...The countryside was lush, sparkling with a plum blue serene from the early morning sunrise. Atop the highest of the Vilorian Mountains, the city of Astral stood silent against the ringing of silver trumpets from the north highlands. The travelers crossing the last of the mountains rocky crossings took in the scene from under the fruits of a Bombaly tree, standing colossal at one hundred meters in height. Petty fruits the size of a child’s fist lay strewn about under its goliath canopy, dripping with ruby red nectar. The morning wind was crisp and slightly harsh, a sign to all that the winter seasons were coming with quickness. The trail leading up to the city was a four day expedition from the coast, and it had been a taxing journey for all in company. From where he lingered on the edge of the vast mountain Cyril looked down upon the Port of Themme, twenty leagues off. The brilliant light of the day lit up the ocean and surrounded all with a dazzling view of the great maritime reefs that stretched as far as the eye could see. The vastness of the blue ocean always seemed to enlighten Cyril when it stared up at him from the deep, and like always, he treasured the view for a fleeting moment. But with great beauty comes great sorrow, and at that moment the reality of the daunting mission he was on got the better of him, turning his gaze southwards to his...
Words: 251 - Pages: 2
...main character. He is guiding the reader through the short story with a third-person limited narrator exclusively grounded to the main character, making it easy for the reader to sympathize and identify with the character. The short story is written in past tense, which gives the reader an impression that the narrator already knows what is going to happen in the story – the narrator is retelling a story to the reader, making the story seem more reflective. The narrator gives hints to the reader about a certain danger which lies in the future of the story making the reader feel a bit anxious along with the father. For example when they are crossing the river second time around. Just as the open ending of the short story, many things stand unsaid forcing the reader to reflect on the presented problems and themes. The setting of Crossing takes place in a nature reserve. The surroundings are very important for the story since it is carefully described along with the flashbacks and thoughts of the main character and his experiences. The setting helps providing an atmosphere throughout the story; for example, when a parachute like mist is described as seemingly dragging behind a car, provoking a flashback to past adventures for the main character, creating the effect of a foggy memory returning. “(...)Dragging a long cloud of mist like a parachute, and when it passed he touched the wipers to clear things up and his mind flashed to a scene of black road (…)” (line 1-2). The setting...
Words: 579 - Pages: 3
...The crossing The relationship between the father and the son The protagonist is an unnamed man somewhere between 30-50 years old, and located in a small depression, because text says; "He had not been happy in a while." The protagonist is divorced or separated from his wife: "... He had not wanted here back, had not wanted much of anything really" (line.15) It would seem that the protagonist himself is to blame for the divorce, as he nurtures a desire that things should work again, both in relation to his ex-wife, but perhaps most in relation to his son. The father is very caring and loving to his son, and you quickly sympathize with him as the reader "... when the boy came running into the living room he threw him over his shoulder, careful not to hit his head on the corner of the TV…" (Page 2. line16-17) The protagonist wants to pass some of the good childhood memories that he had with his own father. They also used to take the same trip, and the main character repeats many of the same principles and rituals with his own son. Since the reader does not have access to the boy's thoughts and feelings, just as we have in the father. The author paints a picture of him with descriptions and through his father's thoughts about him. Most of all, we get a picture of a small frail boy. This narrative technique enables the reader to quickly sympathize for the boy and especially his father, who tried to get him safely through their journey in the wilderness: "He looked at the...
Words: 699 - Pages: 3
...Crossing The main character in the short story is a man in the middle of the thirties or around the age where he has a young son and has been married. When we read we get a feeling that he is divorced even when it is not written directly in the text, but as he sits in the driveway of a house and says: “the azaleas he’d planted” it gives us the impression that he is divorced. It also indicates that the main character has been living in the house with the mother to the son and now he has come to the house to pick up his son and he wants to make thinks right between himself and his wife again. All of this is described in the sentence: “He went inside, wiping his shoes and ducking his head like a visitor” and “and that moment he thought, maybe – maybe he could make things right”. That could be why he is taking their son on a trip; to take a small step and make up for some of his mistakes he has made. We only hear about the narrators’ thoughts and not about the sons: “He could hear himself breathing hard”. This make the narrator restricted and therefore we are only seeing the story from the man’s point of view. It also guides the reader through the story even though it is not told by a first person narrator but by a third person narrator. The narrative mode is describing through the story, the narrator gives small hints saying that something dangerous is about to happen. However, if nothing happens at first, the effect of the hints makes the reader anxious together with the main...
