Bloody Ice In the cold December, when the land is white with snow, my children’s children go to play on Bloody Ice. Its incarnadined surface is a source of mystery, another one of our town’s curiosities. Sixty years ago—but how my memory dims!—I saw the red take hold. I saw wicked things rising from the lake, and when they left, they took my brother with them. My brother was born a silent thing in the midst of a harsh winter. At four years old, I was struck dumb by his beauty; he had wide pale eyes and lips that made me understand the meaning of rosebud. I envied him, knowing he’d be loved more than me. I should’ve known that darker things, too, would desire him. I cared for him after our mother froze in her bed. I rolled her into the lake and told him she’d left instead. When the snows took our father, I buried him myself, though at that point, my brother was too old for lies. I was never able to marry because of him. At eighteen, I cared for him …show more content…
But the water had already reached his lips. Was I relieved that he was dead? Did I feel guilty because I didn’t save him? I stood staring across Bloody Ice, and perhaps it was wicked, but I told no one and was married to my sweetheart in a fortnight beside Bloody Ice. I was beautiful then, hair unbound and cheeks rosy in the cold. Gazing at blurry photographs, my children would sometimes ask why I did not smile or why my face was perpetually turned towards the lake’s faded red. His screams still haunt me when I sleep, when I look out across the lake. They echoed beneath the ice, which took on a reddish hue, spreading from where it closed over his head. Silence reigned when the lake was no longer white; my ragged breaths went quiet and my tears froze where they fell, for where my brother once was, there was nothing but bloody
Suddenly my eyes flew open, the coldness slowly lingered away. My body felt warm. Almost as warm as how my mouth felt the last time I had sipped on my grandmother's tea. My grandmother always told me to have faith and to believe in the end everything would be alright. I felt the frigid saltwater against my skin. “Where am I?” I thought to myself. I couldn’t quite recall what had happened nor where I was. All that I could recall was hearing screams of innocent children and parents trying to comfort
“Once More By the Lake” is an informative short story featuring a man who seems to feel as though he is losing his identity. As a parent, he doesn’t realize that as time passes by his family’s orientation is changing and, as a result, seems to lose himself in time as his surroundings and his son’s actions remind him of himself. Nonetheless, throughout the story, the author uses great detail to put the main character’s feelings on display by using experiences and emotions that are relatable to the reader. The childlike mannerisms and impressive attention to detail exhibited in the essay show how the narrator sees himself and showcases the author’s use of imagery. Revisiting his childhood lakehouse brought past memories to the surface which, over time, shows the main character’s emotional ties to the lake. In fact, in the story, the narrator says, “It was the arrival of this fly that convinced me beyond a doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years” (White 2). Throughout the story, White challenges the reader's mind by describing his situation to the reader and unintentionally drawing from them the conclusion that life as one knows it is destined to change at any given time, including one’s
All was dark, all was silent. Never would he see his sister or brother again. His poor old mother, without a husband, now without her eldest son. Each day his heartbroken mother would sit at home, in her old wooden rocking chair, waiting for him to come home from a hard day on the farm. But he never came!
For days he stayed there, curled up by the wall. The sun would rise, somewhere, illumine the mouth of his pitiful den, grace the cold rock in front of him with a soft blue sheen, and set again, immersing his life in empty darkness. One day, two, three, he stopped counting, buried his mind in the chambers of his soul where a soft dim warmth still glowed. Waves of grief passed through, turned him over in riptides of hungriest despair, roaring death pounded nightly at his door, and then, hearing no answer, tore away again, letting warm comfort envelop him and soothe his damaged
E.B. White’s essay,“Once More to the Lake”, illustrates the vivid memories that White experienced while revisiting a lake in Maine with his son. The story begins by describing how White, along with his father, first visited the lake during the summer as a child. It then goes on to explain how he comes to revisit the lake, this time as an adult with his own son. White paints colorful images of the what he observes back at the lake with his son; he does that by going into immense detail when explaining specific features, and how his visit compares to when he went with his own father. White’s story seems to be just a whiff of nostalgia on the surface, but there is a much more fundamental lesson within it. He delves deep into his own consciousness,
Frosty, bitter, crisp air filled my lungs, It wasn’t supposed to happen, maybe it's her fault. Intense, vivid, sharp, the language of tongues, It wasn’t supposed to happen, keep this secret in the vault! Flustered, warm and naive, heading towards harm.
