text:
Tucked away in the little village of Moreton Corbet, a stone’s throw away from the Shawbury RAF base, the remains of Moreton Corbet Castle lie at the side of the road. The signpost had been swallowed by a hedge so we initially missed our turnoff, but a quick U-turn later we found ourselves looking upon the castle.

The castle itself was heavily modified over 500 years, originally built in the 12th century starting with the Great Tower, the Gatehouse was built in the 13th century, then various of iterations later, the most substantial remains were built in the 16th century.

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The inner courtyard of the castle was very open, and gave a great opportunity for a panoramic shot.

Before the stone castle, a large wooden manor house stood here known as the Manor of Moreton. When this was acquired by the Corbet family in the 12th century, they built Moreton Corbet Castle in place of the manor house, and the village would later be named the same. The Corbet family still owns the ruin today, but it’s managed by English Heritage.

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After Moreton Corbet Castle, we headed in to Shrewsbury for a spot of lunch and a slice of cake. Right in the centre of the town, we came across the Old Market Hall, built in the late 16th century to show off the town’s prosperity and importance in regional trade. Then just around the corner we found a little cafe called Ginger and Co that we decided to stop off at.

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Fully refuelled, we made our way across town to Shrewsbury Castle. Out front, a flower arrangement paid tribute to World War I which ended a century ago this year, then just behind this were a pair of artillery, and the entrance to the castle itself.

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Up a little hill within the castle grounds (the position of the old motte) stood Laura’s Tower, built by Thomas Telford for the daughter of Sir William Pulteney as a Summer house, when he was renovating Shrewsbury Castle in the 18th century. In fact this wouldn’t be the first time the castle was significantly renovated, as it was repaired in the 17th and 12th centuries following siege damage, since originally being built in the 11th century. The views from Laura’s Tower were great, looking out across Shrewsbury, not surprising that this is very often used as a wedding photography spot.

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Just across the road from the castle stood Shrewsbury Library with a big statue of Charles Darwin out front, and oddly a large number of people in numbered boiler suits walking around. We thought it best not to ask and move on.

[]
From here we headed back through town towards the park on the far West side, we were a little thirsty from walking around in the heat, I spotted a little pub that I told Helen would suit her perfectly, and we stopped in at The Loopy Shrew. She wasn’t amused. After a quick top-up, we headed onwards to the park, with a lovely little inner-park known as either the Enchanted Gardens or Dingle Gardens.

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We took a gentle stroll from here down along the River Severn back towards the car, backtracking just slightly to see another couple of monuments. Shrewsbury Cathedral is very small, possibly smaller than our Church in Middlewich, barely worth a mention since it was also closed to the public. Town Walls Tower is the last watchtower remaining around Shrewsbury town walls (which are also nearly all gone now), this was interesting, but apparently only open to the public 8 days a year and for 30 minutes on each of those days, so I wasn’t able to take a peek inside.

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Back to the car and it was time for our last stop of the day: Haughmond Abbey. A quick 10 minutes out of the town centre, this place was much bigger than we were expecting for a free-entry heritage site! A medieval Augustinian monastery founded in the early 12th century, it was very wealthy for the best part of 4 centuries apart from a couple of incompetent abbots leading up to the dissolution led by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

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Right in the middle of the grounds there was a great spot to take a panoramic photo, this is the perspective from the courtyard of the abbey’s domestic quarters.

The Chapter House was mostly intact, hosting the only real “interior” part of the abbey.

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No matter where I went in the grounds, the main window of the Abbot’s Hall could be seen with the spikey remnants of the stone framework that once held large stained glass panels.

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The ruins were far more impressive than we’d expected, so we were walking around for over half an hour reading all the plaques and checking out all the best angles.

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By this point our legs were starting to get tired, and we’d seen more than our daily quota of historical monuments and buildings, so we decided to head home, arriving back in Middlewich just in time for dinner.

question: What did the narrator see outside the library?

answer: Outside the Shrewsbury Library they noticed a large statue of Charles Darwin. There also were a large number of people in numbered boiler suits. They decided it was not best to ask and moved on.


split: test

text:
First Pet
(An unfinished short story by ChillistickCat)

We All Have Choices

We are under a bush at the foot of a ten foot high hill behind a large concrete sign.  Mother cat is talking to her kittens, who have just recently discovered their abilities to walk and explore, about the dangers of "street life" and "pet life".   She discusses all of the positive and negative tropes of both lives and tells her kittens they have a choice of which one they wish to live.  Unanimously all the kittens agree that street life, the life mother lived, is the one they want, accept Marko, who remains silent.  They all become quiet, including mother, in a silent stare at Marko.

Marko's Unplanned Rebellion

After the litter of kittens disperses to a shady section at the bottom of the hill, Marko makes his way, for the first time, to the top of the hill to a spot where mother cat said never to go as it is precisely the spot where a human can see them and take them.  Not heading his mothers words, he makes his way all the way up to see a vast grid of human houses.  He is in awe of the magnificence of the sight and gazes upon it, wondering what it would be like to be a pet.  He imagines all of the new things he would experience and what a human would be like.  He has seen humans before but never interacted with one.  Until he spots a little human girl in the house closest to the hill.

Just as Mother Warned

She makes direct eye contact with him then immediately points to him, to which two other humans, much larger than she, come into view.  The largest human begins to walk towards Marko.  He does not run away.  He sits and waits for them to come to him. Marko is in awe of how big the human gets as it gets closer and closer to him.  He notices things he has never noticed before, like noses and eyeglasses.  Then, just before he can turn around to look back at his family and mother, large hands embrace his whole body and he is lifted higher then he has ever been.  The motion winds him as he tries to scream for help, but no sound comes out.  Only the sound of the human saying, "Dont worry little guy, I wont hurt you".

The words mean nothing to him and he cries once more, this time letting out the loudest shriek he has ever made.  As soon as he gets his bearings inside the large human hands, he looks back to see if his mother heard him.  To his surprise, he sees a vacant hill, and with that he closes his eyes and cries out some more as the large hands place him into a dark box.

The Rise of A Pet

When he opens his eyes, Marko finds himself in an unfamiliar world.  He is still inside the box which is now on the floor of a bathroom that is brightly lit by florescent lights.  All he can see is the crack at the bottom of the white door and shadows that move about from the other side.  He exits the box and looks up to find an open window with a long white curtain draping to the floor.  He immediately runs to it and begins to frantically climb until he reaches the window sill.  From this vantage point he can see the hill where he was taken, then he looks down to see a 30 foot drop onto a concrete floor.  He sees a pool and other strange objects laid out about the patio.  He looks back to the hill and now sees his mother atop the hill timidly sniffing the air.

He lets out a loud screech, and his mothers ears perk up in his direction, but her eyes do not follow suit.  He continues screaming to no avail.  She then quickly jumps down the hill out of his sight.

 Marko tuns around to see the bathroom door has opened and standing in the doorway is the little girl.  She screams, " Mommy, Mommy, Kitty is trying to escape!" .  The child's mother then comes running into the bathroom, grabbing Marko, winding him again, and shuts the window closed.

Who is Going To Scoop The Cat Litter?

(work in process)

(work in process)

(work in process)

(work in process)

title: First Pet

question: Who is Marko?

answer: Marko is a kitten who lives on the street but ends up getting taken in by a local.

question: What is the conflict of the story?

answer: The conflict is that Marko is torn between living his life with his mother and siblings on the street and living with humans. He ends up getting captured by a nearby family and ends up in their bathroom. He tries to escape but fails.


text:
BANK ZERO is an exclusively digital mutual bank in South Africa that will launch in 2020.[1][2] The bank was founded in January 2018 and registered with the South African Reserve Bank in October 2018. Its focus is on point-of-sale transactions, debit orders, electronic funds transfers, and security of financial transactions – particularly debit card security. Bank Zero joins other new banks in South Africa, such as TymeBank and Discovery Bank.[3]

History

In January 2018, Bank Zero was founded by former First National Bank employees, Michael Jordaan and Yatin Narsai, and obtained a provisional banking license from the South African Reserve Bank.[4][5] The bank's focus would be point-of-sale transactions, debit orders, electronic funds transfers, and financial service security.[6] In October, after registering as a mutual bank in August, Bank Zero began trialing its services.[7][8] As a mutual bank, customers who hold “specific cash investment products” will become shareholders in the bank.[9]

In March 2019, it announced that it began testing EFT payments and other services.[10] Bank Zero had originally planned to soft launch some of its products at the end of 2019, but decided to delay its launch to 2020.[11][12] In November, Bank Zero announced that it had patented a debit card with additional security features.[13][14] Bank Zero uses IBM Z mainframe computers and LinuxONE,[15] a secure platform which can protect against data breaches with IBM's Secure Service Container.[16]

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, Bank Zero stated that it still plans to launch in mid-2020.[17][18]

