11d 2008 09

Englisch E1 Götzinger

Homework and exercises

Connect your ideas or the ideas presented in the poem and the painting by E. Hopper with the concept of the American Dream. Which parallels can be drawn? (keywords)

Short stories

The Moosy Tale

"No shit, man, no shit!" said Louis. "We are driving HOURS to get to this godforsaken party." "Relax, we should be there any minute, Louis. Right after this forest we should see the sign ’da partey’," Jenny replied annoyed. From the backseat they heard John fart gently. "Sorry guys, my guts are still severely congested." "No shit, you say it!" Louis pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose to protect himself against the gas of DOOM. "Do you have to say these things all the time?" Jenny really hoped they would arrive at the party soon. "Meh, the smell was just really disgusting..." They drove silently for the next 10 minutes, but there was no end of the forest in sight. It was long after nightfall, and Louis began to get tired. "Man, my eyelids are getting reeeally heavy, guys..." Louis yawned "Maybe we shouldn't have come in the first place, we could have made a sweet night at my house, instead of driving through the night!" Jenny said annoyed. "No shi…-" "WATCH OUT!" Jenny was pointing out the front window at a giant moose standing right in the middle of the street. Its eyes were focused on the car. He did not move a single stop to evade the three teenagers. Louis dodged only one second before they would have crashed into the moose, and instead they collided with a tree next to the street. Darkness and silence… As Louis opened his eyes it was as if his lids were still closed, his head felt as if something heavy had crashed against them. His body was in excruciating pain when he moved even a little. Slowly he began to work himself out of the car wreck trying not to think about the pain, while he tried to think about what had happened in the last hour. But the only thing he remembered was the dumb-looking face of a moose staring at them. He finally managed to open the door and worked himself out of the car, it was a pretty painful procedure and he was fatigued as he sat down on the ground next to the car. After letting himself come to breath and recover from the accident, he looked where his two friends were. He was stunned as he looked inside the car, and found no one. They were gone. "Jenny! John! Where are you? " he screamed. Looking around he saw something glistening in the light, taking a closer look he recognized that it was Jenny's necklace she always wore around her neck. Right next to it he found imprints of hooves, like the ones moose had. "Goddammit!" was the first thought Louis had, and the second one, "How does a moose taste??" He didn't know but he felt that his stomach definitely wanted to. Louis glanced at his watch noticing that he must have been unconscious for at least two hours. His stomach growled instantly as Louis thought again about the moose. Louis shook his head, took a fisherman's friend and searched for a trace of his friends or the moose. Following the trace, the forest was getting denser and darker, till Louis could not even see his own hands anymore. His eyes were getting tired again, but as Louis saw a small house in a clearing of the forest, he was wide awake. It was not bigger than an arbor and run down, but it looked sweet in the middle of the forest. Louis hoped this would be the end of his torture … "Jenny , John?! Are you in there?" A whimpering answered, and Louis began to run. He opened the door carefully, took a look to his right and to his left. The moonlight coming from outside turned the small house into a strange scenario, but it was still too dark to see a thing. Louis waited a moment, waiting for a moan, or any sound. After a few minutes he sneaked into the direction of something which looked like a chair. Moving slowly but steady into its direction, a gust of wind shut the door with a loud noise. Everything was completely dark again. Louis felt his fear rising again. He glanced around, blinking his eyes, but he could not even see silhouettes. He groped for something which could give him hold. His heart beat like a drum, as he suddenly touched something covered with fur. He heard a quiet “click”. The light turned on, and Louis saw that the thingy he had touched was the leg of the moose he had seen. Backing off, he now saw the whole picture: Three moose were lying on the floor around him, next to them he could see empty bottles of booze. Next to the moose he saw Jenny and John, sleeping. Louis now was able to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. His friends, apparently not injured, followed the moose after the car crash to this hut, and because they had no chance of reaching the other party, they decided to have fun with three giant moose. Louis felt his anger rising…

