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Page 82 text:
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so Isaac Newton High School LITERARY AND STILL SHE STANDS I don’t know what it was that caused me to loathe the house. And yet, every- time I saw it, a sensation of fear passed through my body. Hatred crept into my soul and my thoughts were only those of destruction. The structure stood on the crest of a hill, decrepit and old. The noon day sun beat down on the shrivelling boards with relentless fury. The wind, the rain, the sleet, in fact all the elements of nature, combined to wipe this tat¬ tering wreckage off the face of the earth. But the more the wind and the rain strove for destruction, the strong¬ er the house seemed to get ... as if in defiance, as if some unknown force was compelling it to withstand the torrents. There it stood, a challenge to nature and to man. Twilight came, and night, the saint of sinners, the haven of lovers, stole in and enveloped the countryside like a thick blanket. Darkness, ever¬ lasting darkness, descended over the house. The moon rose, pale and waning, its rays casting a dull and eerie lustre over the earth. I came across the house one night while going for a walk. I decided to get some fresh air, so started to walk up the hill, beyond the village. Sud¬ denly I saw it, standing there, as if in defiance to the entire world. A burn¬ ing hatred crept into me. Why, I don’t know. I was filled with an unexplain¬ able desire to destroy it. I ran home, determined to rid myself of the enmity towards this house. The next night I went again. It had been raining out and the grass was wet and slippery. I saw the house in the distance. It seemed to be enveloped in a shimmering light. I stopped as my hatred increased. I made up my mind to destroy the house forever ere it drove me into the realms of insanity. A week later I went again with some gas and a torch. This was an oppor¬ tune moment. Before anybody could reach the blaze, it would be over. I was satisfied. My mind was completely at ease. How cleverly I poured the gaso¬ line over the ground. How skilfully I manipulated the tin container. As I was about to light the torch and forever remove this grotesque picture from my mind, a strange feeling came over me. A sensation which I am powerless to ex¬ press entered my body. My hand quiv¬ ered. The wind moaned through the broken windows. The house seemed to speak, to ask me not to destroy it. I felt queer all over. Passion — there was none. Hatred — all my hatred for the house was spent. The torch fell out of my hand. I stood there motionless. A tear crept into the corners of my eyes. Everything was getting blurred. I saw—rather I vision¬ ed—strange beings dancing in shim¬ mering light beside the house. The strains of soft, melodious music filled the air. Then I became dizzy. My head reeled. I felt myself falling, falling into some vast abyss, falling into obscurity. When I awoke, I was lying on the ground. The house cast a shadow of gloom over me as I lay there. I tried to stand up, but my legs felt like butter. I desperately tried to rise. At last I was on my feet. Looking around, I saw the lights of the village. They seemed to beckon, to call to me. I start¬ ed to walk, slowly at first. Then an un¬ easy feeling came over me and I quick¬ ened my pace. I turned around, unconsciously, I guess, and suddenly I saw a strange thing. Fear gripped me. I was in a state of frenzy. My pulse beat irregularily. The blood rushed to my head. The same queer feeling as before, enveloped me. I seemed to hear the wind howling in the distance. It was steadily growing louder. I imagined strange and fascinating things. I seem¬ ed to be floating, forever falling. Bells were ringing in the distance. I saw circles. They grew larger. They turned and twisted into fantastic shapes. They seemed to be ail around me, hounding, following me. I—I was walking, run-
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Page 83 text:
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Newtonian 81 ning, I don’t know which. Slowly, slow¬ ly, I was losing my mind. “Oh God, have mercy on me!” I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes, the house was gone. Years have passed since that incident. Yet I am still tortured, torment ed by that memory. Many times I ventured up that hill. Many times I searched GOING In the community in which I grew up, only our native tongue was spoken, with the result that I knew not one word of English when I started going to school. I remember to this day, my utter confusion and surprise when one of my playmates informed me that a stomach-ache was an ailment, not a kind of cake ... In winter, when my dad was unemployed, he would take my sister and me to school on a home¬ made sled. One particular day was in¬ tensely cold, with a blistering wind that swept the loose, surface snow across miles of prairie, and whipped the ragged clouds across the grey back¬ ground that was the sky. Mom bundled my sister and me into the sled, and we ventured out against the wind with Dad. I was sitting at the back of the sled and somehow, along the way, I slid onto the snow-covered road. I saw Dad and sled fade slowly into the distance, but I was too paralyzed with fear to move or cry out. Dad told Mom, later, that he wondered why the sled had become so much lighter, and that when he stopped to see if the girls were well covered, he became quite panic-stricken at seeing only one child under the blan¬ ket. Running back along the road, he found me squatting on the snow and on the verge of tears. After being com¬ forted by our doting parent, my sister and I were delivered at the school with¬ out further mishap . . . As I grew older, I begged the older girls to let me carry their books to school, for their contents fascinated me. Soon I was boasting to neighbors that I was in the grade where they were studying “literature.” It seemed such a long word to me, and was so sugges¬ tive of hard work, and much study and glamour, that I thought the neighbors would think I must be a girl quite ad¬ vanced for my years to be allowed to for the house . . . but in vain. It seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. I made inquiries. I asked people who had lived in the district all their lives. I always received the same answers. “House, what house? You must be imagining things.” —Barney Gorenstein. BACK study such a difficult subject . . . One Saturday evening, I decided to go and see my father at the site where he was helping to build a new church. I sauntered off with just a faint idea of the direction in which I had to travel, and quite unaware of the exact loca¬ tion. I don’t remember anything after leaving the house, but Mom has often told me about the anxiety and worry that my disappearance caused. Mom, Dad and all the neighbors went out to look for me, and the police, too, were asked to help in the search. Finally, one of my neighbors found me sitting in a drugstore window. The proprietor had stuffed me with chocolates and ice¬ cream, to prevent my crying, and had placed me in the window, so that I could be taken home by anyone who might recognize me . . . I remember other things, too, as a little girl—how I hit the neighbor’s daughter on the knee with a huge stone, then fled and hid in a deep irrigation ditch, until I was discovered at supper- time. I was a very repentant child when I was informed that the girl couldn’t even kneel to say her pray¬ ers. I felt I had done a great wrong, and thought that God would never for¬ give me. I remember how, one night, I woke with a start to see my grand¬ mother, who had passed away, stand¬ ing at the foot of my bed. Summoning all my courage, I bent to touch her, and found it was only my Dad’s shirt play¬ ing a trick on my eyes . . . I recall many other incidents of my childhood, but they are too many, and some are too intimate to reveal. No one can ever tell me that my life is dull or uninteresting. No one’ life is. Just delve into the dark interior of your mind and dust the cobwebs from your secret Book of Memories and “go back.” Mary Bodnarchuk-Rm. 7.
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