The Story of an Hour Kate Chopin Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the colour that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they
have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him— sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richards was too late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy that kills.
The Old Man at the Bridge Ernest Hemingway An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule- drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther. It was my business to cross the bridge, explore the bridgehead beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced. I did this and returned over the bridge. There were not so many carts now and very few people on foot, but the old man was still there. "Where do you come from?" I asked him. "From San Carlos," he said, and smiled. That was his native town and so it gave him pleasure to mention it and he smiled. "I was taking care of animals," he explained. "Oh," I said, not quite understanding. "Yes," he said, "I stayed, you see, taking care of animals. I was the last one to leave the town of San Carlos." He did not look like a shepherd nor a herdsman and I looked at his black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles and said, "What animals were they?" "Various animals," he said, and shook his head. "I had to leave them." I was watching the bridge and the African looking country of the Ebro Delta and wondering how long now it would be before we would see the enemy, and listening all the while for the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event called contact, and the old man still sat there. "What animals were they?" I asked. "There were three animals altogether," he explained. "There were two goats and a cat and then there were four pairs of pigeons." And you had to leave them?" I asked. "Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain told me to go because of the artillery." "And you have no family?" I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank. "No," he said, "only the animals I stated. The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can look out for itself, but I cannot think what will become of the others." "What politics have you?" I asked. "I am without politics," he said. "I am seventy-six years old. I have come twelve kilometers now and I think now I can go no further." "This is not a good place to stop," I said. "If you can make it, there are trucks up the road where it forks for Tortosa." "I will wait a while," he said, " and then I will go. Where do the trucks go?" "Towards Barcelona," I told him. "I know no one in that direction," he said, "but thank you very much. Thank you again very much." He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, and then said, having to share his worry with someone, "The cat will be all right, I am sure. There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?" "Why they'll probably come through it all right." "You think so?" "Why not," I said, watching the far bank where now there were no carts. "But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?" "Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?" I asked. "Yes." "Then they'll fly." "Yes, certainly they'll fly. But the others. It's better not to think about the others," he said. "If you are rested I would go," I urged. "Get up and try to walk now." "Thank you," he said and got to his feet, swayed from side to side and then sat down backwards in the dust. "I was taking care of animals," he said dully, but no longer to me. "I was only taking care of animals." There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.
1. What was the old man doing in his native town? a. taking care of animals b. begging on the streets c. helping the soldiers d. talking care of children 2. What is special about the day the narrator encounters the old man? a. It is Easter Sunday. b. It is the last day of the war. c. It is Thanksgiving. d. It is Christmas Day. 3. Why does the old man leave the animals? a. because the children are taking care of them b. because he loses interest c. because they all die d. because of the artillery 4. Which animal is the old man least concerned about? a. the goats b. the pigeons c. the cat d. the dog 5. The trucks are crossing the bridge and going where? a. Vera Cruz b. Barcelona c. San Carlos d. Tortosa 6. What is the old man's native town? a. Vera Cruz b. Ebro Delta c. Barcelona d. San Carlos 7. What is the narrator's job? a. He questions people before they cross the bridge. b. He protects the people who cross the bridge. c. He scouts ahead for the enemy's location. d. He stops people from crossing the bridge. 8. Why does the old man stop and not go across the bridge? a. He is asked not to cross the bridge. b. He doesn't need to cross the bridge. c. He is too tired to cross the bridge. d. He isn't interested in crossing the bridge. 9. The old man is a symbol of what? a. the causes of war b. the patience of the soldiers c. the civilian victims of war d. the apathy of the civilians 10. How old is the old man? a. ninety-four b. sixty-six c. eighty-four d. seventy-six
