Here are the quotations for this week (December
28th to January 3rd):
1. (he) braced his back against the bulge of the red earthenware
to hold down the head. This gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the
most of it. Then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog ... to
and fro on the floor, up and down in great circles, but his eyes were red, and
he held on ...he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would
be banged to death, and, for the honour of his family, he preferred to be found
with his teeth locked...
2. From
time to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll across the hollow
of the high heavens, flick like a flag and disappear; or a meteor would crackle
from darkness to darkness trailing a shower of sparks behind. Then they could
see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe all tipped and laced with
strange colours - red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight
everything turned to one frost-bitten gray...
3. ...he
wanted to scratch, but that made it worse; and then he lay down on the sand and
rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake crumbs tickled
him worse and worse and worse ... it spoiled his temper, but it didn't make the
least difference to the cake-crumbs. They were inside his skin, and they
tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy ...
The
sources of last week's extracts (December 21st to 27th), as a number of people
have pointed out, are:
1. (...'He told
me' he said suddenly, ' that my home address was Jerusalem. You heard
that ?...') This is from "The Village that voted the Earth was
Flat" in A Diversity of Creatures.
2. (...'If you don't stop, I shall come
into your house - in this car - and drive upstairs and - kill you
!...') This is from "The Vortex" in A Diversity of
Creatures.
3. (...His right hand was upon
the doctor's collar, so that the two shook to one paroxysm, pendulums vibrating
together...) This is from "My Sunday at Home" in The Day's
Work.
Good wishes to all for
2004
John R
