Introduction
In an apartment in New York City a woman cried in her room. The woman was 23 and would usually be called beautiful but today her hair was unkempt and her face was covered in the same smudged makeup from the day before. Her room was trashed, and the woman was curled on her bed hugging a banner that read happy birthday. The rest of the house seemed untouched. In the living room a pile of gifts lay wrapped on the table and a painstakingly crafted cake stood on the counter the inscription in bright blue happy lettering read Happy Birthday Chrissie. A note lay on the counter next to the cake, a note that Chrissie would never forget. The note marked the change in Chrissie’s life her life would now be split: before the accident and after. The note was written by a man named Aaron, the man who baked the cake. Upstairs Chrissie cried, alone, in the same position she had lay for hours, to her it seemed like that was her whole life. She clutched the birthday banner that was meant to celebrate her 23rd but would now just mark the day of the accident.
Genevieve
“Gen what are you doing right now you need to get over here”
“What why what’s going on?” I asked “Fi you need to calm down I don’t know what you are going on about.”
“I can’t calm down, Aaron was in the hospital and Chris isn’t answering my calls we need to get there now.” Fi said in one breath.
“Aaron is in the hospital! What happened! Is he okay?!”
Fi took a breath and when she spoke I could hear her
As my fifteen-year-old roommate falls to pieces, panic rises in my chest like a leaping flame. She lets out muffled screams and chilling sobs as she buries her face against the pillow. I kneel beside her and whisper reassurances. “You’ll be okay.” “No one will hurt you.” I pray she hears me but I know she doesn’t. She is trapped somewhere else - somewhere she revisits every day, like a bad song stuck in her head for life.
In a land far far away in Santa Barbara, California, there was a girl named Danielle who lived with her Paw Paw. She was very insecure and never really knew who she was, because she always followed the crowd. One day at school she gets an assignment where she has to write about herself. But she doesn’t know what to write! She is very upset; because she has never failed a school assignment in her life and she doesn’t want to start now. So she asks her best friend, Alexia, and asks for her to write it for her. Alexia said that she was sorry but she didn’t want to get in trouble.
In this section, Jeannette Walls starts off, in the present time by telling the readers about her seeing her mom on the street, that she hasn’t seen in a long time. Jeannette uses emotional words like blustering and fretted to show that seeing her mom was an emotional time. Later in the section, she goes way back into her life to when she was three years old and when her family and her was living in the desert. She started off telling a story of when she was on fire. This story was intense, it was really dramatic on her parents part, her dad was screaming at her and the doctor a lot. Then she talked about when they moved to Las Vegas, her family lived in a motel room, which didn’t last long, they had to leave Vegas in a rush, because her dad was cheating in blackjack and the dealer found out. The last story in the section is where her family drove to San Francisco and stayed in another motel. One night her dad was at the bar, across the street. He left Jeannette and her three other siblings in the room. Jeannette got bored so she decided to play with fire and that let to a big disaster resulting in the whole hotel burning down.
They took a sharp turn over a some railroad tracks and the back door flew open. Jeannette rolled out of the car, she rolled many yards on the embankment. When she came to a stop, she was too shocked to cry and she all bloody and scraped up. She called herself a burden, and said they could do fine without her. When her family turned around and came screeching to a halt, her dad got out of the car, knelt down, and tried to give Jeannette
Jeannette Walls was in a taxi wondering if she had been overdressed for the evening.She was stuck in traffic when she saw her mother Rose 15 feet away. Her mother had tied rags around her shoulder while a black and white terrier mix was beside her. When Rose looked up, Jeannette panicked and thought her mother would see her and shout her name and that someone from the party would spot them together. Jeannette immediately turned her taxi around and went home. She felt ashamed of herself because she was living this nice life,living in Park Avenue and wearing pearls.While her parents were probably huddled on a sidewalk keeping warm and finding something to eat. Jeannette called her mother's friend and left a message, this was the way she would
I hold the paper in my hands. It’s crumpling under my grip, but in it I get to live in the footsteps of others. My old dress is wrinkled and torn much like the paper, but I can’t spare the money on a new one. As much as I try to focus on the crinkled piece of paper with scrawly handwriting, I can’t. I just can’t. Tears run down my face and I wipe them away. It has been awhile since I have cried, so long in fact that I was afraid that there was something wrong with me. I push myself up from the old oak I sit at the base of. There’s no use in dwelling in what I can’t change. I fold the paper back in my dress pocket and walk into the field. I used to think there was beauty in the way that the grass grows in the street; standing low next to the
