Wood burning. Black smoke burning my nose. My eyes watering from grief. My family. My home. My life. It was all gone... Woah! Let's just back up a little. See, I live in a small village, and although it's pretty distance from other towns, our community happy. We have houses, stores, food and telly. It’s almost like it’s been squashed down to portable size. With everything you need of course! I live with my Grandmama, Ma and my younger, 7 year old sister Haji. Our village had houses that were like huts, with dusty, dry roads like the Arabian deserts that you’d see in films like Aladdin. The trees were full of fruit, despite the pale green leaves that hung limply beside them. Grass did not grow in our region, due to the scarceness of rain. The blue sky was clear, almost like a pond before you jump into it, splashing water everywhere. Scorching down as per usual, was the sun, determined to make my skin darker than it already was. Now, you’re probably saying, slow down! You just introduced us to some sort of an adventure story with murder and mystery, and then you launch into a bio about yourself? Okay, okay, I get it. You don’t care. We’ll move on with the story… *** It was late and I knew Haji had already gone to sleep. I could …show more content…
Pa’s picture. I make a beeline for the frame, but a wooden beam from the ceiling drops in front of the door, trapping me in. Grabbing the picture by itself, I tuck it into my skirt pocket and start trying to lift the panel. It doesn’t budge. Flames curl up the sides like snakes and it jump away as the wall an ceiling start burning away. Thick black smoke rises, making me cough and my eyes water. All I can see is yellow blaze. The door burns away, with just the burning hot steel hinges left. I jump through the hole, but a tentacle wraps around my leg, burning into the flesh. Crying out, I leap away and run towards the door. Wait! Pa’s picture...its
When she think of the home town of her youth all that she remember is the brown crumbly dust. Of the late summer arid, sterile
You’re too exhausted to actually cook a decent meal, so you reach into the freezer and pull out a frozen dinner from the back.
I am engulfed in darkness; the cage around me is extremely small, and I’m forced to
cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying...
firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the
Where I lived it was quite peaceful. No violence, no loud noises, and no woman screaming at her baby daddy for not paying child support. My house was yellow with a burnt red roof with black doors and beautiful flowers surrounding the front and the right side of the house. I would always walk across the street to Mrs. Mary’s house to go play with all the dogs she took care of. My neighbors were the best. Although they were elderly, they were the nicest people I have ever come across. I used to think that maybe old people were much better friends than kids my
Behind the people I could see dust higher as the highest house in our town. Then we go outside and we start running finally we realize we lost our family.
I can’t remember ever living anywhere before living on Lantern Drive. It was a cozy neighborhood and everyone knew each other… which was also a downside when drama arose. The street was a cul-de-sac consisting of about twenty houses, I could tell you who lived in each house. My living arrangements were different than most kids in my town, but I didn’t mind. When you’re young the differences in your life don’t strike you as being a problem, which is quite lovely. I lived with my Step-Grandmother and my Grandfather. I called them “Mawmaw” and “Papa”. I know that you’re supposed to spell it “Pawpaw” but it will never be that to me. The house was small, old, and run down, but it has been
“ Ninety-five percent of the nation’s adults and seventy-seven percent of its children can recite Smokey Bear’s slogan, and as for the bear himself, well, only Santa Claus ranks higher as a recognizable icon” ( Spinal 38). “Only you can prevent forest fires” were Smokey Bear’s iconic words, known by nearly every American in the Twentieth Century (“The True Story of Smokey Bear”). However, why was Smokey Bear needed? Why were forest fires on the increase? Actually, during World War II, Japan wanted to attack California’s forests as a scare tactic, playing on the country’s fears of losing valuable timber. Smokey Bear helped America prevent forest fires to preserve timber from being destroyed (Spinal 38). The acres lost due to fires decreased from 22
Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I was told in Sunday school that we are all God’s creatures, but if so then some are slithering snakes who engulf the timid skeletons of the meek mice in this world. You see, a swallowed mouse appears no different than a snake. Their hearts beat together, the mouse’s growing fainter with every gargled breath. I swear to you Father, I am a mouse, a simple mouse whose soul has been swallowed by the most gnarling of demons.
As a child growing up in a rural county, I didn’t have soccer practice or dance recitals; no play dates or playgrounds. I had trees to climb, woods to explore, bikes to ride and adventures to be had. I had bare feet in the grass, wincing on the gravel driveway, rocks digging into my soles. I had walnuts to crush, plums to eat, flowers to pick, bugs to catch. I had my little brothers to bug me, my mom to take care of me, my dad to laugh with me and my grandparents to hold me. I had books to read, worlds of words to get lost in. I had Saturday morning cartoons, Sunday morning church, and fireflies to catch every night.
At first glance, the story “Barn burning” seems just to be about a tyrannical father and a son who is in the grips of that tyranny. I think Faulkner explores at least one important philosophical question in this story were he asks at what point should a person make a choice between what his parent(s) and / or family believes and his own values?
I have a lot of fond memories looking back on my childhood. My dad’s parents had a house on Granbury Lake; it was a kid’s paradise. I grew up fishing, which is my favorite thing to do, boating, water skiing, 4-wheeling, anything you could do outdoors we did it. My grandparents had a massive garden and rows of fruit trees that lined their properly. We would wake up early in the morning to help Pa Pa woke in the garden. Being from the city, we that this was the coolest thing ever. As a reward for our hard work, Na Na would treat us to a snack of fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden. Although, she would always call them little boy and little girl tomatoes. Night time was my favorite out at the lake because that’s when the fire flies would come out. Every evening around dusk we would get our mason jars, poke holes in the lids, and wait to spot the first lightning bug. We didn’t have to wait long until the whole night sky
A simpler, easy-going way of life is being adopted by people young and old, single and married, employed and not so, across the nation. Tiny houses are residential buildings typically less than 600 square feet – larger than a shed, but not quite big enough to be called a cottage. They have nearly all the facilities and rooms a regular home has, but in a more compact area, without all the “excess” space. This trend of down-sizing, also known as the Tiny House Movement, isn’t a new one. Rather, it’s the revival of a past idea. In the 1950’s the average American single-family home was 980 square feet. As of 2009, that average has increased by 275% to an enormous 2,700 square feet. Garages take up about 15% of that size while appliances fill another 10%. American refrigerators are double the size of those in Europe, and use enough energy to power six televisions for 10-12 hours per day (Strobel). The purpose of tiny houses is to reduce the amount of space in one’s home in order to reduce the amount of clutter in one’s life – to realize what is a w...
smell of burning cedar enters my nose. I look up to the chimney and see the