Another incident from another english class at CL. We were doing a vocabulary exercise. First, the teacher discussed around 30 words(that are not part of our spoken vocabulary, or are used very sparingly, or are completely new to us), explaining the meanings and their suitable usage. After this, we were divided into groups of five to six people and told to work on a story using these 30 odd words. I had an idea in my head, but the team decided to go with someone else's. I pursued what I had while the rest worked on that idea. Then one person from every group read the story out loud to the entire class. My group was the last to go. They had come up with a good story. Then the teacher asked, "Are there any other left?" I hesitated but one of my group members said that our group had another story. I was called up to read it. Here is what I had written :
"I woke up with a start. I could hear the constables outside my cell scoffing at me while I fumbled for my glasses. I glanced at my watch and saw the clock ticking down the last few hours of my existence. I kept looking at the watch for a few minutes. The movement of the seconds needle was soporific. The constable ribaldly instructed me to get ready for confessing any other pecadillos, for whom I had not been convicted, to the priest, as it is the wont before execution. I chose to act like I had aphasia until he gave up and went away. I smiled as I remembered how my wife used to react to this sort of behaviour. My beautiful wife, whom I had met as a maudlin suffragist instead of the mercurial tycoon who everyone despised, at a charity function. We had a lengthy parley on women being treated as pariahs. It was the conversation of a lifetime and a case of love at first word. She became my consort soon after. It was the happiest time of my life. But destiny had other plans.
We met with a pernicious car accident from which I unfortunately survived. It was as if my world was devastated by a typhoon. I had the yen to destroy everything. The business suffered immensely. My business partners had made the prognosis of my actions well in advance. So they decided to kick me out before I could be any more deleterious. They asked me to leave, I refused. They vituperated me into submission. My rendition of rage and depression led to the detonation of all my factories, which I had spent all of my life to build and expand, by my own hands. Due to the scale of destruction and loss of life and property, I was sentenced to decapitation.
And now as I wait for my inexorable end, all I can think of is her big beautiful eyes and her redolent voice resonating in my ears."
After I fiished reading this out loud to the entire class, there was a moment of silence before everyone realised that the story was finished. I looked at the teacher and she was smiling at me. Everyone began clapping and I think I started blushing. I went back to my seat at the back of the class, took a deep breath and thanked the people who turned around to say well done. The teacher took a quick poll of the class to find out who had the best story. Everyone pointed at me. She agreed and said, "That was beautiful!"
P.S. - The italicised words are the words that were given to us for the exercise. And due to the time limit for preparing the story, the language has not been very great.
"I woke up with a start. I could hear the constables outside my cell scoffing at me while I fumbled for my glasses. I glanced at my watch and saw the clock ticking down the last few hours of my existence. I kept looking at the watch for a few minutes. The movement of the seconds needle was soporific. The constable ribaldly instructed me to get ready for confessing any other pecadillos, for whom I had not been convicted, to the priest, as it is the wont before execution. I chose to act like I had aphasia until he gave up and went away. I smiled as I remembered how my wife used to react to this sort of behaviour. My beautiful wife, whom I had met as a maudlin suffragist instead of the mercurial tycoon who everyone despised, at a charity function. We had a lengthy parley on women being treated as pariahs. It was the conversation of a lifetime and a case of love at first word. She became my consort soon after. It was the happiest time of my life. But destiny had other plans.
We met with a pernicious car accident from which I unfortunately survived. It was as if my world was devastated by a typhoon. I had the yen to destroy everything. The business suffered immensely. My business partners had made the prognosis of my actions well in advance. So they decided to kick me out before I could be any more deleterious. They asked me to leave, I refused. They vituperated me into submission. My rendition of rage and depression led to the detonation of all my factories, which I had spent all of my life to build and expand, by my own hands. Due to the scale of destruction and loss of life and property, I was sentenced to decapitation.
And now as I wait for my inexorable end, all I can think of is her big beautiful eyes and her redolent voice resonating in my ears."
After I fiished reading this out loud to the entire class, there was a moment of silence before everyone realised that the story was finished. I looked at the teacher and she was smiling at me. Everyone began clapping and I think I started blushing. I went back to my seat at the back of the class, took a deep breath and thanked the people who turned around to say well done. The teacher took a quick poll of the class to find out who had the best story. Everyone pointed at me. She agreed and said, "That was beautiful!"
P.S. - The italicised words are the words that were given to us for the exercise. And due to the time limit for preparing the story, the language has not been very great.
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