In all honesty, I believe Paris has a Jekyll and Hyde personality. To all, she presented a glamourous façade with her never-ending boulevards of dainty-windowed French apartments and shops. Yet there was a darker side to that city. Schizophrenics who daubed the streets would shout at passers-by for no reason. At other times, the homeless would pee in broad daylight without a trace of shame as embarrassed tourists walked past with their eyes averted. Regularly, one would see beggars on the Metro trains. From a carriage, they would shuffle from one station to another, imploring alms and reciting their well-rehearsed speeches, summarizing their plight. Once done, they would walk through the cabin with an outstretched hand. Then, they would hop onto the next carriage, wearing out a different set of passengers. Paris seemed to throw a rousing sideshow every day, broiling a bouillabaisse which gave the city its ugly side. Yet there was something fleetingly beautiful amidst all this ugliness, its squalor presenting a gritty but unpretentious edge to it. It was a real city where poverty and crime existed side by side with glamour and riches. Because of this contrast, Paris’ beauty shone like a glimmer of light amidst the gloom.
- Extracted from page 98 of The Narcissist by Edmund Wee
Description of the interior of an apartment
I could hear the soft, well-paced ticking. My eyes opened to the clock sitting solitarily on the side table. It was close to 7 a.m. I crawled out of bed as softly as I could and tip-toed into the living room. Then I sat myself down quietly on the sofa, feeling surprisingly fresh despite just five hours of sleep. It seemed quite a feat even baffling to myself.
I laid my weight back against the soft cushion and looked around this charming pad with a frivolous scan. The beauty of the room still beckoned. I had been living in this apartment for a week now.
The living room was not much larger than the bedroom, making it look overcrowded, as with most French apartments. The French possessed the unique talent of artfully cluttering their minute apartments, littering them with all sorts of antiquated and unnamable bric-a-brac. There were no museum-like objects inside this room worthy of an audience but there was the novelty of this place. I breathed in a different decorum and smell and they all added up to another sensory experience.
I walked towards the window and a succession of undulating roof tops with chimneys greeted me. Beyond them on the horizon, I could see the hues of the sun already transformed into uneven flares. The fiery ball was embarking on its journey to find its apex in the sky. As it rose, behind it razed a wispy trail, like that of a meteor searching for a resting place in a distant galaxy. There was no breeze from where I stood but it was not hot that day. The new season was dusting off the remnants of summer’s hot spell. From here, I could no longer see the ubiquitous symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower. However, I did not miss the view of that famous structure.
Excerpted from Pages 154-155 of The Narcissist by Edmund Wee.
Description of an animal: A dog
He sat on his haunches ( = hind legs), his breath clouding the glass on the inside of the front door, his brown eyes intent on the far corner of the laurel ( = a small tree with smooth shiny dark green leaves that do not fall in winter) hedge past the driveway, where he might first catch sight of his master returning. He sat completely still, postured like some Egyptian statue; yet no Egyptian artisan, ambitious to adorn Pharaoh's palace or tomb, would have condescended to depict the big black long-hair mongrel, with his rounded mastiff (= strong dog) head, barrel chest and sash-like (= long) tail. He sat as though arrested in time, as though the hours that stiffened his muscles and wheeled his shadow clockwise on the rug were the single second before he saw his master, heard his step, felt his hand. Master of the loving hand, master of the endearing voice, master of the comforting smell, master of the heaped (= full) bowl.
By Robert Grudin, taken from: Pattern Plus - A Short Prose Reader with Argumentation.
Description of a state of human condition: Hunger
My father said there was no food in the house, not even a scrap of bread. When he fell asleep, I took the greasy newspaper from the floor. I licked the front page, which was all advertisements for films and dances in the city. I licked the headlines. I smacked my lips after running my tongue over the great attacks of Patton and Montgomery in France and Germany. I tongued the war in the Pacific. I drained out the obituaries and the sad memorial poems, the sports pages, the market prices of eggs, butter and bacon. I sucked the paper till there was not a midgen of grease left. I wondered what I would do the next day.
Narrative-Description of a short but interesting episode
The Man In The Road
When I was about eleven, I went out one evening with my mother to take her dog for a walk before bedtime. We were then living in Queenstown, very near to the Commonwealth MRT station.
There was a bit of road not far from where we lived which was said to be haunted, but none of my family members had ever seen anything supernatural there. On that occasion it was dark, the street lights were lit, and we were just turning out of our road into that particular stretch, when the dog suddenly ran ahead, and then began barking furiously.
My mother called to him to come back, but without success, and that was very unusual, for he was a well-trained and obedient animal. We went up to where the creature stood, growling and barking by turns, just by one of the street lights, and saw, standing directly in the lamplight, a tallish man, wearing a hat with a pointed crown, and a small plume on one side, a dark cloak, and buckled shoes – we were not near enough to see his features clearly.
My mother went forward and gripped the dog’s collar, saying as she did so, “I must apologize for my dog’s bad behaviour.” I was just behind her, and quite suddenly, as I looked at him waiting for him to speak, the man vanished completely. As it was a straight road, with a high wall on that side with no doors, there was no normal explanation for his disappearance.
My mother did not seem perturbed – it was not her first encounter with a ghost – but I must confess that my legs shook, and I was very glad when we got home. The dog was trembling all over, with the hair along his back standing straight up, and it was some while before he would stop growling. I suppose the shock for me was all the greater because I had quite thought the man must be going to a fancy-dress party, and had not felt in the least frightened until he vanished so strangely. (345 words – Not a word more, not a word less.)
Written by F. M. Pilkington (Miss)
No comments:
Post a Comment