| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama,
looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The
man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a
cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to
a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack feel to the
level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties
supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for
him and his executioners -- two private soldiers of the
Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may
have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same
temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs: must be pretty close to the North American coast. What puzzled
me most was the fact that for six days we had not sighted a
single ship. It seemed remarkable that we could cross the
Atlantic almost to the coast of the American continent without
glimpsing smoke or sail, and at last I came to the conclusion
that we were way off our course, but whether to the north or to
the south of it I could not determine.
On the seventh day the sea lay comparatively calm at early dawn.
There was a slight haze upon the ocean which had cut off our view
of the stars; but conditions all pointed toward a clear morrow, and
I was on deck anxiously awaiting the rising of the sun. My eyes
The Land that Time Forgot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: The Mongolia had still sixteen hundred and fifty miles to traverse
before reaching Bombay, and was obliged to remain four hours at
Steamer Point to coal up. But this delay, as it was foreseen,
did not affect Phileas Fogg's programme; besides, the Mongolia,
instead of reaching Aden on the morning of the 15th, when she was due,
arrived there on the evening of the 14th, a gain of fifteen hours.
Mr. Fogg and his servant went ashore at Aden to have the passport
again visaed; Fix, unobserved, followed them. The visa procured,
Mr. Fogg returned on board to resume his former habits; while Passepartout,
according to custom, sauntered about among the mixed population of Somanlis,
Banyans, Parsees, Jews, Arabs, and Europeans who comprise the twenty-five
Around the World in 80 Days |