One Of These Days Gabriel García Márquez Monday dawned warm and rainless. Aurelio Escovar, a dentist without a degree, and a very early riser, opened his office at six. He took some false teeth, still mounted in their plaster mold, out of the glass case and put on the table a fistful of instruments which he arranged in size order, as if they were on display. He wore a collarless striped shirt, closed at the neck with a golden stud, and pants held up by suspenders He was erect and skinny, with a look that rarely corresponded to the situation, the way deaf people have of looking. When he had things arranged on the table, he pulled the drill toward the dental chair and sat down to polish the false teeth. He seemed not to be thinking about what he was doing, but worked steadily, pumping the drill with his feet, even when he didn’t need it. After eight he stopped for a while to look at the sky through the window, and he saw two pensive buzzards who were drying themselves in the sun on the ridgepole of the house next door. He went on working with the idea that before lunch it would rain again. The shrill voice of his eleven-year-old son interrupted his concentration. “Papa.” “What?” “The Mayor wants to know if you’ll pull his tooth.” “Tell him I’m not here.” He was polishing a gold tooth. He held it at arm’s length, and examined it with his eyes half closed. His son shouted again from the little waiting room. “He says you are, too, because he can hear you.” The dentist kept examining the tooth. Only when he had put it on the table with the finished work did he say: “So much the better.” He operated the drill again. He took several pieces of a bridge out of a cardboard box where he kept the things he still had to do and began to polish the gold. “Papa.” “What?” He still hadn’t changed his expression. “He says if you don’t take out his tooth, he’ll shoot you.” Without hurrying, with an extremely tranquil movement, he stopped pedaling the drill, pushed it away from the chair, and pulled the lower drawer of the table all the way out. There was a revolver. “O.K.,” he said. “Tell him to come and shoot me.” He rolled the chair over opposite the door, his hand resting on the edge of the drawer. The Mayor appeared at the door. He had shaved the left side of his face, but the other side, swollen and in pain, had a five-day-old beard. The dentist saw many nights of desperation in his dull eyes. He closed the drawer with his fingertips and said softly: “Sit down.” “Good morning,” said the Mayor. “Morning,” said the dentist. While the instruments were boiling, the Mayor leaned his skull on the headrest of the chair and felt better. His breath was icy. It was a poor office: an old wooden chair, the pedal drill, a glass case with ceramic bottles. Opposite the chair was a window with a shoulderhigh cloth curtain. When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth. Aurelio Escovar turned his head toward the light. After inspecting the infected tooth, he closed the Mayor’s jaw with a cautious pressure of his fingers. “It has to be without anesthesia,” he said. “Why?” “Because you have an abscess.” The Mayor looked him in the eye. “All right,” he said, and tried to smile. The dentist did not return the smile. He brought the basin of sterilized instruments to the worktable and took them out of the water with a pair of cold tweezers, still without hurrying. Then he pushed the spittoon with the tip of his shoe, and went to wash his hands in the washbasin. He did all this
without looking at the Mayor. But the Mayor didn’t take his eyes off him. It was a lower wisdom tooth. The dentist spread his feet and grasped the tooth with the hot forceps. The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength, and felt an icy void in his kidneys, but didn’t make a sound. The dentist moved only his wrist. Without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness, he said: “Now you’ll pay for our twenty dead men.” The Mayor felt the crunch of bones in his jaw, and his eyes filled with tears. But he didn’t breathe until he felt the tooth come out. Then he saw it through his tears. It seemed so foreign to his pain that he failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights. Bent over the spittoon, sweating, panting, he unbuttoned his tunic and reached for the handkerchief in his pants pocket. The dentist gave him a clean cloth. “Dry your tears,” he said. The Mayor did. He was trembling. While the dentist washed his hands, he saw the crumbling ceiling and a dusty spider web with spider’s eggs and dead insects. The dentist returned, drying his hands. “Go to bed,” he said, “and gargle with salt water.” The Mayor stood up, said goodbye with a casual military salute, and walk “Send the bill,” he said. “To you or the town?” The Mayor didn’t look at him. He closed the door and said through the screen: “It’s the same damn thing.”
