the watcher
This incredible short story is about a little boy named Charlie Bradley, who isn't like all the other kids his age. He was a very sick boy. Charlie had a loving mother who cared for him when he was sick. They seemed to have both one terrible thing in common, a bad chest. The Bradleys did not own a television set, so Charlie had to find different means of entertainment on his long sick days at home. He learned that if he kept quiet and still, the adults would have labeled him to be part of the furniture. On his days home, Charlie received glimpses into the adult world of common topics like misery and scandals. These relations and encounters with the adults had drastically matured Charlie before his time. Later on that year, Mabel Bradley, his mother, was sent to the hospital because the condition of her chest had worsened. When Charlie's mother got sick, his father took charge of the chores in the house. Charlie did not like his father very much, he described him as "...a desolate, lanky, drooping weed of a man who married late in his life but nevertheless had been easily domesticated."(3) His mother's sickness and departure seriously afflicted his father. In spite of the fact that Charlie portrays of his father, he was
Stanley was the only one of the birds that he felt pity for. He spent all his days chained to a stick by a piece of bailer twine looped around his leg. In captivity, poor Stanley's comb drooped pathetically, watching all the other chickens running restlessly in field. Mrs. Bradley kept him there to prevent Stanley from fertilizing the eggs and creating blood spots in the yolks. Charlie treated Stanley like a pet dog; he walked him around the barn until he started to get out of hand. Stanley was afraid of Charlie. As Charlie approached him, Stanley would start to tug severely on the twine rapped around his leg until he would fall and let Charlie stroke him. One day filled with anxiety Charlie approached Stanley. Calling his name out a numerous amount of times, "Here Stanley, Stanley,"(22) not knowing how to call a bird. Charlie viciously kills Stanley and buries him the biggest of the two manure piles. On his stay at his grandmother's, Charlie made a new friend Robert Thompson. He was Aunt Evelyn's new boyfriend. Thompson was well educated and was studying to become a doctor. Grandma Bradley and Thompson did not get along at all; she refused to feed him and constantly threatened him. Charlie knew three things that made Robert Thompson a remarkable human being. He was going to write a book about a poet called Allen Ginsberg, who he actually met a year prior. Second, he knew a tremendous amount about what made people tick and how to exploit it against them. Finally he was a Buddhis
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1007
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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