Pieces of writing

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So, hello....

Well, I've noticed that many people here have a very good way of wirtting... a very creative and correct way... also, most people here is studiyng... and after looking at the "essays" advertisement I thought that it might be interesting to make an space so that people could post pieces of writting they are proud of or like people to disscus and look at: narratives, essays, poems....

So, post your pieces of writtings if you want... If not... let this topic go to the 3 page

Here's an narrative I wrote. My English teacher, from SC, USA, liked it and read it out loud in the class to give an example of a good and strong narrative (sorry for the lack of modesty)... Im proud of it...

[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]The Best Anesthesia for Comfort

The bright light, emanating from a set of seven big bulbs above me, cascaded into my eyes. The doctor’s face whittled an ominous silhouette in the light. She told me a joke to make me feel less tense.
“After this, tell everybody your girlfriend bit you”.
I forced a nervous smile that would have revealed to anyone who knew me deeply that I hadn’t conquered my nervousness.
The doctor left the room, and as I was left alone I felt like a drop of water in the desert; again. When I arrived at the clinic I was received by a receptionist that took my personal information in an almost-full notebook. Her face, layered by a thick coat of makeup, too thick for my liking, seemed the one of a porcelain doll. She expressed no emotion as she followed her routine, and her impassivity made me feel like David in front of Goliath: on my own against a monster. She ordered me into a cubicle, a cell completely empty, except for a coat rack from which a surgery garment hung by the neck. It seemed an immobile carcass hanging from a gallows.
“Put it on”, said the nurse curtly to the curtain, dragging it close behind her. “Remember to take off all your clothes. I’ll come back in five minutes.”
Reluctantly, I followed her instructions and I took all of my clothes off, like if they were on fire; hurrying to put on the corpse. As I took the garment off the coat rack I saw something plane to the floor. A thin pair of oversized boxers were laying on the floor as my salvation to the nakedness I felt due to the slimness of the garments. The nurse never returned. During the long minutes I waited for her I wondered if she had forgotten me and if I would ever leave that room; I also wondered if someone was watching me: the paranoia of being half naked. Suddenly, I was urged out of the cubicle by a male nurse into a wheel chair. My driver pushed me through a labyrinth of “ONLY AUTHORIZED PERSONEL” corridors while, fearing I would have to escape the place in any minute, I tried to memorize the directions we headed to: right, left, left, right…He never doubted which way to take; and when he parked the wheel chair in a big, empty, white room and ordered me to lie in a stretcher situated in the middle of it, left the room without delay. And as I remembered how the doctor entered into the room, history repeated and I was lifted from my memories to the present: the doctor had broke into the room with three nurses. 
One of them, ripping the thin garment off my chest, made me feel the coldness and meanness of the air and then, without giving me the opportunity to ask, pasted four white patches to my chest; another one wrote the numbers that a machine that was wired to the patches displayed; and a third one did something that disturbed me: she unwrapped a syringe and admired the needle as a samurai would unsheathe his sword and admire the blade. At the sight of that small gleaming weapon I closed my eyes as tightly as I could.
“This is the only part that hurts”. The doctor’s cheerful voice sounded all over the room. She contaminated the nurses with her happiness, but I was impermeable to it in those moments.
They had placed a heavy blanket that had a hole in the middle all over my body¸ leaving my face slip through the hole.  I couldn’t help to keep thinking of the Discovery Channel in those moments; I remembered a heart beating in an open chest, sprinkling blood everywhere. I couldn’t help to stop thinking something like that was about to happen to me.
I didn’t dare to open my eyes. Even though I wasn’t looking, I knew what was happening as soon as the doctor placed her thumb over the right side of my lip and her index over the left. She separated both fingers the most she could and with her free hand, an expert hand in maneuvering all sorts of medical instruments, stabbed me the anesthesia that the syringe contained. The piercing of the needle into my lip made me chill: the doctor pushed the needle in to the not-ceding tissue until it finally yielded and gave away, permitting it to penetrate and move my flesh and making a creek of blood run down my chin. I felt a very short but big pain. I shrieked. “Easy, easy” everybody said to me.
The doctor was right, that was the only painful part of the operation. From then on I tried not to think in the hands moving over and inside my mouth. But in the same moment that I was able to do that, the meditation became useless: the procedure had ended. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to adapt to the cascade of light, and in the form of colors and brightness I saw the four people who had taken that blood stain from my lip with the best anesthesia for comfort: fear.
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Thanks if you read it and comment it after posting your own.
 
