Examine what is meant by situation ethics Essay Example for Free

Examine what is meant by situation ethics Essay Joseph Fletcher an Anglican theologian was the main person to challenge the view that ethics and morality have to be based around laws and rules. He developed three ways of making moral decisions, these were: 1. The antinomian way 2.The legalistic way 3. The situational way The antinomian way was a way of making decisions without any laws or principles. It is what feels right at that particular time and on no bases whatsoever, only on how it feels to you. This was also where existentialism arose. Existentialism being a principle developed by a 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. His theory was that the best way to make decisions was for each individual to find their own unique bases for morality; the foundation for his argument was that no objective or rational bases could be grounded in moral decisions. So the antinomian approach is therefore that in every existential moment or unique situation the situation itself provides the ethical solution. The legalistic approach being at the other end of the scale. This is a way of making decisions with regard to laws or rules. The legalist will live their life in accordance with a set of guidelines or rules. For example Jews will abide by the rules of the Torah and make their decisions primarily from this source. Joseph Fletcher suggested a third way of making moral decisions and this was called the situational way, which consists of a compromise between antinomianism and legalism. In the situational approach every decision is made on one universal principle and that is love. In situation ethics his view was to look at each situation individually. His main line of argument was that the only moral principle that could be applied to all situations is that of love, or: To do whatever is the most loving thing. (Fletcher quoted by Jenkins, Ethics and religion p47). Whereas Natural law theorists ask what the law states, Fletcher asks what is the best possible decision to help others and provide love in doing so. Therefore in his view this is not a law in itself, and its not dictating what should be done in any particular situation but rather an approach that informs moral choice. In other words you should always have someones best interest at heart. Another one of Fletchers arguments was that Christians are meant to love and care for each other and God is also portrayed to be all-loving. As this is the case for Christians shouldnt morality also be based around this theory to do the most loving thing? The Christian perspective like many other religions is based around the idea of natural law. The natural law ethic arose in the 4th century BCE by Aristotle. The Christian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas further developed the ideas first put forward by Aristotle. He argued that the natural purpose of the world is found in God. He outlined natural law in the following way by suggesting that all people should follow the law of God. He also believed that Human purpose was to reproduce, to learn, to live harmoniously in society and to worship God. (Jenkins p26, quoted by www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/situation_ethics.htm). His ultimate belief was that Natural law describes not only how things are, but also how they ought to be furthermore this happens when things fulfil their natural purpose. Natural law is only concerned with what seems to be the natural course of action for humans to take and this is where the conflict arises with situation ethics. There are many circumstances where what appears to be natural doesnt appear to be loving. This is why theologians such as Joseph Fletcher dont agree with the natural law ethic as it causes much controversy. For example the Catholic Church undertook the natural law approach to guide them in terms of their sexual behaviour. They saw the natural purpose for sexual intercourse to be procreation, so therefore anything that proves to be a barrier to this end result is not allowed i.e. contraception. When developing an approach to Situation ethics Fletcher suggested 4 working principles and 6 fundamental principles to outline his ideas. The 4 working principles are: 1.Pragmatism- being ideas and theories that have to work in practice, to be right of good it has to produce a desirable outcome that satisfies loves demand. The main emphasis is that the practical course of the action should be motivated by love. 2.Relativism- To be relative, on has to be relative to something, as situation ethics maintains it has to relate to love and should always respond to love in each situation. Fletcher says it relativises the absolute; it does not absolutise the relative (Fletcher quoted from Vardy; Puzzle of ethics p126). Meaning each absolute can be made relative to love but relativism cannot be applied to a concrete situation as love acts differently in different situations, it depends on how its applied and this varies with each circumstance. 3.Positivism- this is accepting to act in love by faith rather than by reason, once faith is declared it is supported by logic. In situation ethics positing a belief in God as love or a higher good and then reasoning what is required in any situation to support that belief. 4.Personalism- This is the desire to put people not laws first. It is always what is the best to help a person that makes a decision a good one. As God is meant to be personal therefore morality should also be person-centred. However It is the main framework of situation ethics that is outlined by the 6 fundamental principles. These are: 1. There is only one thing that is intrinsically good- love. Actions are good if they are fulfilling love by helping them but reversibly they are bad if they hurt people. No single act in itself is right or wrong it always depends on the situation the circumstance occurs in. Love always decides the actions that are good or bad. 2. The ruling principle of Christian love is agape love. Agape love is self-giving love and this doesnt require anything in return. The overriding principle of decision-making is love. 3. Love and justice are the same. In Fletchers words love and justice are the same thing, for justice is love distributed. (Fletcher quoted by William Bailay p73). He also claims that justice is love at work in the community in which human beings live. (Vardy, Puzzle of ethics p128). 4. Thout shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (William Temple quoted by Vardy, puzzle of ethics p123). As the neighbour is a member of the human family therefore love wills the neighbours good. Love is practical and not selective. Christian love is said to be unconditional so we should show love to everyone and that includes are enemies. 5. Only the end result justifies the means, love is the end- never a means to something else. Love can justify anything in situation ethics as long as the end result satisfies love. 6. Loves decisions are made in the circumstance of each situation and not prescriptively. Humans have a responsibility of freedom. No one is bound by laws, so with this responsibility comes the notion to do the most loving thing and to apply this to every situation. Fletcher claims that it is a mistake to generalise. You cant say Is it ever right to lie to your family? The answer must be, I dont know, give me an example. A concrete situation is needed, not a generalisation. It all depends may well be the watchword of the Situationist. (Puzzle of ethics, Vardy p.130) There are many moral dilemmas when given certain situations, and taking the situational view we are faced with the duty to do the most loving thing possible, and to serve agape love. Taking an example from William Bailay, on a wilderness trial to Kentucky many people lost their lives to Indians who hunted them down. In one case there was a woman who carried her child with her and her child was crying. The babys crying was betraying the rest of the camp as the cries were leading the Indians to them. The mother clung to her child and as a result the whole camp was found and they were all killed. In another case a Negro woman and her party found themselves in the same situation, their lives were in danger, as they too would be found out if the baby continued to cry. However the Negro woman strangled her child to stop its cries, and as a result the whole party escaped. How can we tell which action was love? The Mother who kept her baby and brought death all, or that of the mother who killed her own child to save the lives of her family and friends? This is a perfect example of the type of decisions that situation ethics confronts us with. In situation ethics there is no definite right or wrong, it has to be applied by each circumstance. Likewise there is no intrinsic value, no goodness or badness held purely in an action itself. Situation ethics says it all depends on the situation and whether or not it fulfils love. Goodness and badness are not properties of moral actions they are predicates. This demonstrates one of the key aspects and an advantage for situation ethics. Sometimes morality can be somewhat restricted however in taking the situational approach there are no moral rules. If someone with morals can only abide to duty they cant go outside their own boundaries. This is the case in many orthodox religions. Whereas situation ethics maintains that there are no absolutes, you are allowed to go outside certain boundaries if in doing so you are providing the most loving result. Take the Islamic faith for example. Muslims follow the laws of the Koran; one law is do not steel, which is an absolute. But say if there were a single mother living in the poorer regions of the country who had no money and was struggling to feed her starving children. Would it be right for the mother to let her children starve? Or would it be better for the woman to go against the law and perhaps steel some food in order for them to survive? If the woman followed her religion seriously then it would not be morally right for her to steel and as a result her children lives would be at stake. This is the advantage of situation ethics, it says that words like never and absolute cant be used because their will always be exceptions. Another advantage of situation ethics is that people are always put first, it is a personal matter. People are made more important than principles. This goes against the legalistic approach. Where legalism put laws in first place conversely situation ethics makes people the main emphasis. Furthermore we often find that the outside world is constantly changing. As we live in the modern day and age we are on a constant roller coaster of changing situation. As a result of this many religions find it extremely difficult to apply their laws to the modern world. Take the Torah being applied to the modern age or orthodox Jews attempts to conserve laws against modern relativism to be an example. Because situation ethics can change with time this gives it a huge advantage. Situation ethics also makes the important link between love and justice, which is another key aspect and this is shown as the third of the six fundamental principles. To Fletcher justice is love distributed and Justice is love working out its problems. (William Bailay p73) However there have also been many criticisms of Situation Ethics. When referring to the meaning of love, this is sometimes seen to be too general. As love has no definite meaning, it changes according to the situation, it becomes relative, and so it cannot be said that there is only one moral absolute. As there are no specific guidelines for agape love it could be said that it is possible to justify any action. These are dangerous boundaries. The question What might happen if I allow euthanasia once? could be asked. It may be hard to know where to draw the line; people all over the place might start killing their grandparents because they are too oldin the name of love! Situation ethics sometimes relies on spontaneity, however spontaneity can sometimes be misguided. It may turn out to be irrational and foolish. The abandonment of rules may in turn reduce situation ethics to antinomianism. It may lead to a state of moral flux as rules play an important part in sociological maintenance. It is also been decided that there are certain examples of absolutes. Take rape, child abuse and genocide, these are all examples of absolutes that are wrong and under no circumstance would they be right. You would not be able to justify this with love. It is often quite hard to understand exactly what is meant by the meaning of love. It can be hard to know what they most loving thing to do is. It is also hard to know what the most loving thing is in terms of the consequence. How can we predict all the consequences of an action? This can be shown by euthanasia. Say their was a man who had aids and had only a 5% chance of getting better again, he approached his friend and asked him if he would end his life for him. What happens if he got better? Even if there is only a very tiny chance there is still a chance. The man might suddenly make a recovery and go on to lead a long and prosperous life. How can we predict the consequences? It is also hard when attempting to share love out fairly in a particular situation. This can also be shown by this example of euthanasia; it is hard to know what is the best for the person, friends and family. It might be best for the man but what might be best for him might not necessarily be the most loving thing for the family or their friends. It is also quite hard to view a situation from a totally unbiased perspective. There is a possibility that a decision could be made selfishly with or without realising it but as its in the name of love it is justifiable. This again makes the boundary for love very hard to distinguish. It is also questionable as to whether it is possible for all members of society to judge each situations by its merits. A lot of time and energy has to go into the decision this isnt always accessible to everyone. How practical is situation ethics? Finally on what basis is it possible for the situationist to make moral decisions? What happens when there are no ultimate ethical principles? The situationist is making prejudiced decisions based potentially on personal whims. An example of a danger caused by this can be seen in the actions of Adolf Hitler and his attitude towards the Jews in the Second World War. For those who felt that situation ethics went to far in attempting to set itself free from any conception of law, there is an approach that combines both theories of natural law and of situation ethics. This approach is known as proportionalsim. Proportionalists hold the belief that there are particular situations where moral rules should be abided to unless there is a proportionate reason for not contending with them. This reason would be grounded in the situation itself. In this way the primary precepts of natural law could be accepted (e.g. killing, stealing, lying etc) as the ground rules unless there was a sufficient reason for not doing so. Proportionalists hold a clear distinction between moral and non-moral acts. For example proportionalists would say abortion is wrong, but it may be morally right in the circumstances of that situation. However unlike situationalists they say that love does not then make a wrong action right. Furthermore they still incur the same problems that situationalists face in trying to determine what bests serves love in a situation, and on making decisions by selfish means.