Words: 884 - Pages: 4
...Crossing The shot story ”Crossing” is written by Mark Slouka in 2009. The short story brings us through a dangerous situation about a father and son trying to cross a wild river. It is a great trip for a father to spend some quality time with his son out in the wild nature and to bond with each other. It is very typical for an American family, to have such values about a “father and son relationship”. The father in this story takes his son to a place where he went with his own father, when he was young. This brings me to the theme of the story, which could be “disappointment” or “failure”. It is mentioned that the father has done a lot of “fuckups” and he does not want this experience with his son to become one of those fuckups. At the beginning of the short story we are introduced to the father, and the difficult period of his life that he is in. The father reminds himself of his own childhood, when he was seventeen years old and went with his father on a trip into the wild. He gets very disappointed when he returns with his son and realizes that the barn and all the other things in the forest are barely recognizable. He might have had a bad relationship with his own father and does not want the same relationship with his own son. He also remembers some of the bad things about his own father, especially the way he spoke to him as a child, when the father yelled “Don’t fucking fall” (p.2, l. 63). The father could also be divorced from the mother of his son, where he is looking...
Words: 735 - Pages: 3
...Crossing Mark Slouka wrote the short story “Crossing” in 2009. This short brings us through a dangerous situation about a farther and son trying to cross a wild river. It is a great trip for a farther to spend some quality time with his son out in the wild nature and to bond with each other. It is very typical for an American family, to have such values about a “farther and son relationship”. The farther in this story takes his son to a place where he went with his own farther, when he was young. This brings me to the theme of the story, which could be “disappointment” or “failure”. It is mentioned that farther has made many “fuckups” and he does not want this experience with his son to become one of those fuckups. At the beginning of the short story, we are introduced to the farther, and the difficult period of his life that he is in. The farther reminds himself of his childhood, when he was seventeen years old and went with his farther on a trip into the wild. He gets very disappointed when he returns with his son and realizes that the barn and all the other things in the forest are barely recognizable. He has probably had a bad relationship with his own farther, and does not wish the same for him and his own son. He also thinks back on some of the bad things about his own farther, especially the way he spoke to him as a child “Don’t fucking fall” (p.2, l. 63). The farther is also divorced from the son’s mother he looks at “…the azaleas he’d planted…” (p.1, l.14) and thinking...
Words: 706 - Pages: 3
...of trips allows the story to show us the river and the care required to cross it. The details are not particularly subtle. For instance, the father remembers when he was a boy crossing the river with his own father and asking, “what do you do if you fall?” His father answered, “Don’t fuckin’ fall.” It becomes clear where this story is headed. Yet we forget this inevitable end because of the second thing Slouka does. While the river takes a central place in the story, the focus is actually on the father’s memories and thoughts. In fact, the river doesn’t even appear until the fifth paragraph. The story opens in the house of the man’s ex-wife, where the man is picking up his son: “He went inside, wiping his shoes and ducking his head like a visitor, and when the boy came running into the living room he threw him over his shoulder, careful not to hit his head on the corner of the TV, and at some point he saw her watching them, leaning against the kitchen counter in her bathrobe, and when he looked at her she shook her head and looked away and at that moment he thought, maybe—maybe he could make this right.” Slouka uses this opening to set the stakes: the man is going to use this camping trip to make things right with his family. His thoughts circle this idea throughout the story, even as he’s crossing the river. And so he does not see a second set of story stakes appear. While the story starts out being about making this right with his family, it will end with both two lives...
Words: 330 - Pages: 2
...Crossing is a short story, which is written by Mark Slouka in 2009. The short story takes up father and son relationship. The father takes his son out on a trip to pass on their knowledge about how to conquer Mother Nature. But more important on that trip is, that it binds the father and the son together, and that is exactly what the father wishes to obtain. Through a third person narrator, the reader is presented to a father and his son. The father is pretending in the short story as a father who has a hard time in life after a divorce from his wife. Because of the divorce the father is now determined to find something that matters, and he wants a strong and sound relationship to his son, I don’t think the father have anything else in his life since the wife divorced him, and therefore he wants a good relationship with his son, so he wont lose him as well. It seems like it was the mother who wants the divorce, and it seems like the father has done something wrong which not could be forgiven “When he looked at her she shook her head and looked away and at that moment he thought, maybe – maybe he could make this right” and in that moment the father gets this idea that the son and him can bond trough male things, he wants to do things that the boy cannot do with his mother, by choosing something he did with his own father. Sometimes we gets glimpse of the things the father is struggled with, “He hadn’t been happy in a while”, that quote tells us that the father has lost the...