I Shot the Deputy

It was a few minutes to nightfall when somewhere you could hear three sentinels sing: “I shot the sheriff!....” “Are you guys f****** stoned again? What am I paying you for?” Doug the Head said with his hoarse voice and went back into his office, to devote himself to his drug deals again. Somewhere near the entrance five hidden policemen were observing the house of the drug dealer. At nightfall the sheriff ordered to engage. The policemen quickly crushed the sentinels and approached the door. The sheriff smashed the rotting door, which flew into flinders and shouted: “On the ground f****** asshole!” In the same moment a window broke, you could hear the broken pieces of glass hitting the ground and Doug the Head jumped out. “Get him!” the Sheriff yelled. Two of the policemen saw him as a black shadow running down a narrow pass to the creek and followed him. Having finally reached the creek, Doug hid a plastic bag filled with drugs, took two pieces of rotten driftwood, put his weed on one of them and quickly mounted the other one. As the policemen arrived out of breath, they opened fire. To dodge the bullets Doug dived down and held on to the driftwood to escape from the bluecoats. After the successful escape he felt unobserved, so he searched for the driftwood carrying his drugs and swam to the sandy bank of the river to relax."I´m the greatest, even better than Al Capone or Toni Montana," the Head shouted confident of victory. Celebrating his victory he became careless, lit a joint and took a deep breath. Suddenly he heard a gently voice singing the loveliest melody:"I shot Doug the Head, but I´m not the officer!" Doug collected his mind, drew his weapon and turned around. He saw a bluecoat taking aim. The roaring shot went through the man’s ribcage right into his heart. The deadly injured man fell to the ground and his gun slipped from his hand. "I told you a**hole." These were the last words he heard, before he closed his eyes and fell into a never ending sleep.

Doom in Volley

John was running though the fields. He was running over rough and smooth. The sun was shining, the wheat was dancing in the wind. But he had no time to enjoy the beauty of nature. He was already out of breath, but he was still escaping from the soldiers who were after him with hunting dogs and guns. The barking was getting closer to him. On the horizon he saw the sea. After about three hours of endless running he reached it. On the beach he made out a harbour not far away. He thought he could escape by getting on one of the ships which were lying in the harbour near the coast he was standing on. Because of that he ran to the harbour. There he decided to get on the biggest ship because he thought there would be enough places to hide. John was a deserter. He had fled from war and now he was a blind passenger on a ship. After a while on the ship he was found by the captain. The crew decided to confine him on the brig. Their plan was to force him to step on the plank and to jump from the ship into the cold water. That meant John was condemned to death. When he was thrown in in the end he survived by clinging on to driftwood. With this driftwood he was able to reach the coast after days on the sea. He was so happy that he had survived. He was feeling the sand between his fingers and the sun on his head. After a while he decided to get up and go into the woods nearby. After having walked for about 10 minutes he heard voices behind him. He turned around and saw some soldiers looking at him in a gaze. Especially the sergeant. John had angst. He knew that it was too late to escape. So he decided to close his eyes and be prepared to die. He heard the sergeant shout: “Company!...Attention!...Shoulder arms!...Ready!...Aim!...Fire!” They fired an immeasurable mass of bullets. The last John heard was the sibilance of the bullets.

A shot of love

Anna was going for a walk with her dog Lissy. It was in wee hours of the morning when the weather was cloudy and coolish. Lissy really enjoyed their walk and ran in the woods which were wet from the morning dew. Suddenly there was a shot out of a sound-insulated muzzle.

The Millers had their lunch on their veranda and were talking about their work. George, who is a night watchman, told her about last night’s happenings in the airport area he guards and Susan told him about her funny experiences with a scared patient in her medical practice. As usually after his night shift George went upstairs to go to bed. Susan took her husband’s coat because herswas in the wash and went out. When he lay down he recognized the noisy bang of the closing front door. Susan walked towards the woods which are close to their house. By the time she reached the woods and listened to the twittering of the birds she chose the forest road to the glade. But within sight of the foggy clearing she had a strange feeling. As she approached the lodge she perceived a naked leg which rose from behind it. Mrs. Miller got frightened, her blood ran cold and she suddenly heard a knock. She turned around in panic, ready to defend herself, but then she saw eased that it only was a woodpecker. Susan breathed a sigh of relieve. When she warily moved closer to the bloodless leg, which lay motionless on the muddy forest floor, she realized with fear that the leg belonged to a slim female body. Filled with horror she noticed the dried-up blood on the coat of the woman. Horrified she discerned that the woman was dead. Suddenly there were sounds in the wood straight in front of Susan which attracted her attention, as she looked around a brown dog jumped out of the woods and raced towards her. She screamed in panic and fell on the ground. Everything went black. When she regained consciousness, something wet slobbered over her cheeks. The dog had lain down next to her head and licked her face. When she got up from the ground again,she took out her mobile phone with shivering hands and dialled the number of the police.