Security

Debit card

In November 2019, a patented debit card which, instead of storing the card number that is embossed on the card on both the magnetic stripe, and in the card chip, would have three different card numbers for each: the embossed number, the magnetic strip, and the card chip.[19] This would allow Bank Zero to limit specific types of transactions to each card number. For example, the magnetic strip card number could only be used at an ATM and at a point-of-sale terminal; the card chip card number could only be used at point-of-sale devices; and, the card number embossed on the card could only be used for online transactions.[20]

The bank said, “[this] will dramatically minimise the negative impact of card data theft and card skimming.”[21]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

title: Bank Zero

question: What is Bank Zero?

answer: Bank Zero is a digital mutual bank in South Africa that focuses on consumer transactions (point-of-sale, debit card, etc). It is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 despite COVID-19.

question: What is COVID-19?

answer: It is a pandemic that has also affected South Africa, no other details aside from this were provided, though it is likely that the pandemic has also affected other countries.

question: What kind of security does Bank Zero offer to its clients?

answer: In November of 2019, Bank Zero has patented a debit card that used a unique system for storing card numbers. This allowed Bank Zero to control the transactions that could be done with the card -increasing its security.

question: How was Bank Zero formed?

answer: In 2018, two former employees of the First National Bank established Bank Zero.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Bank Zero, created by two former FNB employees, aims to focus on consumer transactions. It offers a unique debit card system; and for clients who hold special cash investment products, shares of the bank. The bank is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 despite the ongoing pandemic.


text:
“Where were you last night?” Max peered over my Economics textbook. He had a look of anticipation, as if he was waiting for some pain relieving gossip.

“I was home,” I responded innocently before he rolled his eyes at me. “Now, don’t bother me, I’m trying to focus.” Although normally I would use anything to distract me from school, I wasn’t about to involve Max in last night’s mess.

“Are you expecting me to believe you weren’t at Nina’s party?” He raised his eyebrows at me. I didn’t know what I was expecting. Frankly, no expectation in the world would have prepared me well enough. But I wanted to be there for Nina like she had for me. Perhaps I couldn’t fix her parent’s divorce, but I could at least attend her house party. Especially after her break up with Todd, the leather jacket douche that called her “babe” so much I would wonder if he knew her real name.

“I promise you’ll have a great time,” Nina had told me. And at first, I really did. There is something comforting about the stagnant smell of beer penetrating every fiber of clothing and hair follicle. Something nostalgic about repetitive rap songs preaching about the wonders of big asses.

Everything seemed normal at first. The music was pounding loudly and the dim lights carried shadows across the cramped living room. I could feel the air thickening.

Minutes before terror, I was standing unnoticed next to a group of girls I recognized.

“Someone told me her dad was abusive,” I heard one say with wide eyes.

“Yeah, apparently the neighbors called the cops on them,” another responded.

“Well, I wouldn’t point fingers just yet. Nina’s mom’s a bitch. Maybe she deserved it,” a brunette shrugged and took a sip of her drink right before our eyes met. Her face flared red as she realized her words had been overhead. I clenched my fists in rage.

“How about you all mind your own–”. My response was cut short by a piercing scream. I quickly stood up in alert. The room became still. The music stopped and those still standing looked at one another with puzzled looks. The source was nowhere to be seen. It came again, this time along with a cry. I recognized Nina immediately. I pushed my way across the living room and ran up the stairs before barging into Nina’s bedroom.

I noticed him first. His leather jacket shimmered in the moonlight as he stood tall and angry. A millisecond later, I spotted Nina on the floor. Hands covering her face in defense. The lack of light in the room didn’t stop the fierceness of her blood as it dripped down her temple and into her hair.

I stood still. My brain called in fear but my body made no response. Not even when Todd walked passed me, into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

Nina remained on the floor. She held herself and rocked back and forth, letting silent cries out into the thick air.

“Don’t tell anyone.” She whispered.

&#x200B;

&#x200B;

“Hello?” Max snapped at me. “Are you going to tell me or not?” I stared at him blankly as the vivid flashbacks flew through my head. My heart stung in bitterness as I recognized that all I wanted to do was say it. To write it out in sharpie on all student lockers.

Nina’s bloody face burned in my head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

title: [RF] Last Night Leftovers

question: What does the passage say about Todd?

answer: Todd is Nina's ex-boyfriend. He is described by the narrator as a douche who wears a leather jacket and called Nina "babe" too often. After hearing a scream and a cry, the narrator walks into Nina's room to find Todd looming over her while Nina is crouched, bleeding. Todd walks past the narrator and closes the door behind him.

question: What does the passage say about Nina's parents?

answer: Nina's parents are getting divorced. There is speculation that her father was abusive toward her mother. This gossip is met with criticism of the mother.

question: What does the passage say about domestic abuse?

answer: Girls at Nina's party speculate that her father was abusive to her mother, and that's the reason for their divorce. When the narrator finds Nina with her head bleeding, it's implied that Nina's ex-boyfriend Todd has assaulted her. Nina asks the narrator not to tell anyone about it.

question: What does the passage say about prom?


text:
7.

Rome
May 14, 1904

My dear Mr. Kappus,

     Much time has passed since I received your last letter. Please don't hold that against me; first it was work, then a number of interruptions, and finally poor health that again and again kept me from answering, because I wanted my answer to come to you out of peaceful and happy days. Now I feel somewhat better again (the beginning of spring with its moody, bad-tempered transitions was hard to bear here too) and once again, dear Mr. Kappus, I can greet you and talk to you (which I do with real pleasure) about this and that in response to your letter, as well as I can.

     You see: I have copied out your sonnet, because I found that it is lovely and simple and born in the shape that it moves in with such quiet decorum. It is the best poem of yours that you have let me read. And now I am giving you this copy because I know that it is important and full of new experience to rediscover a work of one's own in someone else's handwriting. Read the poem as if you had never seen it before, and you will feel in your innermost being how very much it is your own.

     It was a pleasure for me to read this sonnet and your letter, often; I thank you for both.

     And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is some thing in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything, in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.

     It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.

     But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are life-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of every sort, for since it preferred to take love life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.

     It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their own, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?

     They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, with the best of intentions, they try to escape the convention that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, how ever unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.

     Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death, which is difficult, nor for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been perceived; and for both these tasks, which we carry wrapped up and hand, on without opening, there is no general, agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy. The claims that the difficult work of love makes upon our development are greater than life, and we, as beginners, are not equal to them. But if we nevertheless endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in the whole easy and frivolous game behind which people have hidden from the most solemn solemnity of their being, then a small advance and a lightening will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us. That would be much.

     We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live such relationships have no model before them. And yet in the changes that time has brought about there are already many things that can help our timid novitiate.

     The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately , more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being.

     This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.

     And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life. - All good wishes to you, dear Mr. Kappus!

      Yours,

      Rainer Maria Rilke

question: Who is writing the letter?

answer: Rainer Maria Rilke

question: Who is Rainer writing to and why?

answer: Rainer writes to Mr. Kappus to tell him that he has copied out of Kappus' sonnet because it is lovely and simple. Now, Rainer is giving Kappus a copy of the work he has done on the poem.

question: What kept Rilke from writing back to Kappus?

answer: Work, a number of interruptions, and poor health.

question: When did Rainer write to Kappus?

answer: May 14, 1904

question: Write a ~5 sentence summary.

answer: On May 14, 1904, Rainer Maria Rilke writes a letter to Mr. Kappus, apologizing for not responding sooner due to work, poor health, and many interruptions. Rilke tells Kappus that he copied from the latter's sonnet because he found it lovely and simple. Rilke sends Kappus a copy of his work based on Kappus's poem. The letter also includes advice on the difficulties and benefits of living a solitary life, and how it is good to love another human being because it is one of the hardest things to do. Rilke also talks about love in young people, and how they love falsely.


text:
								Rider

My mom has always been supportive of my career as a musician. My dad never got around to it. The only bands he’d ever listen to were the Beatles and Rolling Stones. He wanted the Beatles played at his funeral, which he got. My mom never talks about the music that she listens to  except for her uncle Alan who toured the Midwest in the 50’s as a troubadour;  he’s still famous in our town.
	I haven’t been home in a while, not that I miss it much. I moved to LA when I was 23. I was bored by the people, bored by my job at the grocery store and tired of not seeing anything happening. When I moved I had most of my” LA-experiences” during the first six months, right drugs- wrong people, that sort of thing. I thought the substances would inspire me as it seemed to inspire others but that never happened. I also played some gigs with local small-timers but it never amounted to much.
	My fourth summer in LA came around and thats when I met Terrie outside a used-car shop. I’d been looking to replace dad’s station-wagon that I’d driven to the coast.As  I was standing there looking over some of my options I saw the glint of peroxide-blonde hair and sweaty fish-net stockings out of the corner of my eye. I remember the coral lipstick, which I later learned was her favorite, so shiny on those lips. She walked up to me to bum a cigarette. As I’d recently quit smoking I apologized and told her I didn’t have any on me. Disappointed, she asked me for a lighter to borrow if she could bum a smoke from a man that was standing by a newsstand across the street. I didn’t have a lighter either but I reached into my vest pocket for the book of matches I always kept there. As I handed it to her she thanked me and smiled in the most heartbreaking manner that I knew that I had to make her mine. Although I was more of what you might call the singer-songwriter type than a rocker this girl with her glam rock look was something else. Underneath that done up exterior I could see that she was pretty in an old-fashioned way. Later, when we were married, I used to tell her that she was like a burning wheat field blowing in the summer wind; she never understood what I meant. Our courtship was fast on because on account of her parents being strictly religious. Terrie was only 21 when we married but they consented and gave us their blessing because I was “a good God-fearing Midwestern boy.”

