As I mentioned in class, our next aim is to practice Narrative Tenses, and for that, we came up with the following writing project (hope you can make good use of it and enjoy it!).
This is the deal:
TASK: Building up a story by adding a paragraph, sentence, even a word. You can contribute as many times as you want, as long as you follow others' threads. Make sure you keep the writing style, but of course feel free to let your imagination and inspiration grow. Our deadline to "close" the story will be February 14th. At the end of if we'll all decide the most suitable title for it. So, join the project and happy writing!
That winter was a long time going. A freezing wind blew through the streets of the city, and overhead the snow clouds moved across the sky. The old man who was called Drioli shuffled painfully along the sidewalk of the Rue de Rivoli. He was cold and miserable. He moved glancing without any interest at the things in the shop windows - perfume, silk ties and shirts, diamonds, furniture, books.
(...)
Six months before this awful winter, when the weather was warm, our old man had lost everything in his relaxed life, his family, his job and even his health.
ReplyDeleteSad, frozen and a little bit tired, he thought about getting on a train at Saint-Paul subway station and coming back home. But, being so close, he couldn't leave another chance to see again his stone friends, like every week. Drioli reached Bastille Square, turned right and went in the great Cathedral direction.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly, he saw a little girl crying in a narrow street. She was wearing old suede trousers and a scruffy sweatshirt. She didn´t wear any shoes. Her hair was uncombed and her face was as pale as snow...
ReplyDeleteHe looked at her eyes and she smiled slightly. Then his mind went back to his childhood. He remembered when he was a child and played with the snow. By then he was happy he had a warm home and a family who loved him.
ReplyDeleteHe didn´t want get back to home although the little girl remained in his mind , which made him to forget the past times. And he couldn´t do anything for this poor girl, but he was not able to do anything, he wasn´t able to avoid the horrible crime that he had seen one year ago. The image appeared on his brain: there was the red snow and the fatally injured woman was liyed on the bloodstained snow.
DeleteHe closed his eyes and shoked his head to drive away bad memories.He had been trying to forget fear and anxiety since it happened, but failed. Fear and anxiety were still his faithful traveling companions and they had been joined by loneliness and abandonment.
ReplyDeleteAll at once, the image of the bloodied woman was banished by another one: the little girl crying he had seen a while before. He decided to retrace his steps, sensing that helping her was perhaps a way to find some peace away from past devils.
So he turned back and walked a few steps towards the girl. There she was with some nearly frozen tears on her cheeks, and a certain surprise gesture maybe because she had not expected him to come back. She probably thought that nobody on earth didn't care about her and, even less, that man who had just gone by apparently not having paid attention to her. He looked at her and held his hand stroking it with his other hand, whispering close to her ear a strange message she could hardly figure out...
ReplyDeleteAs Drioli whispered to the little girl, a huge smile appeared in her pale face.She wiped her tears with the cuff of her dirty jersey and looked him in the eyes with a depth look that he had never seen before. Our old man reached into the pocket of his pants and picked up something that remained hidden in his hands...
ReplyDeleteafterwards he opened them showing what there were there - a gold ring and a little bit key.He said to her that she could choose one of them, but she should be very careful with her choice, because her future could depend on it, so....
DeleteThe girl stared Drioli´s hands, trying to guess that he was hiding. Drioli opened his hands up showing on his palms a bright red button.
ReplyDeleteIt was a whistle.Our man asked what had happened to her. She told him that she walked with her dog and, as she had to beggar, she left it at the door of the bakery. When she went out the dog was not there. A pauper approached and told them that he had seen.....
ReplyDeletea spotted white dog near the traffic light. Then, the little girl started to run because she thought that it could be her dog. Drioli, who couldn´t run so quickly, said to her Stop! Stop!, but she didn´t hear him and he was alone once more.
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ReplyDeleteA pauper had seen how the dog had gone behind a very elegant woman. She was very smartly dressed. When she saw it, she took a piece of bread and the hungry dog ate it fastly.
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ReplyDeleteThe girl waited for the dog finished eating, and suddenly the little girl came back with the dog running after her and with the prettiest smile ever dreamed. She hugged the man as
ReplyDeleteif he were her father and she invited him to pet the dog.
For a long time, he hadn´t felt as warm inside as at this moment.
You guys rock,awesome, please keep writing!
ReplyDelete:)
Suddenly, he thought it wasn't worth giving his love to this girl. Amelia had died years ago. This girl looked like her but she wasn't her.
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ReplyDeleteBut Drioli thught that may be could regain his past with the help of that great girl. His magic had worked, was able to turn the key, the golden ring, the whistle, the bright red button .. so the girl coul help him. "The admirable Drioli", "so they called in their performances. Then he stared at girl again and this time he said: " Do you know what the bright red button means?
ReplyDeleteBut Drioli thught that may be could regain his past with the help of that great girl. His magic had worked, was able to turn the key, the golden ring, the whistle, the bright red button .. so the girl coul help him. "The admirable Drioli" - so he was called in his performances - Then he stared at girl again and this time he said: "Do you know what the bright red button means?
Delete“I’m not sure but maybe it’s a magic button which can give us all we yearn for”, said the girl. Drioli thought that she hoped to find the responses to all her problems. And that was almost true because he had heard some stories related to it years ago. But he couldn’t reveal the secret, so…
ReplyDelete'This bright red button has an special meaning. It belonged to a woman, she`s called Amelia. She was very important for me...I loved her because she was a loyal beautiful Spanish woman but I did a lot of mistake with her!! She didn´t deserve my past perfomance but, in that time, I was having some odd thought. I didn't known why. But now, when I'd seen you magic pretty smile I'd thought that the life always gives other chance, do you know it?'
ReplyDeleteThe girl was silent but opened his eyes expecting he continue his story.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, when he was touring with his Theater Company in Spain, he met her.
There in the Cathedral, where he went regularly, they got engaged. But now, through of her, he had understood the damage he had caused to Amelia.
He was a young and handsome man, and believes that everything was valid for him: all the women loved him, he was a triumpher. That day, he was walking along the avenue and went into the Cathedral, because he likes feel the peace inside those walls. She was discussing with a priest because she had a skirt too short, it was the miniskirt time, but at the end, she went into covered with a big shawl that made her look as a biblical woman, she was very attractive, she shined in the light beams of the colored windows
ReplyDeleteNow, staring at the girl, he could still clearly remember, as if it was the firs time, how intensely impressed he had surrendered to that delightful image and how surely he knew he had just sold his soul. However, then nothing would had predicted that those innocent, delicious eyes might drive him in the future to such criminal impulse.
DeleteGoing back into that sacred silence of the Cathedral he was sure for himself there was only the eternal punishment reserved for a guilty.
The girl was listening with attention the Drioli's deepest confessions and she thought he was truly sorry for his behavior in the time he was with Amelia. All these years Drioli had been preparing his soul for the last final. She looked at the red button and pressed it. The man looked at her surprised and scared, he couldn't belive what the girl just had done.
ReplyDeleteShe had opened his heart only with a beautiful smile. Drioli thought in his past and all the time he had wasted. The amazing girl had arrived just in time. He looked at her and she still was smiling, but what he couldn´t imagine is what she was thinking...
ReplyDeleteThe girl, who was the daughter of a woman who had been a single mother, she was abandoned by her and so she had lived in an orphanage since she was a child.
ReplyDeleteBoth Drioli and the girl were two people who felt sad and alone, without anyone in the world.
After hearing the confessions of Drioli, the girl approached him and raised him to take a life together because the girl saw in him the father she never had.
He was surprised to hear such a proposal, but he accepted and they left the cathedral together hand in hand to start a new life together.