The sharp arctic like breeze propels itself onto my young and fair skin as my mother forces the old, frail white birch door open, exposing both myself and my younger sister to the harsh and unforgiving climate that awaits us beyond the both feeble and aged shack that I have called home for the past nine and a half years. My father sits in the frost bitten and beaten three seater Chevrolet truck. Crammed in the tray covered in tarp, I struggle to make out the shape of what seems to be my previously owned duffel bag, bestowed upon me by my next door neighbours following the death of their son, my mother describes his death to me as being “a tragic accident” down in the Cape Breton mines. Before my eyes could properly focus on the contents inside the tray of the truck, my Mother had already
And rub it in so deep, salt in the wound like you're laughing right at me
“ He held his head, and he cried for them, and he did not melt into the sea but set, aching, in they lowing in the moonlight for in the end or bodies know only how how to carry on surviving” (lake 22)
Drowning in an ocean of emotions, Jessie kept looking into her eyes, unable to braked his gaze and come out for air.
Of all the grieving days I have suffered, this is the worst. Even the scorching suns pleasant rays and the sweet smelling aroma of heather and fresh cut grass failed to improve my mood that summer afternoon. After passing the signpost for Findhorn, my eyes focused on the only structure up ahead of me. The Black Swan Inn. The Inn stood out like a skyscraper in the scenic Moray countryside. With its white, spotless walls decorated with many brightly coloured hanging baskets and painted lanterns hanging from its gutters. It was a place of beauty and a place I held dear to me. The gentle breeze blowing in from the sea front, conspired to dry my tears; tears for someone I had truly loved. I stopped outside the inn and tried to remember the memories from the past. My distress was made worse, as I was unable to remember my own wife's face. How long ago had she died? It must be a few months now.
The sister prepares the evening meal, making her contribution to the family; and calls on the boy to come and eat. The saw in the boy?s hands was still running and when he took his attention away from his work, and that split second of carelessness cost him an extremity. His instincts raised his arm upward to keep all the blood from spilling out immediately. When he realized what was happening, the boy finally realized he was to young to be doing a man?s work. The boy ?saw all spoiled,? and now knew his whole childhood had vanished and it was impossible to get it back. The boy frantically called out to his sister to make the doctor keep his hand on. The boy?s body must have instantly gone into shock and not felt the absence of the hand. When the doctor arrived he gave him some ether to make him go to sleep. The little boy began to lose his pulse and soon he was a stranger to the world. The people surrounding the boy never expected the loss of his hand to tragically end the little boy?s life. Frost?s almost appalling casual description of death shocks the reader enough to make them think. ?Since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs,? describes the environment of the survivors. They are forced to move on with their life and keep working because they cannot afford to stop and mourn.
Waking back up; she found herself still in the marshes, still intact. Hearing groans coming from the overgrowth; she went to investigate. The eldest of the boys laid on the floor, his body contorted in agony, staring into her eyes with great remorse. She witnessed his final moments. Expiring too, directly after their synchronised injuries, the other two boys became free of their brief agonies.
As soon as she let off the ledge her body flooded with regret, but there was no going back now. As she hit the bottom crashing into the water and rocks the cold stung every inch of her like a thousand knifes. The pain over stimulated her brain causing her to lie there in the water for a while. “Am I dead?” she thought. She sat up struggling from the pain in her legs and back, looking around trying to find a way out of the water she shuffled through the wet rocks to the edge; it was
I awoke near a pristine, crystal clear, blue brook, untouched by mankind. A brisk wind blowing, moving the trees like a peaceful whisper from above. I didn’t know where I was or how I got there. I plunged my cupped hands into the freezing water to rinse myself of the unexplainable guilt I felt like a knife twisting in my gut. In the reflection