Allison's Short Story

Joni Eareckson Tada stood at the edge of the rock as she had done many times that summer. When she dove into the water, she felt her head hit something hard. An agonizing pain tore through her head. She felt as if her hands and feet were tied by ropes. As she rode in the back of the ambulance that afternoon, Joni thought that her injury was not serious. She had no idea how drastically her life was about to change.

Dorothy Allison's voice is one of authenticity, experience, and wisdom. This is apparent in her recounts of her mother's death and rape by her abusive stepfather as a child. She uses her storytelling as a way of sorting out her inner demons and memories of her broken life, “the [story] I wish I could make you hear,” as she says, because “the need to tell [her] story was terrible and persistent, and [she] needed to say it bluntly and cruelly, to use all those words, those old awful tearing words” (39, 42). She strives to get to the root of her own unresolved issues and, by her own admission, “[works] to make you believe [her]”:

Once the crowd reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were stopped short by Alabama State Troopers. Joanne’s grip tightened around her teacher 's’ hands. Although the group of protesters were threatened by the troopers, they did not budge. The State Troopers showed no mercy as they brutally attacked the peaceful mob. As she breathed in air, Joanne immediately knew what she had inhaled - tear gas. The members of the group ran

They were shimmering as though wet with dew. Eve ran her hand across one of them, but to her surprise, the vine was completely dry. The grass near the vines was trampled down from something consistently walking over it. Curious, she pushed past the vines into a small field, void of everything but a stone tower that seemed to vanish into the fog surrounding it. She knew that it probably wasn’t a good idea to climb up it, but she was desperate to find a safe place to hide away in. She found a hole in the stone, put her foot in it, and started to

Daze of her arrival on an unknown land began to wear off. She became aware of the discomfort of her waterlogged dress, petticoat, the sand trapped within. That seems to find its way into the most annoying places. Stopped, gave her dress a shaking in an attempt to dislodge the sand.

Laura Hillenbrand was born on May 15, 1967 in Farvax, VA and spent her childhood years in Washington D.C. In D.C. Laura joined a swim team at around the age of 10. One practice while they were waiting for a storm to pass her coach told them stories, what may have seemed like fun story telling led to Laura’s life as a writer.

Clarisse was walking down the sidewalk of her new neighborhood with the wind by her side and leaves at her feet. She was mesmerized by the colors of the fallen leaves and the cracks in the gravel. She traced a particularly large crack down the sidewalk with her eyes until it disappeared under a man’s shoes. He was watching Clarisse walk along the sidewalk. His eyebrows were furrowed creating a crease between them and he had soot streaked on the left side of his face. Clarisse’s eyes moved from his face to the uniform he was wearing.

The smell of the leather upholstery came back and the cold from the steering wheel bit at Michaels' hands. He heard the leather creak as he turned to face his pregnant wife, and he noticed the stiffness of the padded seat caused by the cold. Michael blinked his eyes as he stared at Mary while reaching for the key to start the car. He was so intently focused on the moment, yet at the same time he wondered what the storm had been like so many years ago.

“I knew there was poverty in the world, but it was never as real to me as it was then. “ It was then that I realized how much I had.”

I came to and looked around at the eerily familiar landscape, but something was missing. The house. It was gone. I slowly walked towards the plantation that I had visited so many times before, and as I grew closer and closer, I saw something peculiar. What was a rock doing in the middle of an empty field? The field was empty except for a single tree, which

Ruined. The pieces of glistening glass marked the area of the incident. It had all happened so quickly, too quickly for them to engage and avoid what had happened. Tim and Gina were only on the road for ten minutes when the crash occurred. Silence took over as soon as it happened. The bricks of the wall that they hit had collapsed. Both were still, not a muscle moved. The foot wells now held the wedding hat that had fallen off from the impact of the haul and John’s tie that he had spent forever perfecting had become scruffy. It was their son’s big day, his wedding day, why did it have to happen to them?

Something fell near her, crashed down from the ceiling and showered sparks and embers onto her shirt and arms. It burned, it burned so much, but she couldn't move.

As she made her way through the sand dunes towards the cave. When she reached the rocks at the edge of the water she felt the strange feeling return. She was unsure if she had made the right decision by walking out to the rocks so late in the afternoon. As she grew nearer to the rocks and the sun began to set, her nerves returned and she grew uneasy. She skimmed the rocks for any sort of crevice or cave, but couldn’t see anything. Cordelia was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she failed to notice the large pile of rocks behind her. They fell with a sickening crash that caused her to drop the book in surprise.

Before Zoey could even think of a half-decent comeback, Carrie was shoved out the bus door. She landed with as muffled 'oof', followed by a painful 'ow'. When she felt she was finished laying on the concrete long enough, she stood up and dusted herself off. She managed to blink the pain away, even though the pain was not in her eyes; it everywhere else.

Taylor looked down. Through the flimsy hospital gown, she could see all of the charred skin on her arms. There was some on her legs, too. The nurse brought her an aloe plant, and she said to put it on her wounds. She started thinking about the crash, and then she realized something. All Taylor needed was the car, and she would figure out the case. The car, and she would know who caused the death of her adored cousin and her cherished parents.