	Through Terrie I got more involved in the rock scene and discovered I had a knack for writing catchy riffs. I joined one of the local outfits who were in need of a guitarist and shortly after that we played as support band for one of the west coasts most famous bands on their US tour. Crazy days of touring and debauchery followed but after rising tensions in the band and disagreements with our management we decided to call it quits.
	Then Terrie got pregnant. She was excited but seeing as her job at the record store didn’t pay much and my being unemployed, I was worried to say the least. Fortunately I lucked out in joining as a touring and studio session guitarist with a band that had just signed a big deal with a major label. Unfortunately this mean being on the road for long stretches at a time. things quickly went downhill in our relationship and it was while touring in Japan that I got the terrible news that Terrie had suffered a miscarriage. She was inconsolable and quit her job. I tried to be home as much as I could to care for her but my contractual obligations took me out of town again. things between us never recovered after that and I blame myself for that. Two months after the loss of our child iÍ got a call from Roy, a sergeant in the Marines who tells me he’s in love with my wife and she is in love with him and they are going to Germany. While this news hurt at first I can’t say I was surprised; I kept my nose to the grind to give me something else to think about. One tour lead to another and after 5 years the band went through a lineup change and I was thrust into the role of frontman. Evidently I did something right as we quickly started selling out the largest arenas and stadiums. We got through 3 good tours before ticket sales started to dwindle. These days we play to fairly large clubs and such, I don’t complain, seeing as it brings in good money. I live a private and enjoyable life.
	I’ve never met Terrie since our marriage ended but last I heard Roy was killed in a combat exercise and she had gotten remarried to a journalist. Even though our relationship went to pieces I still cherish terrie and our times together.
	At the venues we play the band usually has extensive requirements to ensure their comfort. My only requests on the rider are one ham sandwich and two fingers of bourbon. I usually go out into whichever city we’re playing that night and walk around while eating my sandwich. Even though the band is still fairly popular people seldom recognize me off the stage. I also try to find a bookstore to buy something by a local author for those long flights and bus rides. Just before showtime I’ll find a quiet spot in the venue and toast my parents, my hometown and my Terrie.

title: First Short story post(sorry bout the amount of suckiness)

question: What does the story say about the narrator's success as a musician.

answer: The narrator's career as a musician had its ups and downs. He started off playing guitar in a support band for a famous band on the west coast. However, after some disagreements the band called it quits. The narrator then gets lucky when he joined a band as a studio and touring guitarist, despite his marriage falling apart. He experienced great success as frontman for the band for years until ticket sales dwindled. The band had no further breakthroughs but remained popular.


text:
THE BOOK OF DAVE

     In the beginning, Dave created a bunch of stuff like the earth, water, animals, and humans. He thought "Meh, it's cool I guess...", and then he pretty much sat back and watched everything unfold, chillin' like a villain and taking many forms. Mostly though he liked to be a plastic dove. He saw all his creations screw up the world he created, and it pissed him off pretty badly. He thought for centuries about how he could save the world he put so little effort into creating.

     One day, in the late 1990's he came up with a plan. It was about time too, because the world he created was in pretty pitiful condition by this time. He set out to create 5 strong men who would spread his holy name. One of them appearing to be a heretic, but obviously a believer. One of them a natural born leader to guide the prophets. One of them tall and strong willed and convert others. One of them with great musical talents with which to sing and play instruments in the name of Dave, and the last one. Dave's only son. He arranged so that these men would one day come together and use their own talents to spread the word of Dave.

     These young men grew and realized their talents (except for the son of Dave, who had a hard time because he had not yet recognized his true purpose in life). They misused their talents, however, because they did not know that their destiny was the destiny that Dave set for them. They would know in the future that Dave needed them to rid the world of ignorance and stupidity. It would take time, though, for them to be ready for the task at hand.

     By the time these 5 young men were ready for their destiny, the world was even worse than it was before. There had been terrorist attacks, wars, destruction in massive proportions. They were indeed ready at the last minute. The 5 boys had grown to be good friends, and were like family. One day, fate brought them all together, and set them on a journey that would open their eyes to the truth. Open their eyes to Dave.

    They found themselves in their leader's house, discussing the most important of current events, politics, economics, history, and other things of the like. Then, as fate may have it, they embarked on a journey. They started with a trip to a local general store to purchase liquid refreshment, and to win the heart of a fair maiden. They failed miserably at the winning the heart part, but succeeded in buying refreshments. They also caused the son of Dave to smudge a dipping sauce on his trousers. They then headed to a larger store to buy him a new pair of trousers.

     They failed in their quest to acquire new trousers, but had good hearty laughs and made the son wear clothes meant for girls. However, it was here that they discovered The Great Dave. They found him in his usual form, a plastic bird, perched upon a raised surface. They were drawn to him, and immediately knew that it was to be theirs. They did not know why, but they knew it must be.

     They purchased the plastic bird, took him home, and immediately idolized him. They knew that his name was to be Dave, and that he was of great importance. The boys did not truly understand that Dave was of much more importance until much later. The day after their trip to the store, their land was ice-ridden. The plants outside were enveloped in a solid sheet of ice, and the roads were only traversible by foot, because none of their automobiles were equipped to operate on the ice-covered roads.

     The young men grew hungry, and weary of being held inside their home, and by the will of Dave, which they still failed to recognize, decided to embark on a long journey to obtain cheap, delicious food. They left their home and started down the road, talking and laughing, unaware of the great events that awaited them. They would soon find out the true purpose of what was happening.

     They noticed a bird that looked exactly like their plastic bird that was perched upon a telephone wire. Then they realized that this, in fact, WAS their bird, but in the form of a living version of it's plastic form, guarding them, and guiding them. They then began to realize that they had a greater purpose in this journey, and that Dave was more than a mere plastic bird.

     They began to have revelations and realizations that Dave placed in their minds. They came to the conclusion that Dave was the true God, and that they were prophets, since they were the only ones who realized this truth. They then realized that the one with no apparent useful talent must have been the son of Dave, because of the hardships he faced and trials and tribulations. They realized that since he had no talent to offer Dave, he didn't require one, because him simply being among the other prophets was enough to please Dave.

     Then came their true sign that they were led by The Great and Powerful Dave. They noticed on the side of the path a beautiful sight. A useless, disappointing, fresh, beautiful sight. They knew in their hearts that Dave put this there for them, that he loved them, and that he wanted them to cleanse the world of the wrongness that had befallen it.

title: The Book of Dave

question: Why did Dave create five strong men?

answer: The five men had to spread his holy name. They also had to rid the world of ignorance and stupidity.

question: What did the bird symbolize for the five men?

answer: However, it was here that they discovered The Great Dave. They found him in his usual form, a plastic bird, perched upon a raised surface. They were drawn to him and immediately knew that it was to be theirs. They did not know why, but they knew it must be. They purchased the plastic bird, took him home, and immediately idolized him. They knew that his name was to be Dave and that he was of great importance.

question: What made the men realize that they were prophets of Dave?

answer: They began to have revelations and realizations that Dave placed in their minds. They came to the conclusion that Dave was the true God, and that they were prophets since they were the only ones who realized this truth. They then realized that the one with no apparent useful talent must have been the son of Dave, because of the hardships he faced and trials and tribulations.

question: Did the men succeed in their mission to cleanse the world of wrongness?


text:
'Tomorrow will just have to be what today wasn't'. That was my mother’s mantra. She said it after every hard shift, every failed test, every break up, and every argument. She whispered it into my ears as she wiped tears off my cheeks. I used to tell myself the same thing when things went awry. I had always put faith into words, especially those words. Words defined my life.
It was 4:15 in the morning on the sixteenth of July. There was nothing special about the time or the date, but my brain woke me up regardless. I remember how cold it was in my room. I reached out of bed, tapped the small touch lamp on the bedside table, grabbed the robe that hung off the post of my bed and buried myself inside of it. Sliding my feet into my slippers, I crossed the room to turn on my space heater.