A CONVERSATION FROM THE THIRD FLOOR Mohamed Al Bisatie She came to the place for the second time. The policeman stared down at her from his horse. The time was afternoon. The yellowcoloured wall was stretched right along the road. Inside the wall was a large rectangular three- storey building; its small identical windows looked more like dark apertures. The woman stood a few paces away from the horse. The policeman looked behind him at the windows, then at the woman. He placed both hands on the pommel of the saddle and closed his-eyes. After a while the horse moved. It was standing halfway down the street. Then, a moment later, it made a half-turn and once again stood itself at the top of the street. The woman came two steps forward. The horse bent one of its forelegs, then gently lowered it. “Sergeant, please, just let me say two words to him.” His eyes remained closed, his hands motionless on the pommel. Above the wall stretched a fencing of barbed wire at the end of which was a wooden tower. Inside there stood an armed soldier. The woman took another step forward. “ You see, he’s been transferred ...” The sun had passed beyond the central point in the sky. Despite this the weather was still hot. A narrow patch of shade lay at the bottom of the wall. The woman transferred the child to her shoulder. When she again looked at the policeman’s face, she noticed two thin lines of sweat on his forehead. Quietly she moved away from in front of the horse and walked beside the wall. About halfway along it she sat down on a heap of stones opposite the building. The prisoners’ washing, hung by the arms and legs, could be seen. She took the child between her hands and lifted him above her head. She noticed his arms suddenly being withdrawn inside and his hands gripping the iron bars of the window. Then his face disappeared from view. For a while she searched for him among the faces that looked down. She lowered her arms a little and heard shouts of laughter from the window. She spotted his arm once again stretching outwards, then his face appeared clearly in the middle. “Up, Aziza. Up. Face him towards the sun so I can see him.” She lowered her arms for a moment, then raised him up again, turning his face towards the sun. The child closed his eyes and burst out crying. “He’s crying.” He turned round, laughing. “The boy’s crying! The little so-and-so! Aziza, woman, keep him crying!” He cupped his hand round his mouth and shouted, “Let him cry!” Again he laughed. A few shouts went up around him. She heard their words and shouting. Then she saw his large nose poking out through the bars, “Woman! Don’t be silly, that’s enough! Cover tile boy- he’ll get sunstroke!” She hugged the child to her chest and saw
the soldier withdrawing inside the tower, “Did you prune the two date palms?” She shook her head. “Why not? Why don’t you talk? I’m being transferred. Pass by Abu Ismail and tell him I send him my best wishes. He’ll do it as a favour and prune the trees, then you can bring along a few dates. Did you bring the cigarettes?” She made a sign with her hand. “Talk. What are you saying?” “You’ve got ‘em,” “Louder, woman.” “You’ve got ‘em, I sent them to you.” “When?” “Just Now.” Her face was against the sun. She shifted her head-veil slightly from her head. “They took a couple of packets. Never mind, Aziza. Never mind.” He laughed. His voice had become calm. The other faces disappeared from above him, only a single face remaining alongside his. “Did you build the wall?” “Not yet.” “Why not?” “When Uncle Ahmed lights the furnace, I’ll get some bricks from him.” “All right. Be careful on the tram. Look after the boy.” She remained standing. “Anything you want?” “No.” She gazed at his face, his large nose, his bare arms. She smiled. The face next to him smiled back. Suddenly be shouted. “Did you get the letter? I’m being transferred.” “Where to?” “I don’t know.” “When?” “You see, they’re pulling down the prison.” “Where will you go?” “God knows-anywhere. No one knows.” “When?” “In two or three days. Don’t come here again. I’ll let you know when I’m transferred. Has the boy gone to sleep?” “No, he’s awake.” He stared back for a while in silence. “Aziza !” Again there was silence. The face alongside his smiled, then slowly slid back inside and disappeared. Her husband remained silent, his arms around the bars. Suddenly he glanced behind him and quickly drew in his arms. He signalled to her to move away, then disappeared from the window. She stepped back, though she remained standing looking up at the window.