The No Load Circuit And Short Circuit Characteristics Biology Essay

The No Load Circuit And Short Circuit Characteristics Biology Essay The Ward-Leonard system is a conventional speed control method. It consists of a 3 phase induction machine controlling a separately excited DC generator. The DC generator in turn supplies a variable DC voltage to a DC motor. It is basically a DC variable speed drive [2]. The Ward-Leonard system is shown below in Figure 1. Figure : Ward-Leonard system setup The principle behind the Ward-Leonard system is that the DC generator can actually influence the motor to develop a torque and speed required by the load [3]. Thus the speed of the generator is directly proportional to the armature voltage applied to the DC motor [2]. The output voltage of the DC generator is controlled by adjusting the exciting voltage (field voltage), this then controls the speed of the DC motor [2]. Applications Travelling cranes Lifts Mine hoists Boring machines Table : Ward-Leonard system advantages and disadvantages Advantages Disadvantages Very wide range of speeds High cost Provides step less speed control Low over-all efficiency Experiment Apparatus 2- coupled induction machine and dc motor (as shown below in Figure 2) 4- digital multimeters (DMM) 2- Variac (Excitation field) Tachometer Figure : Coupled induction machine and dc machine Objectives of the experiment Characterise the DC machines and determine the equivalent circuits. Derive the power flow equations between the DC machines in terms of the equivalent circuits. Control the power flow between the DC machines by adjusting the field currents. Then compare the measured results with the expected theoretical power flow. Experiment procedure and setup No-load Test This test was used to determine the armature voltage. Before the experiment began the armature and field resistance were both measured. The Variac (exciter) was then connected to the field port on the DC machine. The Digital multimeter was connected to the armature port on the DC machine in order to measure the armature voltage. The DC machine was coupled to a three phase induction machine which was first turned on to run the DC machine. The setup is shown below in Figure 3. Using the knob on the Variac, increase the field voltage with an increment of 10V ( also increases) and for each case determine the armature voltage. This was done from 0V to the rated field voltage 110V. Now decrease the field voltage to demagnetise the DC machine from 110V to 0V also with an increment of 10V. Note the residual magnetism. Figure : No-Load test setup Short-Circuit Test This test was used to determine the armature current. The same procedure for the No-Load test was followed but in this case the digital multimeter was connected in series in the armature port in order to measure the current. Using the knob on the Variac, increase the field voltage with an increment of 10V and for each case determine the armature current. This was done from 0V to the rated field voltage 110V. The DC machine was demagnetised from 110V to 0V also with an increment of 10V recording the armature current. Ward Leonard experiment This setup was used to determine the power flow between the machines. The two coupled machines were connected together as shown below in Figure 4. A coupled machine is shown in Figure 1. The coupled machines were connected together through the armature. The positive terminals of the armature were connected together and the negative terminals were connected together. A digital multimeter was connected in between the positive terminals of the armature in order to measure the current. Each DC machine was connected to Variac through the field port. Both the Variac machines were turned down to 0V. The two induction machines were switched on both at the same time from the 3 power supply. The Variac knobs were both turned at the same time with an increment of 10V from 0V. This is done up until the multimeter reads 0A. The 0A was obtained at a field voltage of 110V. At this stage the second machine was left constant and the field voltage of the first machine was turned down at an increment of 10V, whilst recording the current and the speed of the machine without exceed the speed of 1502 rpm. A tachometer was used to measure the speed. After that the first machine was calibrated back to 110V, were the multimeter reads 0A. Now the first machine was left constant and the field voltage of the second machine was turned down at an increment of 10V, whilst recording the current and the speed of the machine without exceed the speed of 1502 rpm. A tachometer was used to measure the speed. After this then the practical is complete, the next step is to deduce an equation for the power as a function of excitation (field current) based on the machine characteristics. Then plot the graphs. Figure : Power flow setupC:UsersMashDesktopf.bmp Safety Do not exceed the ratings of the machines and all the other equipment. Switch off the equipment after completing the practical. Results Characterisation of DC machine Table : Armature and field resistance Resistance Before After 7.3 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦ 9.8 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦ 573 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦ 542 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦ No-load characteristics G:Machine Pracopennn.bmp Figure : No-load circuit Table : No-load test results Magnetizing Demagnetizing Field volts (V) Armature volts (V) Field volts (V) Armature volts (V) 0 0 1.6 9 10 27.8 10 35 20.8 61.1 20.5 68 30 88.9 30.1 97 40 116.8 38.2 119 50.1 141.1 50.1 148 60.6 165.1 60.1 170 70 181.9 69.5 185 80 196.2 80.4 200 90 209 90.5 211 100.2 218 100.9 220 110.3 227 110.3 227 Figure : No load test results plot The following table shows the calculated field current using the measured field resistance of 573 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦. Table : Amperes in the field coils Magnetizing Demagnetizing Field volts (V) Field Amperes (A) Field volts (V) Field Amperes (A) 0 0.0000 1.6 0.0028 10 0.0175 10 0.0175 20.8 0.0363 20.5 0.0358 30 0.0524 30.1 0.0525 40 0.0698 38.2 0.0667 50.1 0.0874 50.1 0.0874 60.6 0.1058 60.1 0.1049 70 0.1222 69.5 0.1213 80 0.1396 80.4 0.1403 90 0.1571 90.5 0.1579 100.2 0.1749 100.9 0.1761 110.3 0.1925 110.3 0.1925 Figure : DC generator no-load characteristics Comments The graph shows the relationship between the no-load armature voltage and the field current at a constant speed of 1496 rpm. The magnetization curve is a straight line up to a field current of 0.1A, after this point the graph approaches a condition known as saturation, thus any increase in the field current does not result in an increase in the armature voltage. Consequently the demagnetizing plot is above the magnetizing plot, this is due to the residual magnetism and hence the curve begins just above the 0 mark (a little way up). Closed circuit test G:Machine Pracshortt.bmp Figure : Closed circuit diagram Table : Closed circuit results Magnetizing Demagnetizing Field volts (V) Armature current (A) Field volts (V) Armature current (A) 1.7 2.54 1.6 0.21 10.8 3.63 10.7 1.1 20.5 4.52 18.8 1.81 30.8 4.72 29.5 2.64 40 5.54 39.9 3.37 50.9 6.4 50.2 3.93 60.7 5.59 60.8 4.44 70 6.01 70.7 5.05 80 6.1 80.8 5.5 90 6.52 90 5.9 100 6.92 100 6.54 111 7.4 111 7.4 Figure : Short-circuit characteristics Nameplate Information No-load circuit calculations Figure : No-load Fitted-curve This can be written as Using Figure 10 we can use the fitted plot of the no-load saturation curve above to determine the constant. The measured speed is used. From Thus we can calculate: But in practice we can approximate the value of the torque constant Short-circuit calculations Figure : Short circuit fitted plot This can be written as As calculated above Thus by substitution Thus now we can determine the armature resistance Coupled machines (Ward-Leonard system) ) 110.1 110 0.1 1492 1491 0.205224 0.15597 110.1 100 0.15 1492 1492 0.186567 0.212687 110.1 90 0.49 1490 1494 0.16791 0.625299 110 79.9 0.86 1486 1499 0.149067 0.974303 110.1 70 1.22 1490 1498 0.130597 1.210896 110 60 1.59 1480 1499 0.11194 1.352687 110.1 50 2.03 1484 1501 0.093284 1.439179 110.1 40.3 2.45 1484 1503 0.075187 1.399974 Power flow ) 110 110 0.1 1492 1492 0.205224 0.15597 100 110 -0.83 1492 1496 0.186567 -1.17687 90 110 -1.17 1480 1500 0.16791 -1.49306 80 110 -1.56 1470 1500 0.149254 -1.76955 70 110 -2.05 1474 1500 0.130597 -2.0347 60.1 110 -2.25 1483 1502 0.112127 -1.91737 Derivation of power equation Figure : Ward-Leonard system setup Figure : Ward-Leonard system equivalent circuit Now from Figure above we expect that Where (For the generator) (For the motor) (For the generator) (For the motor) Equate equation (1) and (2) Rewrite the equation Now we observe that Let This equation remains the same, it just depends which machine is a generator and which machine is a motor. As mentioned above to determine which machine acts as a generator or motor, we look at the following sign conversion. Conclusion DC machine Characterisation The DC machine characterisation of the generator was successfully done, both the no-load test and the short circuit test were done and all the parameters were calculated. The parameter calculated include the armature resistance which was found to be 6.25 à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¦ as compared to the measured and the rated armature resistance it is within range ( difference). The characterisation also helps us understand how the dc works; by using the saturation curves we can determine the point where the machine starts saturation and determine the critical resistance. We can also determine information about the machine which would normally be given in the nameplate. Ward-Leonard system and the power flow The power flow equation was successfully derived and found as the equation below The equation was derived from the Ward-Leonard system that was setup in the practical. The practical showed that the power can be controlled between two DC machines using this setup. In the practical the power flowed from the generator to the motor, this was seen through the current having a negative current flowing in one direction and a positive current flowing to the other direction. The practical was successful and it clearly corresponds to the theory. What I leaned The practical was useful in terms of helping us understand the concept of residual magnetism which is the same as in the theory. The practical was also a good representation in terms of how an elevator/lift works.

