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Literature
MEMORY
My 100, sorry, 200 word essay, although I don't want it, is about memory ... or was it... ? No, it must have been memory. (I forgot for a minute).
I was once writing some prep. out which was about something, but I've forgotten it. On the board was written . . . now, what was it? Oh yes (I forgot for a minute), "BOOKS TO BE LEFT ON DESK." Naturally I forgot. Or did I remember, and then forgot ? Never mind it doesn't matter. Or does it ?
After prep I remembered that I had forgotten, and forgetting that I was in bed, went to put my book out. But then I remembered, and felt silly for forgetting to remember not to forget. As I had remembered that I had forgotten to remember the fact that to forget to remember not to forget to put my books out may mean trouble, (phew ! that phrase WAS hard I) I though "Oh well, if I forgot, I forgot."
In the morning, I had forgotten about forgetting
to remember not to forget to put out my books. After a minute, though, I remembered that I HAD forgotten to remember not to forget to put my books out, and I felt a pang of terror run through me as I remembered the master's belt.
I got a 2,000,000 million words essay, or was it 22,000,000 TRILLION. No, I remember! 200 words !
G. Ballantyne, 1A
POLLUTION
Sing a song of spillage,
A tanker's fouled the shore,
Four-and-twenty black birds,
They were white before,
R. McKinnell, III
A FAT MAN
He was the fattest man I had ever seen. As he
walked along the pavement his stomach wobbled up and down, while his feet flapped loosely on the hard stone. What I couldn't help noticing was the hanging fat on his stomach. When he sat down the fat moved up, swayed for a few seconds then settled down. When he leaned forward the fat hung down loosely swaying from side to side like an elephant's trunk. On the bus he struggled fiercely to get into his seat. The sweat trickling down his small, fat and very red face showed that he was trying desperately. After what seemed like ages he squeezed through and with a large squelch sat down. The loud squelch were his legs and I saw the fat on them spread sideways like lava coming down a mountain side. His short fat chubby fingers managed to get his fare out but only just. For the rest of the journey he stared dreamily out of the window, probably dreaming about FOOD !
E. J. M. Gibson, 2A
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The soft bellied snake slithered about aimlessly, Its black and yellow skin merging with the dry
sun-soaked grass,
Green eyes stared as though to hypnotise me, Its venomous body turned away and slowly slid
through the dry dusty soil.
E. J. M. Gibson, 2A
Illustrated by A. Stroud 1B
THE RETURN
Excitement was in both of us, my brother as much as me, although he being the elder and more responsible showed it less. I was the little brother though and entitled to all sorts of infantile and stupid releases of my boyish tensions, so I darted from seat to seat on the almost empty VC-10, gazing down on distant Malaysia and looking pointlessly for something or someone down there whom I knew. I knew no one in Malaysia and I was over 30,000 feet up, but I looked all the same.
At last, after too long, a wait the plane stopped at Kuala Lumpur, and my brother and I were home again. Home with our parents and little sister and being able to lock at them all day if we wanted to. We grew more excited and I got worried. For two terms and a Christmas holiday we'd been away from home and all that time my childlike mind had been throbbing intently with the suspicion that I would never see my parents again, that I would be lost and parentless, and now just as I was about to see them again, the suspicion began to grow.
We stepped out of the plane doorway and staggered instantly under the sledge-hammer blow of the tropical midday air. In seconds we were sweating like pigs and black patches were growing on our army khaki shirts, where the flesh was most in contact. An over indulgent B.O.A.C. hostess fussed us into the terminal building, past the bored Customs men and into the lounge. She sat us down together on an empty yards-long settee and told us to sit there, then she went away and left us.
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