Half an hour later the policemen stood around the lodge and secured the evidence. An ambulance man bandaged Susan’s head injury with a plaster, which she received from her hitting a stone. One policeman stood by Mrs. Miller and questioned her. But understandably she could not say anything about the crime. So he asked her to take the dog with her because it barked at everyone who tried to touch it and then she was allowed to go home.

Back at home Susan told her husband excitedly every detail of what she had witnessed in the woods. She noticed his nervous behaviour and paused with her report. George was standing by the window and looking out of it every once in a while. The dog was whining and walking about the house. Then he sniffed all around as if he was looking for someone. Susan looked at her husband and asked herself whether he had something to do with the crime.

In the same moment the door bell rang and Susan looked through the window. She made out the policeman who had interviewed her and was about to open the door, when she heard a bang and turned around. Her husband had run away through the back door. He was rushing straight to their car. As the policeman perceived the sound of the closing car door he dashed towards their car. But Mr. Miller had already started it and drove with squealing tyres away in direction of the woods nearby. Susan could not believe it. She was stunned. What was going on? Why was her husband in such a panic? And why did he drive away? She stood in front of their house. As she looked up to the sky she noticed the grey clouds. She saw the branches waving in the stormy wind. The first cold raindrops began to fall and soon Susan was soaking wet but she could not move.

George drove as fast as possible. The raindrops fell on the front shield. He heard the windshield wiper moving steadily and this noise calmed him down. Thousands of questions were whirling through his head, but he had no answer to one of it. The rain became stronger and stronger. Soon it was hailing, the sky was almost black, and he heard the thunder and saw the lightning over the sky. Suddenly there was a loud bang and at the same time a lightning struck a big tree. The tree burst and fell on the road. George braked hard and tried to avoid it,but he failed and drove against the trunk. Then he fainted.

When he regained consciousness he did not know where he was. George lay in a bed in a room he did not know. He closed his eyes again because he felt an acute pain in his chest. His leg was bandaged. George heard a closing door and pretended to be asleep. Susan came in and sat down on a chair by the bed. She had so many questions and she could not believe what the police had told her about the dead woman, the affair of her husband.

