Sentence The Onehundredandfortieth
It was the nightmare that woke her, and her screaming which woke everyone else; she hadn't had that kind of dream before, and she felt that it must belong to whatever had happened to her and which had resulted in the stitching around her neck – because of her youth, well, that was relative and something of a moot point, her skin seemed to be healing quickly and she wondered how she'd be able to take the stitches out; she hadn't seen anyone with a pair of scissors, or a sharp knife; she had come to the conclusion that she must have stumbled on a place where people were living a life from the past, either for historical research, or as a lifestyle commitment, like the guys she met once who were setting off to Ireland to live on The Lake Isle of Innisfree in some kind of homage to Yeats – she'd never heard how they got on, whether they were even allowed to go there, for it must surely be a protected site because of it's place in Yeats' canon; but what period these people, this family, were living in seemed to be quite primitive – although she had heard that the Quakers, or the Shakers, or some Mennonite people eschewed bought implements or tools, only using what they made themselves, and forgoing the benefits of buttons (too showy) or zippers (too erotic) and so far she hadn't seen much in the way of clothing other than furs, with various pieces seemingly cannibalized from larger ones and joined to others with no concern for colour or pattern matching, but she thought she might have glimpsed some woven fabric on the older woman, who had a noble resplendence in her bearing and demeanour and something of the lorelei in her eyes – no matter; thoughts seemed to go round in circles or ellipses in her mind – of the cause of her injury there was no hint or clue, though she did have normal recall of her cousins and her life at home; and while she had no knowledge of what had brought her to this place, she did remember waking, or half-waking, lying on
the floor of a great cavern, dressed in her normal clothes, in pain and distress and feeling as if she had been knocked down by a bus; someone had tried to help her to her feet but she had been so fragile, that she could neither stand or walk, so she had been carried, though by one person or more she was unable to say; she must have been undressed and put onto this bed of sorts, where she had lapsed into some sort of lachrymose delirium all sweats and gallons of tears, with a kind of dressing around her neck, and even now it was impossible to say for how long; she had been off the shelf-bed a few times. crouching in a distant corner to pee, but had to be helped back on to the rock shelf; because of the location, she could never really say whether it was night or day, for the light never varied too much, except that when the people had a fire, just out of sight round a rock face, there was a degree of lightening the gloom, but when it was dark, it was all-encompassing; as she became stronger, over a period of days, or weeks, she was uncertain, she spoke with her rescuers more, but they either didn't understand her language or maybe her cracked and rasping voice was too difficult for them to make out the words she tried to form, and so she progressed no-where with her questions and got precious few answers – she asked which day of the week it was, how long she had been with them, where were they in relation to the City Centre, and got baffled looks and fearful glances; she was beginning, however, to work out their names, though whether they were Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. or anything else, she had no idea and guessed that they were nicknames rather than proper ones; the older man seemed to be Ugg, and the younger. Ogg (she smiled, for he looked nothing like Angus Og of the Bog, except for the wild hair; and the women – she had counted three so far – seemed to be Umm, Emm and Omm – and she supposed that Emm must be from Emma or Emily, but she had no ideas about the others; and as for the children, only Ee was sufficiently in her presence for her to identify – and since the night she had been singing a version of Let's Call The Whole Thing Off that she had been making up as an exercise to help evaluate whatever damage she had sustained to her brain and memory, Ee had slept with her; at least she now knew that Ee was a girl, but her size was no help in trying to work out her age, for she was small, as indeed they all seemed to be, from her vantage point of the rock bed, with it's fur covered straw mattress; but the nightmare was the most vivid and fearful for as long as she could recall – and principally consisted of her being in deep water, neither hot nor cold, keeping herself afloat with arms and legs, and then as she tired she began to sink and that was when she saw them coming for her: a shoal of the biggest and most horrendously vicious fish she could imagine – she truly could not imagine anything like them, for they looked like nothing so much as giant red-eyed piranhas, all intent on eating her and she was so tired she could not rise to the surface, so tired and weak she could not swim away and they simply surrounded her giving her no escape and, unable to breathe, her lungs were bursting, and when one, looking like The Daddy
of Them All lunged for her face and it's teeth were bared and directed at her eyes and she didn't care about drowning, so she just opened her mouth but instead of gulping down seawater and flooding her lungs, a piercing scream came out, which shocked her to the core, and woke Ee with a start and brought others running, one with a brand from a fire they must keep burning through the night, and soon had what seemed like the whole family standing around, anxious and distressed from the fright of her screams, still sleepy and dazed but also happy that she was herself as fine as could be if a little pale and with bloodshot eyes and she realized several had weapons which must be with them for protection – but from what?
