Jekyll and Hyde writing response 1

Author’s note:

            I was really inspired by the section below of Jekyll and Hyde. The absolute beauty of this scene really made me want to put it into a very short story. I love how Stevenson added light and imagery to this. I also tried to mock a few of his sentences. Enjoy!

-Abbey

“Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street and all the folks asleep — street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church—till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.”

            Among the endless rows of safe havens, a withered door ever so slightly opened. A young woman slipped into the shadows of the black morning. Her mind was just as frazzled as her hair. Moments of the previous evening raced through what she knew was reality. Drops of alcohol cascading down glasses, women laughing, men hollering, and warming yellow candle light livened the motions of the figurines dancing. The clang of a door slamming shutting, the feeling of immense pain shooting throughout her fragile body, weight being thrusted upon her, and the faint memory vanished. Walking down the never ending street, there was nothing to be seen but lamps. Brick after brick followed her after each footstep. Processing down the isle of the boulevard, each member of the town was asleep in their beds. Brick after brick, her path was lighted up as though it was for a procession but as empty as the home she would return to. She stopped for a moment to listen. To listen for something more; as though someone was hiding in the crevices between buildings. The dazed world that lay before her eyes had stopped moving. There was not even a flutter of wind dancing in the air, not even a mouse scurrying home, not even a clatter from inside a home. The young woman laid down in the middle of the road. She breathed in the smell of the earthy bricks and looked at her body. She had forgotten her shoes at the party, her chest ached, her dress had been mangled to some degree, and her legs had patches of bruises. Lingering on her skin was the scent of a man’s cologne. A drum began beating within her head. The beating became incessant and traveled to her heart. Each and every action of the night had flooded her body. Something wanted to be released. Something trapped in side her human soul craved to enter another world. Springing up from the cold ground she had been laying on, the woman ran. She ran to her dingy house at the edge of town. Plunging into her bed, the young woman was finally at ease. Beat after beat grew lesser each time and breath by breath it had escaped. Her innocent, terrorized soul was set free into the mid morning light.