The Chance To Be a Hero

It was a perfect day and the market square of the castle was crowded. The juggler earned as much money as he has never done before. The idler – as always – was just relaxing on top of the castle wall. Lots of people were cheering and staring at the juggler and were admiring his skills. The idler was a beneficiary concerning money affairs. He never helped his brother in order to be conducive to the subsistence. The idler’s attitude towards life was a sluggish one: He was living a languorous lifestyle. As he was sitting on the sun-drenched mural stones he felt the fresh foam from the seaside in his face. He breathed the nippy maritime air and watched the waves breaking against the castle wall. While he was just sitting there he turned his head and saw trough an arrow slit a few ships appearing on the horizon. As fast as they had come, they were gone again. They faded away behind the silhouettes of the forest which ranged from the front of the castle down to the coast. For a second he had a foreboding, but he was not up to worry and after he peered at the guardians in the gatehouse he pushed the thought aside. But shortly after, he heard strange sounds out of the forest. First it was only a gentle rhythm, but it got louder and louder. Some people of the crowd near the juggler looked around nervously. Especially the two guardians in the gatehouse sharpened their senses. Now the sound became clear: Soldiers marching consistently in their heavy armor towards the gate of the castle. Meanwhile the sound grew to an ominous tremor and in the same moment the guardians screamed: “Enemies! Enemy at the gates,” as they avoided a few arrows. Suddenly the whole castle population got in a flap and everywhere people screamed and ran crisscross over the marketplace. The soldiers placed their ladders at the castlewall and drove a battering ram in front of the gate to break it. All this happened so fast that the juggler and the idler were horror-stricken and did not move. They were ripped out of their trance as the rain of burning arrows came over them. In this moment the idler wanted to run away and save his life, but a person who screamed of endless pain drew his attention. It was the juggler, who was hit by an arrow into his thigh. He lay on the ground and could not move because the arrow had gouged completely through his thigh. The juggler took the opportunity and grabbed a shield of a dead guardian next to him. Under its cover he made his way down from the wall to the centre of the marketsquare to rescue his brother. Everywhere dead bodies lay in their own blood. Buildings were on fire and the air smelled disgusting of burned flesh. The smoke even made it difficult to breathe. Arrows were bouncing with a dull sound off the shield every few seconds. When they flew through the air they made a whizzing noise and mixed with the rhythmic crashing of the battering ram it sounded like an orchestra from hell. As his way lead him alongside a small house, a fireball of a catapult crushed into it and threw the juggler away. He lay on the ground and wanted to grab the shield again as he noticed that he was chattering frightfully. Nevertheless he stood up again and walked towards the painful screams. When he reached his brother, he tried to lay him crossways over his back. The juggler stopped screaming and his eyes had a rigid and hopeless look. The noise at the gate got louder and louder. Now the idler took the juggler and carried him away from the marketsquare. When he turned around a corner and disappeared from view of the marketquare he heard the big oak-gate splintering into a thousand pieces. Now it was obvious: The enemies had entered the castle. The idler remembered a secret tunnel, which was the last chance for them to escape. He ran through the destroyed roads of the castle with the juggler on his back. His pulsating heart began to hurt. He was reathing hard and sweat was running down his face. He just reached the entrance of the tunnel at the end of an empty street, when behind him a group of adversarial archers appeared, who aimed on the two refugees. The idler looked at them for a second, then he jumped into the tunnel and at the same time a shot of a catapult crashed into the entrance of the tunnel. The entrance was filled up with pebble stones and there was nothing more than darkness...

No Name Yet

It was a Saturday night. Steve walked down the small path which passed the mill. ”Oh my god!!! My damn f******* head. I really drank too much,” he cursed. It was difficult for him to concentrate on his way. He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette. After a quick search he found his lighter and lit it. He thought about how to get home as fast as possible. He decided to walk through the old Black Forest, then across the rotten bridge which passed the Torry river and straight along the dirt track to his farm. The Black Forest was known for his spooky stories. There were many of them about it. While he was thinking about this he heard something behind him. He turned around, but there was nothing. “Damn, you are really drunk, you are hallucinating!” he thought and flipped away his cigarette. “It was only a deer or a rabbit,” he said to himself to reduce his fear. After a few minutes he heard the same sound again. He immediately turned around, but again there was nothing. Somewhere behind him he heard some steps which broke little twigs. He was afraid. He started walking faster and faster. Next to him he heard the floating of the river which was really frightening and he smelled the rotten trees and the decaying ground. Again. The snapping of footsteps which break through the underwood. Something was behind him. ”I have to get out of here,” he thought. He began to run in order to get out of the forest as fast as possible. Suddenly he felt a bash on his head and he started to gyrate. He could not hold himself on his feet and fell into the river. It was cold. Very cold. He came into a vortex and was pulled under water. The cold water flooded his mouth. It tasted like old fish and rotten plants. “No. This can not be it for me!” With his whole strength he tried to get to the surface of the water. His head broke through the surface and he took a deep breath. He hoped for an opportunity to get out of the water. It was very foggy and he could not see very far. But suddenly a big shadow grew up straight ahead. He tried to escape the danger but it was too late. He smashed against the pillar of the bridge and everything became dark.

