer it becomes to me that Jack is the disruptive element and the root of destruction on this island. My authority is slipping away faster than I could imagine. Just a few months ago, I had it all, but now there is nothing left. I cannot understand the appeal of hunting if you do not attempt to be rescued at the same time. There is a battlefield of emotions warring in me. I tried to show the boys that I am a good chief, that I will get them rescued, but they were all oblivious to me and so left for Jack. It hurt so much that even speaking was like climbing a cliff for me. I suppose now everything is too late; everything is set in motion, I cannot do anything to change it. Maybe it would be better. We could be happier. Piggy says so. Piggy is so confident that everything will turn out to be okay, it almost scares me. We still have Samneric to help us keep the fire going, some littluns and I suppose Simon. Although Piggy and I never knew where he was, we thought that he might be climbing up the mountain. He would still stay unfazed by anything. He has cracked. With Simon, he is that kind of person that his feelings are buried deep inside him and you would have to dig a lot before reaching them. I am surprised that I never thought of Simon, in a way like this, before. You just have to listen to him to get to know him, but of course, Jack never listens to anybody or anything, so what would he know? At this point, I really dont care who I have got in my group as long as they are with me; I need all the support I can get. I was startled by the sudden uproar in the forest. Jack, wearing just dazzle paint and a belt, was even more startling. He told us that he and his group were living across the beach, by a flat rock, where they have fun. It was kind of him to invite us to join his tribe, but I know that if I were to join his tribe, there would be no going back and certainly no hope of rescue. I thought he was about to take the conch at first, when I saw him. I mean the conch to me is still a symbol of ritual and order, and without order on this island, there would be nothing. I still do not know why that thought passed through my head at that moment. But I saw that some of his hunters did take some branches of fire. Perhaps they took it to keep warm, or even cook their latest hunting victim on. But even by how much I would like to go to eat the meat and have fun, keeping the fire going was and is still the most important task at hand. It is going to be hard to keep the fire going, and the amount of wood that we need is even harder to get. I suppose Samneric could take two shifts. But Bill appeared sceptical to the whole idea that we will be capable of keeping the fire going. He suggested that we go to Jack and his hunters feast and tell them that the fire is hard among us. Moreover, the fact that there was meat there, hot and satisfying, was enough to make us sprint to cross our enemys border. Even Piggy could not resist. He was ravenous. I saw it in his eyes. Every face that my gaze landed upon was burning with the overwhelming hunger for meat. No one would ever let a chance like this pass by and we werent going to either. The thought of food and meat was too appealing, so we gave in to our desire.

Significance of the Congo River in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

Significance of the Congo River in Heart of Darkness          The Significance of the Congo River For Marlow, the journey on the Congo River is one of the most difficult and ominous journeys he will ever take. The fact that it takes him around and not completely into the jungle is significant of Marlow's psychological journey as well. He never really goes on land but watches the shore from the outside. The only time he goes on shore he finds a wasteland. For Marlow the jungle of the Congo is representative of evil that man is capable of. In Heart of Darkness, it seems that the further Marlow travels into the jungle, the deeper he looks into himself. All this time is spent on the Congo River as he looks from the outside. This is symbolic as he is looking at his soul from the outside but never really sees himself until he goes on land to get Kurtz. When he arrives on land is symbolic of when he looks the deepest into himself. He goes to find Kurtz on his deathbed and is given he choice to take over for him as a god among an African tr ibe. Marlow is faced with the ultimate choice between good and evil. For a moment it is uncertain what choice Marlow will make. But, unlike Kurtz, Marlow picks the good over evil, as he rescues Kurtz back to the steamer. The fact that Marlow sailed along the Congo River, around the jungle, and not actually into the jungle is an important symbol also. Marlow never walks the path that Kurtz did to self-destruction. He went around the jungle to avoid getting captured by evil. Kurtz was a decent Englishman until he gave into the desires of his heart of darkness. Kurtz spent all his time in the jungle and eventually forgot all of his self-control, manners, and upbringing. He truly looked in the deepest part of himself and found that his evil desires would reign. This is symbolic because he was deep inside the jungle. In this respect Conrad uses to men to show the reader both the good and bad of humankind. He shows the true evil and good that man is capable of If proper restr aints had been there would Kurtz have done things differently?