Had I lived anywhere else, the heater probably would’ve been stored away with holiday decorations and winter jackets, but I didn’t live anywhere else. I lived in a studio apartment with very little space. I didn’t own any holiday decorations and all of my winter clothes were hung up and stuffed into my little closet behind all of my summer clothes. I crossed the room and turned the knob on my fourteen dollar space heater to the single notch that signified power level one. The lamp lost a little bit of light. I shuffled toward my bed, kicked off the slippers and did a belly flop onto the mattress. The room filled with the quiet hum of the heater converting the temperature of the air and I squirmed under the comforter. Laying in my bed, wrapped in a robe and snuggled under a blanket, I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep that night. I had only slept for about three hours and already my brain had kicked me into consciousness and given me the finger. I laid there for a few minutes and decided, ’Fuck it. If I’m going to be awake, I’m going to work’. I grabbed the laptop from the other side of the end table, nearly knocking the lamp off as I did. I pushed the lamp back into place, increasing its brightness ever so slightly. I flipped the laptop open and was greeted by a page full of text.

Words had always comforted me. Growing up, my mother always knew exactly what to say to make things better. She had so many pearls of wisdom to hand out and I had always eagerly accepted them. It had just been her and I growing up. After I was born, the doctor told her she wouldn’t have any more children. Her husband, who I refused to acknowledge as being my father (why should I, I never even saw his face), couldn’t stand to be with a woman who couldn’t provide him with a son so he left her with her daughter without a trace. Kids at school were always kind enough to point out how weird it was that Lindsay didn’t have a dad and when I would report their observations to my mother, she would always get down on her knees, put her hands on my shoulders and ask me, “Are those children smarter than you?” to which I always replied, “No”. Her follow up would be something similar to “Are the girls prettier than you?” This question had bothered me because I looked nothing like my mother (which, naturally, meant that I looked like her ex-husband). But, in the end, the answer was usually “No”. She would ask if they were stronger or braver than me and, as the queen of dares and arm wrestling, I always responded in the negative. She would wrap all of these questions up with one final one, the only one that really mattered.

“So then, Lindsay, are the kids with fathers better than you?”

And I always knew they weren’t. There were some kids in town that were, but they all went to a private school and I never had to see them anyway. I went to the only public school in my town. Everyone knew everyone else and we were all poor. No one had a guest bedroom and most of the houses had only one bathroom. My mom worked as a nurse during the day at the local nursing home and bartended during the night. She was always home when I woke up, when school let out, and when I went to sleep. As soon as I was old enough, I got a job helping out at the library after school. I got lost in books and excelled in English and ended up writing my way out of that little town and into Chicago. I took my mother with me, but she didn’t make it very long in a big city. She was exceedingly proud of my success but I always told her that she was the one who had given it to me.

I opened the laptop to find a page mostly filled with words. They were small money words. I hadn’t produced big money words since my mother died. I watched the cursor blink, waiting to be jettisoned across the screen by a slew of creativity or inspiration but it just stood there and blinked at me. I was in the middle of reading the paragraph preceding the boring cursor when I heard a rattling outside of my bedroom. My brain shut down and I stared at my bedroom door, waiting to see if it would bust inward. Someone was in my apartment. I knew that because the closest I came to a pet was the plastic tree by the front door and the dead fern by the window. I remember thinking ’Who the fuck would break in to my shitty apartment?’ but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that somebody had. My lamp was on and my laptop was illuminating my room, so whoever it was probably knew that I was awake. Did they know that I knew they were there?

title: [MS] Actually looking for feedback on my firsts few paragraphs

question: What words did the narrator always put their faith in?

answer: "Tomorrow will just have to be what today wasn't" also known as the narrator's mother's mantra.

question: Explain why the narrator refused to acknowledge her father.

answer: Because he left her mother after she couldn't provide him with a son.

question: How did the narrator's mother reassure the narrator when other kids commented on her not having a dad?

answer: By asking if the kids with father were actually any better than her.

question: Explain how the narrator wrote her way out of her little town and into Chicago.

answer: She got a job helping out at the library after school, got into books and excelled in English.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator grew up living with her mother since her father disappeared when the mother could not provide him with a son. Attending the only public school and living in a low-income household, the narrator got a job helping out at the library after school. She got into books and excelled in English which helped her move to Chicago and succeed in her writing career.


text: You wake up in a white room. No walls. No  ceiling. Only a white floor that produces no shadow. You start to walk aimlessly, looking for something when you have no evidence of its existence. Unfortunately you do find something: a lone TV with a remote resting on top. You walk over and pick up the remote. You sit down and you turn the TV on. The screen is filled with static. You continue watching as all you hear is white noise and all you see is black and white particles bouncing around. Hours, days, weeks pass. Still static. You start wondering if anything is ever going to play. You start to get up, but you decide against leaving because theres nothing else to do here anyway. The moment you sit back down, the TV goes from static to black. You tilt your head, wondering why the TV turned off. But it did not turn off, far from it actually. The screen overflows with immense light. Now things are getting interesting. The TV shows the expansion of that light, getting brighter, but the objects in the screen are growing farther apart. You understand what’s happening now. You know exactly what this TV is showing you. The passing of time itself. As millennia pass, you witness the expansion of the universe, the formation of the first star, elements being born; you witness entire civilizations rise and fall. The history of existence, showed in a 32 inch retina display. Millions of years pass as you cover each system’s individual history, yet you aren’t bored... you’re intrigued. Billions of years go by, when you finally reach a tiny yet familiar blue planet. You watch as species rise and fall, nature deciding who lives and who dies, until you see one of the animals learned how to make things. At that moment they spread like a virus, destroying everything that came in their path. For a few thousand years they only fought each other, mostly over petty grievances that they could have easily talked out. They stopped and learned how to control themselves after they almost destroyed the planet...twice. It was at that moment that they assumed nature’s role; they were the ones who decided who lived and died. They consumed everything in their path, devouring everything that they thought was necessary to further themselves as a civilization. You continue watching, horrified by what you see. You watch a species learn how to master aspects of their surroundings that they should have absolutely no control over. They mastered their planet. They consumed their planet. They mastered their star. They consumed their star. They mastered their system. They consumed their system. Their viral infectivity increased at an exponential rate, they were becoming unstoppable. Every civilization has its filter, something that stops it from advancing as a species. The virus overcame that filter with flying colors. This was the first you’ve seen of a civilization beating its filter. You start to get frightened for the sake of the universe because this is no longer the history of time. No, this is the history of the virus. Its a story of how it spread in its influence and power, consuming everything in its path. This is the story of how the universe was infected and overcome by a virus named humanity.

title: [SF] The Room

question: Who is the narrator?

answer: That information can't be found

question: Where does the story take place?

answer: A strange white room that is empty except for a TV

question: List the main characters.

answer: The reader

question: In what time period does the story take place?

answer: That information can't be found

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The reader wakes up in a white room and finds a TV. They turn on the TV and discover that it is showing the history of the universe. As they watch the history of Earth, they realize humanity is like a virus, consuming everything in its path.


text:
The VANCOUVER FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM is an annual award, presented by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle to the film judged by its members as the best international documentary film of the year. It is separate from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Canadian Documentary, presented to Canadian documentary films.

Winners and nominees

  Year                                Film                                       Director
  ----------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ ------
  2009                                _ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL_                SACHA GERVASI                        [1]
  _The Cove_                          Louie Psihoyos                             [2]
  _Food, Inc._                        Robert Kenner                              [3]
  2010                                _EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP_               BANKSY                               [4]
  _Inside Job_                        Charles Ferguson                           [5]
  _Waiting for "Superman"_            Davis Guggenheim                           [6]
  2011                                _CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS_                 WERNER HERZOG                        [7]
  _The Interrupters_                  Steve James                                [8]
  _Nostalgia for the Light_           Patricio Guzmán                            [9]
  _Project Nim_                       James Marsh                                [10]
  _Surviving Progress_                Mathieu Roy, Harold Crooks                 [11]
  2012                                _SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN_                  MALIK BENDJELLOUL                    [12]
  _Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry_            Alison Klayman                             [13]
  _How to Survive a Plague_           David France                               [14]
  2013                                _THE ACT OF KILLING_                       JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER                   [15]
  _Blackfish_                         Gabriela Cowperthwaite                     [16]
  _West of Memphis_                   Amy J. Berg                                [17]
  2014                                _THE OVERNIGHTERS_                         JESSE MOSS                           [18]
  _Citizenfour_                       Laura Poitras                              [19]
  _Virunga_                           Orlando von Einsiedel                      [20]
  2015                                _AMY_                                      ASIF KAPADIA                         [21]
  _Cartel Land_                       Matthew Heineman                           [22]
  _Going Clear_                       Alex Gibney                                [23]
  2016                                _CAMERAPERSON_                             KIRSTEN JOHNSON                      [24]
  _13th_                              Ava DuVernay                               [25]
  _O.J.: Made in America_             Ezra Edelman                               [26]
  2017                                _EX LIBRIS: THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY_   FREDERICK WISEMAN                    [27]
  _Faces Places (Visages Villages)_   Agnès Varda, JR                            [28]
  _Jane_                              Brett Morgen                               [29]
  2018                                _MINDING THE GAP_                          BING LIU                             [30]
  _Free Solo_                         Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin      [31]
  _Won't You Be My Neighbor?_         Morgan Neville                             [32]
  2019                                _HONEYLAND_                                TAMARA KOTEVSKA, LJUBOMIR STEFANOV   [33]
  _Apollo 11_                         Todd Douglas Miller                        [34]
  _For Sama_                          Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts              [35]

[1] “Vancouver critics pick I Killed My Mother”. CBC News, January 13, 2010.