Words: 799 - Pages: 4
...for turtle crossings By Sarah Zelinski | 1 | It’s really too bad that turtles can’t read. | 2 | If they did, it would make saving them so much easier. When people create an ecopassage1 so the reptiles can safely cross a road by going underneath or over it, they could let the animals know with little signs saying “Don’t become roadkill! Safe crossing, left 20 meters.” | 3 | Instead, we have to rely on fencing to keep the turtles and snakes off roads, which is a good idea because 98 percent or more of turtles are killed in their first attempt at a road crossing. But the reliance on fences may be a problem, a new study shows. When there aren’t effective fences to keep the reptiles out, they don’t use the ecopassages, James Baxter-Gilbert of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and colleagues report March 25 in PLOS ONE. | 4 | The study looked at the effectiveness of a series of ecopassages built along a 13-kilometer stretch of Highway 69/40 near Burwash, Ontario, near Lake Huron, a region with high reptile biodiversity. The passages ran beneath the highway and were paired with fencing along the road. The researchers looked at reptile activity along the roadway before and after the project was constructed, and also used another stretch of highway, near the Magnetawan First Nation, as a comparison. | 5 | They surveyed the roadside and put up cameras in the ecopassages to see what kind of animals used the crossings. They captured...
Words: 1993 - Pages: 8
...Trabajo Escrito 7 A. Traduce al español Mi amiga Lily y mi vivimos actualmente en un islote pequeño en el Caribe. Nosotros habíamos viajado en cuatro mes y estábamos cansado mucho cuando llegamos. Aquí hemos encontrando otros muchos turistas y dos amables cubanos, Juan y Felipe. Juan es más bien plantado y creo mi que Lily estar enamorada de él. Lily quiere quedemos aquí pero prefiero viajando seguir. Lily acaba de hablar con su madre. Desgracia mente los padres de Lily dice: “Tenéis que volver a casa, si queréis comenzar vuestras educaciones.” Los ha contada que lo consideramos. B. Contesta – como máximo – a tres de las siguientes preguntas. Ha elegido la pregunta dos. La chica en texto tres cuenta que ella sueño puede vivir en una comuna o algo similar. Está harta de la ciudad porque la cuidad lleno de ruido y estrés. Pienso que la chica puede gusta tranquilidad y idilio, como que no en la ciudades. Además pienso que la chica prefiere tiene junto nuevo personas y divide cocina con las amigas en la casa. Quizá puede la chica animal y aire libre. Las ventajas que vivir en el comuna es que nunca solo, que dividir si gasto y dividir si hacer comida y la limpieza. Que se no tener suficiente dinero más que vivir en la cuidad es comuna una idea buena. Las desventaja es que nunca ser solo, y yo creo que poder mucho agotador a veces. En texto cuatro piensan que buena vida es que vivir en el lujo casa con jacuzzi y que vivo 5 minutos de playa y campo de golf. Con...
Words: 351 - Pages: 2
...Essay- Crossing The short story ”Crossing” by Mark Slouka, written in 2009 is about a father and his son who is on a trip. The title of the short story is "Crossing" And this title is up to what the story is about. My interpretation of this story is that the message is to rebuild trust in relationships can be difficult. The main character tries so hard to rebuild his relationship with his son by making him trust him when the cross the river. Because it could happen that he slips on the rocks in the river, so actually the son let his life depends on a trust to his father. The main character is a man who has a young son and he were married once. The text does not tell us directly that he is divorced but there are things that leads up to the fact that he was for example, it says on page 1 line 15 “For a long time he hadn't wanted her back”. This tells us that he is separated from a woman but not that they are divorced. Another example could be when he looks at the yard page 1 line 14 “the azaleas he'd planted” This tells us that he once had lived there and planted an azaleas. Based on these facts about the man I would guess that he is around his thirties. The main character has hope for getting his son’s trust back and therefore he arranges a trip to an old barn across the river. The main character is the one who has destroyed the relationship with his wife because on page 4 line 135 is says, “My God, All his other fuckups were just preparations for this.” The main character has...