Controversy before the Civil War Essay

During the expansion westward of United States, controversy between the Northern and the Southern States quickly arose. This was primarily due to the disagreement of what these new western territories would become- free or slave states. The Southern States wanted these new territories to support slavery so they could send more pro-slavery senators/ representatives to Congress, which was the opposite for the Northern States. Many important events from 1845-1861 quickly led to the start of the Civil War due to these Northern and Southern disputes. When the U.S. finally claimed more land after the Mexican War, the Southern and Northern States slowly began to move farther apart. Even though Northern congressmen supported the Wilmot Proviso, which banned slavery in all new Western territories, the Southern congressmen completely disagreed and went against it. The Compromise of 1850 was set to hopefully smooth these disputes over by supporting the idea of popular sovereignty, western lands having the right to determine by themselves whether they would be free or slave states. The Free-Soil Party also had a big impact. They opposed slavery’s expansion in the Western territories in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Dred Scott Case (1857) decision highlighted the slavery disagreement and caused even more problems between the Northern and Southern States, pushing the U.S. even closer to the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed in 1854 as a small compromise, enforced popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, creating disagreements over whether these territories would choose to become free or slave states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act even created tensions over the overturned Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had held the nation together by allowing slavery north of the already created line. In result, pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups flooded Kansas and battled in the â€Å"Bleeding Kansas† conflict over whether the territory would become a free or slave state. The expansion westward was a big step for the United States, and it sparked a huge controversy between the Northern and Southern States. Southerners wanted these new territories to support slavery, so they could have more senators/representatives in congress, whereas the North wanted the new territories to reject slavery. Important events such as the Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Popular Sovereignty, Dred Scott Case, Kansas/Nebraska Act, and Free Soilers all quickly sparked disputes between the North and the South during the years 1845-1861 prior to the Civil War.

Definition and Examples of End Weight in Grammar

The Racism Of African Americans - 771 Words

From the beginning African Americans started off as kings and queens of Africa. They ruled their own people. Stories have been told how the rulers were tricked by English men or most commonly known as the â€Å"white man.† This has been configured and no one really knows the true story because we didn’t exist then. African Americans were deprived from their mainland. Blacks were then transported to the New America. In 1619, the first blacks were enslaved in Virginia. They were used to do many jobs by owners because Caucasians couldn’t handle being in the sun for long periods of time but blacks were called the lazy ones. African Americans as a group were discriminated, enslaved, and had no power. There is two types of racism which is overt and subtle. Overt racism is more blatant and may take the form of public statements about the inferiority of members of a racial or ethnic group. For example, a racist chanting during a public event. Subtle racism, for example, suggesting an African Americans athletes have natural abilities for a certain sports. African Americans get both types of this racism. It goes from signs, flags, entertainment, etc. In entertainment we are nationally talked about comedies, television shows, reality, etc. Blacks are portrayed as loud and it shows just a couple individuals and we are discriminated by their actions. The things people see on television by a particular race, people assume the entire race does that or contribute to their actions. Media is aShow MoreRelatedRacism On African Americans : Racism Essay2094 Words   |  9 PagesRacism On African Americans The history of America has been shaped powerfully over the years by racial inequality and race. Most Americans believe that the freedom fighters in establishing of their country were motivated by their thirst for religious liberty, freedom, economic and political independence. 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Negative Effects Of Bullying Essay - 928 Words

What are the effects of bullying on international students- A literature review Introduction Bullying has been a great problem in every workplace over several years (Bauman, Rigby Hoppa, 2008; Smith Brain, 2000; Olweus, 1994). Researchers have shown interest in this topic consistently (Policy, 2014; Sampson, 2009; Einarsen, Hoel Cooper, 2003). This literature review will cover the various definitions of bullying, bullying and emotional abuse in the workplace and school, various possible outcomes of bullying along with the international review and strategies for bullying. The various ways of coping with bullying are also explained in the literature review. Definitions of bullying According to Policy, Bullying is unwanted,†¦show more content†¦This imbalance of power in the bully/victim relationship is important because it distinguishes bullying from other acts of violence or aggression. The power imbalance is used to exclude violence that is not deemed bullying. For