[2] Craig Takeuchi, “Vancouver Film Critics Circle: Up in the Air, J'ai tué ma mí¨re lead nominations”. _The Georgia Straight_, January 4, 2010.

[3]

[4] “Incendies, Barney’s lead Vancouver Critics Awards”. _Playback_, January 11, 2011.

[5] Glen Schaefer, “Incendies gets five nods from Vancouver film critics”. _The Province_, January 4, 2011.

[6]

[7] “Vancouver critics name The Artist top film of 2011”. _The Globe and Mail_, January 10, 2012.

[8] “VFCC Announces 12th Annual Award Nominees”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, January 2, 2012.

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12] “Beyond the Black Rainbow, War Witch win at Vancouver critics awards”. _Playback_, January 8, 2013.

[13] “2013 VFCC Nominees Announced!”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 27, 2012.

[14]

[15] “The Dirties cleans up in Vancouver; Film critics give top prizes to Matt Johnson, 12 Years a Slave”. _Edmonton Journal_, January 9, 2014.

[16] “And the 2014 VFCC nominees are...”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 22, 2013.

[17]

[18] “Tu dors Nicole and Mommy top Canadian winners at Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards”. _The Georgia Straight_, January 6, 2015.

[19] “2015 Nominees Announced”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 22, 2014.

[20]

[21] “Vancouver Film Critics Honour ‘Haida Gwaii’”. _Point of View_, January 7, 2016.

[22] “2016 Nominees Announced”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 14, 2015.

[23]

[24] “Hello Destroyer wins big with VFCC”. _Playback_, January 11, 2017.

[25] “2017 Nominees Announced”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 16, 2016.

[26]

[27] “Never Steady, Never Still takes the big prizes at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards”. _The Georgia Straight_, January 9, 2018.

[28] “2018 Nominees Announced”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 15, 2017.

[29]

[30] “Vancouver Film Critics Circle names Edge of the Knife top Canadian feature film”. _Toronto Star_, January 8, 2019.

[31] Josh Cabrita, “2019 Nominees Announced”. Vancouver Film Critics Circle, December 14, 2018.

[32]

[33] “Vancouver film critics award 'The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open'”. _Tri-City News_, January 7, 2020.

[34] Adrian Mack, “Marriage Story dominates Vancouver Film Critics Circle noms”. _The Georgia Straight_, December 13, 2019.

[35]

question: What does the text say about the Cannes Film Festival?

question: What does the text say about the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary?

answer: The Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary is an annual award presented by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle to the film judged by its members as the best international documentary film of the year. It is separate from the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Canadian Documentary, which is reserved for Canadian documentary films.


text:
After Robert Lewis Dear was arrested for opening fire inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday, he reportedly made a remark about "no more baby parts," according to a law enforcement official. The revelation prompted a heated debate about what motivated Dear to allegedly target a reproductive health provider that has been under near-constant assault from Republicans in recent months.

Some GOP presidential candidates rushed to argue that the killings have nothing to do with the anti-abortion movement or with the political campaign against Planned Parenthood, which has hinged upon a series of heavily edited sting videos that purport to show staff members discussing the donation of fetal tissue.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz claimed that the rampage was carried out by a "deranged individual," not a "pro-life" activist. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the attacks were not something that the anti-abortion movement would condone, though he went on to say it was too early to jump to conclusions about the attacker's motive and called the shooting an act of terrorism. (Other presidential hopefuls, of course, have yet to say anything about the incident.)

But if Cruz and Huckabee want to argue that the anti-abortion movement rejects violence against abortion providers, they'll have to re-examine their ties to well-known activists who have made inflammatory comments in support of exactly that sort of extremism.

Just eight days before the Planned Parenthood shooting, Cruz touted an endorsement from Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. Newman has previously called for the mass execution of abortion providers and people who had sought their services, according to Right Wing Watch. Here's an excerpt from his book_ Their Blood Cries Out_:

  "When moms, dads, abortionists are added together, well over 100,000,000 people bear personal bloodguilt for at least one abortion. The doctrine of community bloodguilt found in Scripture further implicates the entire nation. The perpetrators are far too numerous and the bloodguilt has spread too far. We deserve God’s judgment.

  In addition to our personal guilt in abortion, the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people.

Newman's group has sought to craft a mainstream image as "the most visible voice of the pro-life activist movement in America," but its leadership tells a more complicated story. In 1988, Cheryl Sullenger, now Operation Rescue's vice president, was convicted along with her husband for their part in a failed plot to blow up an abortion clinic. (Sullenger says she now regrets her actions.)

After Friday's shooting, Operation Rescue was careful to strike a different tone, saying in a statement that it "unequivocally deplores and denounces all violence at abortion clinics."

Earlier this month, both Cruz and Huckabee -- as well as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has since dropped out of the presidential race -- attended a conference hosted by pastor Kevin Swanson. At the time, Swanson attracted criticism for his vehemently anti-gay views. But as Right Wing Watch pointed out earlier this month, in 2009, Swanson also hailed the actions of Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion extremist who was later found guilty of murdering Kansas abortion provider George Tiller.

“If anybody’s keeping count ... Let’s see, Tiller killed 60,000 babies, so that’s 60,000 dead babies and one dead abortionist," Swanson said on his radio show. "So, let’s just say, the abortionists are still ahead on this one."

"It is interesting that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword," the pastor continued. "Wasn’t that what Jesus said? And this is really, pretty much, what happens. People tend to get their upcommance [sic], and that’s precisely what happened to Tiller the Killer."

Both Cruz and Huckabee have since sought to downplay the significance of Swanson's anti-gay beliefs, and neither campaign responded to HuffPost's requests for comment on the pastor's anti-abortion views.

While Cruz and Huckabee are quick to say they don't support anti-abortion violence themselves, it's harder for them to deny the troubling rhetoric and behavior of activists claiming to represent the candidates' values.

In the past few months, Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have used the sting videos to portray Planned Parenthood as a "barbaric" organization that harvests the organs of aborted fetuses for profit. Multiple investigations have concluded that the footage showed no evidence of wrongdoing, but many conservatives have continued to rail against the health care provider.

And it's not just words. The intensifying crusade against Planned Parenthood has been accompanied by a series of physical and virtual attacks on abortion clinics. If Republicans like Cruz and Huckabee want to send a message that they oppose this type of terrorism, they could start by cutting ties with anyone who has supported such violence in the past.

_ALSO ON HUFFPOST:_

PHOTO GALLERY

Myths About Abortion That Need To Be Busted

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Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter

question: Why are Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal complicit in the actions of the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter?

answer: These politicians who spoke out against the act have ties to anti-abortion activists. In addition earlier in the month the article was written all three of them attended a conference hosted by pastor Kevin Swanson. Swanson also hailed the actions of Scott Roeder, who killed Kansas abortion provider George Tiller.


text:
A worn and somewhat muscular hand thrust from beneath the surface of a pale blue  mountain fed lake. Dripping with slimy seaweed and lake water the hand paddled furiously. Suddenly, the famous King Arthur shot out of the water, finding himself gasping for air. Arthur’s other hand emerged from the icy depths, paddling against its watery grave. King Arthur sighed a sigh of relief. He was finally home. Where were his people? Had it really been that long?

He spun around, trying to locate the shore. He finally homed in on some birds flying in wide circles high in the sky. Arthur paddled his legs and arms in their general direction, hoping for any sign of relief from this strenuous fight for life.

The swim was hard, but The King had nearly reached the border in which marked the end of this journey, and the beginning of the next. The shore. King Arthur waded through the last bit of water, too tired to swim. “Twilight?” The king spoke with a harsh British accent. It wasn’t really, the polluted air had made it seem darker than it really was.

The King found himself on a silky sand beach, the course rock he once knew had eroded into the perfect sand castle building material. “I have been away many years,” Arthur said in a hushed tone of grief and sorrow. “Whither will I go now?”

