Alleged
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 623.
Ado
Falls
Beast
My story starts in the place I grew up, in a farm country area in suburban North Haven Ct. The roads here are pretty old and the area is unchanged for years. There is some local folklore about an area by a farm where people used to throw there garbage years ago. The area is next to a road that barely ever gets any traffic and is next to a small swamp that overflows during the rainy season. There is always an odor of something decaying there as long as I remember, even though people don't dump garbage out of there cars there anymore. The local story is that a long time ago someone tossed a newborn baby there and left it for dead! And it was found dead. I have tried to document this locally but have never had any luck doing so. But people I have talked to all get an eerie chill when they drive by this area including myself!!!
With this background information, my story continues. Where I grew up my house faced a small mountain, across the road, at the end of a field. Between the small field and the mountain is a small farm that used to have a 95 year old woman who ran the farm left to her by here deceased husband. The other side of this mountain is the area I have described, where the baby was supposedly found. As a child I used to stand in my front yard and throw stones into the field and try to reach the trees. I used to do this until I was 13, when something happened to me. One night at 11:45 or so, I threw a stone into the woods, and I heard something start moving. And making a kind of ungodly noise that I have never heard before!!! Like the sound of a shrieking pig but far more haunting than that! I quickly retreated into my house pretty scared.
About a month passed, and I was back out there at about midnight, I used to have a telescope and I used to star gaze. Dismissing what happened the month previously, I threw another rock. And the same thing happened. This time what was in the woods was moving a little faster, then it stopped. Like a fool I taunted it and threw another rock and dared it to show itself! I then heard something running towards me from the woods. I started to panic about being alone out there because no one was home but me! I scooped up my telescope and turned. I then could hear this thing getting closer, and it was shrieking! I started to run with my telescope over my shoulder, and I was half way to my door when I heard this thing had reached the street behind me! I heard the sounds of hooves on the pavement and I was terrified: it was chasing me!!! It shrieked again with this tortured sound that I will never forget. I made it to the door and got in my house and frantically locked the door. I went upstairs shaking with fear and made sure the rest of the house was locked. I got on the phone and called my best friend and told him what just happened, and he did not believe me. 25 min. later my mom came home and there was no sight of this thing I now call "the Beast".
Since that time, three times (and I am now 30 years old) I have gone back at midnight. Then throwing a rock, and within 5 min. hearing a shriek in the distance. But I never hang around after that! Is there a connection between "dead baby road" and "the beast"? I don't know. But I SWEAR the story is TRUE!!! Maybe it's a New Jersey Devil in Connecticut?
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Literary approaches
Which picture of planet Earth and its population is created in the extract below?
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose apedescended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
 This planet has or rather had a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.
On this particular Thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office buildings, silent as birds. They soared with ease, basking in electromagnetic rays from the star Sol, biding their time, grouping, preparing.
The planet beneath them was almost perfectly oblivious of their presence, which was just how they wanted it for the moment. The huge yellow somethings went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing they'd been looking for all these years.
Whatever it was raced across the sky in monstrous yellowness, tore the sky apart with mind-buggering noise and leapt off into the distance leaving the gaping air to shut behind it with a bang that drove your ears six feet into your skull.
A sudden silence hit the Earth. If anything it was worse than the noise. For a while nothing happened. The great ships hung motionless in the air, over every nation on Earth. Motionless they hung, huge, heavy, and steady in the sky, a blasphemy against nature. Many people went straight into shock as their minds tried to encompass what they were looking at. The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. And still nothing happened.
Then there was a slight whisper, a sudden spacious whisper of open ambient sound. Every Hi Fi set in the world, every radio, every television, every cassette recorder, every woofer, every tweeter, every mid-range driver in the world quietly turned itself on. Every tin can, every dust bin, every window, every car, every wine glass, every sheet of rusty metal became activated as an acoustically perfect sounding board.
Before the Earth passed away it was going to be treated to the very ultimate in sound reproduction, the greatest public address system ever built. But there was no concert, no music, no fanfare, just a simple message.
People of Earth, your attention please, a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep.
This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council, the voice continued. As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less that two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.
The PA died away. Uncomprehending terror settled on the watching people of Earth. The terror moved slowly through the gathered crowds as if they were iron fillings on a sheet of board and a magnet was moving beneath them. Panic sprouted again, desperate fleeing panic, but there was nowhere to flee to.