Performance Criteria For External Walls

Performance Criteria For External Walls External walls are referred to as cladding if they are made of masonry or panels. External walls are vertical elements which enclose the building. In the design of the specified building, the main performance criteria needed as requested by the client are as follows: WEATHER PROTECTION: Walls must be able to exclude rain, wind, snow, frost and sometimes heat and glare from the sun. The walls should often at the same time need to allow the building to be naturally ventilated and natural light to enter the building. In this respect, there are two broad functions the wall needs to perform.ÂÂ   It should resist moisture from the ground and therefore would normally need damp proof courses to do so. It should also be able to adequately resist the penetration of weather from the outside to the inside of the building. FIRE RESISTANCE OF EXTERNAL WALL The external envelope of the buildingÂÂ  should not provide a medium for fire spread if it is likely to be a risk to health or safety. The use of combustible materials for cladding framework, or of combustible thermal insulation as an over-cladding or in ventilated cavities, may present such a risk in the proposed buildings, even though the provisions for external surfaces may have been satisfied. Considering the event of fire breakout in the building, the walls of the building are required to inhibit the spread from room to room of the flames, smokes and gases. The external walls should fulfill the obligation of containing the fire within the building for prescribed period of time, thus limiting spread to adjacent buildings. It is ultimately necessary that the walls be able to perform their structural functions during the fire until all occupants have had sufficient time to escape. Based on the use of the building in this project, the time deemed necessary for such an escape is ÂÂ ½-2 hours. The materials must be carefully chosen so as to resist fore to the utmost. The combustibility of the materials must as low as possible so as to prevent quick spreading of the fire. THERMAL RESISTANCE Due to increased energy cost of recent times, and the higher comfort expectations of occupants of buildings, the pressure for better thermal insulation has become a predominant factor in the performance of buildings. There is therefore greater demand for service engineers to be involved in the thermal design of the external fabric of buildings. It therefore makes economic sense to design the walls of a building so that thermal energy consumption will be kept as low as possible. It is therefore recommended that the service engineers be aware of the required heating cycle of the building and should thus decide what thermal insulation is required and where it should be positioned. He should advise on the positioning of vapour barriers, thus reducing the occurrences of one of the major defects common in modern buildings, that of condensation. The walls having thermal resistance will limit the amount ofÂÂ  heat the building will lose from the internal spaces, and gain from the outside environment.ÂÂ   The materials used will determine exactly how compliance is achieved andÂÂ  manufacturers can generally provide some form of guidance for their products. Cavity Walls The cavity can be fully filled with insulation or partially filled (consult the manufacturers before proceeding). If it is partially filled then an airÂÂ  gap is generally required, the size of which willÂÂ  varying depending onÂÂ  the specific products used for the wall construction and insulation. The insulation should go at least 150mm below the DPC level. Solid Walls These walls are generally insulated by placing some form of thermal element on the inside and rendering the outside. The thickness of these products will depend on the thickness and type of block used. STRENGH AND STABILITY: Two main categories are distinguished here: Structural and non-structural. The former make a positive contribution in the structural integrity of the building and in doing do can act in two ways: 1. the walls may be load bearing and/or stabilizing. Here, they are designed to carry not only their own weight but also other loads exerted by the roof and floors. These walls are designed to resist compression. 2. When performing as stabilizing walls, they are designed to resist horizontal or oblique forces such as wind pressure, earth or water pressure, or thrust from other parts of the building such as arches. These walls are designed to resist shear and are often known as shear walls. The later are more commonly called non-load bearing. They are therefore designed to carry only their own weight and not that of any other elements in the building. It is worth noting here that such walls may still be requested to resist horizontal loads, in particular wind loading. DURABILITY It is often an expectation from most clients that the external fabric of the building will have an acceptable life expectancy. The external walls of the building of this design must be able to withstand the effects of the weather, such as wind, frost, snow, rain, sun and heat to be durable. The walls should also be able to resist physical damage to which they will be subjected during their life. Maintenance is therefore necessary in the elements of the building, including the walls in order to achieve a prescribed life expectancy. It is worth noting that care must be taken in the maintenance work as damage almost often results in the maintenance of the walls. BUILDABILITY Buildability relates more to judgment and knowledge than to mathematical analysis. Buildability reflects whether the specific design can be assembled by various trades without compromising the functional requirements during construction. Buildability is more related to good design than to superior workmanship because, as experience indicates, only a good design can combine all the environmental factors while presenting an easy construction pattern. For the most part, it is the designer who attends to the aspects of buildability such as material installation under different weather conditions, level of skill required for installation, and construction tolerances. Often buildability problems arise when different professions are involved; for instance neither the window manufacturer nor the wall designer may consider the window wall interface as their concern. It is therefore necessary not to disregard the difficulty that the builder can experience when constructing the proposed office building. NOISE Noise can cause stress and loss of sleep, and lead to ill health. For an office to be comfortable it must be designed so that its layout and structure keep noise to an acceptable level. Designing for noise control is not easy, because the sources of noise are not always apparent at design stage, and the paths by which sound travels are not always obvious. The aim, however, should be to ensure that most activities can be carried out without undue interference from internal or external noise. For external walls where windows provide passive ventilation, the need for ventilation must be balanced with the need to reduce noise open windows do not reduce noise from outside. To effectively reduce external noise, the external walls should be well constructed and insulated. A walls ability to reduce noise is dependent on: type of construction; materials; and insulation There are two main construction techniques for walls: Continuous construction A wall in which the components are mechanically connected such as single brick or single stud. Discontinuous construction A dual layer of wall in which the leaves have a minimum 20mm cavity and are not mechanically connected in any way, except at the periphery such as brick cavity and discontinuous stud. When choosing a wall system to reduce noise from the inner city environment, the contractor should consider: materials; general construction; and best practice design Increasing the thickness of the building materials, and ensuring all gaps are sealed can help considerably when dealing with sound insulation. An important feature of well constructed external walls is correctly sealed junctions, as this aids in the reduction of noise transmission through gaps and cracks at the edge of building elements. These noise flanking paths can defeat noise reduction techniques. An important feature of well constructed exterior walls is properly sealed junctions, which aid in the reduction of noise transferred via flanking paths (gaps at the edge of building elements that allow sound to travel through). Even a sound-rated wall may not perform adequately, if joints and junctions are not properly sealed. Challenges to good acoustic design of external walls can arise from noise transferred via flanking paths. It is important to minimise flanking through services and penetrations. The impact isolation of a wall may also be compromised by insufficient attention to detail. Flanking is the transfer of noise through paths around a building element, rather than through the element directly. Flanking can descr ibe the transfer of noise through gaps and cracks in a building element, or via incorrectly sealed junctions between two materials. These noise flanking paths can defeat noise reduction techniques. QUESTION THREE HOW PARTITIONS, SUSPENDED CEILING AND RAISED FLOOR CAN BE USED TO FACILITE THE CLIENT REQUIREMENT OF THE BUILDING PARTITIONS can be described as an internal wall of a structure which divides a building into a number of parts to serve its purpose. Partition can be divide into two main groups that is, load bearing and non load bearing. FUCTIONAL REQUIREMENT OF STEEL PARTITION SYSTEM The following are: Sound Insolution: Is the reduction obtained when sound passes from one side of a partition to another. Sound may considerd as waves of pressure. Sound Absorption: Is the material used to reduce the amount noise that is reflected from a wall surface back into the room and does not increase the sound reduced value of the structure. Sound absorption is usually achieved by adding a soffit finish to the head surface of a wall. Flexibility: The material should be flexible enough to resist any forces or any movement that will change it actual function. Strength and stability: The partition system should be strong enough to resist the various loads that may be imposed on it. These loads include permanent loads such as shelves and wash basins. Services and accommodation: Partition system should be providing with spaces or voids within partitions system to provide services accessed for repair and maintenance. TYPES OF PARTITIONS SYSTEM Metal stud partition: These can be defined as vertical internal space divides and are usually non loads bearing walls. These can be permanent, constructed of material such as metal post and sheet lining such as plasterboard. This type of partition is suitable for rehabilitation works. Joints in panels are usually filled as the plasterboard is normally covered with a scrim coat of plaster. It is however slowing, wasteful of materials and it is difficult to install components such as door and windows hatches. Frame and sheet partition: These are similar in concepts metal stud and sheet partitions; except that they are constructed using an arrangement of proprietary components such as doors and glazing element. Cutting component is kept a minimum and joints between panels are usually expressed using cover strips. Frame and sheet partitions are suitable for dismantling and relocation, and can be called demountable partitions. Frame and panel partition: These are variations on the frame and sheet partition. In this system the panels are placed between the studs or frame which is left exposed. These methods are constructed by using self supporting panels, with double skin of plasterboard separated by egg-create element. SUSPENDED CEILING Suspended ceiling: These can be defined as ceiling which is fixed to a framework suspended from the main structure thus forming voids between the two components. It is used where enough height as available to hang it from the ceiling joists and still have enough height between the floor and new ceiling. Suspended ceiling have two main functions: a metal grid that provide a structural and a height weight panels that slip into grid. The basic functional requirement of suspended ceiling is: They should be easy to construct, repaired, maintain and clean. Should be designed that an adequate means of access is provide to the voids spaces for the maintenance of the suspension system concealed services and / or light fighting. Provide any required sound and / or thermal insulation. Provide any required acoustic control in terms absorption and reverberation. Should be provide with fire resistance or protection to structure steel beams supporting floor. Conform with the minimum requirements set out in the Building Regulations and in particular the regulations governing the restriction of spread of flame over surfaces of ceiling and exceptions permitting the uses of certain plastic material. TYPES OF SUSPENDED CEILING The suspended ceiling can be classified as the way in which they are constructed as following: Jointless ceiling: These ceilings although suspended below the main form uses sheets of plasterboard. In these systems the plasterboard is fixed to the underside of the suspended framework. This can provide fire resistant ceiling and this may be one of the reasons for using this type of construction. Moreover it is not suitable for a situation where service is to be carried in the voids unless they can be approached from the floor area above. This type of ceiling is particularly useful where the ceiling needs to take s sculptured shape. It can provide a fire resistant ceiling construction. Jointed or frame and tile systems: These ceilings are the commonest form of suspended ceiling use in construction industry today. They constructed with a metal framed grid suspended from the floor or structure above. In this system the grid are fitted tiles made from different materials such as minerals fibre board, plaster and metal and it is supported by the grid. Generally these types of ceiling are easily constructed, maintained and easy means of access to services. Open ceiling: These ceiling are designed to give a visual barrier between the rooms below and the ceiling voids above by the use of an open grid. This type ceiling the light is fixed to the lower side of the ceiling. RAISED FLOOR TYPES OF RAISED FLOOR The shallow or battened floor: This type of floor is supported on battens fixed to the structural sub-floor. This type of floor provide spaces of wiring and the floor contain the acoustic properties of a floor and as cavities seldom exceeds 100mm is normally only used to conceal cable runs. Platform floor: This type of floor is supported on adjustable jacks whom rest on the structural sub-floor. Using pedestals an adjustable cavity with depth ranging from 40mm to 150mm depending on which proprietary system can be provided. It is suitable for most services installation requirements. SECTION TWO TECHNICAL DESIGN DECISIONS TO BE TAKEN TO SPEED UP CONSTRUCTION PROCESS Clients often demand faster construction so as to benefit from early completion of projects. Although there are notable examples where fast construction has been achieved, the consensus is that the construction industry has not been entirely successful in meeting clients expectations. This is mainly due to a disjointed industry, in which design is often separated from the construction activities. Traditional practices are proving inadequate, to the point where either they can no longer achieve the desired delivery time, or, if projects are forced to meet the programme, they do not provide the required quality and long term performance. If faster construction is needed, the level of attainment of the targets is an essential part of assessing the overall performance of the construction industry in meeting client needs. Site location The location of the structure on the chosen site is often fundamental to the success of the faster construction initiative. Attention should be paid to site topography, especially noting potential sources of problems such as the water table, contamination, existing structures, substations and overhead high load cables. Repetition Repetition is a most effective way to speed up activities. This can involve the use of standardised components installed in the same way each time. For detail installation, repetition might mean standardising the grade of concrete everywhere on the project at 35 N/mm2, avoiding the additional management time of checking on each pour. Repetition might involve keeping an element to a constant dimension or position e.g. all lighting pendants are in the centre of every room, or extract vents are always 150 mm down from the ceiling. Standard modules Use of identical or standard modules speeds construction because it simplifies the checking of drawings, fabrication and installation. The principle can be applied by using a standard dense concrete block for all block work, or by employing standard air handling units in roof plant or standard toilet pods within the building Orientation The orientation of the project could dramatically affect the speed of construction. A project located some distance from the site access is likely to have more space available for off-loading facilities and storage. If the project structure is close to the access point, or obstructs or restricts access to the remainder of the site, then faster construction is likely to be more difficult. Configuration The mass, height or plan shape of a project will significantly affect the ease and speed of construction. While massed elements may speed construction, they may also obstruct the site and so slow progress. For example, large ductwork elements reduce the number of joint connections that need to be made and so reduce construction time. However, the greater size and length of the elements might hinder access and slow the process down. Prefabrication, pre-assembly and modularisation. Consider the potential of methods based on prefabrication; pre-assembly and modularisation. Environmental and sustainability issues Recognise the environmental and sustainability issues inherent in faster construction on site. It will probably be necessary to expend equal or more energy over a shorter period to achieve the same end-product earlier. The procedures should ensure that the materials used are sustainable.