Arthur jumped with remembrance, almost forgetting a very important role in his life. He had first seen Excalibur when he was eleven, in a nook of a tree, sitting ever so mocking, telling him to take it and run. He didn’t. But Excalibur stopped at nothing. It came again. Arthur remembered the day vividly. A month day after his twelfth birthday. The same sword, this time screaming at him to take it. He did that time. His only sword and companion had fought many battles since then. Much bloodshed in the name of his people.

The King keeled down on one knee, he raised his hand, and with an inaudible command the sky was ripped apart, revealing a blinding light. Arthur was thrown down, unable to overcome the intense force that Excalibur brought. Then, as soon as it had started, it had ended. The only trace of it ever happening was the sword held in King Arthur's worn right hand.

Arthur walked forward, dripping with sweat, clutching Excalibur with all his might. Although there was nothing to be afraid of, not now. He saw no one and he wondered if his people, all Arthur had worked for, had dyed off. Conquered by another nation. The great and powerful king shuddered at the thought.

King Arthur came to a black strip of land with a yellow stripe down the middle, although he had no idea how they made it, he knew exactly what it was. A road. This was reassuring, to know that his people had progressed in technology. He wasn’t only talking about the road, but the machines that must have used it. Merlin had warned him of that much.

A small drug store, across the road, was the only thing Arthur saw. He was intimidated by the miniature structure. But he tried to believe his people would remember their king of old. Arthur walked in, a small bell sounded. The room was dimly lit, with a man in a black beanie and a gun pointed to the cashier. Arthur saw the look in the thieves eye’s, the most intense gaze of hatred. “Halt! In the name of King Arthur!” The man whirled around in fear and astonishment. He aimed the gun to Arthur's head and squeezed the trigger.

**If I receive enough feedback I would love to continue the adventures of King Arthur! Thanks in advance!**

title: [SP] King Arthur's Return

question: What does the story say about its setting?

answer: King Arthur wakes up on what seems to be a beach. He wonders if his people have all died out. It had been years since he last saw his kingdom. He realizes that he is now in the present where everything has progressed technologically.

question: What does the story say about King Arthur's feelings?

answer: King Arthur arrives at our current timeline and is afraid. He fears that his people have died out. He continues walking and realizes that humans have advanced in technology.

question: What does the story say about battle?

question: What does the story say about Arthur and Excalibur?


text:
The COLUMBUS MONUMENT is a column installed at the center of Manhattan's Columbus Circle in the U.S. state of New York. The monument was created by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo.[1]

Description

The monument consists of a marble statue of Columbus atop a granite rostral column[2] placed on a four-stepped granite pedestal.[3] The column is decorated with bronze projections representing Columbus' ships: the _Niña_, the _Pinta_, and the _Santa María_; although actually they are depicted as Roman galleys (after the rostral column classical tradition) instead of caravels. Its pedestal features an angel holding a globe.[4]

History

The monument was one of three planned as part of the city's 1892 commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Americas.[5] Originally, the monument was planned to be located in Bowling Green or somewhere else in lower Manhattan. By the time Russo's plan was decided upon in 1890, a commission of Italian businessmen from around the United States had contributed $12,000 of the $20,000 needed to build the statue (equivalent to $ of the $ in cost in current dollars).[6] The statue was constructed with funds raised by _Il Progresso_, a New York City-based Italian-language newspaper.[7]

Russo created parts of the Columbus Column in his Rome studio and in other workshops in Italy;[8] the bronze elements were cast in the Nelli Foundry.[9] The completed column was shipped to the United States in September 1892 to be placed within the “circle at Fifty-ninth Street and Eighth Avenue”.[10] Once the statue arrived in Manhattan, it was quickly transported to the circle.[11] The monument was officially unveiled with a ceremony on October 13, 1892, as part of the 400th anniversary celebration.[12][13][14]

During the construction of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line () underneath the circle in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Columbus statue was shored up with temporary supports.[15] Even so, the statue was shifted two inches north from its original position, and the top of the statue tilted . As a result, the statue was repaired and cleaned in 1934.[16] The monument received some retouching in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage, and in turn, the monument's own 100th anniversary.[17] It was also rededicated in that same year.[18]

In 2012, the statue was used as the centerpiece of an interactive art installation by Tatzu Nishi entitled Discovering Columbus. The Public Art Fund described the project as follows:

  Nishi’s project re-imagines the colossal 13-foot-tall statue of Columbus standing in a fully furnished, modern living room. Featuring tables, chairs, couch, rug, and flat-screen television, the décor reflects the artist’s interpretation of contemporary New York style. He even designed wallpaper inspired by memories of American popular culture, having watched Hollywood movies and television as a child in Japan. Discovering Columbus offers both a unique perspective on a historical monument and a surreal experience of the sculpture in a new context. Allowing us to take a journey up six flights of stairs to a fictional living room, Tatzu Nishi invites us to discover for ourselves where the imagination may lead.[19]

Amid the 2017 monument controversies in the United States, an issue arose over the statue due to criticism of Columbus's mistreatment of the native people on Hispaniola. In August of that year, the far-right Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had resulted in one death and several injuries. Following that rally, Mayor Bill de Blasio commissioned a “90-day review” of possibly “hateful” monuments across the city to determine if any of them, including the Columbus Column, warranted either removal or recontextualization (e.g. by explanatory plaques).[20][21][22] Although calls to remove the monument were supported by those criticizing Columbus's actions, the proposed removal was opposed by some sectors of the city's Italian American community and Columbus Day Parade organizers.[23][24] After two instances of vandalism in September 2017, including one incident where the statue was defaced with red paint,[25] full-time security measures were put around the column ahead of the year's parade.[26]

On September 20, 2018, in a unanimous decision, the New York State Board of Historic Preservation voted to place the monument on the state historic register and nominate it to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), due to its significance.[27] Two months later the National Park Service added the monument to the NRHP.[28]

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[27] State designates Columbus Circle monument as landmark Retrieved October 5, 2018

[28]

title: Columbus Monument (New York City)

question: What are the decorative elements of the Columbus Monument?

answer: The monument has a marble statue of Columbus atop a granite rostral column placed on a four-stepped granite pedestal. The column is decorated with bronze projections representing Columbus' ships: the _Niña_, the _Pinta_. Its pedestal features an angel holding a globe.

question: What repair and maintenance have been necessary since the statue was placed?

answer: During the construction of the New York City Subway's Eighth Avenue Line, the Columbus statue was shored up with temporary supports. Even so, the statue was shifted two inches north from its original position, and the top of the statue tilted. As a result, the statue was repaired and cleaned in 1934. The monument received some retouching in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage, and in turn, the monument's own 100th anniversary. The statue was vandalized in 2017 and must have been restored.


text:
Two Houses.

Picture two houses across the street from one another. They looked perfectly normal and sturdy on the outside, but on the inside they were run down and falling apart. Inside of one lived a quiet and peaceful man, and in the other lived a beautiful and cheerful woman. Neither of them, however, liked being outside the confines of their own house.

One day, the peaceful man ventured across the street to the other house and was invited inside. The two strangers visited, shared laughs, told stories, and enjoyed the others company. At the end of the day, the man returned to his house.

The next day he visited again, but instead of talking, he started to slowly repair the inside of the run down house. When one of his repairs would break, he would immediately come over to fix the damage with a smile on his face. The two housekeepers became used to seeing one another each day, and eventually, the woman would come over to the man's house to visit. The woman noticed that his house looked much worse on the inside than hers, and started to sneak inside at night while he was asleep to make repairs. When the man would try to fix something himself, or repair damages to his own house, he would fail, and sometimes even make things worse. But the next morning,  he would notice that things would be fixed. This puzzled the man and he decided to ask the woman about it the next time she came over.

The next evening they spent together, he asked and she informed the man of what she had been doing, and the man asked why. She replied,
"Because people who show a caring and wholesome heart deserve to receive the same treatment they give to others." The man became confused.
          "But I am a shut in. Nobody gives to me, and I don't give to them. Why does somebody like me deserve somebody as wonderful as you?"

The woman put her hand on the man's shoulder and looked into his dark brown eyes. She noticed a hurt that had always seemed to hide beneath his smile, a sorrow that hadn't been revealed in a very long time. She said in a soft and gentle voice: "Somebody that prefers to be alone does not always prefer being lonely. There is always somebody who will care."

The two embraced, and the man sobbed and became limp in the woman's arms. Once he had calmed down, the woman kissed him on the cheek and returned to her house without saying a word.

The following morning, he noticed another man performing landscaping on her lawn, painting the outside of her house, and cleaning her patio. Each day the house would look more and more beautiful. He became sad that the woman had found somebody else to do her work, and started to loathe the landscaper that would beautify her house all the time.