Observing this, the Vogons turned on their PA again. It said:
There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now.
The PA fell silent again and its echo drifted off across the land. The huge ships turned slowly in the sky with easy power. On the underside of each a hatchway opened, an empty black space. By this time somebody somewhere must have manned a radio transmitter, located a wavelength and broadcasted a message back to the Vogon ships, to plead on behalf of the planet. Nobody ever heard what they said, they only heard the reply. The PA slammed back into life again. The voice was annoyed. It said:
 What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven's sake mankind, it's only four light years away you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that's your own lookout.
Energize the demolition beams.
Light poured out into the hatchways.
I don't know, said the voice on the PA, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all. It cut off.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
There was a terrible ghastly noise.
There was a terrible ghastly silence.
The Vogon Constructor fleet coasted away into the inky starry void.
(from The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by D. Adams)
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Follow up
A Fill each of the numbered blanks in the following passage with one suitable word.
| WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS. The power of crystals is a hot craze right now. Of course, the (1) that crystals have paranormal powers is as old as human .(2). It is this belief that led to jewelry (neck, ear, nose, and finger ornaments that contain protective ..(3) crystals such as emeralds, rubies and diamonds), and to birthstones. The ancients ..(4) in the power of all sorts of stones, which held the power of earth. Crystal stones were believed to have the additional powers of (or over) the sun, due to what crystals ..(5) to light: reflecting it back in blinding beams or tiny sparkles, or even breaking ..(6) the light into ..(7) as a prism. Crystals are the most orderly structures in all of nature, and (8) purity, hardness and refractive properties come from this rigid interlocking order. Crystals also can produce an .(9) charge when compressed; it's called the 'piezoelectric effect', and is part of what made old record players (10). From these simple ancient and (11) observations of scientific fact, there grew sweeping legends .(12) crystals, about hypnotic sway over minds, about being the energy behind the casting of spells, about "seeing through" crystal into the future, about sudden surges of natural power .(13) turn someone (momentarily at least) superhuman. It's mind-blowing imagery, turning up our energies way up as only dreams of power can do. Power crystals have the image of something thrilling, and crystal balls as something mysterious. ..(14), no special power over natural energies has ever actually .(15) found; only scientifically-explainable physical properties. In fact, a long history of observations point to there being no such powers. But some of us want such power on our hands, under our ..(16). We want to believe that something can (17) miracles for us. As we pant for such goodies, we are not going about doing that which pleases the One who gives us what's worth having. It's easier to (18) with a neutral Nature than the righteous God who created and .(19) order to all of nature. Or for that matter, to deal with that God's strong opponent, who loves evasion and dreams of power. We have many (20) to be thankful for what crystals really do, from special drugs to structural strength to rings that symbolize the durability and value of love. |
B Finish each of the following sentences in such a way that it is as similar as possible in meaning to the sentence printed before it.
| 1. These happenings may be bizarre, but the fact that they are well documented means they should be investigated. However ...... . 2. I may forget about the meeting, so remind me about it. Remind me about the meeting . . 3. Many people were conned into giving donations and very few realised even later that they had been duped. Many people were conned into giving donations, very few ..... | 4. According to the Center for Cosmic Consciousness, aliens from outer space are now visiting the Earth. The Earth .. .. 5. It was possible to hear rapping noises. Rapping noises . .. 6. The conjurer obtained alarming effects and many of them frightened the younger members of his audience. The conjurer obtained alarming effects, .. ... |
C Fill each of the blanks with a suitable word or phrase.
| 1. Recently there . an epidemic of UFO sightings. 2. One problem with Ufology is that . on eyewitness testimony without supporting evidence. 3. There are a number of standard effects in séances, . are frightening. 4. Practitioners of unorthodox techniques .. they are able to treat human ailments successfully. | 5. The movement of the pendulum .. by the unconscious muscular movements of the person holding it. 6. Given current skepticism about the paranormal, there asking the government to provide finance to support research into UFOs. |
D For each of the sentences below, write a new sentence as similar as possible in meaning to the original sentence, but using the word given. The word must not be altered in any way.
1. The evidence on this point is not totally convincing.
2. Let's not waste any time but get down to the business in hand.
.
3. People are now claiming that Jones is the murderer.
...
4. When Tom arrived, work had already started.
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