Essays --

Laser treatment is being employed for several applications including wound healing, bone repair, pain-relief, etc. The basic principle of laser therapy relies on the absorption of photonic energy by molecular photoacceptors (chromophores), leading to a photochemical reaction. This photochemical reaction results in the generation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and heat, which are known to play a crucial role in laser-induced damage. This study explores the role of specific heat in affecting laser-induced damage. By using the formula, H = msÃŽ ¸ (H being Heat, M being Mass; S being Specific heat, and ÃŽ ¸ being change in temperature), it was speculated that a change in specific heat would affect rise in temperature and hence cytotoxicity induced by the laser. Therefore, the specific heat of different solutions was measured using a calorimeter-like setup. Once the specific heat of different solutions was determined, cells (HaCaT, Human Skin Epithelial Cells and NOKSI, Normal Oral Keratinocytes) were treated with solutions of varying specific heat capacities and assessed in laser damage. It was observed that in lowering the specific heat by using various cell culture solutions, there is a sharp increase in temperature at lower laser doses, leading to increased damage to cells. Further, a robotic arm is being assembled to characterize the heat dispersion during clinical therapy, with the aim of mimicking manual operator hand motions and helping simulate clinical therapy in further lab experiments. INTRODUCTION There are three primary phases of wound healing—inflammation, tissue formation, and tissue regeneration. It is a dynamic, interactive process involving soluble mediators, blood cells, extracellular matrix, and parenchymal cel... ...of glycerol is indeed cytotoxic. When treating the cells with a 1.7W laser, the 10% FBS solution proved to be the most effective in preserving cell viability, due to its high specific heat capacity. Future goals of this experiment will strive to determine whether the laser-induced killing is through heat, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) generation, or some other factor. In Aim 2, we were able to capture the precise clinical operator movements in multiple dimensions using the precision 6-axis sensor. We recently completed construction of our robotic arm and are in the process of programming using the clinical data captured with the sensor. This robotic arm concept is expected to greatly stabilize the laser motions, and will certainly be a beneficial and revolutionary application in not only lab experiments, but also experiments dealing with animals, such as mice.

France Essay -- essays research papers fc

Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France, which is the largest nation in Western Europe, is a presidential republic. France is a very important nation in Europe and it continues to be involved in contemporary policy issues. Helping the world as one of the great trading nations, France is a very important trading partner with the United States. Not only is France important to the United States, they are also important to countries all over the world. Their abundance of both mineral and agricultural resources make them a very important supplier of products all over the world. I chose to report on France because it is an interesting county and I wanted to learn more about it. Geography   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France is located in Western Europe and has an area of approximately 211,000 square miles. Along with being the capital, Paris is also the largest city in France. Spain borders France in the south, Italy and Switzerland in the east, and Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium in the northeast. The French Alps are located in the east where snow capped peaks, such as Mont. Blanc reach heights of 15,781 feet. About one-half of France’s total border is formed by coastline, with the Mediterranean Sea on the Southeast and the Atlantic and the English Channel on the west and northwest. Many rivers and canals run through France forming a vast network, tying different regions and cities together. The Seine is the country’s largest navigable river. It flows northwest from eastern France through the city of Paris, and empties into the channel at Le Harre. The Rhone River is the largest in the country in terms of volume of discharge. Along with its tributaries, it drai ns the French Alpine region. Although France has many rivers, it only has a few lakes. One of the lakes in France is Lake Geneva (also known as Lake Leman), but in lies mainly in Switzerland.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France is richly endowed with an excellent balance of both mineral and agricultural resources. The nation produces substantial amounts of iron ore. In addition, France has sizable deposits of antimony magnesium, pyrites, tungsten, salt, potash, radioactive materials, lead and zinc. Coal mining has decreased significantly since the 1960’s, as many mines have been depleted and are now closed. Currently, the production of natural gas and sulfur is being developed. History Franc... ...he origination of France, they have many fascinating features. Their government is in many ways similar to the United State’s government. The three branches of government do their best to help make and carry out the law.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Not only is France a beautiful country, it is also the home to many interesting people. It is a very prestigious nation that is constantly changing and growing economically and politically. France will continue to have strong international influence and will strive to keep on forming and carrying out policy that will benefit their country and the rest of the world. Works Cited Dell, Dick, ed. People and Places. Vol. 2. Chicago: World Book Inc., 1996. Dr. Warmenhoven, Henri. â€Å"France.† Grolier Global Studies. 1991 ed. Famighettie, Robert, ed. World Almanac Books. New Jersey: World Almanac Books, 1997. â€Å"France.† Encyclopedia Britannica. 1998 ed. Lands and Peoples. Vol. 3. Connecticut: Grolier Educational, 1999. Murphy, C. â€Å"France Almost Goes Capitalist.† Fortune 21 September 1999: 46-48. Sancton, T.A. â€Å"French revolution.† TIME October 1999: 76. World Mark Encyclopeida of the Nations. Edition 7. New York: Worldmark Press, LTD. 1988. France Essay -- essays research papers fc Introduction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France, which is the largest nation in Western Europe, is a presidential republic. France is a very important nation in Europe and it continues to be involved in contemporary policy issues. Helping the world as one of the great trading nations, France is a very important trading partner with the United States. Not only is France important to the United States, they are also important to countries all over the world. Their abundance of both mineral and agricultural resources make them a very important supplier of products all over the world. I chose to report on France because it is an interesting county and I wanted to learn more about it. Geography   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France is located in Western Europe and has an area of approximately 211,000 square miles. Along with being the capital, Paris is also the largest city in France. Spain borders France in the south, Italy and Switzerland in the east, and Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium in the northeast. The French Alps are located in the east where snow capped peaks, such as Mont. Blanc reach heights of 15,781 feet. About one-half of France’s total border is formed by coastline, with the Mediterranean Sea on the Southeast and the Atlantic and the English Channel on the west and northwest. Many rivers and canals run through France forming a vast network, tying different regions and cities together. The Seine is the country’s largest navigable river. It flows northwest from eastern France through the city of Paris, and empties into the channel at Le Harre. The Rhone River is the largest in the country in terms of volume of discharge. Along with its tributaries, it drai ns the French Alpine region. Although France has many rivers, it only has a few lakes. One of the lakes in France is Lake Geneva (also known as Lake Leman), but in lies mainly in Switzerland.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  France is richly endowed with an excellent balance of both mineral and agricultural resources. The nation produces substantial amounts of iron ore. In addition, France has sizable deposits of antimony magnesium, pyrites, tungsten, salt, potash, radioactive materials, lead and zinc. Coal mining has decreased significantly since the 1960’s, as many mines have been depleted and are now closed. Currently, the production of natural gas and sulfur is being developed. History Franc... ...he origination of France, they have many fascinating features. Their government is in many ways similar to the United State’s government. The three branches of government do their best to help make and carry out the law.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Not only is France a beautiful country, it is also the home to many interesting people. It is a very prestigious nation that is constantly changing and growing economically and politically. France will continue to have strong international influence and will strive to keep on forming and carrying out policy that will benefit their country and the rest of the world. Works Cited Dell, Dick, ed. People and Places. Vol. 2. Chicago: World Book Inc., 1996. Dr. Warmenhoven, Henri. â€Å"France.† Grolier Global Studies. 1991 ed. Famighettie, Robert, ed. World Almanac Books. New Jersey: World Almanac Books, 1997. â€Å"France.† Encyclopedia Britannica. 1998 ed. Lands and Peoples. Vol. 3. Connecticut: Grolier Educational, 1999. Murphy, C. â€Å"France Almost Goes Capitalist.† Fortune 21 September 1999: 46-48. Sancton, T.A. â€Å"French revolution.† TIME October 1999: 76. World Mark Encyclopeida of the Nations. Edition 7. New York: Worldmark Press, LTD. 1988.

Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ki lay fast asleep just as I had left her, on her side with the filthy little stuffed dog clutched under her jaw. It had put a smudge on her neck but I hadn't the heart to take it away from her. Beyond her and to the left, through the open bathroom door, I could hear the steady plink-plonk-plink of water falling from the faucet and into the tub. Cool air blew around me in a silky twist, caressing my cheeks, sending a not unpleasurable shiver up my back. In the living room Bunter's bell gave a dim little shake. Water's still warm, sugar, Sara whispered. Be her friend, be her daddy. Go on, now. Do what I want. Do what we both want. And I did want to, which had to be why Jo at first tried to keep me away from the TR and from Sara Laughs. Why she'd made a secret of her possible pregnancy, as well. It was as if I had discovered a vampire inside me, a creature with no interest in what it thought of as talk-show conscience and op-ed page morality. A part that wanted only to take Ki into the bathroom and dunk her into that tub of warm water and hold her under, watching the red-edged white ribbons shimmer the way Carla Dean's white dress and red stockings had shimmered while the woods burned all around her and her father. A part of me would be more than glad to pay the last installment on that old bill. ‘Dear God,' I muttered, and wiped my face with a shaking hand. ‘She knows so many tricks. And she's so fucking strong.' The bathroom door tried to swing shut against me before I could go through, but I pushed it open against hardly any resistance. The medicine-cabinet door banged back, and the glass shattered against the wall. The stuff inside flew out at me, but it wasn't a very dangerous attack; this time most of the missiles consisted of toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, plastic bottles, and a few old Vick's inhalers. Faint, very faint, I could hear her shouting in frustration as I yanked the plug at the bottom of the tub and let the water start gurgling out. There had been enough drowning on the TR for one century, by God. And yet, for a moment I felt an incredibly strong urge to put the plug back in while the water was still deep enough to do the job. Instead I tore it off its chain and threw it down the hall. The medicine-cabinet door clapped shut again and the rest of the glass fell out. ‘How many have you had?' I asked her. ‘How many besides Carla Dean and Kerry Auster and our Kia? Two? Three? Five? How many do you need before you can rest?' All of them! the answer shot back. It wasn't just Sara's voice, either; it was my own, as well. She'd gotten into me, had snuck in by way of the basement like a burglar . . . and already I was thinking that even if the tub was empty and the water-pump temporarily dead, there was always the lake. All of them! the voice cried again. All of them, sugar! Of course only all of them would do. Until then there would be no rest for Sara Laughs. ‘I'll help you to rest,' I said. ‘That I promise.' The last of the water swirled away . . . but there was always the lake, always the lake if I changed my mind. I left the bathroom and looked in on Ki again. She hadn't moved, the sensation that Sara was in here with me had gone, Bunter's bell was quiet . . . and yet I felt uneasy, unwilling to leave her alone. I had to, though, if I was to finish my work, and I would do well not to linger. County and State cops would be along eventually, storm or no storm, downed trees or no downed trees. Yes, but . . . I stepped into the hall and looked uneasily around. Thunder boomed, but it was losing some of its urgency. So was the wind. What wasn't fading was the sense of something watching me, something that was not-Sara. I stood where I was a moment or two longer, trying to tell myself it was just the sizzle of my overcooked nerves, then walked down the hall to the entry. I opened the door to the stoop . . . then looked around again sharply, as if expecting to see someone or something lurking behind the far end of the bookcase. A Shape, perhaps. Something that still wanted its dust-catcher. But I was the only Shape left, at least in this part of the world, and the only movement I saw was ripple-shadows thrown by the rain rolling down the windows. It was still coming down hard enough to redrench me as I crossed my stoop to the driveway, but I paid no attention. I had just been with a little girl when she drowned, had damned near drowned myself not so long ago, and the rain wasn't going to stop me from doing what I had to do. I picked up the fallen branch which had dented the roof of my car, tossed it aside, and opened the Chevy's rear door. The things I'd bought at Slips ‘n Greens were still sitting on the back seat, still tucked into the cloth carry-handle bag Lila Proulx had given me. The trowel and the pruning knife were visible, but the third item was in a plastic sack. Want this one in a special bag? Lila had asked me. Always sa]b, never sorry. And later, as I was leaving, she had spoken of Kenny's dog Blueberry chasing seagulls and had given out with a big, hearty laugh. Her eyes hadn't laughed, though. Maybe that's how you tell the Martians from the Earthlings the Martians can never laugh with their eyes. I saw Rommie and George's present lying on the front seat: the Stenomask I'd at first mistaken for Devore's oxygen mask. The boys in the basement spoke up then murmured, at least and I leaned over the seat to grab the mask by its elastic strap without the slightest idea of why I was doing so. I dropped it into the carry-bag, slammed the car door, then started down the railroad-tie steps to the lake. On the way I paused to duck under the deck, where we had always kept a few tools. There was no pick, but I grabbed a spade that looked up to a piece of gravedigging. Then, for what I thought would be the last time, I followed the course of my dream down to The Street. I didn't need Jo to show me the spot; the Green Lady had been pointing to it all along. Even had she not been, and even if Sara Tidwell did not still stink to the heavens, I think I would have known. I think I would have been led there by my own haunted heart. There was a man standing between me and the place where the gray forehead of rock guarded the path, and as I paused on the last railroad tie, he hailed me in a rasping voice that I knew all too well. ‘Say there, whoremaster, where's your whore?' He stood on The Street in the pouring rain, but his cutters' outfit green flannel pants, checked wool shirt and his faded blue Union Army cap were dry, because the rain was falling through him rather than on him. He looked solid but he was no more real than Sara herself. I reminded myself of this as I stepped down onto the path to face him, but my heart continued to speed up, thudding in my chest like a padded hammer. He was dressed in Jared Devore's clothes, but this wasn't Jared Devore. This was Jared's great-grandson Max, who had begun his career with an act of sled-theft and ended it in suicide . . . but not before arranging for the murder of his daughter-in-law, who'd had the temerity to refuse him what he had so dearly wanted. I started toward him and he moved to the center of the path to block me. I could feel the cold baking off him. I am saying exactly what I mean, expressing what I remember as clearly as I can: I could feel the cold baking off him. And yes, it was Max Devore all right, but got up like a logger at a costume party and looking the way he must have around the time his son Lance was born. Old but hale. The sort of man younger men might well look up to. And now, as if the thought had called them, I could see the rest shimmer into faint being behind him, standing in a line across the path. These were the ones who had been with Jared at the Fryeburg Fair, and now I knew who some of them were. Fred Dean, of course, only nineteen years old in '01, the drowning of his daughter still over thirty years away. And the one who had reminded me of myself was Harry Auster, the firstborn of my great-grandfather's sister. He would have been sixteen, barely old enough to raise a fuzz but old enough to work in the woods with Jared. Old enough to shit in the same pit as Jared. To mistake Jared's poison for wisdom. One of the others twisted his head and squinted at the same time I'd seen that tic before. Where? Then it came to me: in the Lake-view General. This young man was the late Royce Merrill's father. The others I didn't know. Nor did I care to. ‘You ain't a-passing by us,' Devore said. He held up both hands. ‘Don't even think about trying. Am I right, boys?' They murmured growling agreement the sort you could hear coming from any present-day gang of headbangers or taggers, I imagine but their voices were distant; actually more sad than menacing. There was some substance to the man in Jared Devore's clothes, perhaps because in life he had been a man of enormous vitality, perhaps because he was so recently dead, but the others were little more than projected images. I started forward, moving into that baking cold, moving into the smell of him the same invalid odors which had surrounded him when I'd met him here before. ‘Where do you think you're going?' he cried. ‘For a constitutional,' I said. ‘And no law against it. The Street's the place where good pups and vile dogs can walk side-by-side. You said so yourself.' ‘You don't understand,' Max-Jared said. ‘You never will. You're not of that world. That was our world.' I stopped, looking at him curiously. Time was short, I wanted to be done with this . . . but I had to know, and I thought Devore was ready to tell me. ‘Make me understand,' I said. ‘Convince me that any world was your world.' I looked at him, then at the flickering, translucent figures behind him, gauze flesh heaped on shining bones. ‘Tell me what you did.' ‘It was all different then,' Devore said. ‘When you come down here, Noonan, you might walk all three miles north to Halo Bay and see only a dozen people on The Street. After Labor Day you might not see any one at all. This side of the lake you have to walk through the bushes that are growing up wild and around the fallen trees there'll be even more of em after this storm and even a deadfall or two because nowadays the townfolk don't club together to keep it neat the way they used to. But in our time ! The woods were bigger then, Noonan, distances were farther to go, and neighboring meant something. Life itself, often enough. Back then this really was a street. Can you see?' I could. If I looked through the phantom shapes of Fred Dean and Harry Auster and the others, I could. They weren't just ghosts; they were shimmerglass windows on another age. I saw a summer afternoon in the year of . . . 1898? Perhaps 1902? 1907? Doesn't matter. This is a period when all time seems the same, as if time had stopped. This is a time the old-timers remember as a kind of golden age. It is the Land of Ago, the Kingdom of When-I-Was-a-Boy. The sun washes everything with the fine gold light of endless late July; the lake is as blue as a dream, netted with a billion sparks of reflected light. And The Street! It is as smoothly grassed as a lawn and as broad as a boulevard. It is a boulevard, I see, a place where the community fully realizes itself. It is the main conduit of communication, the chief cable in a township criss-crossed with them. I'd felt the existence of these cables all along even when Jo was alive I felt them under the surface, and here is their point of origin. Folks promenade on The Street, all up and down the east side of Dark Score Lake they promenade in little groups, laughing and conversing under a cloud-stacked summer sky, and t his is where the cables all begin. I look and realize how wrong I have been to think of them as Martians, as cruel and calculating aliens. East of their sunny promenade looms the darkness of the woods, glades and hollows where any miserable thing may await, from a hot lopped off in a logging accident to a birth gone wrong and a young mother dead before the doctor can arrive from Castle Rock in his buggy. These are people with no electricity, no phones, no County Rescue Unit, no one to rely upon but each other and a God some of them have already begun to mistrust. They live in the woods and the shadows of the woods, but on fine summer afternoons they come to the edge of the lake. They come to The Street and look in each other's faces and laugh together and then they are truly on the TR in what I have come to think of as the zone. They are not Martians,' they are little lives dwelling on the edge of the dark, that's all. I see summer people from Warrington's, the men dressed in white flannels, two women in long tennis dresses still carrying their rackets. A fellow riding a tricycle with an enormous front wheel weaves shakily among them. The party of summer fo1k has stopped to talk with a group of young men from town; the fellows from away want to know if they can play in the townies' baseball game at Warrington's on Tuesday night. Ben Merrill, Royce's father-to-be, says Ayuh, but we won't go easy on ya just cause you're from N'Yawk. The young men laugh; so do the tennis girls. A little farther on, two boys are playing catch with the sort of raw homemade baseball that is known as a horsey. Beyond them is a convention of young mothers, talking earnestly of their babies, all safely prammed and gathered in their own group. Men in overalls discuss weather and crops, politics and crops, taxes and crops. A teacher from the Consolidated High sits on the gray stone forehead I know so well, patiently tutoring a sullen boy who wants to be somewhere else and doing anything else. I think the boy will grow up to be Buddy Jellison's father. Horn broken watch for finger, I think. All along The Street folks are fishing, and they are catching plenty; the lake fairly teems with bass and trout and pickerel. An artist another summer fellow, judging from his smock and nancy beret has set up his easel and is painting the mountains while two ladies watch respectfully. A giggle of girls passes, whispering about boys and clothes and school. There is beauty here, and peace. Devore' s right to say this is a world I never knew. It's ‘Beautiful,' I said, pulling myself back with an effort. ‘Yes, I see that. But what's your point?' ‘My point?' Devore looked almost comically