A Continuation Of Dry September.

A Continuation Of Dry September - Coursework

McLendon could not take his eyes from the sky, it was as if they were locked to their position. The world appeared different something inside McLendon had changed. He stood for a while gazing far into the arid landscape when a sudden bang caused McLendon to jump straight from his trance like status, he turned around promptly to investigate the noise. His footsteps hit every creek in the floorboards, realisation flooded to him that creeping about the house would make no difference, he began to circulate the area searching for the something that made the noise. Frantically he stormed about the house but to no avail. The search ended disappointingly with McLendon retiring to his bedroom.

The next day the sunshine bled through the curtains and awoke McLendon from his slumber. A huge gust of wind burst through the already unusually open door. The wind was full of sand from the dry and infertile landscape that the whole of the village had risen to. Not noticing his badly beaten wife draped over a chair he headed towards the kitchen to satisfy his hunger when a sudden sharp word sent arrows through his chest, ‘why?’ McLendon’s wife broke her silence and shocked her husband to his core. McLendon responded with a blank gaze, his wife had acted totally out of character. McLendon’s stomach rumbled out loud he laughed yet no smile broke on his beaten wife’s face. She responded to his laughter with a cold expression, which quickly turned into anger and rage. She flew her fist towards her husband and prayed he would recognise at least some of the pain he had caused her. This failed to happen with McLendon swatting her fist like a small fly the crunch of his hand on hers did not frighten him, he simply proceeded to beat his wife once again with no mercy. As she lay on the floor McLendon stepped over her indiscreetly converting his pain into an extra kick to his wife’s stomach as he walked out of the house and towards his car.

As the engine on the car turned over McLendon pressed hard on the acceleration pedal and the car began to stall. The smoke from the exhaust he refused to pay to be fixed surrounded him as he began to cough and find it difficult to breathe. McLendon stepped out of the car to investigate what he suspected to be rain, it never so much as threatened to rain in the Deep South yet quickly a shower turned into something which more resembled a monsoon. Not being deterred by the downpour McLendon climbed back into his car and drove away finding ...

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The window on McLendon’s car refused to shut the rain seeped through the gap in the top while the tape he used to try and keep the window together flapped to and fro in the wind caused by the speed at which McLendon was driving infuriated him even more and helped his anger to escalate to levels beyond his control. ‘Goddamn window!’ and with that McLendon drove his fist through what was remaining of his malfunctioning window. A blast of wind smothered his face and caused his eyes to automatically close with disastrous consequences.

McLendon’s car swivelled about the road and as the weather chose his fate and hurled him and his vehicle high into the air with no mercy. The car crashed to the ground with tremendous impact forcing the passing cars to turn off the road and into nearby trees and other cars. As one passer-by raced towards the burning inferno that was McLendon’s car the gaseous fumes forced him to retreat and leave McLendon inside the car. Some other surrounding people tried in vain to put out the fire that had engulfed the car as it would a pile of freshly dried wood eventually they bowed to nature and admitted defeat, the onlookers became just that onlookers.

The next day McLendon’s wife arose with an inexplicable smile on her face, she turned to where her husband should have been and jumped up with a start. She touched the bed sheet to see if it had been slept in, it was as cold as it was fresh McLendon had not been home. There was a short sharp wrap on the front door which made her stomach turn and knot tightly, she stumbled from her bed still as sore as the day her husband mistook her for a punch bag and headed on her quest to see who was there.

It was the barber, puzzled and confused she opened the door and was greeted with a stern and sullen face. ‘Its McLendon, he’s been involved in an accident’ he did not need to say any more, he simply walked away and did not look back.

Philippa Halliday

11Hope