The woman remained indoors all day, trying to make the interior of her house look as pleasant as the exterior. However, most of her attempts at repairs or renovation were disasters. The person she hired was no help, and was only after her money. She began to miss her neighbors company, along with his sturdy repairs and his gentle smile. As days went by, the man and woman thought about each other more and more, but never saw each other.

One afternoon, the woman heard her doorbell ring. Knowing it wasn't the landscaper she hired, she curiously approached the peephole of the door. Seeing that nobody was outside, she opened the door and looked for pranksters. Looking down, she saw a small, dirty looking tin with a bow neatly placed on top of it.

The interior of the unkempt tin was extravagantly decorated with soft velvet from top to bottom, and in the center laid a simple necklace with a key on it, resting on top of a small note. Putting the necklace on, she unfolded the small note and noticed little droplets of water on the page.

"You are the only one that can make it feel less empty. Please take care of it for me while I'm gone. I must go, but I will return one day."

After reading it the woman dropped to her knees, and tears started to form in her tightly shut eyes. For what seemed like years, she spent the next few months wishing the man would come back and going into his house to take care of it while he was gone. She noticed that every little thing she had done to the house remained unchanged, as if he never tried to correct the small mistakes she had made.

Eventually, the man returned. The woman was thrilled and filled with happiness, but also saddened by the fact that the man no longer came across the street to visit her. A few days after his return, she noticed he was packing his belongings into boxes. Fearing that he might move away, the woman mustered up the courage to go talk to the man.

"Why are you putting everything into boxes?" The woman asked.
    "Because," the man replied solemnly, "I am looking to create new memories and find a fresh start." The woman said nothing and returned to her house, slamming the door and fighting back tears.

The next morning, the man was loading his belongings into a moving truck when he saw a pile of boxes bigger than his own sitting in the woman's lawn. He walked across the street to the pile, and saw a note taped to one of the boxes.

"I will always love you, and I promise that I will always be next to you. No matter where we go."

The man's face turned into a broad smile, and he looked up to see the woman on her front patio, looking right back at him, the necklace glistening in the sunlight. She ran into his arms and they kissed for what felt like an eternity. The pair continued to load all of their belongings into the one moving truck, and left that very evening. Holding hands with his true love, the man looked into the rear view mirror to see the sun setting on the old, abandoned houses for the last time, and felt what was truly a pure happiness. An odd and relieving sensation washed over him like a tide, as he realized that he would never have to search for anything in his life, as long as he lived.

title: Some OC for you all to enjoy

question: According to the woman, what is the difference between being alone and being lonely?

answer: One is what the person wants to be.

question: Why did the woman find someone else to do the work on her home?

answer: Maybe she had developed feelings for the man and didn't feel right having him do physical labor for her.

question: Why does the man want a new beginning even though the woman clearly cares for him?

answer: The text does not fully explain.

question: What do the perfectly sturdy but internally run-down houses represent?

answer: Possibly the people who live in them.

question: Write a ~9 sentence summary.

answer: A man and a woman live across the street from one another. Both inhabit houses that seem sturdy and fine on the outside, but are a mess inside. They start to fix up each others' houses. Then the man notices a new man is taking care of beautifying her house and he grows very sad. He leaves town but leaves her a parting gift of a necklace at her door. The woman misses him. One day he returns to pack up his belongings and when the woman tearfully asks why, he says he wants a fresh start. She runs to him and they kiss for a long time. The two pack up the moving truck with both of their belongings and leave together, happy.


text:
Authors

Daniel P. Friedman

Daniel P. Friedman is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University and is the author of many books published by the MIT Press, including _The Little Schemer_ and _The Seasoned Schemer_ (with Matthias Felleisen); _The Little Prover_ (with Carl Eastlund); and _The Reasoned Schemer_ (with William E. Byrd, Oleg Kiselyov, and Jason Hemann).

David Thrane Christiansen

David Thrane Christiansen is a member of the technical staff at Galois, Inc., in Portland, Oregon.

Contributors

Robert Harper and Conor McBride.

question: Who is Daniel Friedman?

answer: Daniel P. Friedman is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering.

question: Which books had he written?

answer: The Little Schemer, The Seasoned Schemer, The Little Prover and The Reasoned Schemer.

question: Which university is Friedman a professor at?

answer: Friedman is a professor at Indiana University.

question: Which book is the description about?

answer: This information can't be found.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: A paragraph naming the other books written by the author, Daniel P. Friedman.


text:
On Sunday, a relatively small group of white nationalists, under the banner of “Unite the Right,” chose to make an ostentatious celebration of the anniversary of their rally in Charlottesville — the one in which one of their number killed a counterprotester with his car. This time, they protested directly in front of the White House.

Naturally, this attracted a significantly larger counterprotest, filled mostly with goodwill opponents of their racist ideology. But the hooligan-like behavior of some in the crowd, who threw eggs and water bottles and shot fireworks at journalists and the police, served as a reminder that the Hitler Junior crowd, odious as they are, are a much smaller and less threatening gang than the so-called "antifa," that mob of militant leftists known for their political street violence.

Fortunately, their uncivil antics were kept far milder than usual, in spite of their own best efforts to provoke a police confrontation. But bear in mind that both their numbers and their reach are far and away greater than anything the pathetic nationalists could ever muster. Their reach is also truly national.

Unlike the crowd that appeared last year in Charlottesville to universal condemnation, these rioters, with their cop-killer rhetoric and their skull-cracking, window-smashing tactics of political persuasion, now hold sway over many weak-minded politicians who sympathize with, collaborate with, or fear them too much to resist.

Even to call them "antifa" or "anti-fascist" is a mistake, an uncritical acceptance of their own euphemisms. Although they are a mix of Marxists and anarchists, they derive that term from Stalinist propaganda that started in the 1930s and picked up again in the 1940s after the Soviet Union abandoned its alliance with Nazi Germany. This word was used by the Soviet communists not only to help in the war effort, but also to reinforce their tyrannical domestic rule.

“Anti-fascism,” it turns out, is a great excuse for government to make people do anything you want them to do. Why, the Berlin Wall, from its construction in 1961, was always referred to behind the Iron Curtain as the "anti-fascist barrier," implying that it was there to keep out harmful Western influences.

It is in that spirit that this current crop of violent protesters and their allergy to dissenting views must be understood. They reject not just the current imperfect state of America, but its very founding vision. They would replace the Constitution and laws that made this country great with a single-party dictatorship. They are totalitarians who merely lack the formal power of a state to oppress and bludgeon dissenters with the full force of law behind them.

For now, the violent Left must instead settle for using lawless intimidation.

And why not, when they mostly get away with it? Their behavior at the inauguration riots in D.C. is going mostly unpunished. And they have been so bold as to use threats to shut down events in various cities, including Portland, Ore., and Berkeley, Calif., where city officials have at times shrugged and looked the other way as their citizens — not all of them Nazis, even — are deplatformed by violent threats, and those issuing the threats enjoy sanctuary.

Meanwhile, in contrast to President Trump’s verbal criticism of journalists, these left-wing provocateurs actually attack journalists for documenting events as they unfold. They did so on Sunday (at least Trump doesn’t call anyone a “ snitch ass news bitch”), and as they have done previously on other occasions.

This is a dangerous time in the life of the nation. The violent Left wants to take advantage of a rise in popular belief in the illegitimacy of the United States government. They are also trying to use their battle with white nationalists in order to gain sympathy from ordinary people for their vile cause.

Beware, therefore, that when you call them nice names like “anti-fascist,” you are helping them achieve that goal.

question: What does the article say about the phrase "antifa"?

answer: The author says the phrase "anti-fascist" originates from the Soviet Republic after their alliance with Nazi Germany ended as part of Stalinist propaganda. He says "anti-fascism" is an excuse for the government to have its people do anything, like the Berlin Wall, referred to as the "anti-fascist barrier" in the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain. The author further criticizes the protesters identifying as "antifa" as the ones who would oppress dissenting views except for their lack of state power.

question: What does the article say about machines that kill fascists?

question: What does the article say about white nationalists?

answer: The author talks about a small group of white nationalists that organized a celebration of the Charlottesville rally under the "Unite the Right" banner in front of the White House. The author calls them pathetic and insignificant, pointing out that some members of the group threw water bottles or eggs at journalists and police, in contrast with the Antifa chants about cop-killing and other violent tendencies.


text:
BY JIM TAYLOR
BBC Radio 5 live

media captionJameela Jamil on equal pay, #MeToo and body image

JAMEELA JAMIL HAS SAID SHE WAS TOLD SHE WAS "TOO OLD, TOO ETHNIC AND TOO FAT" TO LAUNCH A CAREER IN THE US.

The former BBC Radio 1 presenter landed a part in sitcom The Good Place in her first audition, despite being "actively discouraged" from moving to Hollywood by some in the UK.

The 32-year-old said she moved to Los Angeles without a job or even a plan.

"I was literally starting again and I was actively discouraged by everyone in England," she told BBC Radio 5 live's Anna Foster.