It was the nightmare that woke her, and her screaming which woke everyone else; she hadn't had that kind of dream before, and she felt that it must belong to whatever had happened to her and which had resulted in the stitching around her neck – because of her youth, well, that was relative and something of a moot point, her skin seemed to be healing quickly and she wondered how she'd be able to take the stitches out; she hadn't seen anyone with a pair of scissors, or a sharp knife; she had come to the conclusion that she must have stumbled on a place where people were living a life from the past, either for historical research, or as a lifestyle commitment, like the guys she met once who were setting off to Ireland to live on The Lake Isle of Innisfree in some kind of homage to Yeats – she'd never heard how they got on, whether they were even allowed to go there, for it must surely be a protected site because of it's place in Yeats' canon; but what period these people, this family, were living in seemed to be quite primitive – although she had heard that the Quakers, or the Shakers, or some Mennonite people eschewed bought implements or tools, only using what they made themselves, and forgoing the benefits of buttons (too showy) or zippers (too erotic) and so far she hadn't seen much in the way of clothing other than furs, with various pieces seemingly cannibalized from larger ones and joined to others with no concern for colour or pattern matching, but she thought she might have glimpsed some woven fabric on the older woman, who had a noble resplendence in her bearing and demeanour and something of the lorelei in her eyes – no matter; thoughts seemed to go round in circles or ellipses in her mind – of the cause of her injury there was no hint or clue, though she did have normal recall of her cousins and her life at home; and while she had no knowledge of what had brought her to this place, she did remember waking, or half-waking, lying on
the floor of a great cavern, dressed in her normal clothes, in pain and distress and feeling as if she had been knocked down by a bus; someone had tried to help her to her feet but she had been so fragile, that she could neither stand or walk, so she had been carried, though by one person or more she was unable to say; she must have been undressed and put onto this bed of sorts, where she had lapsed into some sort of lachrymose delirium all sweats and gallons of tears, with a kind of dressing around her neck, and even now it was impossible to say for how long; she had been off the shelf-bed a few times. crouching in a distant corner to pee, but had to be helped back on to the rock shelf; because of the location, she could never really say whether it was night or day, for the light never varied too much, except that when the people had a fire, just out of sight round a rock face, there was a degree of lightening the gloom, but when it was dark, it was all-encompassing; as she became stronger, over a period of days, or weeks, she was uncertain, she spoke with her rescuers more, but they either didn't understand her language or maybe her cracked and rasping voice was too difficult for them to make out the words she tried to form, and so she progressed no-where with her questions and got precious few answers – she asked which day of the week it was, how long she had been with them, where were they in relation to the City Centre, and got baffled looks and fearful glances; she was beginning, however, to work out their names, though whether they were Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist. or anything else, she had no idea and guessed that they were nicknames rather than proper ones; the older man seemed to be Ugg, and the younger. Ogg (she smiled, for he looked nothing like Angus Og of the Bog, except for the wild hair; and the women – she had counted three so far – seemed to be Umm, Emm and Omm – and she supposed that Emm must be from Emma or Emily, but she had no ideas about the others; and as for the children, only Ee was sufficiently in her presence for her to identify – and since the night she had been singing a version of Let's Call The Whole Thing Off that she had been making up as an exercise to help evaluate whatever damage she had sustained to her brain and memory, Ee had slept with her; at least she now knew that Ee was a girl, but her size was no help in trying to work out her age, for she was small, as indeed they all seemed to be, from her vantage point of the rock bed, with it's fur covered straw mattress; but the nightmare was the most vivid and fearful for as long as she could recall – and principally consisted of her being in deep water, neither hot nor cold, keeping herself afloat with arms and legs, and then as she tired she began to sink and that was when she saw them coming for her: a shoal of the biggest and most horrendously vicious fish she could imagine – she truly could not imagine anything like them, for they looked like nothing so much as giant red-eyed piranhas, all intent on eating her and she was so tired she could not rise to the surface, so tired and weak she could not swim away and they simply surrounded her giving her no escape and, unable to breathe, her lungs were bursting, and when one, looking like The Daddy
of Them All lunged for her face and it's teeth were bared and directed at her eyes and she didn't care about drowning, so she just opened her mouth but instead of gulping down seawater and flooding her lungs, a piercing scream came out, which shocked her to the core, and woke Ee with a start and brought others running, one with a brand from a fire they must keep burning through the night, and soon had what seemed like the whole family standing around, anxious and distressed from the fright of her screams, still sleepy and dazed but also happy that she was herself as fine as could be if a little pale and with bloodshot eyes and she realized several had weapons which must be with them for protection – but from what?
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