Going Down There were muffled voices everywhere. Yelling at me to stop, to not go on, and to watch out. I didn’t hear anything. The jubilant laughter of kids enveloped me in a cloud of joy. I was only seven years old, and the playground was my paradise. It was the one place where I could escape to and just enjoy my company. I was the bellwether of the neighborhood kids, and it felt great to be the one in charge. However, I was always a stubborn kid, never wanting to listen to anyone. I really should have listened when my mom screamed. “Stop, Anber, you have to stop!” she screamed in such a belligerent manner the hair stood on the back of my neck. I was too busy looking back and running ahead I didn’t realize the platform stopped extended. …show more content…
That was when I felt the bitter sting crawl up my back; the sudden crunch from under my arm. The pain was unbelievable. However, it felt too easy, the bone breaking was as if I was a twig and not a person. "Anber can you hear me, darling, can you shake your head? Can you hear me?" My mother's frantic voice flooded into my ears. The same rich a soothing voice was now bellowing words that I could barely comprehend. I shook my head, yes letting her know that I can hear …show more content…
The rough concrete pebbles were digging into the back of my scalp. Rubbing the back of my head I could feel the dampness in my hair. I tried to replay what happened through my head. One second I was on the platform the play area and the next I was 10 feet below laying flat on my back. Motionless and still I heard the birds chirping joyfully, the vibrant green leaves were shadowing the rays of the sun. Everything in that moment felt dark and cold. In the back, I could hear the faint sirens of the ambulance. I was seven and I thought the world was over for me. I would never be able to walk, everything was a never. My mom sat beside me not moving my body because she didn't want to break me
James Baldwin’s a The Fire Next Time” Down at the Cross – a letter from Region of my Mind” directly relates with the relationship of religion and race, exploring the differences between his experience with the Christian church when he was a young man and the ideals of Islam in the town of Harlem. Baldwin explained the whites as a group of people trapped within a purity given by God, and within this purity it allows them innocence. Baldwin analyzes the church or the Christian faith, because it has historically been used to go against black people dating back to the pre-Emancipation, and with a connection gone bad with Africa he also denies the movement of Black Muslim because he seeks to rather reverse hierarchy, than to destroy it. Through
The sweat was dripping down my face as I pushed the weights off my chest. Everyone ran towards their bags after a student said there was a gun in school. Twitter was the first source that we checked just to make sure. Boom! The door slammed open as coach Ben yells “Hurry up and get out”. My heart started beating faster and faster. We didn’t know what was going on. As we were running to the gym everyone was panicking and pushing each other. I could feel the burn on my elbow but I didn’t know what it was. When we got to the gym my elbow was covered in blood. We were told to get down and stay quiet. Later on we were told a student brought a gun to school and was planning on committing suicide. That was one of many gun incidents at my high school.
I hit the ground silently and hissed when a sting overtook my knee and like a pinch to the arm I instantly knew that this was not a nightmare.
Tears streaming down my face, I kept walking ahead wherever my small, roughed up feet would take me unaware of the consequences of doing so. I felt tears roll off of my cheeks slowly, and then all at once. My shirt was wet and cold because of the salt filled tears, my nose was runny and I used my Winnie the Pooh hanky to wipe the snot away. Within seconds, my nose felt irritated despite the soft, microfiber of the handkerchief and my hands were tired. My vision became really cloudy and I could barely see where I was going. At this point, I had lost all hope and my heart felt heavy, pushing me down with every hurtful step I took. I wanted to sit down and wait for my parents to come to me themselves, so I did. I sat down next to the gate to one of the other rides and waited for what I thought was years of time. I remember getting strange looks from people, as they walked by and I kept wondering why. The ground I was sitting on was unwelcoming, rough, and littered. My pants would definitely need to take a spin in the laundry. Mom wouldn’t be too happy about this, not just the fact that my parents had forgotten me and left me to venture out into the world solitary but also the fact that my clothes were dirty and I had generally made a mess of
The living room was dark and the only thing you could see was the brightness of the TV. Also, I could still hear many people talking from down stairs, fire truck siren going off, and the city lights that were still shining bright. At the age of seven, on a cold Friday night in Brooklyn; my mom, cousin, and I started watching some scary movies since it was around Halloween. There was this movie called “Child’s Play” and as a child, I didn’t like the movie at all due to the fact that there was an ugly doll that was moving and killing people. During, that weekend it was showing marathons all weekend long since it was the Halloween weekend. The bed was pulled out with all the warm blankets and snacks besides us waiting for the move to start.
Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex dives into the history and development of a person born in the United States as neither a girl nor a boy. The story is told from the perspective of this person who, at certain times in their life, goes by the name of Cal Stephanides and at others, goes by the name of Caliope Stephanides. The novel involves an underlying tendency of the family of the main character to seek out the stereotypical American Dream; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As the family struggles to find this dream, Cal struggles to find himself. Cal goes through a timeline of his life, not in chronological order, but in circular motion, explaining the reasons for his deformation, the history behind it, and all of his family who were
Squatting on the ground, I was weeping. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand although it was not far from me. I made my eyes widely open to make sure if my eyes went blind or not. When it was around 8pm, I started looking for the window. Touching my hands on the corners of the room, I finally found it. I used up all my energy opening the window, but it was covered with hard dust and it was rigid. I fell down, and cried a lot. I couldn’t sleep throughout the whole night, because I was hungry and thirsty. In addition to this, it was cold in the middle of that night. I was shivering and coughing persistently. Time passed, and it was early in the morning, but nothing
Back in the Bronx during the 1960’s and 1970’s it was common to see poverty, violence, gangs and drug dealers. This city was forgotten about and it was filled with poor people living inhumane places. Buildings were being burned to the ground by gangs hired by landlords, so they could collect insurance money. This lead to the evolution of music which changed society for years to come. In the episode of “The Get Down,” hope, violence and music is used illustrate the character lives and hardships they face in the Bronx.
We All Fall Down is about a 9th grade student named Will Fuller. Will is a typical American teenager. He’s an average student who has set his hopes of starting a band with his friends. He’s got a crush on a girl in his class, and doesn’t see much of his dad, a CEO who spends more time at work than at home. Personally after reading halfway through this novel, I feel that Will and I are connected very closely and he reminds me of myself a few years ago. Early in the novel, Will tries to stay under the radar in school, but his ability to learn and speak his mind caused him to stand out rather than fit in. This relates to me because when I transferred schools last year, I wanted to stay low key and under the radar just like Will, but my strengths academically
I was so excited. I could hardly breathe through the hour drive it took to get there. I was squished between my two ten-year-old best friends in the back seat of a white Saturn, but I didn't care. I was practicing over and over in my head what I was going to say to all the smart-alecky adults who would tell me I was too young to ride the water slides. I was simply going to reply, "Actually I'm ten, going on eleven."
Falling Down The 1993 film falling down provides a look into two separate men’s lives in the course of one day. Although the movie was highly acclaimed for it’s portrayal of the new human situation, the covert and overt racism, sexism, and classism leave a sour taste in this viewer’s mouth. The movie comes across as a lame attempt to show the “White man’s ever growing burden.” The audience is expected to feel a compassion for both lead characters. The message that is supposed to be portrayed is similar to films of today such as fight club and American beauty.
With music blasting, voices singing and talking, it was another typical ride to school with my sister. Because of our belated departure, I went fast, too fast. We started down the first road to our destination. This road is about three miles long and filled with little hills. As we broke the top of one of the small, blind hills in the middle of the right lane was a dead deer. Without any thought, purely by instinct I pulled the wheel of the car to the left and back over to the right. No big deal but I was going fast. The car swerved back to the left, to the right, to the left. Each time I could feel the car scratching the earth with its side. My body jolted with the sporadic movements of the car. The car swerved to the right for the last time. With my eyes sealed tight, I could feel my body float off the seat of the car.
I turned off the car and took a deep breath. Looking slowly up into the pink sky, I began to watch the golden sun go to sleep. The beach seemed deserted, quiet, but peaceful. I opened my door and put my feet out on the soft sand. I started taking my shoes off, then my socks. I threw them in the passenger seat, and then shut the door. I looked out over horizon of the lake and started walking towards the still water. With each step I took, I could feel the warm sand crunch between my toes. Then suddenly, a sharp rock, but not sharp enough to break the skin.
One day, a quite normal day in fourth grade, my little brother, Maximus and I were rushed to our grandparents house as soon as school got out. We got picked up by our grandparents and got into their black jeep. The ride to my grandparents house was miserable. They told us what had happened to my dad and that my mom was up at the hospital with him. The kind of accident my dad got into was, he was riding his motorcycle, a car backed up into him and crashed into him. The doctors said he could of died but he was lucky. I couldn't believe what I heard. We had nothing to say the whole ride to there house. We were forced to spend the night at there house. I tossed and turned all night long not able to think strate.
On the day my father died, I remember walking home from school with my cousin on a November fall day, feeling the falling leaves dropping off the trees, hitting my cold bare face. Walking into the house, I could feel the tension and knew that something had happened by the look on my grandmother’s face. As I started to head to the refrigerator, my mother told me to come, and she said that we were going to take a trip to the hospital.