The Aged Mother Matsuo Basho Yoshitoshi, The moon and the abandoned old woman, 1892 Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied them with food, and they were humble, peaceful, and happy. Shining was governed by a despotic leader who though a warrior, had a great and cowardly shrinking from anything suggestive of failing health and strength. This caused him to send out a cruel proclamation. The entire province was given strict orders to immediately put to death all aged people. Those were barbarous days, and the custom of abandoning old people to die was not uncommon. The poor farmer loved his aged mother with tender reverence, and the order filled his heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought twice about obeying the mandate of the governor, so with many deep and hopeless sighs, the youth prepared for what at that time was considered the kindest mode of death. Just at sundown, when his day’s work was ended, he took a quantity of unwhitened rice which was the principal food for the poor, and he cooked, dried it, and tied it in a square cloth, which he swung in a bundle around his neck along with a gourd filled with cool, sweet water. Then he lifted his helpless old mother to his back and started on his painful journey up the mountain. The road was long and steep; the narrow road was crossed and re-crossed by many paths made by the hunters and woodcutters. In some place, they lost and confuse, but he gave no heed. One path or another, it mattered not. On he went, climbing blindly upward -- ever upward towards the high bare summit of what is known as Obatsuyama, the mountain of the “abandoning of the aged.” The eyes of the old mother were not so dim but that they noted the reckless hastening from one path to another, and her loving heart grew anxious. Her son did not know the mountain’s many paths and his return might be one of danger, so she stretched forth her hand and snapping the twigs from brushes as they passed, she quietly dropped a handful every few steps of the way so that as they climbed, the narrow path behind them was dotted at frequent intervals with tiny piles of twigs. At last the summit was reached. Weary and heart sick, the youth gently released his burden and silently prepared a place of comfort as his last duty to the loved one. Gathering fallen pine needles, he made a soft cushion and tenderly lifted his old mother onto it. Hew rapped her padded coat more closely about the stooping shoulders and with tearful eyes and an aching heart he said farewell. The trembling mother’s voice was full of unselfish love as she gave her last injunction. “Let not thine eyes be blinded, my son.” She said. “The mountain road is
full of dangers. LOOK carefully and follow the path which holds the piles of twigs. They will guide you to the familiar path farther down.” The son’s surprised eyes looked back over the path, then at the poor old, shriveled hands all scratched and soiled by their work of love. His heart broke within and bowing to the ground, he cried aloud: “oh, Honorable mother, your kindness breaks my heart! I will not leave you. Together we will follow the path of twigs, and together we will die!” Once more he shouldered his burden (how light it seemed now) and hastened down the path, through the shadows and the moonlight, to the little hut in the valley. Beneath the kitchen floor was a walled closet for food, which was covered and hidden from view. There the son hid his mother, supplying her with everything she needed, continually watching and fearing she would be discovered. Time passed, and he was beginning to feel safe when again the governor sent forth heralds bearing an unreasonable order, seemingly as a boast of his power. His demand was that his subjects should present him with a rope of ashes. The entire province trembled with dread. The order must be obeyed yet who in all Shining could make a rope of ashes? One night, in great distress, the son whispered the news to his hidden mother. “Wait!” she said. “I will think. I will think” On the second day she told him what to do. “Make rope of twisted straw,” she said. “Then stretch it upon a row of flat stones and burn it on a windless night.” He called the people together and did as she said and when the blaze died down, there upon the stones, with every twist and fiber showing perfectly, lay a rope of ashes. The governor was pleased at the wit of the youth and praised greatly, but he demanded to know where he had obtained his wisdom. “Alas! Alas!” cried the farmer, “the truth must be told!” and with deep bows he related his story. The governor listened and then meditated in silence. Finally he lifted his head. “Shining needs more than strength of youth,” he said gravely. “Ah, that I should have forgotten the well-known saying, “with the crown of snow, there cometh wisdom!” That very hour the cruel law was abolished, and custom drifted into as far a past that only legends remain.
They're Made out of Meat Terry Bisson "They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat." "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars." "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines." "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact." "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines." "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage." "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?" "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside." "Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through." "No brain?" "Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat." "Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years." "So what does the meat have in mind." "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual." "We're supposed to talk to meat?" "That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing." "They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat." "I thought you just told me they used radio." "They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat." "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?" "Officially or unofficially?" "Both." "Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing." "I was hoping you would say that." "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?" "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?" "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact." "So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe." "That's it." "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?" "They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them." "A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream." "And we can marked this sector unoccupied." "Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?" "Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again." "They always come around." "And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."
