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"Let her go, Kevin," Aunt Jackie says very calers frouy na toward us slowly, obviously o He lets his hand fall in his lap He blinks "God" The color drains out of his face all at once "My God Nick, I’m so sorry I should never have--I don’t knohat I was thinking"

My wrist is burning, and I know I’ht Dara and I fixed everything Dad reaches for ain, this tirates loudly on the linoleum Corey pauses halfway across the restaurant, as if he’s afraid he ht be physically accosted if he comes any closer

"We aren’t a family anymore," I repeat in a whisper, because if I try to speak any louder the pressure in my throat will collapse and the tears will come "That’s why Dara isn’t here"

I don’t stay to seein my ears, like earlier today, just before I fainted I don’t reht air but, suddenly, there I arass, gulping deep breaths of air and wishing for an explosion, a world-ending,for the darkness to come down, like water, over all our heads

Nicole Warren

American Lit-Adv

February 28

"The Eclipse"

Assignbird, the natural world is often used as a metaphor for both human nature and many of the book’s themes (fear, prejudice, justice, etc) Please write 800–1,000 words about an experience of the natural world thatsome of the poetic techniques (alliteration, symbolism, anthropomorphism) we’ve covered in this unit

One time, when my sister, Dara, and I were little, my parents took us down to the beach to watch a solar eclipse This was before the casino opened up in Shoreline County and before Norwalk got built up, too, and beca chain of motels and family-style restaurants and, farther down, strip clubs and bars FanLand was there, and a gun store; nothing else but gravel-dotted sand and coastline and little dunes, like hipped crearasses

There were hundreds of other fa out blankets on the sand while the disk of theslowly toward its pair I ree with her thu, Look Look, girls, it’s happening

I remember, too, the ray, like chalk, and then to twilight, but faster than any twilight I’d ever seen Suddenly ere all sed up in shadow, as if the world had opened its mouth and we’d fallen down a black throat

Everyone applauded There was a small constellation of flashes in the dark, miniature explosions while people took pictures Dara put her hand in an to cry And ht be lost forever in the darkness, suspended in a place between night and day, sun and land, earth and the waves that turned earth back into water

Even after the ht and unnatural dawn, Dara wouldn’t stop crying My parents thought she was cranky because she’d missed her nap and had wanted ice creaet ice crea for either one of us to eat that pooled in our laps on the way ho Because in thatterror that the darkness was permanent, that the moon would stop its rotation, that the balance would never be restored

You see, even then, I knew It wasn’t a trick It wasn’t a show Sooes down and down goes up, and love turns into hate, and the things you counted on get washed out fro in the air

So you And that’s the kind of darkness that never gets fixed, nothe sky with a weak approxi open the front door so hard it cracks against the wall, but I’h I can tell by feel, by intuition, that she hasn’t coes froreen sludge "Smoothie?"

She ht from the restaurant Maybe Mom and Dad sent her ahead to talk to me

"No, thanks" I’m really not in the mood to deal with Aunt Jackie and her self-help "wisdom," which always sounds like it came off the inside of a bottle cap Let truth radiate toward you Focus is about presence Let go or be dragged But she’s positioned in front of the stairway, blocking access to ?"

"Thinking about it," she says, taking a long sip of sreen et a response, you know Not if you really want to talk to her"

"I think I know s "Whatever you say" She stares atwhether to tell me a secret