A night on the streets

1. A night on the streets Success Criteria Have you used a range of different sentence structures? Have you used a wide variety of vocabulary? Have you referred to the senses to bring your writing to life? Is your work accurate?

2. I have never known cold like it. I didn’t think it was possible for the tips of my hair to be cold but it turns out, it is. Arctic fingers creep through my body like a poison, infecting all of my extremities and my vital organs. My breaths are ragged as my lungs shiver and shake. My skin pales to a deathly blue as my weary heart tires of pumping ice around my body. My stomach gnashes and gnaws at me, angry that I haven’t attended to it in hours. After a while its fury subsides and it lapses into a sorry state of despair, just like the rest of me. If it’s a really bad night, I find myself hallucinating. Joyous images dance before my haggard face, torturing me with their loveliness. The table laid for Christmas dinner… Plates piled high with steaming mountains of delicious food; smiling faces; jolly music… A summer barbecue… Lazy days in the sunshine… Warmth kissing my skin… Chargrilled burgers and sausages washed down with a cool glass of Coke… What I would give now for even the most blackened of sausages: you know, the one that everyone else rejects. Food. Always images of food. A noise jolts me back to my hellish reality. A yell followed by another. Are they coming this way? Do I need to shrink back further into my stinking doorway or should I move altogether? What if it’s someone looking for trouble? What if it’s the police? My mind shifts into overdrive, imagining all of the hideous scenarios in which I might feature tonight but the noise seems to move away from me. I breathe a ragged sigh and go back to my waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. But for what? Will I be like this forever?