example, when a sixth-grade boy is kicked on the bus every day by a smaller, emotionally impaired second grader, it is not considered bullying under Olweus’ definition, even though the harm is deliberating and repeated; the power imbalance does not exist. Bullying and Emotional Abuse in the Workplace and School Bullying among school children is a very old phenomenon. The fact that some children are frequently and systematically harassed and attacked by other children and many adults have personal experience of it as they are facing it from their school days. Though many are acquainted with the bully/victim problem, it was not until recently, in the early 1970s, that efforts were made to study it systematically (Olweus,1978). In the 1980s and early 1990s, the problem of bullying among school children has received some public attention in Japan, England, Australia, the United States, and other countries. There are now clear indications of an increasing societal as well as research interest into bully/victim problems in several parts of the world (Olweus,1994).Show MoreRelatedNegative Effects Of Bullying Essay1175 Words   |  5 Pages Effects of Bullying In the 2014-2015 school years, 292,400 students reported being bullied out of a total of 763,000 students (Student Reports of Bullying: results From the 2015 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, National Center for Education statistics(NCES)). Bullying does not affect only children in school, but can also happen to adults. Bullying has an immense effect on people of all ages. Whether it is an adolescent at school, or an adult in their workplaceRead MoreEssay on Bullying and Its Negative Effects2940 Words   |  12 Pagesare abused by their parents, peers or even by complete strangers. One of these types of abuse is bullying. 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While reminiscent of the neo-Freudian Narcissistic Personality Indicator, Carl Rogers’ phenomenological theory is a better explanation of the apparent drive towards bullying and positive self-concepts. Rogers defines self-conceptRead MoreBullying And The Act Of Bullying Essay1660 Words   |  7 Pages----------- One may assume bullying in schools was all too common. And of course, in the end, they would absolutely right. For whether one has been the victim of bullying or, perhaps, a perpetrator of it, themselves, one has no doubt been exposed to stories of bullies through friends and family, as much as through movies and media. Indeed, it seems like bullying itself is a theme inseperable theme from one’s childhood or adolescent experience inc school. 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Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE Free Essays

string(89) " He did have the look of an insomniac, I thought \?\? too wide around the eyes, somehow\." Once, when I was sixteen, a plane went supersonic directly over my head. I was walking in the woods when it happened, thinking of some story I was going to write, perhaps, or how great it would be if Doreen Fournier weakened some Friday night and let me take off her panties while we were parked at the end of Cushman Road. In any case I was travelling far roads in my own mind, and when that boom went off, I was caught totally by surprise. We will write a custom essay sample on Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE or any similar topic only for you Order Now I went flat on the leafy ground with my hands over my head and my heart drumming crazily, sure I’d reached the end of my life (and while I was still a virgin). In my forty years, that was the only thing which equalled the final dream of the ‘Manderley series’ for utter terror. I lay on the ground, waiting for the hammer to fall, and when thirty seconds or so passed and no hammer did fall, I began to realize it had just been some jet-jockey from the Brunswick Naval Air Station, too eager to wait until he was out over the Atlantic before going to Mach 1. But, holy shit, who ever could have guessed that it would be so loud? I got slowly to my feet and as I stood there with my heart finally slowing down, I realized I wasn’t the only thing that had been scared witless by that sudden clear-sky boom. For the first time in my memory, the little patch of woods behind our house in Prout’s Neck was entirely silent. I stood there in a dusty bar of sunlight, crumbled leaves all over my tee-shirt and jeans, holding my breath, listening. I had never heard a silence like it. Even on a cold day in January, the woods would have been full of conversation. At last a finch sang. There were two or three seconds of silence, and then a jay replied. Another two or three seconds went by, and then a crow added his two cents’ worth. A woodpecker began to hammer for grubs. A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my left. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully alive with little noises again; it was back to business as usual, and I continued with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it. I thought of that June day often in the wake of the nightmare, and there was nothing so remarkable in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change . . . but first comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the danger if there was danger is gone. Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. Ice and high winds caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a sudden twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward made the digging out hard and the cleanup slow. