Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Descriptive Paragraphs

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Out on the highway, the cars race by like lightning bugs—they flicker for a moment, and then they’re gone. It is nighttime, and the pervasive dark lies heavy and peaceful—everywhere except for the long endless highway, where the wide dirty trucks, high-beams on, roll through and cut the darkness down like tanks against barbed wire that offers little resistance.


I often wonder what it must be like to drive down there, look up after miles of tall rocky uninhabited hillocks and foothills, and see a small but self-assured light coming out of a window in a house—the only house, I think, for miles. It is my light, my window, and my house. Do they down there, in their too-quick-to-stop cars, take a moment to pause and wonder who lives there? I would not know, because like lightning-bugs, they flicker for a moment, and then they’re gone.
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:33 PM

    I like writing and you remind me of myself when I was your age. I really like your prose.

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  2. Adelaide Dupont1:19 AM

    On a second reading, what I like best about this writing, is the shift from impersonality and crowds (the cars), to familiarity. The light is yours and you own it.

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  3. Maya Ganesan2:46 PM

    I really like this piece. The spotlight on this scene is lovely.

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  4. amullins8:03 PM

    "I would not know, because like lightning-bugs, they flicker for a moment, and then they’re gone."

    To me, this is less about cars and more about relationships. How many people stop to wonder who you are when they pass you on the street? The mind that lives there?

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  5. Lee Farrand5:20 PM

    Nice writing. Adora, I thought you may find this journal article interesting: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2226888/?page=1

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