Yours Mary Robison Allison struggled away from her white Renault, limping with the weight of the last of the pumpkins. She found Clark in the twilight on the twig-and-leaf-littered porch behind the house. He wore a wool shawl. He was moving up and back in a padded glider, pushed by the ball of his slippered foot. Allison lowered a big pumpkin, let it rest on the wide floorboards. Clark was much older-seventy-eight to Allison's thirty-five. They were married. They were both quite tall and looked something alike in their facial features. Allison wore a natural-hair wig. It was a thick blonde hood around her face. She was dressed in bright-dyed denims today. She wore durable clothes, usually, for she volunteered afternoons at a children's daycare center. She put one of the smaller pumpkins on Clark's long lap. "Now, nothing surreal," she told him. "Carve just a regular face. These are for the kids." In the foyer, on the Hipplewhite desk, Allison found the maid's chore list with its cross-offs, which included Clark's supper. Allison went quickly through the daily mail: a garish coupon packet, a bill from Jamestown Liquors, November's pay-TV program guide, and the worst thing, the funniest, an already opened, extremely unkind letter from Clark's relations up North. "You're an old fool," Allison read, and, "You're being cruelly deceived." There was a gift check for Clark enclosed, but it was uncashable, signed as it was, "Jesus H. Christ." Late, late into this night, Allison and Clark gutted and carved the pumpkins together, at an old table set on the back porch, over newspaper after soggy newspaper, with paring knives and with spoons and with a Swiss Army knife Clark used for exact shaping of tooth and eye and nostril. Clark had been a doctor, an internist, but also a Sunday watercolorist. His four pumpkins were expressive and artful. Their carved features were suited to the sizes and shapes of the pumpkins. Two looked ferocious and jagged. One registered surprise. The last was serene and beaming. Allison's four faces were less deftly drawn, with slits and areas of distortion. She had cut triangles for noses and eyes. The mouths she had made were just wedges-two turned up and two turned down. By one in the morning they were finished. Clark, who had bent his long torso forward to work, moved back over to the glider and looked out sleepily at nothing. All the lights were out across the ravine. Clark stayed. For the season and time, the Virginia night was warm. Most leaves had been blown away already, and the trees stood unbothered. The moon was round above them. Allison cleaned up the mess. "Your jack-o-lanterns are much, much better than mine," Clark said to her. "Like hell," Allison said. "Look at me," Clark said. Allison did.
She was holding a squishy bundle of newspapers. The papers reeked sweetly with the smell of pumpkin guts. "Yours are far better," he said. "You're wrong. You'll see when they're lit," Allison said. She went inside and came back with yellow vigil candles. It took her a while to get each candle settled, and then to line up the results in a row on the porch railing. She went along and lit each candle and fixed the pumpkin lids over the little flames. "See?" she said. They sat together a moment and looked at the orange faces. "We're exhausted. It's good night time," Allison said. "Don't blow out the candles. I'll put new in tomorrow." That night, in their bedroom, a few weeks earlier than had been predicted, Allison began to die. "Don't look at me if my wig comes off," she told Clark. "Please." Her pulse cords were fluttering under his fingers. She raised her knees and kicked away the comforter. She said something to Clark about the garage being locked. At the telephone, Clark had a clear view out back and down to the porch. He wanted to get drunk with his wife once more. He wanted to tell her, from the greater perspective he had, that to own only a little talent, like his, was an awful, plaguing thing; that being only a little special meant you expected too much, most of the time, and liked yourself too little. He wanted to assure her that she had missed nothing. He was speaking into the phone now. He watched the jack-o-lanterns. The jack-olanterns watched him.