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic; we get them up this way every year (and two or three in April for good measure, if we’re not lucky), but we never seem to expect them. Every time we get clouted, we take it personally. On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally started to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry at the little restaurant three doors down from the Rite Aid where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword when someone asked, ‘Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? It’s pretty crowded in here today.’ I looked up and saw an old man that I knew but couldn’t quite place. ‘Ralph Roberts,’ he said. ‘I volunteer down at the Red Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.’ ‘Oh, okay, sure,’ I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Roberts was one of the old parties who passed out juice and cookies afterward, telling you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you felt woozy. ‘Please, sit down.’ He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and lying in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. ‘Don’t you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is sort of like striking out the pitcher in a baseball game?’ he asked. I laughed and nodded. ‘I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts . . . because it’s there. Only with the News crossword, no one ever falls off.’ ‘Call me Ralph. Please.’ ‘Okay. And I’m Mike.’ ‘Good.’ He grinned, revealing teeth that were crooked and a little yellow, but all his own. ‘I like getting to the first names. It’s like being able to take off your tie. Was quite a little cap of wind we had, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but it’s warming up nicely now.’ The thermometer had made one of its nimble March leaps, climbing from twenty-five degrees the night before to fifty that morning. Better than the rise in air-temperature, the sun was warm again on your face. It was that warmth that had coaxed me out of the house. ‘Spring’ll get here, I guess. Some years it gets a little lost, but it always seems to find its way back home.’ He sipped his coffee, then set the cup down. ‘Haven’t seen you at the Red Cross lately.’ ‘I’m recycling,’ I said, but that was a fib; I’d come eligible to give another pint two weeks ago. The reminder card was up on the refrigerator. It had just slipped my mind. ‘Next week, for sure.’ ‘I only mention it because I know you’re an A, and we can always use that.’ ‘Save me a couch.’ ‘Count on it. Everything going all right? I only ask because you look tired. If it’s insomnia, I can sympathize, believe me.’ He did have the look of an insomniac, I thought too wide around the eyes, somehow. But he was also a man in his mid- to late seventies, and I don’t think anyone gets that far without showing it. Stick around a little while, and life maybe only jabs at your cheeks and eyes. Stick around a long while and you end up looking like Jake La Motta after a hard fifteen. I opened my mouth to say what I always do when someone asks me if I’m all right, then wondered why I always felt I had to pull that tiresome Marlboro Man shit, just who I was trying to fool. What did I think would happen if I told the guy who gave me a chocolate-chip cookie down at the Red Cross after the nurse took the needle out of my arm that I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent? Earthquakes? Fire and flood? Shit. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I really haven’t been feeling so great, Ralph.’ ‘Flu? It’s been going around.’ ‘Nah. The flu missed me this time, actually. And I’ve been sleeping all right.’ Which was true there had been no recurrence of the Sara Laughs dream in either the normal or the high-octane version. ‘I think I’ve just got the blues.’ ‘Well, you ought to take a vacation,’ he said, then sipped his coffee. When he looked up at me again, he frowned and set his cup down. ‘What? Is something wrong?’ No, I thought of saying. You were just the first bird to sing into the silence, Ralph, that’s all. ‘No, nothing wrong,’ I said, and then, because I sort of wanted to see how the words tasted coming out of my own mouth, I repeated them. ‘A vacation.’ ‘Ayuh,’ he said, smiling. ‘People do it all the time.’ People do it all the time. He was right about that; even people who couldn’t strictly afford to went on vacation. When they got tired. When they got all balled up in their own shit. When the world was too much with them, getting and spending. I could certainly afford a vacation, and I could certainly take the time off from work what work, ha-ha? and yet I’d needed the Red Cross cookie-man to point out what should have been self-evident to a college-educated guy like me: that I hadn’t been on an actual vacation since Jo and I had gone to Bermuda, the winter before she died. My particular grindstone was no longer turning, but I had kept my nose to it all the same. It wasn’t until that summer, when I read Ralph Roberts’s obituary in the News (he was struck by a car), that I fully realized how much I owed him. That advice was better than any glass of orange juice I ever got after giving blood, let me tell you. When I left the restaurant, I didn’t go home but tramped over half of the damned town, the section of newspaper with the partly completed crossword puzzle in it clamped under one arm. I walked until I was chilled in spite of the warming temperatures. I didn’t think about anything, and yet I thought about everything. It was a special kind of thinking, the sort I’d always done when I was getting close to writing a book, and although I hadn’t thought that way in years, I fell into it easily and naturally, as if I had never been away. It’s like some guys with a big truck have pulled up in your driveway and are moving things into your basement. I can’t explain it any better than that. You can’t see what these things are because they’re all wrapped up in padded quilts, but you don’t need to