The Man Who Showed Me The True Meaning Of Life

You feel an intense, out-of-the-skin awareness of your living self—your truest self, the human being you want to be and then become by the force of wanting it. In the midst of evil you want to be a good man. You want decency. You want justice and courtesy and human concord, things you never knew you wanted. There is a kind of largeness to it, a kind of godliness. Though it’s odd, you’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead. You recognize what’s valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what’s best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost. At the hour of dusk you sit at your foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red, and at the mountains beyond, and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die, even so, you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is

The darkness is slowly scaring me making me feel overwhelmed. I can’t see anything. I feel suffocated and musty with all these boxes stocked next to me and on top of me. I’ve been here for so long and I feel so hopeless and useless. Then suddenly a bright light shines on me and I finally feel free from this very comfortless home. I wish someone would open this lid on top of me so I can breath in fresh air. But here I am staying strong and just patiently waiting. Then suddenly, I am lifted, opened, and place on top of a flat surface. I feel so nervous. I am hearing human voices. My wish is granted. It is my time, and I am free!

“So much is there, so much to see, you just cannot. You are not one; you are not gifted like me. I can be free. The void will save me, I shall live free.” With that I took the extra step off the edge. Then I was falling through the thick fog down the steep cliff -

There was no end to the force he exerted onto me. It was endless, it was pure turmoil to me. I was weak. The invasion was two years ago, but this proved I was still no stronger. I was still small, still weak, still less than my attacker. A part of me simply wanted to flee, like that day. I glanced backward, looking for an escape from him.

Imagine your life turning in an instant, your whole world being flipped upside down with no way of stopping it. Picture your mother rush out the door because your dog howling at the fire whistle awoken her causing her to check her phone. Watch your not so little brother holding your distraught mother run to the car and speed off. Imagine sitting on the couch alone just waiting for the call you never expect with your baby brother upstairs tossing and turning knowing something is wrong, but having me reject in telling him.

I woke up the next morning not remembering what happened the day before. I forgot where I was, who I was with and why I was here. I got up from my new bed, went into the bathroom and took a shower. Immediately after I got out, I hear “Elizabeth get down here now!” being screamed from the kitchen. I had no idea why I was being screamed at so I quickly got dressed, brushed my long blonde hair that went down to my waist to avoid knots in my hair, and ran downstairs, not wanting to upset my new foster parents. Walking into the kitchen, I see everyone in the family eating at the table, assuming I was the last person

I woke up and rustled all my things together and jetted down stairs. I see my mom across the room eating her favorite cereal, Lucky Charms. I slugged around the kitchen still half-awake trying to find a bowl, cereal, and milk. Then I heard a whistle and realized she had my breakfast ready on the table. I sat across from her on the table. The scent of perfume hit my nose, it smelled fruity. Her hair was combed back into a sleek bun. She was wearing a formal white shirt and a black skirt and some heels. I slurped the last of the milk as she was almost out the door. I walked outside and ran to the car. I opened the door and got inside. It was 7:59 am.

The pain was gone. I couldn’t feel the warm goo running down my face. I was...glad...that the pain was gone. But now there was a new pain. My mind felt like it was being pulled from somewhere in different directions. “Are you alright?” Suddenly there’s a voice. The pain dulled when she spoke. Her voice was like an angel, (Yes, I know that sounds cliche) but it’s true. Her voice was as soft as a cloud’s depiction, as sweet as a butterscotch candy. She sounded like she was as graceful as a dragon in a story. No matter what she did it was a beautiful flow of movement transformed into an art. Like something you’d never want to look away from. “Don’t be shy, You’re safe now. Come, follow my voice and you shall see the grace of the clouds and the eternal light from the sun and stars above. You can see all of the beauty in the world as if you were there. Come, follow my voice, and the wonders of the world are yours to experience. “Wi-Will I see you?” I ask her. There was silence. A long pause. “If that is your wish.”, she finally said. I moved. I actually felt like I was moving, like I was walking. I started to run. The pain from my mind was dissipating. I was almost there, I could see a silhouette in the whiteness. I felt clear, at peace. It felt nice. I found the source of the voice. She was incomprehensibly beautiful. She looked down at me, her eyes were full of kindness. She smiled lovingly at me, like she knew me. I paused. “A-Are you my