Blackberries Ellen Hunnicutt Just before noon the husband came down the near slope of the hill carrying his cap filled with blackberries. “They’re ripe now. This week,” he said to his wife. “We chose the right week to come.” He was a tall man, slender-limbed but thickening now through the center of his body. He walked around the tent to where the canvas water bag hung, spilled the berries into an aluminium pan, and began to wash them gently. “There isn’t any milk left,” his wife said. She was blond and fragile, still pretty in a certain light and with a careful arrangement of her features. “We finished the milk.” She sat up from the blanket spread on the ground and laid aside the book she had been reading. “Albert and Mae went to New York,” she said. “It’s a tour. A theater tour.” “You told me that,” he replied. “We can put these in cups. Cups will make fine berry bowls.” “There isn’t any milk.” “I saw cattails,” he said. “You’d think there would be too much woods for them. They need sun, but they’re there. You can slice up cattail root and fry it. In butter. We have butter. It’s good.” He divided the berries into two cups and set one cup on the blanket beside his wife. He rummaged through the kitchen box and found a spoon, then began to eat his berries slowly and carefully, making them last. “The tour covers everything,” she said. “You only pay once. You pay one price.” “There aren’t any bears here,” he said, “nor dangerous snakes. It would be different if we were camped in a dangerous place. It’s not like that here.” The woman smoothed the blanket she was sitting on with small, careful motions, as if making a bed. “It’s going to be hot,” she said. “There aren’t any clouds, not even small ones.” “We can swim,” he suggested, savoring his berries. “You always liked swimming. You’re good at it.” “No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m not good at it at all.” “You look great in a bathing suit. You always did. We have powdered milk.” “It has a funny taste.” “That green, silky bathing suit was the first one I ever saw you in.” “If we went down for milk we could go to the movie in the village. It’s a musical. I looked when we drove through.” “They’re probably only open on weekends,” he said. “A little town like that. Powdered milk’s okay.” “You don’t like it at home. You told me you don’t like powdered milk.” “I didn’t say that,” he replied. “Do you want me to go for the cattail root?” “It’s margarine,” she said. “We have margarine, not butter.” “I’ll fry them up.” “They’re probably protected, like trillium.” “You can pick cattails,” he said. “Nobody cares about cattails.” He went to the pile of fire logs and began splitting them, crouching, the hatchet working in clean, economical strokes. Shewatched him. He was good at splitting wood. The arc of arm and shoulder swung smoothly to aim each blow. “The summer’s almostover,” she said, taking one berry into her mouth.. She mashedit with her tongue, chewed and swallowed. The sun passed its zenith and she saw a stripe of shadow appear on the grass beside her husband, a silhouette slim as a boy, tender as memory. She began to eat the berries in twos and threes, picking them out with her fingers, forgoing a spoon. “It’s almost September.” He turned to look at her. “No it’s not,” he said. “It isn’t, and it’s scarcely noon. We have lots of time.”
Cemetery Path Leonard Q. Ross Ivan was a timid little man – so timid that the villagers caller him “Pigeon,” or mocked him with the title “Ivan the Terrible.” Every night Ivan stopped at the tavern which was on the edge of the village cemetery. Ivan never crossed the cemetery to get to his lonely shack on the other side. The path through the cemetery would save him many minutes, but he had never taken it – not even in the full light of the moon. Late one winter’s night, when bitter wind and snow beat against the tavern, the customers took up their familiar mockery. Ivan’s sickly protest only fed their taunts, and they jeered cruelly when the young Cossack lieutenant flung his horrid challenge at their quarry. “You are a pigeon, Ivan. You’ll walk all around the cemetery in this cold – but you dare not cross the cemetery.” Ivan murmured, “The cemetery is nothing to cross, Lieutenant. It is nothing but earth, like all the other earth.” The lieutenant cried, “A challenge, then! Cross the cemetery tonight, Ivan, and I’ll give you five rubles – five gold rubles!” Perhaps it was the vodka. Perhaps it was the temptation of the five gold rubles. No one ever knew why Ivan, moistening his lips, said suddenly: Yes, Lieutenant. I’ll cross the cemetery!” The tavern echoed with their disbelief. The lieutenant winked to the men and unbuckled his saber. “Here, Ivan. When you get to the center of the cemetery, in front of the biggest tomb, stick the saber into the ground. In the morning we shall go there. And