The rain got harder as Tina walked alone in tears. She missed her daughter Iris. Tina thought about all the good times they had together. She wondered why Iris had done that to herself. Iris was a skinny young girl who killed herself. Iris wa bullied at school for how far she was, so Iris decided to stop eating. Tina was walking in the rain. It had been a year since Iris was gone. She thought back to that day. Tina woke up and made herself some coffee. She nibbled on a muffin that she bought from the store yesterday. She took Iris to school and then went to work. Tina went throughout her day as usual, but what she didn’t know was that soon her daughter would take her own life. Iris got home and went up into her bedroom. Tina wouldn’t get home
As Anna is watching her sister and her friends, she steams up a crazy idea that she is going to the party too. The time comes for all the girls to leave, so they all hop in the car and head to the party. What they do not know is little Anna secretly followed them on her bike. Anna, pedaling as fast as she can, she finally arrives at the party. She begins to walk around, and she is mesmerized. Everyone is dancing and having the time of their life. While keeping an eye out for her older sister Alice, she gets a little thirsty. She grabbed a drink off of a table and realized it tasted a little funny, but that didn’t bother Anna. As she’s walking around looking at everyone she starts to feel a little light-headed, and she passes out under a tree. When she wakes up, she sees that everything was different, even her. She was a big girl now, just like she wanted. She takes off walking home, as she sees many homeless people on the streets she gets confused. Anna walks past a store and sees a calendar, it’s the year 1932, twenty years later. Anna arrives home feeling very disarranged. She sees that her family is now poor, and
One night, thoroughly past her bedtime, Georgiana crept stealthily downstairs to sneak a bite of pie, even though her mother would never approve. She immediately realized a heavy drape of desolation. The only noise was her heart beating to the rapid rhythm of the twitching fan. Georgiana thought that no one would be awake at one in the morning. She slipped through the doorway into the kitchen. For an instant, her heart stopped. A dreadful sight stood in her way. An innocent and isolated individual lay with his hand grasping for life, but it was already over. Taking a step back, she
This birthday had been wonderful. My friend Emily and I hiked up to a place called Griffith Observatory. I had heard that the view was amazing and you could see all of LA. I walked to a artsy concrete staircase where you could see the lively and bustling city in the background. From our point of view, the skyscraper buildings looked tiny and ant sized. The golden crisp sun had slightly set behind us and caused the sky to shift deep colors throughout the city. When the cotton candy like clouds drifted across the electric baby blue sky, I felt an overwhelming rush of pure happiness. The condensed and shrubby bushes in front of us were a shamrock green color, and looked as if they were full of life. I knew
“I still don’t understand what I said wrong. I’m not trying to be a jerk about this; I truly don’t understand what lit your fuse like that.” James said.
Each of us have done a thing or two that churn our stomachs to even slightly remember them. The time you split your pants. The time you fell down while walking at graduation. While each of these instances are absolutely horrid, they shape who one becomes over time. The short story, “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros, follows an eleven year old girl named Rachel who has to cope with one of life’s sucker punches on what would have be a wonderful day; her birthday. The terrifying incident involving a disgusting red sweater that Rachel describes as “raggedy”, “old”, and smelling of “cottage cheese”. The emotions that these events evoke in Rachel, coupled with various literary techniques and choices such as stream of consciousness style writing, decisions
I remember the day just like it was yesterday, the pale color and coldness of her skin. The sky was clear blue, soft, with a touch of red, and the trees seemed stiff in their bright green shade. The wind was blowing with its humid dry air. And All I could do was stand silently in disbelief, caught up in my own thoughts and calm as I ever been. Wondering what I could have done differently to change the course of time, life had taken us upon. Since that very day a chunk of my heart was ripped away, and broken into pieces… “Oh how I miss her so much.”
The morning sunshine seeped through the cracks between my shutters, lighting up my room. I could hear the clock ticking and the rays of sunlight bouncing off of my eyelids. I barely got any sleep last night because I was ecstatic that tomorrow was, my birthday! I jumped up out of bed, how could I have forgotten that it was my birthday? Suddenly all of my drowsiness turned it into excitement and I jumped up, throwing the red gradient quilt off of my bed. I slowly walked out of my room, making very little noise, checking to see if anyone else was awake. I peeked through the intricate staircase railings and tried to spot anyone downstairs, no one was in sight. I tiptoed down the cream coloured stairs, reached the bottom and got startled when my mom yelled, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”, her voice bouncing off the walls of house. A grin so big spread across my face, I couldn’t believe I was turning four years old!
"Happy Birthday", my mom screamed out and scared me the morning of June 9. But it was surprising and nice of her since she wished me before anyone else. It was my eighteen birthday and it was my day. While looking out the big windows in my room, I thought to myself, I will do what satisfies me today, but wasn't quite sure what? I didn’t receive any calls from my friends, or other relatives. Nobody was home either besides my mom with whom I can’t make plans because she got her own work to do. It depressed me because it seemed like this was going to be one boring eighteen birthday.