I got a 2/1 for an essay on Julius Caesar, im quite proud of that.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Ascendancy+Nov 6 2005, 11:29 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Ascendancy @ Nov 6 2005, 11:29 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]I got a 2/1 for an essay on Julius Caesar, im quite proud of that.
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[/quote]Would you post it? [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
No beacuse 1) I can't be bothered
2) It's 4th year high school stuff so I don't think all these people who are studying phsycology would be to interested. [!--emo&:lol:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/lol[1].gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'lol[1].gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Why not? We won't make fun of you. What we will do is afford you criticism for future writing.
 
In fact, I'd like to read a good essay on Julius Caesar. That's all there is to it [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
I am a fifth year doing GCSEs (aged 15) and am proud to have achieved an A* on my first draft creative writing piece. It contains references to Maiden and was inspired by ATSS. Spot alos the refernece to the Maiden related book.
[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Jason looked at his gilded timepiece in the dull shade behind the sand trench.  “Eight- Thirty” he whispered to his colleagues in his strong Yankee accent.  The time usually dragged in the base tents where they would stay for weeks without seeing action, but now he was ready for the kill, the watch hand ticked like a hummingbird’s wings.  Peeking out over the boundary between life and death, Jason could sense the throbbing warmth emulating around his chest and the pounding rhythm deep in his temples from the adrenaline his body was secreting by the gallon.

Jason Wilson, or Jay as his closest friends called him, was a commanding soldier at the front line in Iraq.  Joining the army on his seventeenth birthday was the proudest moment in his otherwise dull life.  He would fight for honour and country as he had nothing else to fight for, coming from a poor background in the doldrums of the Bronx.  His modus operandi was to serve country, and then self, he loved war and the prospect of fortunes.  An honest man, he was now serving his tenth year in the army, although this was the first year in actual combat, he was given post as commander because of his dedication and instincts.  He was model commander in theory, but in the freezing darkness in Iraq at night, his nervous nature was getting the better of him.

Crouched down under a dune near the main Baghdad road, he and his team were ready to carry out an ambush on the “two of clubs” on America’s most wanted list.  He was anxious for blood from the waiting and he had his ears perked up for the noise of any incoming vehicles.  A couple of false alarms before had made him inpatient and as he concentrated on the road intently, he didn’t sense the danger coming from behind.

A small group of Iraqi guerrillas burst from nowhere and took pot shots at the group of Americans lying on the ground.  Turing to fire back at them, Jay felt a twinge in his side and let out a scream of anguish.  A bullet had pierced his side and he dropped his gun, howling with pain.  Before he knew it, he was bound and gagged, and dragged along the course sand along with two other soldiers.  He was to become a prisoner of war, a fugitive, although he was lucky not to be dead, like three of his men lying in the bloodstained ground, motionless, as if they were part of the desert floor.  The last thing he remembered was being slammed into the back of an old van, in agony whilst he was driven off.
Jason awoke the next morning in fear, the glaring sun temporarily blinding him as he surveyed his surroundings.  He lay in a small room, four walls, one door and one small window.  His fellow prisoners lay at his side, Sam Thomas and Ben Simpson.  The wound in his side was gaping and congealed blood was splattered on the floor.  “It was ironic”, he thought, “how the ambushers have become the ambushed.”  He didn’t have much time for general observations as a reality hit him. The harsh banging of the cold, metallic door and a rough Iraqi accent screamed “Wake up”.  The three men sat up, their legs and arms bound and their backs against the wall.  “You have been kidnapped and are being held at ransom by us as a sign of our opposition against your presence in our country.”  Jason noted there was already an “us and them” scenario being created.  “If you co-operate with us, we will keep you alive.  If not, you can prepare to face the consequences.”

With that the door was slammed again and the porthole was opened with three dirty bowls offered through.  Through all the action of the night before and the weeks of rations beforehand, Jay was hungry.  He still felt sick though and could barely look at his breakfast, a punitive portion of low-grade oats, the kind a donkey would turn its nose up at.  The other two men felt the same, stomachs twisted as tight as steel rope, and a texture like it too.  They slopped the contents of the bowl about but couldn’t bare to take a taste.