We all have one goal in life—to live. As I was growing up, that was not always the case for me. Looking back to my teenage years, I struggled. I struggled to live because I felt that life was not fair—I was forced to be at home, while all my friends were out enjoying their teenage years. I did not begin to find a purpose in life until I met my husband. But now, as a wife and mother of three, I have discovered my purpose and I could see where my parents have been coming from. Though my views may not be as strict as theirs, I see what their purpose was—to keep me safe from the dangers of the world. The few stories that I have read so far in the anthology, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014, edited by Daniel Handler,

I would shut my eyes because I knew what was coming. And before I shut my eyes, I held my breath, like a swimmer ready to dive into a deep ocean. I could never watch when his hands came toward me; I only patiently waited for the harsh sound of the strike. I would always remember his eyes right before I closed my own: pupils wide with rage, cold, and dark eyebrows clenched with hate. When it finally came, I never knew which fist hit me first, or which blow sent me to my knees because I could not bring myself to open my eyes. They were closed because I didn’t want to see what he had promised he would never do again. In the darkness of my mind, I could escape to a paradise where he would never reach me. I would find again the haven where I

I slowly opened my eyes to see pale faces staring down at me, while my body ached with pain. The air had an undertone of bleach a suffocating smell, my head was spinning from the overwhelming brightness, with no idea where I was. I slowly lifted my hand above my face, as I saw the vault of heaven, the eye of God. I was staring into a new world where my past had been left behind and a new life had begun. Though something was holding me back like I was chained to my past with no way of escaping. One of those pale faces pushed my hand back down and I suddenly returned to the world I wanted to escape from.

We were walking for a few hours. My feet throbbed and my ears were ringing from Taylor’s whining. Finally I could see it, the old abandoned house I discovered one day while riding my bike. The door was barely hanging onto its hinges, and there were several windows missing or broken. I pried open the splintering oak door. In the house there was two rooms. One, the one you first enter, was most likely a kitchen and living room. There was a sofa with faded fabric and springs popping out everywhere. An old furnace sat in the corner with rotting charcoal inside. The door of the furnace was missing rendering the whole thing useless. The other room was much smaller. It was a bedroom. There was a twin sized bed. The frame was rusty and missing a leg. I pulled the mattress off of it, so we could sleep on it. There were springs and stuffing sticking out of the mattress. It wasn’t too dirty to sleep on because I pulled off the moldy sheets. We laid down on the mattress. Taylor started snoring within minutes. I was worried about Mom. She had had a seizure before. It was because of her failing liver. Last time, social services took me and my sisters to a girl’s home. They served cooked vegetables that smelled like rotten seafood and chicken noodle soup with frozen chicken. After Mom got out of the hospital she got custody of us, but the judge told her if it happened again she wouldn’t get us back. My older sister, Becca, was eighteen so she didn’t have to

I was broken. I had nothing left inside of me, my life was slowly disappearing and I couldn’t stop it. As I lied on the cold wooden floor of my room the pain from where he had hit me was erupting inside of me. Every part of my body ached in agony, I struggled to suck in air. As my eyes flooded with tears and I looked at myself in the mirror I was horrified at the person looking back at me. Blood was running off my face and onto my nightdress. Deep purple welts had already started to form across my fragile body from the forceful impact of his rough fists that consistently made contact with my small figure. But living day and night in this torture couldn’t hurt me anymore than it already has, but what does is that it was him that did this to

Someone Who Has Influenced My LifeI am writing an essay for my English class and keep getting an E what am i doin wrong?

Who has been a influence to you? Mom, dad, or anyone in your life? Well, there always that someone or person who has or had influenced you or even changed your life during you past years in your life. My influence is my one and only father. My father has influenced me in so many ways that has actually changed my life. The main three ways were for me to keep on task, keep safe and stay out of drugs and, and mostly, to believe in yourself.