Lives

I read the Lives story, "Drama Unfolds at My Bus Stop." It was a story about a man who was waiting for the bus and there is a Oldsmobile coming down the road with a man who doesn't look conscious. Men eating sandwiches see what is happening and go and stop the car. The main guy takes care of the rest and calls 911. The man in the Oldsmobile is taken away in an ambulance and the main guy never finds out what happens to him after that.

The author did a great job at setting the scene and descriptions--I felt like I was there at the scene with him trying to help the hopeless, unconscious man. In the first sentence we are told that it is taking place in Brooklyn and this guy is going about a normal day, "I am in Brooklyn waiting for the bus the way most people wait for the bus: leaning dangerously over the curb." "Confidence leaks down my back in a thin stream, and I step through a series of actions absorbed from decades of watching procedural television." This sentence stuck out to me because it has a lot of depth and the wording is just so perfect. 

Something that I have learned from reading this story is that you can make a simple story come to life by writing it well. "I am dialing with one hand, while the other prods about his face and shoulders searching for the spot on the neck where the artery (vein?)." The main guy didn't just look for unconscious man's pulse, but he prods his body looking for that certain spot.