"Everyone said I was being mad, throwing away an eight-year career, and that I was too old - I was only 29 - too ethnic, and too fat to come over to Los Angeles."

image copyrightRon Batzdorff/NBC

image captionJameela stars alongside Cheers star Ted Danson in the sitcom

She admitted she exaggerated her acting experience to win a role in The Good Place alongside Ted Danson and Kristen Bell.

"I lied in my audition. I said I'd mostly done theatre because it's harder to track down," Jamil explained.

"Technically it's not a lie because when I was six I played Oliver's mother in my school play. I was creative with the truth."

In the show, Jameela plays Tahani Al-Jamil, a wealthy British philanthropist whose name translates as "Congratulations Beautiful".

It's been praised by critics and has been renewed for a third season.

"I didn't even have time to get an acting coach, so I basically had to learn how to act from Ted Danson.

"I'm a fast learner and I have an amazing group of people around me. I'm not De Niro, but I'm getting there."

image copyrightColleen Hayes/NBC

image captionL-R: Jameela Jamil, William Jackson Harper, Kristen Bell and Manny Jacinto in The good Place

Jameela's time in Hollywood has coincided with the #MeToo movement and the debate about equal pay.

"I feel very comfortable asking my co-stars what they earn," she said.

"There is a pay gap between Ted Danson and Kristen Bell - but he was in Cheers, he is a national treasure. It's not just about gender, that's about what you bring to the table.

"But when there's a man and woman of the same age, with the same level of experience in any industry - it blows my mind we are still treated as second-rate citizens and I think it is changing, slowly but surely."

She said #MeToo had been "amazing" and celebrates the fact that "the men are afraid of the women for the first time ever".

image copyrightJustin Lubin/NBC

image captionJameela said her character Tahani may look sweet, but she's "passive aggressive" and a "nightmare"

"Producers would ask for our second meeting to be at dinner, at night in a restaurant, which felt significantly more like a date - which I would always decline - that doesn't happen anymore."

Jameela launched the I Weigh campaign on Instagram to encourage people to post images weighing their achievements rather than their bodies.

She described LA as "the devil's lair" when it comes to body image obsession, and now insists that magazines do not tamper with pictures of her.

image copyrightInstagram

image captionA typical post on Jameela's 'I Weigh' Instagram feed

"When I get Photoshopped by magazines - people change the shape of my nose to make my nose look less ethnic. They don't tell me and it's really offensive.

"I don't feel flattered when a magazine creates this 'flawless' version of me - I feel really offended because that's no longer my face. I've got a tiny Caucasian nose, my skin has been lightened, my pores have been removed, my stretch marks have been removed.

"[These are] things that I don't have a problem with - then I can't help but think, 'Wow, what I brought wasn't good enough'. Being Photoshopped is so offensive."

Jameela recently hit out at Kim Kardashian West for posting an advert promoting a dieting lollipop, calling her "irresponsible" and a "victim of a societal problem"

Kim K shared a photo of herself eating the product - which it's claimed suppresses your appetite - on Instagram.

Speaking to 5 live, Jameela said: "Kim Kardashian West may not have asked to be a role model but as soon as you accept money for being in a public position, you are a role model.

image copyrightGetty Images

"She's not a bad person, I don't think any of them are bad people - they are probably much more so victims of this societal problem than anyone realises. We've listened to 10 years of their insecurities publicly.

"Extreme diets, extreme cosmetic surgery, changes to their faces and bodies... They have tried everything to achieve this archetype of perfection and they themselves are victims. It makes me sad that they would ingest this poison and then push it back out."

_Anna Foster's full interview with Jameela Jamil is broadcast on BBC Radio 5 live at 10:00 BST on Monday 21 May._

More on this story

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question: Which actress is the focus of this story?

answer: Jameela Jamil

question: Who is interviewing Jameela?

answer: Anna Foster from BBC Radio 5 live.

question: What Hollywood role brought Jamil notoriety?

answer: Her role as Tahani Al-Jamil in "The Good Place" brought her notoriety.

question: What did the #metoo movement do for Jamil?

answer: It has given her comfort in asking her co-workers how much they make.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Anna Foster from BBC Radio 5 live interviewed Jameela Jamil. Her role as Tahani Al-Jamil in "The Good Place" brought her notoriety. The #metoo movement has given her comfort in asking her co-workers how much they make.


text:
The grey sky wept heavy tears as an old man creeps along a smooth marble path, clutching his coat tightly with white knuckles to keep the frosted wind from stealing it. His head hung low against the rain, joints aching and lungs burning from the cold air, he walks on under the gaze of the silent marble guardians that stand all around.  They are placed in concentric ranks, evenly spaced and facing inwards, ever vigilant. There are thousands of them; tens of thousands even, covering an area miles wide. They are spaced evenly throughout their rings with a gap just wide enough for two people to slip in between with twice that distance between each layer. Small engraved platinum plaques rest at the base of each, meticulously produced and maintained.

At the center is an open space dominated by a large sphere which floats reverently above the ground. The Earth in all its glory, with its greens, blues, and browns – meticulously detailed. White clouds swirl and dance in real time in a never ending show that matches reality. If an observer looks closely, they see small ripples throughout the vast blue oceans as the moon engages in its eternal struggle with the tides. Yellow points of civilization dot the night side, ever struggling against the darkness which creeps steadily west. Giant black scars and craters run along its surface, an eternal reminder of events not long passed.

Once in awhile the old man sees another like himself, walking solemnly through this holiest of places. He places a hand onto the cold stone of a statue to steady himself as a strong gust smashes into his fragile frame. He pulls back his hand as if bitten, a numbness spreading throughout his soul. As he continues forward he looks into the faces around him even as the rain soaks his face. He doesn’t notice as it slips down his coat, and doesn’t care as the cold steals the feeling from his skin. He is beyond knowing discomfort. It has been many months since he felt.

Each face is alive with hand crafted detail down to the very pores of the shining stone skin. Their expressions are serious yet hopeful, sad but inspiring. They stand life sized and uniformed, medals and ribbons adorning their chests. Over each stone heart is a small pin with the shape and detail of the Earth. Had they not been made of lifeless stone, each likeness could be mistaken for a living being. They are the holiest relics of the human race, in a place that has become a religious site that has no priests and belongs to no church. They stand at attention in eternal watch over the planet in their midst and the pilgrims who walk through their home.

As the old man draws nearer to his destination he slows his all ready careful pace to the barest of movements. He has entered the space of his nightmares, the place he visits each night in sleep and each day in life. It is a familiar place, one he has navigated through hundreds of times in the few short months since its completion. It has become routine in a sense. His path is always the same; the same stones, the same steps, the same faces, the same emptiness.

He stops at each monument and memorizes every face before reading the plaque under it. Each one is long since engraved in his mind. They are his link to the past, to better times before.  Some of the names he knows from the old letters. They are his most cherished possessions and the only thing of value he has. He falls asleep each night with a stack of them in his bed, only escaping into the embrace of sleep when he is too tired to remain awake any longer.

After a time that may have been as long as hours or as short as minutes, the old man arrives at what has become both his hell and his salvation. It is a statue of a young woman, so perfectly detailed that the sight of it tears through his soul. He stares at her face and struggles to look away. The plaque at her feet tells only the barest of stories; that she was an officer; that she served all of humanity; that she died protecting her home. That she will be forever remembered. She has a face the old man is intimately familiar with. Her name is the same as his.

He remembers how it all started. How smart and happy and full of life she was. How she glowed and seemed to brighten a room just by being present. How he always pushed her to strive for more, to live up to her full potential. How he had wanted a better life for her than he had ever had for himself. How she had applied on an off chance and been accepted into the program, and how she had gone with his blessing and his encouragement. How she had written every day after she left, and how utterly proud he was. How she was his only child.

He remembers too how it all ended. How the Earth had been decimated. How she had been called up. He watched the live video as it all unfolded, remembers how three billion voices screamed as one when they were victorious. He remembers how none of those thousands of Earth’s children who had left ever came back. He remembers the guilt and the pain so heavy it crushed the air from his lungs.

Amidst the howling wind, he trembles violently and falls to his knees. The rain washes the tears from his face as he sobs uncontrollably. The old man curls up at the feet of his life and waits to die.

title: Pilgrim

question: Summarise the theme of death in paragraphs 7 and 8?

answer: While walking through a cemetery, the old man stumbled upon the statue of a woman he recognized, not only because she bore the same name as his but also because of the striking physical semblance. It appeared that the statue of the woman was his late daughter, the only child he ever had, and the sight of her brought back fond memories of their relationship, which brought tears to his eyes. She was a pleasant, joyful woman who was encouraged by her father to be more ambitious, which led her to apply to become an officer. She ultimately died serving her country, an honorable gesture for her country to be remembered.