if the saber is in the ground – five gold rubles to you!” Ivan took the saber. The men drank a toast: “To Ivan the Terrible!” They roared with laughter. The wind howled around Ivan as he closed the door of the tavern behind him. The cold was knife-sharp. He buttoned his long coat and crossed the dirt road. He could hear the lieutenant’s voice, louder than the rest, yelling after him, “Five rubles, pigeon! If you live!” Ivan pushed the cemetery gate open. He walked fast. “Earth, just earth…like any other earth.” But the darkness was a massive dread. “Five gold rubles…” The wind was cruel and the saber was like ice in his hands. Ivan shivered under the long, thick coat and broke into a limping run. He recognized the large tomb. He must have sobbed – that was drowned in the wind. And he kneeled, cold and terrified, and drove the saber into the hard ground. With his fist, he beat it down to the hilt. It was done. The cemetery…the challenge…five gold rubles. Ivan started to rise from his knees. But he could not move. Something held him. Something gripped him in an unyielding and implacable hold. Ivan tugged and lurched and pulled – gasping in his panic, shaken by a monstrous fear. But something held Ivan. He cried out in terror, then made senseless gurgling noises. They found Ivan, next morning, on the ground in front of the tomb that was in the center of the cemetery. His face was not that of a frozen man’s, but of a man killed by some nameless horror. And the lieutenant’s saber was in the ground where Ivan had pounded it – through the dragging folds of his long coat.
THERE WAS ONCE Margaret Atwood "There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest." "Forest? Forest is passé, I mean, I've had it with all this wilderness stuff. It's not a right image of our society, today. Let's have some urban for a change." "There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suburbs." "That's better. But I have to seriously query this word poor." "But she was poor!" "Poor is relative. She lived in a house, didn't she?" "Yes." "Then socio-economically speaking, she was not poor." "But none of the money was hers! The whole point of the story is that the wicked stepmother makes her wear old clothes and sleep in the fireplace-" "Aha! They had a fireplace! With poor, let me tell you, there's no fireplace. Come down to the park, come to the subway stations after dark, come down to where they sleep in cardboard boxes, and I'll show you poor!" "There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good-" "Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful, don't you? Women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in the ads. Can't you make her, well, more average?" "There was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out, who-" "I don't think it's nice to make fun of people's appearances. Plus, you're encouraging anorexia." "I wasn't making fun! I was just describing-" "Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was." "What colour?" "You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I'm telling you right now, I've had enough of white. Dominant culture this, dominant culture that-" "I don't know what colour." "Well, it would probably be your colour, wouldn't it?" "But this isn't about me! It's about this girl- " "Everything is about you." "Sounds to me like you don't want to hear this story at all." "Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help." "There was once a girl of indeterminate descent, as average-looking as she was good, who lived with her wicked-" "Another thing. Good and wicked. Don't you think you should transcend those puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets?
I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn't it?" "There was once a girl, as average-looking as she was well-adjusted, who lived with her stepmother, who was not a very open and loving person because she herself had been abused in childhood." "Better. But I am so tired of negative female images! And stepmothers-they always get it in the neck! Change it to stepfather, why don't you? That would make more sense anyway, considering the bad behaviour you're about to describe. And throw in some whips and chains. We all know what those twisted, repressed, middle-aged men are like-" "Hey, just a minute! I'm a middle-aged-" "Stuff it, Mister Nosy Parker. Nobody asked you to stick in your oar, or whatever you want to call that thing. This is between the two of us. Go on." "There was once a girl-" "How old was she?" "I don't know. She was young." "This ends with a marriage, right?" "Well, not to blow the plot, but-yes." "Then you can scratch the condescending paternalistic terminology. It's woman, pal. Woman." "There was once-" "What's this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now." "There-" "So?" "So, what?" "So, why not here?"
