The Dark Side Of The Wood

Staring at the screen, the young author sighed in frustration, her fingers once again failing her as she was distracted by the din of the news on TV. Resigned, she shut it off and turned back to her blank document wishing for the ability to channel her emotions towards the high expectations placed before her, as well as the stigmas. She was growing tired of the starkness of the world around her.

"Who's there? Who's there?" she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull.

With his wishes caused rebellion against his parent’s rules. At age 13 was when he began to experiment with smoking marijuana and vandalizing property using spray paint and breaking things abandoned facilities. As his parents made the rules stricter such as his curfew, the more he acted out on them but using substances. Although Wyatt’s friends were always apart of unruly behavior, they are still good people. They were who he related to. Also, believing he is man enough to know when to stay

“What are you talking about?” She yelled into nothingness as her eyes frantically searched around for any sign of her family.

“What the f-” I started to snap, blinking when I saw nobody there. I looked around, visibly confused before a small voice

The Superintendent walked solemnly down the dimly lit hallway. The vast walls of lockers gave him an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, eating away at his soul like acid eating away metal. The psychologically effects transmitted to his outer body, causing him to halt to an abrupt stop. Standing like a deer in headlights, his mind was instantaneously flooded with brisk images of the once flourishing hallways. He stifled a faux smile, composed himself, and erratically walked into the main office, where he prepared to apologetically deliver the final afternoon announcement of the High School’s history. Alone¬¬––later in his office, another pang of dense, impenetrable darkness suffocated him and he let out a cry of resignation. He put his chapped

Ten years pass. He can still recall the crème blush coloring of his lover’s cheeks and the tapered point of her nose. He can recall the ringing vibrato of her laugh and the way a shrill, yet violent sneeze would wrack her body. Fifty years. He knows she had auburn hair and olive skin, but what color were her eyes? Gray like an oncoming tempest or a deep ochre married with lighter hues. One hundred years. His grandchildren stamp their fingerprints on the glass of the frame with her photo in it. Their mother wrenches the portrait out of their pudgy hands with a sigh, lost in the memories of twirling around on the kitchen tile to the soundtrack of the woman’s hums. Two hundred years. Her image is engulfed in the flames of a roaring blaze and lost

Vivid smoke softly floats from the brick chimney. As she gazes at the foggy sky through the front window by the fireplace, creases fold beneath her sunburned eyes. Streams of black eyeshadow slowly flow down either golden-brown cheek. It’s mid – September, and she expressed far too many times every little piece of what’s behind her destitute heart. Hannah. That’s her name. Shoulder-length Auburn hair, a beautiful smile with ocean blue eyes and a red rose tattoo on her lower back she received last summer while in New York. It’s visible when earlier during the day she bent over to throw a pile of leaves on Dan, her boyfriend. Hannah is clenching a pencil; her crumpled diary thrown next to her feet captures the deep sentiment she’s without a doubt missed hiding in plain sight.

It was the week after my eighteenth birthday and the smell of artificial smoke and the sound of young children dressed as monsters, demanding sweet treats, permeated my room. My fingers pressed to The Jade Shard, the book I had chosen for the project which had gotten all warped from the moisture that attacked the pages when I was reading it in the steamy shower. I sat down at my laptop, my body limp from exhaustion, to work on a paper for school. Writer’s block tripped me like The Mountain did The Red Viper.

In late medieval Europe, there was a great deal of innovative technology. Since there was law and order in society because of rigid rules and traditions, merchants and artisans had the opportunity to devote time to innovation, rather than having to deal with crime and uncertainty. Powerful government and religious figures such as kings and popes were well respected by all of the subjects. Additionally, the Catholic Church had a significant role in influencing political leaders as well as merchants, artisans, and peasants. Law and order was kept because people followed the rules and valued honor based on a strong code of ethics and religious dogma. In a Dark Wood by Michael Cadnum accurately portrays a period of growth in innovative technology

“John McBernette, please stay after class,” my english teacher ordered a few seconds before the bell. Suspecting I had been caught yet once again pulling a prank on my friend, I cursed the day she was born silently while sulking deeper into my seat. As I stood standing in front of her desk, awaiting her almost daily lecture, I realized that my life was not hot and spicy like I always imagined it to be at my present age. However, that was five years ago.

The boys stood gasping, their eyes on the tall facade that loomed. Where they slept; where they ate. Where they lived -their laughter soaked into the floorboards, echos of jokes and taunts and teasing. Ghosts of them; wrestling in the dorms, sprinting through the halls, bounding up the steps. The imprint of their existence and the existence of generations of boys before them, separated by the times but all essentially the same. Tenants of the fifties still nicked each other's books on the way to classes, boys from the sixties still hurriedly snuffed out their cigarettes when they heard the dean coming, and boys from the seventies still climbed out their windows at night when they needed to escape. All of this encased in cold unyielding stone

Two weeks prior to summer vacation my 8th grade year, Amy and I were in one of my favorite places, a place that was supposed to be nearly silent, but was often much too loud. A fact that was overlooked by most, for we had all just come from lunch and were full and happy.At this point in time the vast room was in a state of orderly disorder, with books strewn everywhere.From the long battered hicory tables and matching chairs, to the typical boring and dusty blue/green carpet found in most schools,to the small, cramped office where the books were usualy sorted.The taste of the creamy tomato soup I had with lunch, was still fresh in my mouth, slightly tainted with the faint smell of paste and fresh lamanation. As always, you could hear the soft roar of papers rustling as the pages of the books held in the hands of engrossed readers turned rapidly. The stained maple book shelves felt more empty than normal and the long and difficult process of replacing the old books with the new had begun, shown by the library specialists rushing frantically around, trying to complete all of their tasks before the end of the school year was upon

Inside, the school smelled smartly of varnish and wood smoke from the potbellied stove. On gloomy days, not unknown in upstate New York in this region south of Lake Ontario and east of Lake Erie, the windows emitted a vague, gauzy light, not much reinforced by ceiling lights. We squinted at the blackboard, that seemed far away since it was on a small platform, where Mrs. Dietz's desk was also positioned, at the front, left of the room. We sat in rows of seats, smallest at the front, largest at the rear, attached at their bases by metal runners, like a toboggan; the wood of these desks seemed beautiful to me, smooth and of the red-burnished hue of horse chestnuts. The floor was bare wooden planks. An American flag hung limply at the far left

"What the hell are you doing?" A raspy female voice growled, and a woman stumbled out of the back of the house. "Who are you? Did Moriarty send you?" She held her arms close to her, her eyes darting wildly to the door and back to Sam.