surprised. ‘She thought she could walk there like everyone else, that's the fucking point! She thought she could walk there like a white gal! Her and her big teeth and her big tits and her snotty looks. She thought she was something special, but we taught her different. She tried to walk me down and when she couldn't do that she put her filthy hands on me and tumped me over. But that was all right; we taught her her manners. Didn't we, boys?' They growled agreement, but I thought some of them young Harry Auster, for one looked sick. ‘We taught her her place,' Devore said. ‘We taught her she wasn't nothing but a nigger. This is the word he uses over and over again when they are in the woods that summer, the summer of1901, the summer that Sara and the Red-bps become the musical act to see in this part of the world. She and her brother and their whole nigger family have been invited to Warrington's to play for the summer people,' they have been rid on champagne and ersters . . . or so says Jared Devore to his little school of devoted followers as they eat their own plain lunches of bread and meat and salted cucumbers out of lard-buckets given to them by their mothers (none of the young men are married, although Oren Peebles is engaged). Yet it isn't her growing renown that upsets Jared Devore. It isn't the fact that she has been to Warrington's; it don't cross his eyes none that she and that brother of hers have actually sat down and eaten with white folks, taken bread join the same bowl as them with their blacknigger fingers. The folks at Warrington's are flatlanders, after all, and Devore tells the silent, attentive young men that he's heard that in places like New York and Chicago white women sometimes even fuck blackniggers. Naw! Harry Auster says, looking around nervously, as if he expected a few white women to come tripping through the woods way out here on Bowie Ridge. No white woman'd fuck a nigger! Shoot a pickle! Devore only gives him a look, the kind that says When you're my age. Besides, he doesn't care what goes on in New York and Chicago; he saw all the flatland he wanted to during the Civil War . . . and, he will tell you, he never fought that war to free the damned slaves. They can keep slaves down there in the land of cotton until the end of the eternity, as far as Jared Lancelot Devore is concerned. No, he fought in the war to teach those cracker sons of bitches south of Mason and Dixon that you don't pull out of the game just because you don't like some of the rules. He went down to scratch the scab off the end of old Johnny Reb's nose. Tried to leave the United States of America, they had! The Lord! No, he doesn't care about slaves and he doesn't care about the land of cotton and he doesn't care about blackniggers who sing dirty songs and then get treated to champagne and ersters (Jared always says oysters in just that sarcastic way) in payment for their smut. He doesn't care about anything so long as they keep in their place and let him keep in his. But she won't do it. The uppity bitch will not do it. She has been warned to stay off The Street, but she will not listen. She goes anyway, walking along in her white dress just as if there was a white person inside it, sometimes with her son, who has a blacknigger African name and no daddy his daddy probably just spent the one night with his mommy in a haystack somewhere down Alabama and now she walks around with the get of that just as bold as a brass monkey. She walks The Street as if she has a right to be there, even though not a soul will talk to her ‘But that's not true, is it?' I asked Devore. ‘That's what really stuck in old great-granddaddy's craw, wasn't it? They did talk to her. She had a way about her that laugh, maybe. Men talked to her about crops and the women showed off their babies. In fact they gave her their babies to hold and when she laughed down at them, they laughed back up at her. The girls asked her advice about boys. The boys . . . they just looked. But how they looked, huh? They filled up their eyes, and I expect most of them thought about her when they went out to the privy and filled up their palms.' Devore glowered. He was aging in front of me, the lines drawing themselves deeper and deeper into his face; he was becoming the man who had knocked me into the lake because he couldn't bear to be crossed. And as he grew older he began to fade. ‘That was what Jared hated most of all, wasn't it? That they didn't turn aside, didn't turn away. She walked on The Street and no one treated her like a nigger. They treated her like a neighbor.' I was in the zone, deeper in than I'd ever been, down where the town's unconscious seemed to run like a buried river. I could drink from that river while I was in the zone, could fill my mouth and throat and belly with its cold minerally taste. All that summer Devore had talked to them. They were more than his crew, they were his boys: Fred and Harry and Ben and Oren and George Armbruster and Draper Finney, who would break his neck and drown the next summer trying to dive into Eades Quarry while he was drunk. Only it was the sort of accident that's kind of on purpose. Draper Finney drank a lot between July of 1901 and August of 1902, because it was the only way he could sleep. The only way he could get the hand out of his mind, that hand sticking straight out of the water, clenching and unclenching until you wanted to scream Won't it stop, won't it ever stop doing that. All summer long Jared Devore filled their ears with nigger bitch and uppity bitch. All summer long he told them about their responsibility as men, their duty to keep the community pure, and how they must see what others didn't and do what others wouldn't. It was a Sunday afternoon in August, a time when traffic along The Street dropped steeply. Later on, by five or so, things would begin to pick up again, and from six to sunset the broad path along the lake would be thronged. But three in the afternoon was Low tide. The Methodists were back in session over in Harlow for their afternoon Song Service; at Warrington's the assembled company of vacationing flatlanders was sitting down to a heavy mid-afternoon Sabbath meal of roast chicken or ham; all over the township families were addressing their own Sunday dinners. Those who had already finished were snoozing through the heat of the day in a hammock, wherever possible. Sara liked this quiet time. Loved it, really. She had spent a great deal of her life on carny midways and in smoky gin-joints, shouting out her songs in order to be heard above the voices of redfaced, unruly drunks, and while part of her loved the excitement and unpredictability of that life, part of her loved the sereni ty of this one, too. The peace of these walks. She wasn't getting any younger, after all; she had a kid who had now left purt near all his babyhood behind him. On that particular Sunday she must have thought The Street almost too quiet. She walked a mile south from the meadow without seeing a soul even Kito was gone by then, having stopped off to pick berries. It was as if the whole township were deserted. She knows there's an Eastern Star supper in Kashwakamak, of course, has even contributed a mushroom pie to it because she has made friends of some of the Eastern Star ladies. They'll all be down there getting ready. What she doesn't know is that today is also Dedication Day for the new Grace Baptist Church, the first real church ever to be built on the TR. A slug of locals have gone, heathen as well as Baptist. Faintly, from the other side of the lake, she can hear the Methodists singing. The sound is sweet and faint and beautiful,' distance and echo has tuned every sour voice. She isn't aware of the men most of them very young men, the kind who under ordinary circumstances dare only look at her from the corners of their eyes until the oldest one among them speaks. ‘Wellnow, a black whore in a white dress and a red belt! Damn if that ain't just a little too much color for lakeside. What's wrong with you, whore? Can't you take a hint?' She turns toward him, afraid but not showing it. She has lived thirty-six years on this earth, has known what a man has and where he wants to put it since she was eleven, and she understands that when men are together like this and full of redeye (she can smell it), they give up thinking for themselves and turn into a pack of dogs. If you show fear they will fall on you like dogs and likely tear you apart like dogs. Also, they have been laying for her. There can be no other explanation for them turning up like this. ‘What hint is that, sugar?' she asks, standing her ground. Where is everyone? Where can they all be? God damn! Across the lake, the Methodists have moved on to ‘Trust and Obey,' a droner if there ever was one. ‘That you ain't got no business walking where the white folks walk,' Harry Auster says. His adolescent voice breaks into a kind of mouse-squeak on the last word and she laughs. She knows how unwise that is, but she can't help it she's never been able to help her laughter, any more than she's ever been able to help the way men like this look at her breasts and bottom. Blame it on God. ‘Why, I walk where I do,' she says. ‘I was told this was common ground, ain't nobody got a right to keep me out. Ain't nobody has. You seen em doin it?' ‘You see us now,' George Armbruster says, trying to sound tough. Sara looks at him with a species of kindly contempt that makes George shrivel up inside. His cheeks glow hot red. ‘Son,' she says, ‘you only come out now because the decent folks is all somewhere else. Why do you want to let this old fella tell you what to do? Act decent and let a lady walk.' I see it all. As Devore fades and fades, at last becoming nothing but eyes under a blue cap in the rainy afternoon (through him I can see the shattered remains of my swimming float washing against the embankment), I see it all. I see her as she starts forward, walking straight at Devore. If she stands here jawing with them, something bad is going to happen. She feels it, and she never questions her tidings. And if she walks at any of the others, ole massa'll bore in on her from the side, pulling the rest after. Ole massa in the little ole blue cap is the wheeldog, the one she must face down. She can do it, too. He's strong, strong enough to make these boys one creature, his creature, at least for the time being, but he doesn't have her force, her determination, her energy. In a way she welcomes this confrontation. Reg has warned her to be careful, not to move too fast or try to make real friends until the rednecks (only Reggie calls them ‘the bull gators') show themselves how many and how crazy but she goes her own course, trusts her own deep instincts. And here they are, only seven of em, and really just the one bull gator. I'm stronger than you, ole massa, she thinks, walking toward him. She fixes her eyes on his and will not let them drop,' his are the ones that drop, his the mouth that quivers uncertainly at one corner, his the tongue that comes out as quick as a lizard's tongue to wet the lips, and all that's good . . . but even better is when he falls back a step. When he does that the rest of them cluster in two groups of three, and there it is, her way through. Faint and sweet are the Methodists, faithy music carrying across the lake's still surface. A droner of a hymn, yes, but sweet across the miles. When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way . . . I'm stronger than you, sugar, she sends, I'm meaner than you, you may be the bull gator but I'm the queen bee and if you don't want me stingin on you, you best clear me the rest of my path. ‘You bitch,' he says, but his voice is weak; he is already thinking this isn't the day, there's something about her he didn't quite see until he saw her right up close, some blacknigger hougan he didn't feel until now, better wait for another day, better Then he trips over a root or a rock (perhaps it's the very rock behind which she will finally come to rest) and falls down. His cap falls off, showing the big old bald spot on top of his head. His pants split all the way up the seam. And Sara makes a crucial mistake. Perhaps she underestimates Jared Devore's own very considerable personal force, or perhaps she just cannot help herself the sound of his britches ripping is like a loud fart. In any case she laughs that raucous, smoke-broken laugh which is her trademark. And her laugh becomes her doom. Devore doesn't think. He simply gives her the leather from where he lies, big feet in pegged loggers' boots shooting out like pistons. He hits her where she is thinnest and most vulnerable, in the ankles. She hollers in shocked pain as the left one breaks,' she goes down in a tumble, losing her furled parasol out of one hand. She draws in breath to scream again and Jared says from where he is lying, ‘Don't let her! Dassn't let her holler!' Ben Merrill falls on top of her full-length, all one hundred and ninety pounds of him. The breath she has drawn to scream with whooshes out in a gusty, almost silent sigh instead. Ben, who has never even danced with a woman, let alone lain on top of one like this, is instantly excited by the el of her struggling beneath him. He wriggles against her, laughing, and when she rakes her nails down his cheek he barely feels it. The way it seems to him, he's all cock and a yard long. When she tries to roll over and get out from under that way, he rolls with her, lets her be on top, and he is totally surprised when she drives her forehead down on his. He sees stars, but he is eighteen years old, as strong as he will ever be, and he loses neither consciousness nor his erection. Oren Peebles tears away the back of her dress, laughing. ‘Pig-pile!' he cries in a breathy little whisper, and drops on top of her. Now he is dry-humping her topside and Ben is dry-humping just as enthusiastically from underneath, dry-humping like a billygoat even with the blood pouring down the sides of his head from the split in the center of his brow, and she knows that if she can't scream she is lost. If she can scream and if Kito hears, he'll run and get help, run and get Reg But before she can try again, ole massa is squatting beside her and showing her a long-bladed knife. ‘Make a sound and I'll cut your nose off,' he says, and that's when she gives up. They have brought her down after all, partly