After a few days of the three men silently reflecting on the night ambush, their loved ones at home, and thinking of what could possibly lie ahead, an Iraqi doctor entered the prison cell.  He tended the wounds of the men that were at that stage on the verge of festering.  The prisoners were allowed showers and were fed meat for the first time.  Jay thought that they were being treated so kindly because they were about to be set free.   The other two men were less optimistic and saw the kindness as a sign that they were “in for the long haul”.

The truth was soon revealed that the fugitives were about to make a recording that was to be sent back home to the American television companies.  They were told to make a statement demanding their release for the exchange of the ending of the war.  Being such a patriot, Jay was willing to die for his country and was uncooperative in the attempts at filming.  He refused point blank to talk to the camera and instead faced the opposite wall, a sign of defiance in the face of persecution.  That stunt landed him a week in solitary confinement.

This was seen as one of the worst punishments to serve.  Jay was squeezed into a broom cupboard in the dark, for seven agonising days.  A pipe that ran through the room had a leak and made an awful dripping noise with the fall of water.  At first, it served only as an annoyance, as the hours progressed, it would turn even a Saint to madness.  Drip, drip, drip.  Over ten thousand minutes of drips gave Jay a nervous twitch, just one of the permanent scars left by the ordeal.

Upon his return to his cell, Jay was told the bad news.  One of his fellow prisoners, Sam Thomas, was executed as a hostage.  The government had failed to comply with the Iraqi terrorists and Sam was cruelly taken by a firing squad.  It too had been filmed to show the Americans how serious the situation was.  This savage act of brutality served the purpose of entrenching fear into the hearts of the two remaining fugitives.

As the days passed the cellmates became hungrier and more famished than they ever were on the outside.  They began devouring the contents of their breakfast bowls, licking the pottery clean as though they were dogs.  That was what they were reduced to in these unsanitary conditions, they were becoming sub human.  In a tiny cell with no toilet or window that could be opened, they looked like common street beggars.  On the outside they felt pity towards the beggars, now they felt pity on themselves.

Three weeks after they had been taken, a glimmer of hope surfaced.  Americans were ending the war and the prisoners were promised a release.  This failed to materialise however, the guards reneged on their decision and the two remaining US soldiers were forgotten about.  The Iraqis were seeking a withdrawal of troops, not a cease to the violence.

Time passed, weeks, months, years, it didn’t really matter.  The guards had taken Jason’s prized possession – his golden watch.  The once youthful grin on Jason’s face was replaced by a tired, stoical grimace.  A shaggy beard had grown around his lips and neck, becoming a home to fleas and disease.  He had become a shell of the man he once was, now he looked like the grim reaper after a hangover.  His cellmate Ben Simpson had too become a shadow of the past, resembling a coat hanger with legs.

The two of them rarely talked, if they did, it wouldn’t be small talk like on the outside, it would be a story telling or a biblical discussion.  The cell had become a plethora of emptiness.  Both men were strong Christians; they had given up their hopes of escape long ago, but not their faith.  Sometimes they questioned why it had to happen to them, at that stage in their lives and in these circumstances.  They knew that there was no use in feeling sorry for themselves, just to persevere as best they could.

Lying awake at night, he wiped the sweat from his brow, it wasn’t the fear, he would rather die now.  He tried to visualise the horrors in the past, the mass suffering war brought about.  He was beginning to doubt the fundamentals of his beliefs.  He thought to himself should he live and let live, forget don’t forgive.  He saw a contrast between what he read in the Good Book and what his career had been about.  That was the first moment in Jay’s life that he thought to himself “war is foolish”.  Before he was a warmonger, now this experience had moulded him to the realisation of how crappy war really was.  Drawn up by leaders in fancy offices with peace in mind, they had no idea of the suffering of the men that fight.  To them it was just a game, now Jay knew better.

An uneasy camaraderie had built up between the hostages and the Iraqi terrorists.  One of them was studying English at university and regularly talked with the Americans to improve his accent.  Everyday the men talked as though they were ordinary.  As though they mattered.  It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.  For help with his work, the prisoners were rewarded with scraps of bacon and on rare occasions chocolate.  That brown sweet smooth taste was what Jay had reveries about.  It was one of the few devices in that prison that let him clench on to the cliff of his sanity with his fingernails.  For Ben, the dream of return to the outside was what had him hooked to obeying orders.  He had a wife and a newborn baby when he was called to duty.  By his calculations, the baby would now be three years old.

