Monday, February 15, 2010
Nick of Time
As I sprint my path on the sidewalk past the cold, gray blur of school buildings, past the dark strangers in heavy coats who anticipate my movement and strafe out of my way, under the cranes whose lights disturb the otherwise dead night sky, and through the darkened tunnel with broken lights that line its edges, a small thought disturbs me: one sidelong glance for incoming traffic, no more, not even more than a split second in length at the upcoming intersection could save my life, my entire existence, but I suppressed the thought and continued my path directly through the intersection without even a glance for my safety, stopping the departing bus I had been sprinting for just in the nick of time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I love your use of the phrases “dark strangers in heavy coats,” gray blur of school buildings,” and “dead night sky” interesting and they set the tone for the rest of the sentence. Your use of the ambiguous words “strangers” and “grey blur” conveys the modern dilemma of a single minded pursuit of success as opposed to recognizing the easily overlooked details that define our existence like a beautiful woman wearing a yellow dress.
ReplyDeleteYour use of punctuation before the colon gives a sense of doom or danger. The commas splicing up ideas’ gives the sense of fragmented knowledge absorption and effectively convey the perceived urgency of the situation.
I really like how the parallelism between the phrases “no more, not even more than a split second in length” and “could save my life, my entire existence” illustrates the absurdity of the narrator’s choice to not check for traffic, how a “split” decision could ruin an “entire existence.”
I love the sentence “under the cranes whose lights disturb the otherwise dead night sky,” as if the cranes are violating the night sky. I also enjoy the imagery in the phrase “the darkened tunnel with broken lights that line its edges” and how it creates a sense of being trapped. It obscures the narrator’s path as the entire story is about moving onward towards a single goal.
I think this sentence was highly affective in communicating your point.
--Courtney Taborn