He awoke lying on the ground in the forest. It was cold and wet. He looked up and saw the branch which had bounced back and knocked him out while he was running through the forest. He stood up and walked on holding his head which hurt very much. He did not really concentrate on his way while walking. While reeling on he did not see the stone which was lying in his way. He tripped over it, lost the balance and fell into the river...

THE REVENGE OF THE DARK WHISKERS

I walked down a lonely road. My sentinel job was very serious to me. I was carrying my rifle over my shoulder. But on this evening something was not as usual. Another thing that made me feel uncomfortable was that I hadn’t seen the deputy sheriff all day. Even the sky seemed to be darker than yesterday. No birds were flying around, not even a sound from a living creature. I had a bad feeling about that.

I was hit by waves of a rotten stench rising up from an unfamiliar place. I felt tired and sick. But I had to do my duty. I made my way along the dark forest track to figure out where the smell came from. Nervously I drew out my weapon as a precaution.

The smell became stronger and stronger and a few minutes later I saw the most terrible scene I had ever seen in my whole life: On a clearance I detected the dead body of my deputy sheriff. His eyes were glassy and he was covered in his own blood, which created little red rills running together in a small river to my feet. I was so scared that I could not move any more. I couldn’t turn my eyes from this massacre. After I had conquered the shock I realized the little whiskers between the fingers of the victim. This was something I couldn’t understand. What a cruel person was able to do such a psychotic crime. And why were there whiskers in the fingers of the body? Thoughts were flashing through my head like bullets of an automatic gun. But I didn’t find a logical solution. My thoughts were interrupted by a little sound from somewhere behind. I was not alone here. Sweat was running down my face. I wanted to run away and forget all what I have seen.

Suddenly I realized a dark shadow behind me. A sick laugh ripped me out of my trance. I tried to face my killer, but it was too late. I felt the breath of hell in my neck and then the world around me fade away became red, the pitch dark. ….

The two machetes cut of his head from his body as they crashed in his neck from both sides. His lifeless body sank to the ground in the lake of his own blood.

One week later the butchery was discovered by a man, who was called Mr. C. He was famous for clarifying mysterious crime cases. He found out that the sick murderer always treated his victims equally and his hallmark was that he gave them his own whiskers in there hand. But suddenly Mr. C vanished without a trace…

A rustling behind him

John was running though the fields, running over rough and smooth. The sun was shining and the wheat was dancing in the wind. But he had no time to enjoy the beauty of nature. He was already out of breath, but he was still escaping from the soldiers who were hunting him with dogs and guns. The barking was getting closer to him. On the horizon he saw the sea. After some hours of running he reached it. On the beach he could make out a harbour not far away. He thought he could escape by getting on one of the ships which were lying at the pier near the coast he was standing. Because of that he was running to the harbour. When he reached it, he decided to get on the biggest ship because he thought there would be enough places to hide. John was a deserter. He was fleeing from war which was happing at the moment and now he was a blind passenger on the ship. This should be the worst decision John had ever made. John hid himself in a lifeboat. After one day at sea, John was very hungry and decided to find something to eat. He spied out of his hideout and saw nobody. So he decided to get out and to sneak into the kitchen. When he was already in the kitchen he saw a shadow of a person having a hatchet in his hand. John was scared to death. Then he felt the pommel crashing hard in his neck. John was confused and sank into the deep dark. When he woke he looked around and found himself lying in a small lifeboat. John looked around, but all he saw was water. He decided to paddle in one direction because he didn’t know where to go. After one day on sea he was so thirsty that he decided to drink saltwater. What John didn’t know was that this would make him even thirstier. John was afflicted by pain in his stomach and limbs. After one more day John knew that he was condemned to death. But then in the morning he saw land. He was so happy that he started to paddle very fast. After some minutes he noticed that this was a bad idea. So in the afternoon he finally reached the land. He was so happy that he had survived. He was feeling the sand between his fingers and the sun on his head. After a while he heard rushing water. He stood up and ran to the water. He realized that it was fresh water. John was so emotional. Then while drinking the water he noticed a rustling out of the copse behind him. Then he saw the arrow tip looking out of his chest.