In the stale heat of the night, when the two men could not get to sleep or were desperately sick, they would stay up talking to each other.  It didn’t matter what the subject was, they could focus on baseball, politics or plans for the future.  A future that seemed like a candle in a storm, about to be extinguished.  Intimate fears and anguishes were shared by the men.  Absurd by any other standards, but they had grown so close it felt natural.  Jay had explained his fear of the dark.  A fear he had not dared share with anyone else, for fear of being laughed at.  Now seemed the right time for his phobia to be explored, not by a psychiatrist, but a hopeful prisoner, on the verge of defeat.

On the 13th of January 2006, the men awoke with an unfamiliar rumble from outside.  Ben sat on top of Jay’s shoulders to see out of the minute window and speculate as to what was going on.  It looked like celebrations coming from outside.  Chanting and dancing could be heard from the distant streets and the men knew that something major had happened.  The guard who was learning English came in, reluctantly brandishing a sheet of paper.  “Read” he said, his familiar, well-tamed accent met curiously by the prisoners.

They read the document in front of them, one half in Arabic, the other in English.  In flowery poetic language it explained in detail the conditions of the release of the prisoners.  They were now allowed to return to America because the troops had been pulled out of Iraq.  A weakened grin spread across the two mens’ pale faces and they hugged each other.  Crying in jubilation they would have been laughed at in other circumstances, but not now.  They were free.

After the anxious signatures and legal finalisations declaring the terrorists were without blame, and the Prisoners of War were to be compensated on their return home, the free men exchanged their goodbyes with the guards.  Their formal friendship was to be forgotten about and identities never spoken again.  On the plane home, Jay reflected on the last time he was on a plane, how different his life had been and the changes that had taken place since.  He still couldn’t believe he was a free man.  At the airport he was welcomed by his mother amidst a torrent of tears.  Three years was a long time.  She told him of the passing away of his father and how she was terminally ill with cancer.  Jay’s dreams of a happier life on the outside were shattered.  He now thought he actually preferred being blissfully ignorant on the inside.

There was bad news for Ben as well.  His newborn baby had suffered a cot death.  His wife was so stricken with grief that she had killed herself just three months ago.  She could not get over the mental anguish her husband’s capture and baby’s death had caused her.  Ben too felt like he was better off without ever coming out of the Iraqi cesspit.

At that point in their lives, the soldiers were keen to put the traumas of the past behind them.  They vowed never to speak to each other again for fear of old memories being revoked.  They went their separate ways and continued with their struggle of everyday life.

******************************************************************

After the war, what does a soldier become?  It was a question Jay had asked himself many times before on those sleepless nights.  When his mother bit the bullet and succumbed to her illness, Jay felt lonely and without a friend.  He became a depressive alcoholic.  He could not pin down a job for any longer than a couple of weeks and he felt bitter towards the government.  If the war had never been declared in the first place, his life would be normal.  Nevermore.  He had received medals at fancy award ceremonies for his “bravery in the face of adversity” but deep down Jay knew they were for his rotten luck.  He felt worthless and resented greatly everyone in his life.  He was on the verge of suicide, a man on the edge, about to fall down.

Ben had quit the army too on his arrival home.  Angry and livid towards society, he began to trust the needle. Drugs became his friend, his only escape from reality.  One night in an underground drinking den, Ben found Jay lying in a puddle of his own vomit.  He looked despicable.  Half the man he was in Iraq.  Ben picked up Jay and brought him “home”, to his squatters’ apartment.  The homeless underground was friendly to its own kind.

Weeks passed and Jay was beginning to become more stable.  That drugged attempt on his own life weakened him.  Now he had an old friend in Ben to look after him, he was going to be better.  Reminiscent of their time in captivity, they lived in horrible conditions and talked to each other, sharing secrets, although this time it was out of their own free will.  They encouraged each other to kick their bad habits and try to get jobs.  It was the toughest time in either men’s’ life.  Tougher and tougher it became everyday.  Tougher to give up their vice and as the withdrawal symptoms kicked in, they lost faith in God and each other.

In the dead cold of night, Jay carefully checked nobody was awake.  He didn’t want anybody to see the selfish, cowardice act he was a bout to carry out.  He took a six feet length of rope, tied a knot to the rafters and dropped.

