Le Leo's Story Essay: When The Voice Revealed

The wind chime hung from the roof of the abandoned house , it swayed calmly and slowly against the wind , everything seemed peaceful . We - my father and I - sat on the porch of the rundown house that only we knew about . It was dark and I wasn’t the biggest fan of the night , the night is unpredictable but yet so beautiful .

In the outskirts of New York, dirt filled slush clings to the white cement on a December evening. Tiny droplets of frozen water blob on the ground and melt, getting crushed by afternoon stragglers. Buildings cluster together for warmth in the biting winter chill. The structures, many tall and slim while some are squat and obtuse, line the streets of blazing horns and shouting pedestrians. The sounds of people stomping their feet before they enter busses, offices, and cars echo off each skyscraper and continue to bounce until it is too faint to be perceived. As rush hour begins to stall, two men dart into the densely populated street not caring to stop for oncoming traffic. One man is tall and thin with gangy limbs too long for his body. His eyes, dark grey flickering nonstop, are calculative, possessive, and intelligent.

Barrages of the distant voices, the clink of the hammers, the gushes of the urgent water sounded to his ears. What he didn’t hear, however, were the oinks of the pigs, the reverberating footsteps of the horses, nor did he hear shuffling cows or birds trilling.

Three years ago, a sixteenth birthday gave me a 1998 Buick LeSabre to call my very own. Extremely grateful as a young teenager, I drove it everywhere becoming a close companion with it. As the years have past, the excitement began to wear off, growing into a love-hate relationship with the now high-maintenance car. It constantly asks for more money to be spent on it, such as gas or new tires, and it has driven us apart. The LeSabre was my first, but I do not know if we are right for each other anymore; so I began looking at other cars. Concerned for the future, hybrid vehicles seduced me into its consideration. Alluring promises to help save the planet with its independence of fossil fuels, and to save money with lower gas consumption, gave

His heart jumped straight into his throw as he saw the ground coming at two mph. As he got no less than a foot from the ground he stopped as though some imaginary brake had been slammed.  His first thought was bafflement. This was not a place he had ever seen . Everything looked like it belonged in a museum. But yet here it was . "Hello twilight zone. My name is Dougy" He said thinking aloud. Only one thing remained that he could actually recognize. The tower. Of course. Though it now looked pristine as if it were only a few days old. But of course that was absurdity. He pondered what drugs they had fed to him and whether they could keep feeding it. For once he no longer cared to resist. No one paid him no mind . " Excuse me , said in a man wearing robes that engulfed him from head to toe. I have no clue where i am can you help The man almost leapt forward mouth moving but no words coming out. As Doug extended his hand the man kept walking . He walked right through him. The man shivered but kept going silently muttering. Doug felt as if he gad been doused with ice cold water. No one communicated with each other. All wore the same zombie look. Just as thought of going into a bar he found himself sailing through the tunnel again . This time much

He heard a confused music within him as of memories and names which he was almost conscious of but could not capture even for an instant; then the music seemed to recede, to recede, to recede, and from each receding trail of nebulous music there fell always one longdrawn calling note, piercing like a star the dusk of silence. Again! Again! Again! A voice from beyond the world was calling. (107)

The street was eerily quiet as I crossed. So was Mike. Staring at me unwaveringly, he said nothing as I approached. The crow's feet framing his eyes, the ridges in his forehead, and the crinkles in his cheeks still stand out in my mind. How many nights had he lain on that bench, covering his face as the wind whipped against it? Now he hugged his body tightly. He was wearing an old pair of tan khakis, a shirt that I couldn't see clearly, and a light multi-colored jacket, its sleeves ending above his pale wrists, that was just slightly too small and clung to his body. As I gave him the money in my wallet, he took it--slowly--and stared at it for a second in disbelief. Although the street in front of the library is usually an amalgam of car horns, headlights, whining engines throughout the night, nothing--not

It was a cold day, so cold that your arms start to sting as if a needle is impaling the surface of your skin. The wind applies a force which feels as if your face is oozing with thick crimson red blood. The gray puffy clouds covered the sky and dropped small snowflakes onto the road’s surface. A man stood there, freezing, clearing the coat of thick white snow from the concrete road. His nose runs with a river of snot that floods out when the cold wind strikes. His sense of smell is heavily clogged by the slimy snot, but he can still smell the scent of the steamy hot chocolate which sits on the top of his snow covered car. His feet start to numb because of the cold flood which soaks through his boots to his white, silky socks. His feet feel as if he stepped into the freezing cold ocean. As if he fell through ice and he was stuck standing there. The vast pile of the ice white snow feels almost like a quicksand around his black rubber boot. Foggy figures of people shovel the big piles of snow off the sidewalks. They scrape and pick at the glossy white ice which sticks to the sidewalk like a little boy clinging to his mother's side. His feet still sting as if he was stepping on pins and needles. His hands are damp with sweat from grasping the curved metal shaft attached to a socket which holds the blade. The blade cuts holes into the thick powdered snow which is removed from the endless pile. The jet black shovel is filled with slushy snow and crystal shards of ice. The end of

“Car horns, shrill and prolonged, blared one after another. Flashing sirens heralded endless emergencies, and a fleet of buses rambled past their doors opening and closing with a powerful hiss, throughout the night. The noise was constantly distracting, at times suffocating.”

The sounds of the city at night mix with the laughter of my friends. Taxis honking, subways rushing under your feet, and buses rumbling, all carrying their cargo of dead-tired, empty-minded passengers, following the daily routine until they reach their doorstep. For once, I 'm not one of them, not riding my train after a long day at school, brain set to automatic. Today, I am wide awake, soaring a thousand miles high.

I hadn’t noticed how silent neighborhoods could be on a Saturday afternoon until I had walked through enough that were not my own. I remember one day, and one neighborhood in particular. The weather was good for the first time since winter, the sky cloudless and so enormous and blue that it made everything else feel hollow. One neighborhood had a wide street, with no curbs, and sidewalks covered in gravel that made a hot, echoing sound underneath my shoes as I walked.

The rain tree, hearing voices for the first time in forever, was startled. He looked around, but there was no one around. I must be so lonely, he thought, I’m even imagining voices.

A few miles south of Braggtown in the town of Durham the air is crisp outside. There is a slight morning breeze coming from the green towering mountains. It is a quarter after ten in the morning. The busy workers rushed through the metal automatic doors like water rushing through a dam. Huge planes took off the long moist concrete and soared up to the bright blue glistening sky. They sprung up and plummeted down. However, all was quiet. They followed each other 's paths like birds in a flock. The enormous transparent windows opened up the eyes of people and let sunlight flow in. There was a clear sense of urgency among the dashing human beings. The cars came in and out like soft waves crashing amongst damp sand.

Clouds blanketed the sky and a brisk wind howled through the leafless branches of elm trees that hugged the road. A car drove past, and the streetlamps were beginning to turn on. I was strolling down the sidewalk, leaves crunching underfoot. My cane tapped the concrete. I buttoned up my suit coat and bent over to pick up my hat as a particularly chilly wind sprouted goose bumps and blew my chapeau of my head. Suddenly, I stopped.

The streets filled with noise. The streets filled with lights. The street was alive, but with what; with anger, sadness, joy, or maybe colors, colors that clashed, contrasted, but the street was alive. Filled colors, filled with lights... fueled by anger.