The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones Stephen Leacock Some people--not you nor I, because we are so awfully self-possessed--but some people, find great difficulty in saying goodbye when making a call or spending the evening. As the moment draws near when the visitor feels that he is fairly entitled to go away he rises and says abruptly, "Well, I think I..." Then the people say, "Oh, must you go now? Surely it's early yet!" and a pitiful struggle ensues. I think the saddest case of this kind of thing that I ever knew was that of my poor friend Melpomenus Jones, a curate--such a dear young man, and only twenty-three! He simply couldn't get away from people. He was too modest to tell a lie, and too religious to wish to appear rude. Now it happened that he went to call on some friends of his on the very first afternoon of his summer vacation. The next six weeks were entirely his own--absolutely nothing to do. He chatted awhile, drank two cups of tea, then braced himself for the effort and said suddenly: "Well, I think I..." But the lady of the house said, "Oh, no! Mr. Jones, can't you really stay a little longer?" Jones was always truthful. "Oh, yes," he said, "of course, I--er--can stay." "Then please don't go." He stayed. He drank eleven cups of tea. Night was falling. He rose again. "Well now," he said shyly, "I think I really..." "You must go?" said the lady politely. "I thought perhaps you could have stayed to dinner..." "Oh well, so I could, you know," Jones said, "if..." "Then please stay, I'm sure my husband will be delighted." "All right," he said feebly, "I'll stay," and he sank back into his chair, just full of tea, and miserable. Papa came home. They had dinner. All through the meal Jones sat planning to leave at eight-thirty. All the family wondered whether Mr. Jones was stupid and sulky, or only stupid. After dinner mamma undertook to "draw him out," and showed him photographs. She showed him all the family museum, several gross of them--photos of papa's uncle and his wife, and mamma's brother and his little boy, an awfully interesting photo of papa's uncle's friend in his Bengal uniform, an awfully well-taken photo of papa's grandfather's partner's dog, and an awfully wicked one of papa as the devil for a fancy-dress ball. At eight-thirty Jones had examined seventy-one photographs. There were about sixty-nine more that he hadn't. Jones rose. "I must say good night now," he pleaded. "Say good night!" they said, "why it's only half-past eight! Have you anything to do?" "Nothing," he admitted, and muttered something about staying six weeks, and then laughed miserably. Just then it turned out that the favourite child of the family, such a dear little romp, had hidden Mr. Jones's hat; so papa said that he must stay, and invited him to a pipe and a chat. Papa had the pipe and gave Jones the chat, and still he stayed. Every moment he meant to take the plunge, but couldn't. Then papa began to get very tired of Jones, and fidgeted and finally said, with jocular irony, that Jones had better stay all night, they could give him a shake-down. Jones mistook his meaning and thanked him with tears in his eyes, and papa put Jones to bed in the spare room and cursed him heartily. After breakfast next day, papa went off to his work in the City, and left Jones playing with the baby, broken-hearted. His nerve was utterly gone. He was meaning to leave all day, but the thing had got on his mind
and he simply couldn't. When papa came home in the evening he was surprised and chagrined to find Jones still there. He thought to jockey him out with a jest, and said he thought he'd have to charge him for his board, he! he! The unhappy young man stared wildly for a moment, then wrung papa's hand, paid him a month's board in advance, and broke down and sobbed like a child. In the days that followed he was moody and unapproachable. He lived, of course, entirely in the drawing-room, and the lack of air and exercise began to tell sadly on his health. He passed his time in drinking tea and looking at the photographs. He would stand for hours gazing at the photographs of papa's uncle's friend in his Bengal uniform- -talking to it, sometimes swearing bitterly at it. His mind was visibly failing. At length the crash came. They carried him upstairs in a raging delirium of fever. The illness that followed was terrible. He recognized no one, not even papa's uncle's friend in his Bengal uniform. At times he would start up from his bed and shriek, "Well, I think I..." and then fall back upon the pillow with a horrible laugh. Then, again, he would leap up and cry, "Another cup of tea and more photographs! More photographs! Har! Har!" At length, after a month of agony, on the last day of his vacation, he passed away. They say that when the last moment came, he sat up in bed with a beautiful smile of confidence playing upon his face, and said, "Well--the angels are calling me; I'm afraid I really must go now. Good afternoon." And the rushing of his spirit from its prisonhouse was as rapid as a hunted cat passing over a garden fence.