The next morning, Ben looked in horror at the sight in front of him.  North, east, south, west the feet swirled.  West, south, east north.  It was almost fitting and pretty.  It was meant to happen, a happy ending was not destined here.
Jay was just a victim of changes.  Ben followed suit, his limp corpse hung like a chicken.  In worse situations than this, in a mouldy prison cell in Iraq, the men persevered.  Now, they were at the last resort, their deaths the fault of the President, the biggest war crime ever had been committed.  In the last conscious seconds of his life Ben hoped this would serve an example to the rest of society.  It was just wishful thinking.  The prospect of fortunes was too much.  They just wanted no war.  Nevermore.
[/quote]
There, it's quite long so I hope you have the time to read and comment. It has no title yet, I'm thinking about calling it "Prisoner of War"
 
I can appreciate your writing, Conor, everyone else. But I want you guys to format it for internet viewing before you post. That is to say, place spaces between paragraphs and the like.
 
Heres a biography I wrote on a familiar group of guys, it isnt to great, but I'd like a bit of feedback, this earned me about 86%.

[!--QuoteBegin--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--] Iron Maiden was formed on January 1, 1976 in London, England by Steve Harris (Bass). The line-up also included Paul Di’Anno (Vocals), Dave Murray (Guitar) and Doug Sampson (Drums). Their debut EP, The Soundhouse Tapes, was released in 1979 and they made their first live appearance at the Cart & Horses Pub in Stratford, London. Tony Parsons (Guitar) was added to the band in November of 1979 but was soon replaced by Dennis Stratton and Sampson was replaced by Clive Burr. Maiden’s self-titled debut album was released in 1980 and reached fourth in the UK album listings.

1981 saw the release of the album Killers which had much better sales than the debut and also the replacement of Dennis Stratton by Adrian Smith. Due to Di’Anno’s alcohol addiction, he was replaced by Bruce Dickinson in time for the groundbreaking release, The Number Of The Beast, which included the hits Run To The Hills and The Number Of The Beast. On the sessions for their next album, Piece Of Mind, Clive Burr was replaced by Nicko McBrain. Piece Of Mind was another powerful album and included the hit, Flight Of Icarus. It was not much different than their previous albums. Powerslave was released in November and included the powerful hit Aces High. During Powerslave’s tour, Live After Death was recorded. It included Maiden’s most powerful hits live. By this time, Iron Maiden was becoming an extremely popular band all around the world.

Somewhere in Time showcased the use of synthesizer guitars and spectacular live shows. After a period of inactivity, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, a concept album, was released. It included the hit singles; The Evil That Men Do, Can I Play With Madness, Infinate Dreams and The Clairvoyant. After another long world tour, the band took a one-year rest and Adrian Smith left to be replaced by Janick Gers. The next release, in 1990, was No Prayer For The Dying. Although Bring Your Daughter…To The Slaughter received the Golden Raspberry Award For Worst Song Of The Year, it was Iron Maiden’s first number one hit single. 1992’s Fear Of The Dark was Dickinson’s last album with the band and it had a number one debut on the UK charts.

Dickinson’s replacement was Blaze Bayley. Although his debut album, The X Factor, failed to gain much popularity, he succeeded at learning the lyrics to all of the existing Maiden songs and winning over the hearts of some loyal Dickinson fans. Bayley’s second album, Virtual XI also failed to gain much popularity and it prompted his termination from the band.

In 1999, Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson returned to the band and in 2000, Brave New World was released. It included the singles, The Wicker Man and Out of the Silent Planet. In 2002 an array of compilations were released including, Rock In Rio, a live album, Edward The Great, a greatest hits album and a three part set called Eddie’s Archives. 2003’s Dance Of Death included three singles in Wildest Dreams, Rainmaker and No More Lies. Iron Maiden has continued to do world tours and they support the Clive Burr MS Trust Fund. Bruce Dickinson continues to release solo albums with his most recent, Tyranny Of Souls.[/quote]
 
Wow... very... concise. I would have given this more than 86%, it's very well written. Now comment on mine for God's sake!
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Conor+Nov 7 2005, 04:04 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Conor @ Nov 7 2005, 04:04 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]Wow... very... concise. I would have given this more than 86%, it's very well written.  Now comment on mine for God's sake!
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You see, I wouldve commented on yours, but it was too good for words, it reminds me of the book Bravo Two-Zero.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Liberation+Nov 7 2005, 11:13 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Liberation @ Nov 7 2005, 11:13 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--]You see, I wouldve commented on yours, but it was too good for words, it reminds me of the book Bravo Two-Zero.
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I have honestly never heard of that before now. Reading a description of it, it does seem very similar.
 
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