because she laughed at the wrong time, mostly out of pure buggardly bad luck. Now they will not be stopped, and best that Kito should stay away please God keep him back where he was, it was a good patch of berries, one that should keep him occupied an hour or more. He loves berry-picking, and it won't take these men an hour. Harry Auster yanks her hair back, tears her dress off one shoulder, and begins to sucker on her neck. Ole massa the only one not at her. Old massa standing back, looking both ways along The Street, his eyes slitted and wary; old massa look like a mangy timber-wolf done eaten a whole generation of chickenhouse chickens while managing to avoid every trap and snare. ‘Hey Irish, quit on her a minute,' he tells Harry, then widens his wise gaze to the others. ‘Get her in the puckies, you damn fools. Get her in there deep.' They don't. They can't. They are too eager to have her. They arm-yank her behind the forehead of gray rock and call it good. She doesn't pray easily but she prays now. She prays for them to let her live. She prays for Kito to stay clear, to keep filling his bucket slow by eating every third handful. She prays that if he does take a notion to catch up with her, he will see what's happening and run the other way as fast as he can, run silent and get Reg. ‘Stick this in your mouth,' George Armbruster pants. ‘And don't you bite me, you bitch.' They take her top and bottom, back and front, two and three at a time. They take her where anybody coming along can't help but see them, and ole massa stands off a little, looking first at the panting young men grouped around her, kneeling with their trousers down and their thighs scratched from the bushes they are kneeling in, then he peers up and down the path with his wild and wary eyes. Incredibly, one of them it is Fred Dean says ‘Sorry, ma'am' after he's shot his load feels like halfway up to east bejeezus. It's as if he accidentally kicked her in the shin while crossing his legs. And it doesn't end. There's come down her throat, come running down the crack of her ass, the young one has bitten the blood right out of her left breast, and it doesn't end. They are young, and by the time the last one has finished, the first one, oh God, the first one is ready again. Across the river the Methodists are now singing ‘Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine' and as ole massa approaches her she thinks, It's almost over, woman, he the last, hold on hold steady and it be over. He looks at the skinny redhead and the one who keeps squinching his eye up and tossing his head and tells them to watch the path, he's going to take his turn now that she's broke in. He unbuckles his belt, he unbuttons his flies, he pushes down his underwear dirty black at the knees and dirty yellow at the crotch-and as he drops a knee on either side of her she sees that ole massa' s little massa is just as floppy as a snake with its neck broke and before she can stop it, that raucous laugh bursts all unexpected from her again even lying here covered with the hot jelly spend of her rapists, she can't help but see the funny side. ‘Shut up!' Devore growls at her, and smashes the heel of one hard hand across her face, breaking her cheekbone and her nose. ‘Shut up that howling!' ‘Reckon it might get stiffer if it was one of your boys layin here with his rosy red ass stuck up in the air, sugar?' she asks, and then, For the last time, Sara laughs. Devore draws his hand back to hit her again, his naked loins lying against her naked loins, his penis a flaccid worm between them. But before he can bring the hand down a child's voice cries, ‘Ma! What they doin to you, Ma? Git off my mama, you bastards!' She sits up in spite of Devore's weight, her laughter dying, her wide eyes searching Kito out and finding him, a slim young boy of eight standing on The Street, dressed in overalls and a straw hat and brand-new canvas shoes, carrying a tin bucket in one hand. His lips are blue with juice. His eyes are wide with confusion and fright. ‘Run, Kito!' she screams. ‘Run away h ‘ Red fire explodes in her head,' she swoons back into the bushes, hearing ole massa from a great distance: ‘Get him. Dassn't let him ramble, now.' Then she's going down a long dark slope, she's lost in a Ghost House corridor that leads only deeper and deeper into its own convoluted bowels,' from that deep falling place she hears him, she hears, her darling one, he is screaming. I heard him screaming as I knelt by the gray rock with my carry-bag beside me and no idea how I'd gotten to where I was I certainly had no memory of walking here. I was crying in shock and horror and pity. Was she crazy? Well, no wonder. No fucking wonder. The rain was steady but no longer apocalyptic. I stared at my fishy-white hands on the gray rock for a few seconds, then looked around. Devore and the others were gone. The ripe and gassy stench of decay filled my nose it was like a physical assault. I fumbled in the carry-bag, found the Stenomask Rommie and George had given me as a joke, and slipped it over my mouth and nose with fingers that felt numb and distant. I breathed shallowly and tentatively. Better. Not a lot, but enough to keep from fleeing, which was undoubtedly what she wanted. ‘No!' she cried from somewhere behind me as I grabbed the spade and dug in. I tore a great mouth in the ground with the first swipe, and each subsequent one deepened and widened it. The earth was soft and yielding, woven through with mats of thin roots which parted easily under the blade. ‘No! Don't you dare!' I wouldn't look around, wouldn't give her a chance to push me away. She was stronger down here, perhaps because it had happened here. Was that possible? I didn't know and didn't care. All I cared about was getting this done. Where the roots were thicker, I hacked through them with the pruning knife. ‘Leave me be!' Now I did look around, risked one quick glance because of the unnatural crackling sounds which had accompanied her voice which now seemed to make her voice. The Green Lady was gone. The birch had somehow become Sara Tidwell: it was Sara's face growing out of the criss-crossing branches and shiny leaves. That rain-slicked face swayed, dissolved, came together, melted away, came together again. For a moment all the mystery I had sensed down here was revealed. Her damp shifting eyes were utterly human. They stared at me with hate and supplication. ‘I ain't done!' she cried in a cracked, breaking voice. ‘He was the worst, don't you understand? He was the worst and it's his blood in her and I won't rest until I have it out!' There was a gruesome ripping sound. She had inhabited the birch, made it into a physical body of some sort and intended to tear it free of the earth. She would come and get me with it if she could; kill me with it if she could. Strangle me in limber branches. Stuff me with leaves until I looked like a Christmas decoration. ‘No matter how much of a monster he was, Kyra had nothing to do with what he did,' I said. ‘And you won't have her.' ‘Yes I will!' the Green Lady screamed. The ripping, rending sounds were louder now. They were joined by a hissing, shaky crackle. I didn't look around again. I didn't dare look around. I dug faster instead. ‘Yes I will have her!' she cried, and now the voice was closer. She was coming for me but I refused to see; when it comes to walking trees and bushes, I'll stick to Macbeth, thanks. ‘I will have her! He took mine and I mean to take his!' ‘Go away,' a new voice said. The spade loosened in my hands, almost fell. I turned and saw Jo standing below me and to my right. She was looking at Sara, who had materialized into a lunatic's hallucination a monstrous greenish-black thing that slipped with every step it tried to walk along The Street. She had left the birch behind yet assumed its vitality somehow the actual tree huddled behind her, black and shrivelled and dead. The creature born of it looked like the Bride of Frankenstein as sculpted by Picasso. In it, Sara's face came and went, came and went. The Shape, I thought coldly. It was always real . . . and if it was always me, it was always her, too. Jo was dressed in the white shirt and yellow slacks she'd had on the day she died. I couldn't see the lake through her as I had been able to see it through Devore and Devore's young friends; she had materialized herself completely. I felt a curious draining sensation at the back of my skull and thought I knew how. ‘Git out, bitch!' the Sara-thing snarled. It raised its arms toward Jo as it had raised them to me in my worst nightmares. ‘Not at all.' Jo's voice remained calm. She turned toward me. ‘Hurry, Mike. You have to be quick. It's not really her anymore. She's let one of the Outsiders in, and they're very dangerous.' ‘Jo, I love you.' ‘I love you t ‘ Sara shrieked and then began to spin. Leaves and branches blurred together and lost coherence; it was like watching something liquefy in a blender. The entity which had only looked a little like a woman to begin with now dropped its masquerade entirely. Something elemental and grotesquely inhuman began to form out of the maelstrom. It leaped at my wife. When it struck her, the color and solidity left Jo as if slapped away by a huge hand. She became a phantom struggling with the thing which raved and shrieked and clawed at her. ‘Hurry, Mike!' she screamed. ‘Hurry!' I bent to the job. The spade struck something that wasn't dirt, wasn't stone, wasn't wood. I scraped along it, revealing a filthy mold-crusted swatch of canvas. Now I dug like a madman, wanting to clear as much of the buried object as I could, wanting to fatten my chances of success as much as I could. Behind me, the Shape screamed in fury and my wife screamed in pain. Sara had given up part of her discorporate self in order to gain her revenge, had let in something Jo called an Outsider. I had no idea what that might be and never wanted to know. Sara was its conduit, I knew that much. And if I could take care of her in time I reached into the dripping hole, slapping wet earth from the ancient canvas. Faint stencilled letters appeared when I did: J.M. MCCURDIE SAWMILL. Mccurdie's had burned in the fires of '33, I knew. I'd seen a picture of it in flames somewhere. As I seized the canvas, the tips of my fingers punching through and letting out a fresh billow of green and gassy stench, I could hear grunting. I could hear Devore. He's lying on top of her and grunting like a pig. Sara is semiconscious, muttering unintelligibly through bruised lips which are shiny with blood. Devore is looking back over his shoulder at Draper Finney and Fred Dean. They have raced after the boy and brought him back, but he won't stop yelling, he's yelling to beat the band, yelling to wake the dead, and if they can hear the Methodists singing ‘How I Love to Tell the Story' over here, then they may be able to hear the yowling nigger over there. Devore says ‘Put him in the water, shut him up.' The minute he says it, as though the words are magic words, his cock begins to stiffen. ‘What do you mean?' Ben Merrill asks. ‘You know goddam well,' Jared says. He pants the words out, jerking his hips as he speaks. His narrow ass gleams in the afternoon light. ‘He seen us! You want to cut his throat, get his blood all over you? Fine by me. Here. Take my knife, be my guest!' ‘N-No, Jared!' Ben cries in horror, actually seeming to cringe at the sight of the knife. He is finally ready. It takes him a little longer, that's all, he ain't a kid like these other ones. But now ! Never mind her smart mouth, never mind her insolent way of laughing, never mind the whole township. Let them all show up and watch if they like. He slips it to her, what she's wanted all along, what all her kind want. He slips it in and sinks it deep. He continues giving orders even as he rapes her. Up and down his ass goes, tick-tock, just like a cat's tail. ‘Somebody take care of him! Or do you want to spend forty years rotting in Shawshank because of a nigger boy's tattle?' Ben seizes one of Kito Tidwell's arms, Oren Peebles the other, but by the time they have dragged him as far as the embankment they have lost their heart. Raping an uppity nigger woman with the gall to laugh at Jared when he fell down and split his britches is one thing. Drowning a scared kid like a kitten in a mud-puddle . . . that's another one altogether. They loosen their grip, staring into each other's haunted eyes, and Kito pulls free. ‘Run, honey!' Sara cries. ‘Run away and get ‘Jared clamps his hands around her throat and begins choking. The boy trips over his own berry bucket and thumps gracelessly to the ground. Harry and Draper recapture him easily. ‘What you going to do? ‘ Draper asks in a kind of desperate whine, and Harry replies ‘What I have to.' That's what he replied, and now I was going to do what I had to in spite of the stench, in spite of Sara, in spite of my dead wife's shrieks. I hauled the roll of canvas out of the ground. The ropes which had tied it shut at either end held, but the roll itself split down the middle with a hideous burping sound. ‘Hurry!' Jo cried. ‘I can't hold it much longer!' It snarled; it bayed like a dog. There was a loud wooden crunch, like a door being slammed hard enough to splinter, and Jo wailed. I grabbed for the carry-bag with Slips ‘n Greens printed on the front and tore it open as Harry the others call him Irish because of his carrot-colored hair grabs the struggling kid in a clumsy kind of bearhug and jumps into the lake with him. The kid struggles harder than ever,' his straw hat comes off and floats on the water. ‘Get that!' Harry pants. Fred Dean kneels and fishes out the dripping hat. Fred's eyes are dazed, he's got the look of a fighter about one round from hitting the canvas. Behind them Sara Tidwell has begun to rattle deep in her chest and throat like the sight of the boy's clenching hand, these sounds will haunt Draper Finney until his final dive into Eades Quarry. Jared sinks his fingers deeper, pumping and choking at the same time, the sweat pouring off him. No amount of washing will take the smell of that sweat out of these clothes, and when he begins to think of it as ‘murder-sweat,' he burns the clothes to get shed of it. Harry Auster wants to be shed of it all to be shed of it and never see these men again, most of all Jared Devore, who he now thinks must be Lord Satan himself. Harry