see them. It’s furniture, everything you need to make your house a home, make it just right, just the way you wanted it. When the guys have hopped back into their truck and driven away, you go down to the basement and walk around (the way I went walking around Derry that late morning, slopping up hill and down dale in my old galoshes), touching a padded curve here, a padded angle there. Is this one a sofa? Is that’ one a dresser? It doesn’t matter. Everything is here, the movers didn’t forget a thing, and although you’ll have to get it all upstairs yourself (straining your poor old back in the process, more often than not), that’s okay. The important thing is that the delivery was complete. This time I thought hoped the delivery truck had brought the stuff I needed for the back forty: the years I might have to spend in a No Writing Zone. To the cellar door they had come, and they had knocked politely, and when after several months there was still no answer, they had finally fetched a battering ram. HEY BUDDY, HOPE THE NOISE DIDN’T SCARE YOU TOO BAD, SORRY ABOUT THE DOOR! I didn’t care about the door; I cared about the furniture. Any pieces broken or missing? I didn’t think so. I thought all I had to do was get it upstairs, pull off the furniture pads, and put it where it belonged. On my way back home, I passed The Shade, Derry’s charming little revival movie house, which has prospered in spite of (or perhaps because of) the video revolution. This month they were showing classic SF from the fifties, but April was dedicated to Humphrey Bogart, Jo’s all-time favorite. I stood under the marquee for several moments, studying one of the Coming Attractions posters. Then I went home, picked a travel agent pretty much at random from the phone book, and told the guy I wanted to go to Key Largo. Key West, you mean, the guy said. No, I told him, I mean Key Largo, just like in the movie with Bogie and Bacall. Three weeks. Then I rethought that. I was wealthy, I was on my own, and I was retired. What was this ‘three weeks’ shit? Make it six, I said. Find me a cottage or something. Going to be expensive, he said. I told him I didn’t care. When I came back to Derry, it would be spring. In the meantime, I had some furniture to unwrap. I was enchanted with Key Largo for the first month and bored out of my mind for the last two weeks. I stayed, though, because boredom is good. People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done. I ate about a billion shrimp, drank about a thousand margaritas, and read twenty-three John D. MacDonald novels by actual count. I burned, peeled, and finally tanned. I bought a long-billed cap with PARROTHEAD printed on it in bright green thread. I walked the same stretch of beach until I knew everybody by first name. And I unwrapped furniture. A lot of it I didn’t like, but there was no doubt that it all fit the house. I thought about Jo and our life together. I thought about saying to her that no one was ever going to confuse Being Two with Look Homeward, Angel. ‘You aren’t going to pull a lot of frustrated-artist crap on me, are you, Noonan?’ she had replied . . . and during my time on Key Largo, those words kept coming back, always in Jo’s voice: crap, frustrated-artist crap, all that fucking schoolboy frustrated-artist crap. I thought about her long red woods apron, coming to me with a hatful of black trumpet mushrooms, laughing and triumphant: ‘Nobody on the TR eats better than the Noonans tonight!’ she’d cried. I thought of her painting her toenails, bent over between her own thighs in the way only women doing that particular piece of business can manage. I thought of her throwing a book at me because I laughed at some new haircut. I thought of her trying to learn how to play a breakdown on her banjo and of how she looked braless in a thin sweater. I thought of her crying and laughing and angry. I thought of her telling me it was crap, all that frustrated-artist crap. And I thought about the dreams, especially the culminating dream. I could do that easily, because it never faded as the more ordinary ones do. The final Sara Laughs dream and my very first wet dream (coming upon a girl lying naked in a hammock and eating a plum) are the only two that remain perfectly clear to me, year after year; the rest are either hazy fragments or completely forgotten. There were a great many clear details to the Sara dreams the loons, the crickets, the evening star and my wish upon it, just to name a few but I thought most of those things were just verisimilitude. Scene-setting, if you will. As such, they could be dismissed from my considerations. That left three major elements, three large pieces of furniture to be unwrapped. As I sat on the beach, watching the sun go down between my sandy toes, I didn’t think you had to be a shrink to see how those three things went together. In the Sara dreams, the major elements were the woods behind me, the house below me, and Michael Noonan himself, frozen in the middle. It’s getting dark and there’s danger in the woods. It will be frightening to go to the house below, perhaps because it’s been empty so long, but I never doubt I must go there; scary or not, it’s the only shelter I have. Except I can’t do it. I can’t move. I’ve got writer’s walk. In the nightmare I am finally able to go toward shelter, only the shelter proves false. Proves more dangerous than I had ever expected in my . . . well, yes, in my wildest dreams. My dead wife rushes out, screaming and still tangled in her shroud, to attack me. Even five weeks later and almost three thousand miles from Derry, remembering that speedy white thing with its baggy arms would make me shiver and look back over my shoulder. But was it Johanna? I didn’t really know, did I? The thing was all wrapped up. The coffin looked like the one in which she had been buried, true, but that might just be misdirection. Writer’s walk, writer’s block. I can’t write, I told the voice in the dream. The voice says I can. The voice says the writer’s block is gone, and I believe it because the writer’s walk is gone, I’m finally headed down the driveway, going to shelter. I’m afraid, though. Even before the shapeless white thing makes its appearance, I’m terrified. I say it’s Mrs. Danvers I’m afraid of, but that’s just my dreaming mind getting Sara Laughs and Manderley all mixed up. I’m afraid of ‘I’m afraid of writing,’ I heard myself saying out loud. ‘I’m afraid to even try.’ This was the night before I finally flew back to Maine, and I was half-past sober, going on drunk. By the end of my vacation, I was drinking a lot of evenings. ‘It’s not the block that scares me, it’s undoing the block. I’m really fucked, boys and girls. I’m fucked big-time.’ Fucked or not, I had an idea I’d finally reached the heart of the matter. I was afraid of undoing the block, maybe afraid of picking up the strands of my life and going on without Jo. Yet some deep part of my mind believed I must do it; that’s what the menacing noises behind me in the woods were about. And belief counts for a lot. Too much, maybe, especially if you’re imaginative. When an imaginative person gets into mental trouble, the line between seeming and being has a way of disappearing. Things in the woods, yes, sir. I had one of them right there in my hand as I was thinking these things. I lifted my drink, holding it toward the western sky so that the setting sun seemed to be burning in the glass. I was drinking a lot, and maybe that was okay on Key Largo hell, people were supposed to drink a lot on vacation, it was almost the law but I’d been drinking too much even before I left. The kind of drinking that could get out of hand in no time at all. The kind that could get a man in trouble. Things in the woods, and the potentially safe place guarded by a scary bugbear that was not my wife, but perhaps my wife’s memory. It made sense, because Sara Laughs had always been Jo’s favorite place on earth. That thought led to another, one that made me swing my legs over the side of the chaise I’d been reclining on and sit up in excitement. Sara Laughs had also been the place where the ritual had begun . . . champagne, last line, and the all-important benediction: Well, then, that’s all right, isn’t it? Did I want things to be all right again? Did I truly want that? A month or a year before I mightn’t have been sure, but now I was. The answer was yes. I wanted to move on let go of my dead wife, rehab my heart, move on. But to do that, I’d have to go back. Back to the log house. Back to Sara Laughs. ‘Yeah,’ I said, and my body broke out in gooseflesh. ‘Yeah, you got it.’ So why not? The question made me feel as stupid as Ralph Roberts’s observation that I needed a vacation. If I needed to go back to Sara Laughs now that my vacation was over, indeed why not? It might be a little scary the first night or two, a hangover from my final dream, but just being there might dissolve the dream faster. And (this last thought I allowed in only one humble corner of my conscious mind) something might happen with my writing. It wasn’t likely . . . but it wasn’t impossible, either. Barring a miracle, hadn’t that been my thought on New Year’s Day as I sat on the rim of the tub, holding a damp washcloth to the cut on my forehead? Yes. Barring a miracle. Sometimes blind people fall down, knock their heads, and regain their sight. Sometimes maybe cripples are able to throw their crutches away when they get to the top of the church steps. I had eight or nine months before Harold and Debra started really bugging me for the next novel. I decided to spend the time at Sara Laughs. It would take me a little while to tie things up in Derry, and awhile for Bill Dean to get the house on the lake ready for a year-round resident, but I could be down there by the Fourth of July, easily. I decided that was a good date to shoot for, not just the birthday of our country, but pretty much the end of bug season in western Maine. By the day I packed up my vacation gear (the John D. MacDonald paperbacks I left for the cabin’s next inhabitant), shaved a week’s worth of stubble off a face so tanned it no longer looked like my own to me, and flew back to Maine, I was decided: I’d go back to the place my subconscious mind had identified as shelter against the deepening dark; I’d go back even though my mind had also suggested that doing so would not be without risks. I would not go back expecting Sara to be Lourdes . . . but I would allow myself to hope, and when I saw the evening star peeping out over the lake for the first time, I would allow myself to wish on it. Only one thing didn’t fit into my neat deconstruction of the Sara dreams, and because I couldn’t explain it, I tried to ignore it. I didn’t have much luck, though; part of me was still a writer, I guess, and a writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave. It was the cut on the back of my hand. That cut had been in all the dreams, I would swear it had . . . and then it had actually appeared. You didn’t get that sort of shit in the works of Dr. Freud; stuff like that was strictly for the Psychic Friends hotline. It was a coincidence, that’s all, I thought as my plane started its descent. I was in seat A-2 (the nice thing about flying up front is that if the plane goes down, you’re first to the crash site) and looking at pine forests as we slipped along the glidepath toward Bangor International Airport. The snow was gone for another year; I had vacationed it to death. Only coincidence. How many times have you cut your hands? I mean, they’re