Short Essay on a Gap of Sky

797 Words4 Pages
Essay #1 The 2008 short story, A Gap of Sky by Anna Hope, deals with the issues of drugs and how one girl has to cope with the aftermath of a party involving drugs. She has a deadline to reach, and throughout the story she searches for the means to begin her work. The problem being that she is always getting distracted. The short story is written in a very direct way, and features language, which could easily have been spoken. There is no dialog in the text. It however does feature a few of Ellie’s outbursts of frustration. The writer is implicit in the way we can read about Ellie’s thoughts and feelings. The very direct way it is written enhances the pace of the story, and at no time is the pace slow. Nineteen year old Ellie of London wakes up after a party of heavy drinking and drug use. This is made clear through a series of flashbacks, she experiences as the memories of her previous shenanigans return to her. As she remembers the forthcoming deadline of a school paper, her immediate problems escalade as she becomes aware of her lack of printer ink. She decides to pick up some cigarettes and maybe even some coke, as she leaves her apartment. Throughout the story the reader begins to doubt whether or not she is actually hoping to buy some printer ink, or mainly focusses on scoring some drugs. On her quest trough the city, she is constantly distracted either by her own thoughts or some insignificant things, like a building missing in the sky, or a glove stuck on railing. This is possibly her subconscious self, attempting to delay her and therefor make her miss the opportunity to buy the printer ink. Where this to happen, she would have an excuse of then delaying her paper, and go get some coke instead. En route to the get her ink, she is at one point confronted with the thought of death, and she quickly starts convincing herself that she is going to be fine.
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