Write It Out: Instruction Video
‘Below them, a coyote trotted across the valley floor, its nose to the ground. Jerry’s dog watched it with its tongue lolling and ears up but didn’t chase after it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t phone or come by earlier,” said Liv. “I just had to let things settle, you know?” She plucked a piece of dry grass and twirled it between her fingers. “Jason’s away, on a haul with his dad. You could stop by this week, if you want.”
Orange-winged grasshoppers flitted, clicking, in the buffalo bean. It was here, right below him, that the deer had run up and down the coulee walls for the joy of it. The thump and crunch of their hooves on snow and earth, their hot breath creating puffs of steam behind them. Job felt like one of those deer now, his heart beating against his chest as though he’d run up that coulee wall himself. A thrill of joy running through him. But he kept his voice calm. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to make it over.”‘
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I love reading this author. A Canadian, she is so skilled at painting a picture with her words. When I read her, my eyes may be looking at black type on white page, but in my mind I am seeing the movie of her story – sights and sounds, sensations, even tastes and scents come to me as I read. I get goosebumps as I anticipate what the words aren’t saying – what comes across between the words.
This particular book was additionally interesting because one of the characters experiences synaesthesia – defined by Google as “the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body”. We learn about it in chapter one, page one, first sentence: “Job Sunstrum felt sound, and saw it.” What an opening hook!
I wonder if humans used to have this ability, and, perhaps, because we underutilized it we lost it. I wonder – if humans were to have had that ability, and still have it “now”, how that might that have changed what we have done to our world?
Thoughts? Feel free to share them here.