always out front, aren’t they, waving themselves around? Practically begging for it. All that should have rung true, and yet somehow it didn’t, quite. It should have, but . . . well . . . It was the boys in the basement. They were the ones who didn’t buy it. The boys in the basement didn’t buy it at all. At that point there was a thump as the 737 touched down, and I put the whole line of thought out of my mind. One afternoon shortly after arriving back home, I rummaged the closets until I found the shoeboxes containing Jo’s old photographs. I sorted them, then studied my way through the ones of Dark Score Lake. There were a staggering number of these, but because Johanna was the shutterbug, there weren’t many with her in them. I found one, though, that I remembered taking in 1990 or ’91. Sometimes even an untalented photographer can take a good picture if seven hundred monkeys spent seven hundred years bashing away at seven hundred typewriters, and all that and this was good. In it Jo was standing on the float with the sun going down red-gold behind her. She was just out of the water, dripping wet, wearing a two-piece swimming suit, gray with red piping. I had caught her laughing and brushing her soaked hair back from her forehead and temples. Her nipples were very prominent against the cups of her halter. She looked like an actress on a movie poster for one of those guilty-pleasure B-pictures about monsters at Party Beach or a serial killer stalking the campus. I was sucker-punched by a sudden powerful lust for her. I wanted her upstairs just as she was in that photograph, with strands of her hair pasted to her cheeks and that wet bathing suit clinging to her. I wanted to suck her nipples through the halter top, taste the cloth and feel their hardness through it. I wanted to suck water out of the cotton like milk, then yank the bottom of her suit off and fuck her until we both exploded. Hands shaking a little, I put the photograph aside, with some others I liked (although there were no others I liked in quite that same way). I had a huge hard-on, one of those ones that feel like stone covered with skin. Get one of those and until it goes away you are good for nothing. The quickest way to solve a problem like that when there’s no woman around willing to help you solve it is to masturbate, but that time the idea never even crossed my mind. Instead I walked restlessly through the upstairs rooms of my house with my fists opening and closing and what looked like a hood ornament stuffed down the front of my jeans. Anger may be a normal stage of the grieving process I’ve read that it is but I was never angry at Johanna in the wake of her death until the day I found that picture. Then, wow. There I was, walking around with a boner that just wouldn’t quit, furious with her. Stupid bitch, why had she been running on one of the hottest days of the year? Stupid, inconsiderate bitch to leave me alone like this, not even able to work. I sat down on the stairs and wondered what I should do. A drink was what I should do, I decided, and then maybe another drink to scratch the first one’s back. I actually got up before deciding that wasn’t a very good idea at all. I went into my office instead, turned on the computer, and did a crossword puzzle. That night when I went to bed, I thought of looking at the picture of Jo in her bathing suit again. I decided that was almost as bad an idea as a few drinks when I was feeling angry and depressed. But I’ll have the dream tonight, I thought as I turned off the light. I’ll have the dream for sure. I didn’t, though. My dreams of Sara Laughs seemed to be finished. A week’s thought made the idea of at least summering at the lake seem better than ever. So, on a Saturday afternoon in early May when I calculated that any self-respecting Maine caretaker would be home watching the Red Sox, I called Bill Dean and told him I’d be at my lake place from the Fourth of July or so . . . and that if things went as I hoped, I’d be spending the fall and winter there as well. ‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s real good news. A lot of folks down here’ve missed you, Mike. Quite a few that want to condole with you about your wife, don’t you know.’ Was there the faintest note of reproach in his voice, or was that just my imagination? Certainly Jo and I had cast a shadow in the area; we had made significant contributions to the little library which served the Motton-Kashwakamak-Castle View area, and Jo had headed the successful fund drive to get an area bookmobile up and running. In addition to that, she had been part of a ladies’ sewing circle (afghans were her specialty), and a member in good standing of the Castle County Crafts Co-op. Visits to the sick . . . helping out with the annual volunteer fire department blood drive . . . womaning a booth during Summerfest in Castle Rock . . . and stuff like that was only where she had started. She didn’t do it in any ostentatious Lady Bountiful way, either, but unobtrusively and humbly, with her head lowered (often to hide a rather sharp smile, I should add my Jo had a Biercean sense of humor). Christ, I thought, maybe old Bill had a right to sound reproachful. ‘People miss her,’ I said. ‘Ayuh, they do.’ ‘I still miss her a lot myself. I think that’s why I’ve stayed away from the lake. That’s where a lot of our good times were.’ ‘I s’pose so. But it’ll be damned good to see you down this way. I’ll get busy. The place is all right you could move into it this afternoon, if you was a mind but when a house has stood empty the way Sara has, it gets stale.’ ‘I know.’ ‘I’ll get Brenda Meserve to clean the whole shebang from top to bottom. Same gal you always had, don’t you know.’ ‘Brenda’s a little old for comprehensive spring cleaning, isn’t she?’ The lady in question was about sixty-five, stout, kind, and gleefully vulgar. She was especially fond of jokes about the travelling salesman who spent the night like a rabbit, jumping from hole to hole. No Mrs. Danvers she. ‘Ladies like Brenda Meserve never get too old to oversee the festivities,’ Bill said. ‘She’ll get two or three girls to do the vacuuming and heavy lifting. Set you back maybe three hundred dollars. Sound all right?’ ‘Like a bargain.’ ‘The well needs to be tested, and the gennie, too, although I’m sure both of em’s okay. I seen a hornet’s nest by Jo’s old studio that I want to smoke before the woods get dry. Oh, and the roof of the old house you know, the middle piece needs to be reshingled. I shoulda talked to you about that last year, but with you not using the place, I let her slide. You stand good for that, too?’ ‘Yes, up to ten grand. Beyond that, call me.’ ‘If we have to go over ten, I’ll smile and kiss a pig.’ ‘Try to have it all done before I get down there, okay?’ ‘Coss. You’ll want your privacy, I know that . . . just so long’s you know you won’t get any right away. We was shocked when she went so young; all of us were. Shocked and sad. She was a dear.’ From a Yankee mouth, that word rhymes with Leah. ‘Thank you, Bill.’ I felt tears prickle my eyes. Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug. ‘Thanks for saying.’ ‘You’ll get your share of carrot-cakes, chummy.’ He laughed, but a little doubtfully, as if afraid he was committing an impropriety. ‘I can eat a lot of carrot-cake,’ I said, ‘and if folks overdo it, well, hasn’t Kenny Auster still got that big Irish wolfhound?’ ‘Yuh, that thing’d eat cake til he busted!’ Bill cried in high good humor. He cackled until he was coughing. I waited, smiling a little myself. ‘Blueberry, he calls that dog, damned if I know why. Ain’t he the gormiest thing!’ I assumed he meant the dog and not the dog’s master. Kenny Auster, not much more than five feet tall and neatly made, was the opposite of gormy, that peculiar Maine adjective that means clumsy, awkward, and clay-footed. I suddenly realized that I missed these people Bill and Brenda and Buddy Jellison and Kenny Auster and all the others who lived year-round at the lake. I even missed Blueberry, the Irish wolfhound, who trotted everywhere with his head up just as if he had half a brain in it and long strands of saliva depending from his jaws. ‘I’ve also got to get down there and clean up the winter blowdown,’ Bill said. He sounded embarrassed. ‘It ain’t bad this year that last big storm was all snow over our way, thank God but there’s still a fair amount of happy crappy I ain’t got to yet. I shoulda put it behind me long before now. You not using the place ain’t an excuse. I been cashing your checks.’ There was something amusing about listening to the grizzled old fart beating his breast; Jo would have kicked her feet and giggled, I’m quite sure. ‘If everything’s right and running by July Fourth, Bill, I’ll be happy.’ ‘You’ll be happy as a clam in a mudflat, then. That’s a promise.’ Bill sounded as happy as a clam in a mudflat himself, and I was glad. ‘Goingter come down and write a book by the water? Like in the old days? Not that the last couple ain’t been fine, my wife couldn’t put that last one down, but ‘ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, which was the truth. And then an idea struck me. ‘Bill, would you do me a favor before you clean up the driveway and turn Brenda Meserve loose?’ ‘Happy to if I can,’ he said, so I told him what I wanted. Four days later, I got a little package with this laconic return address: DEAN/GEN DELIV/TR-90 (DARK SCORE). I opened it and shook out twenty photographs which had been taken with one of those little cameras you use once and then throw away. Bill had filled out the roll with various views of the house, most conveying that subtle air of neglect a place gets when it’s not used enough . . . even a place that’s caretook (to use Bill’s word) gets that neglected feel after awhile. I barely glanced at these. The first four were the ones I wanted, and I lined them up on the kitchen table, where the strong sunlight would fall directly on them. Bill had taken these from the top of the driveway, pointing the disposable camera down at the sprawl of Sara Laughs. I could see the moss which had grown not only on south wings, as well. I could see the litter of fallen branches and the drifts of pine needles on the driveway. Bill must have been tempted to clear all that away before taking his snaps, but he hadn’t. I’d told him exactly what I wanted ‘warts and all’ was the phrase I had used and Bill had given it to me. The bushes on either side of the driveway had thickened a lot since Jo and I had spent any significant amount of time at the lake; they hadn’t exactly run wild, but yes, some of the longer branches did seem to yearn toward each other across the asphalt like separated lovers. Yet what my eye came back to again and again was the stoop at the foot of the driveway. The other resemblances between the photographs and my dreams of Sara Laughs might only be coincidental (or the writer’s often surprisingly practical imagination at work), but I could explain the sunflowers growing out through the boards of the stoop no more than I had been able to explain the cut on the back of my hand. I turned one of the photos over. On the back, in a spidery script, Bill had written: These fellows are way early . . . and trespassing! I flipped back to the picture side. Three sunflowers, growing up through the boards of the stoop. Not two, not four, but three large sunflowers with faces like searchlights. Just like the ones in my dream. How to cite Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE, Essay examples