cannot go home and face his father unless this nightmare is over, buried. And his mother! How can he ever face his beloved mother, Bridget Auster with her round sweet Irish face and graying hair and comforting shelf of bosom, Bridget who has always had a kind word or a soothing handler him, Bridget Auster who has been Saved, shed in the Blood of the Lamb, Bridget Auster who is even now serving pies at the picnic they're having at the new church, Bridget Auster who is mamma; how can he ever look at her again or she him if he has to stand in court on a charge of raping and beating a woman, even a black woman? So he yanks the clinging boy away Kito scratches him once, just a nick on the side of the neck, and that night Harry will tell his mamma it was a bush-pricker that caught him unawares and he will let her put a kiss on it and then he plunges the child into the lake. Kito looks up at him, his face shimmering, and Harry sees a little fish flick by. A perch, he thinks. For an instant he wonders what the boy must see, looking up through the silver shield of the surface at the face of the fellow who's holding him down, the fellow who's drowning him, and then Harry pushes that away. Just a nigger, he reminds himself desperately. That's all he is, just a nigger. No kin of yours. Kito's arm comes out of the water his dripping dark-brown arm. Harry pulls back, not wanting to be clawed, but the hand doesn't reach for him, only sticks straight up. The fingers curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. Open. Curl into a fist. The boy's thrashing begins to ease, the kicking feet begin to slow down, the eyes looking up into Harry's eyes are taking on a curiously dreamy look, and still that brown arm sticks straight up, still the hand opens and closes, opens and closes. Draper Finney stands on the shore crying, sure that now someone will come along, now someone will see the terrible thing they have done the terrible thing they are in fact still doing. Be sure your sin will find you out, it says in the Good Book. Be sure. He opens his mouth to tell Harry to quit, maybe it's still not too late to take it back, let him up, let him live, but no sound comes out. Behind him Sara is choking her last. In front of him her drowning son's hand opens and closes, opens and clos es, the reflection of it shimmering on the water, and Draper thinks Won't it stop doing that, won't it ever stop doing that? And as if it were a prayer that something is now answering, the boy's locked elbow begins to bend and his arm begins to sag; the fingers begin to close again into a fist and then stop. For a moment the hand wavers and then I slammed the heel of my hand into the center of my forehead to clear these phantoms away. Behind me there was a frenzied snap and crackle of wet bushes as Jo and whatever she was holding back continued to struggle. I put my hands inside the split in the canvas like a doctor spreading a wound. I yanked. There was a low ripping sound as the roll tore the rest of the way up and down. Inside was what remained of them two yellowed skulls, forehead to forehead as if in intimate conversation, a woman's faded red leather belt, a molder of clothes . . . and a heap of bones. Two ribcages, one large and one small. Two sets of legs, one long and one short. The early remains of Sara and Kito Tidwell, buried here by the lake for almost a hundred years. The larger of the two skulls turned. It glared at me with its empty eyesockets. Its teeth chattered as if it would bite me, and the bones below it began a tenebrous, jittery stirring. Some broke apart immediately; all were soft and pitted. The red belt stirred restlessly and the rusty buckle rose like the head of a snake. ‘Mike!' Jo screamed. ‘Quick, quick!' I pulled the sack out of the carry-bag and grabbed the plastic bottle which had been inside. Lye stille, the Magnabet letters had said; another little word-trick. Another message passed behind the unsuspecting guard's back. Sara Tidwell was a fearsome creature, but she had underestimated Jo . . . and she had underestimated the telepathy of long association, as well. I had gone to Slips ‘n Greens, I had bought a bottle of lye, and now I opened it and poured it, smoking, over the bones of Sara and her son. There was a hissing sound like the one you hear when you open a beer or a bottled soft drink. The belt-buckle melted. The bones turned white and crumpled like things made out of sugar I had a nightmare image of Mexican children eating candy corpses off long sticks on the Day of the Dead. The eyesockets of Sara's skull widened as the lye filled the dark hollow where her mind, her prodigious talent, and her laughing soul had once resided. It was an expression that looked at first like surprise and then like sorrow. The jaw fell off; the nubs of the teeth sizzled away. The top of the skull caved in. Spread fingerbones jittered, then melted. ‘Ohhhhhh . . . ‘ It whispered through the soaking trees like a rising wind . . . only the wind had died as the wet air caught its breath before the next onslaught. It was a sound of unspeakable grief and longing and surrender. I sensed no hate in it; her hate was gone, burned away in the corrosive I had bought in Helen Auster's shop. The sound of Sara's going was replaced by the plaintive, almost human cry of a bird, and it awakened me from the place where I had been, brought me finally and completely out of the zone. I got shakily to my feet, turned around, and looked at The Street. Jo was still there, a dim form through which I could now see the lake and the dark clouds of the next thundersquall coming over the mountains. Something flickered beyond her that bird venturing out of its safe covert for a peek at the re-arranged environment, perhaps but I barely registered that. It was Jo I wanted to see, Jo who had come God knew how far and suffered God knew how much to help me. She looked exhausted, hurt, in some fundamental way diminished. But the other thing the Outsider was gone. Jo, standing in a ring of birch leaves so dead they looked charred, turned to me and smiled. ‘Jo! We did it!' Her mouth moved. I heard the sound, but the words were too distant to make out. She was standing right there, but she might have been calling across a wide canyon. Still, I understood her. I read the words off her lips if you prefer the rational, right out of her mind if you prefer the romantical. I prefer the latter. Marriage is a zone, too, you know. Marriage is a zone. So that's all right, isn't it? I glanced down into the gaping roll of canvas and saw nothing but stubs and splinters sticking out of a noxious, uneasy paste. I got a whiff, and even through the Stenomask it made me cough and back away. Not corruption; lye. When I looked back around at Jo, she was barely there. ‘Jo! Wait!' Can't help. Can't stay. Words from another star system, barely glimpsed on a fading mouth. Now she was little more than eyes floating in the dark afternoon, eyes which seemed made of the lake behind them. Hurry . . . She was gone. I slipped and stumbled to the place where she'd been, my feet crunching over dead birch leaves, and grabbed at nothing. What a fool I must have looked, soaked to the skin, wearing a Stenomask askew over the lower half of my face, trying to embrace the wet gray air. I got the faintest whiff of Red perfume . . . and then only damp earth, lakewater, and the vile stink of lye running under everything. At least the smell of putrefaction was gone; that had been no more real than . . . Than what? Than what? Either it was all real or none of it was real. If none of it was real, I was out of my mind and ready for the Blue Wing at Juniper Hill. I looked over toward the gray rock and saw the bag of bones I had pulled out of the wet ground like a festering tooth. Lazy tendrils of smoke were still rising from its ripped length. That much was real. So was the Green Lady, who was now a soot-colored Black Lady as dead as the dead branch behind her, the one that seemed to point like an arm. Can't help . . . can't stay . . . hurry. Couldn't help with what? What more help did I need? It was done, wasn't it? Sara was gone: spirit follows bone, good night sweet ladies, God grant she lye stille. And still a kind of stinking terror, not so different from the smell of putrescence which had come out of the ground, seemed to sweat out of the air; Kyra's name began to beat in my head, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, like the call of some exotic tropical bird. I started up the railroad-tie steps to the house, and although I was exhausted, by the time I was halfway up I had begun to run. I climbed the stairs to the deck and went in that way. The house looked the same save for the broken tree poking in through the kitchen window, Sara Laughs had stood up to the storm very well but something was wrong. There was something I could almost smell . . . and perhaps I did smell it, bitter and low. Lunacy may have its own wild-vetch aroma. It's not the kind of thing I would ever care to research. In the front hall I stopped, looking down at a heap of paperback books, Elmore Leonards and Ed Mcbains, lying on the floor. As if they had been raked off the shelf by a passing hand. A flailing hand, maybe. I could also see my tracks there, both coming and going. They had already begun to dry. They should have been the only ones; I had been carrying Ki when we came in. They should have been, but they weren't. The others were smaller, but not so small that I mistook them for a child's. I ran down the hall to the north bedroom crying her name, and I might as well have been crying Mattie or Jo or Sara. Coming out of my mouth, Kyra's name sounded like the name of a corpse. The duvet had been thrown back onto the floor. Except for the black stuffed dog, lying where it had in my dream, the bed was empty. And Ki was gone.

Comparison Between of Mice and Men Novel & Movie

Of Mice and Men Differences Between Movie and Book After having read the original version and the more recent film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s majorly successful novel, Of Mice and Men, the apparency of differences between the two is at times subtle while also being very obvious during different portions of the movie. In the film there are several major differences between the movie and the book with three being particularly apparent. We are shown the differences through the portrayals of characters, Lennie’s sanity and, simply, the scenes themselves.When watching the film, the first difference the viewer can see between the book and the movie is how the characters are portrayed. A notable example would be Carlson. In the film, Carlson seems to play a much larger part compared to the information given in the book about his character. He is introduced much sooner in the movie and appears to be a part of many more conversations. On the opposite side of Carlsons portray al is Crooks’. In the book Crooks is characterized as a much more active character.An example of this would be when Crooks interjects in the farmer’s conversation to let Slim know that he had finished preparing the tar for fixing the mule’s hoof. The filmmakers changed this scene so that Crooks was not involved at all and that George prepared the tar instead. Another massive difference between the book and the movie are the acts themselves. Going back to the previous point of Crooks and the tar, the scene when George took the mule into the barn to fix its hoof is altered drastically.The impression given to those who have read the book as well is that it was changed because Steinbeck used it as a way to flesh out Curley’s wife’s character. This scene was likely changed because there is no narrator and instead we are given a visual explanation of Curley’s wife through her actions. Also, almost the entirety of chapter four is removed or altered in the film. We are shown only a quick conversation between Crooks and Lennie which is interrupted by George who scolds Lennie for going into Crooks room. In the book, Crooks, Candy and Lennie all have a grand conversation about the farm and the dream of having their own land.Crooks opens up to the men and seems to leave his shell so to speak which is followed by Curley’s wife entering and tearing him down. This is a strange scene to leave out based on how important it seemed to be considering it shows more of Lennie’s character as well as Curley’s wife’s cruel side. Finally, at the end of the novel Slim, Curley and Carlson find Lennie dead and George with the gun in his hand. George lies and tells the men that Lennie had Carlson's gun and that he took the gun from Lennie shot him in the back of his neck.Slim tries to console George by telling him â€Å"You Hadda George. and the two walking away for a drink. Curley then asks Carlson what's bugging the t wo. This scene was completely cut out of the movie and replaced with George's flashbacks which seems very odd considering how important it was to the novel and the idea that not all dreams are meant to be. The final major difference between the movie and the book is Lennie’s personal sanity. In the book, the reader is given multiple instances clearly showing that Lennie is not totally there so to speak. The best example possible is when Lennie hallucinates about Aunt Clara and the giant rabbit.This scene is removed in the film and instead Lennie seems to just be a very confused person with a low thinking capacity. The film seems to try and have Lennie appear to be a character who is innocent and has just been dealt a bad hand in life. In the book, however, Lennie’s outbursts seem to be much darker in their description, particularly the murder of Curley’s wife. These three differences between the film and the novel are ways of seeing how the director of Of Mice a nd Men chose to show in a visual way some things differently from Steinbeck’s descriptions.One cannot expect an adaptation to be a complete carbon copy of the original it is based on and it would seem as though the film was successful in bringing out the meat of Steinbeck’s story. These changes could, to some, seem either miniscule or large depending on how the reader (now the watcher) interpreted the book. The movie also won critical acclaim and exposed many people to Steinbeck’s writing, something that would make people who disliked the film because of its differences appreciate it a bit more.