Words: 938 - Pages: 4
...Crossing ‘Crossing’ is a short story published in 2009, by Mark Slouka. We are introduced to a depressed father, who takes his son on a trip, in the hope of achieving a stronger relationship with his son. The father appears to be very attached to his previous/past experiences with his own father, and in that context a theme such as the relationship between father and son can be related/connected to the text. The story is told from a 3rd person limited narrator. The limited view is seen by the author’s attachment to the main character, who is the father. The story is described through the father’s point-of-view, which can be seen by the big insight the reader is given, on the father’s thoughts and feelings, during the story. The narrator use ‘he’ in relation to the father, which clarifies that it is a 3rd person narrator. The narrative technique contributes to create a personal impression of the father, and creates a relationship between the reader and main character because of the knowledge that readers are given during the story. “For some reason it made him happy, and he hadn’t been happy for a while” The techniques also force the reader to feel compassion for the father, because we know his thoughts and feelings. The readers do not get an insight on the son’s thoughts and feelings, and we do not know what his attitude towards the situation is, therefor it creates a distant relationship between the son and reader. Another narrative technique, that contributes to create...
Words: 1230 - Pages: 5
...SHELBY CROSSING HEALTH CAMPUS Long-Term Care (LTC) will continue to be a needed service for Americans today as the population becomes older. As the population continues to grow, there becomes a need for LTC support. There is roughly one-third of today’s population who will never have LTC, but the other 20% will for more than five years. The average person uses this service for approximately three years, which comes out to be 69% of the population. The reasons for LTC are various, but facing the facts it is needed. Topics elaborated in this paper will be the need for a facility, demographics, and a description of the LTC facilities floor plans. LTC services are obtained when individuals can no longer perform daily activities on their own like dressing, bathing, and cooking. This usually is the outcome of a disability or an illness. Some situations call for more extensive care for illness or disability such as confusion, memory loss, or other cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease. Roughly 70% of individuals over 65 receive some type of long-term care service in their lives, and over 40% will be or are placed in nursing home facilities (Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). So, the need for a long-term care facility that specializes in memory care as well is vital to the aging population. Forgetfulness is a part of aging and is becoming more prevalent but can be very annoying to those going through it. The need for this facility is the inadequate amount...
Words: 804 - Pages: 4
...Matthew Barker Discussion Questions for Case: Crossing the Line 1. I think that they coach or athletic director should be involved to a point in a child’s life because that is what a coach is. They are some of the best people to have because they guide young minds at a time in their lives when they need it more than ever. I would ask the question as to why your child in drunk and you know nothing about it? How can a girl that has such high hopes all of a sudden fall off the deep end? I think that a teacher and coach have to be there to make sure that things are not being done improperly in a child’s life. They should be involved to a point and should teach life lessons, as does a parent. It is important. 2. Of Course this action taken by the school administrator was justified because they cannot allow that kind of thing to happen and not go unpunished. If they don’t do anything what are they saying to the other players on the team or even to the parents who expect them to be held to higher standard. Yes they are not the parents but they also have job to do and have to protect the innocence and integrity of the students that are under their watch. We as teachers and coaches are the people who will be the parents to these kids when they have none and it is our duty to show them the right way to live and help them to become the great leaders we expect them to...
Words: 274 - Pages: 2
...Crossing with the Virgin Can you imagine being confined in a world that has you taken for granted and full of mental abuse? Crossing the Mexican border is a journey and new beginning for many undocumented workers. In their eyes it’s a path for many privileges and opportunities. They feel as if all the hardship and struggles they face will just fade away. The narratives of Crossing with the Virgin portray conflicts that occur for undocumented workers crossing the Mexican border. For many illegal immigrants I personally feel that finding a stable job will be difficult, they will be taken advantage of, and eventually they will either be incarcerated or be deported back to their country. Dago is a man that lives in the city of Mexico with his wife and two daughters. Both he and his wife Elena own two beautiful houses. Dago works at a Levi Strauss’s Mexico division as an executive while his wife is a manager of a computer equipment company. Dago and his wife enjoyed the life they were living and were satisfied with everything that has happened in their lives. But, one day Dago was informed by his boss that the company he was working for was closing. Life for Dago went completely downhill from this point on. Dago was forced to move to his other house and eventually had to sell that house due to financial problems. His wife wanted a divorce and Dago had no choice but to cross the border. Dago arrived in Nebraska and expected an enhanced lifestyle but, things just got worse for Dago...
Words: 937 - Pages: 4
