Empty Seat Preaction
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Make a mind map of the title “Empty Seat”. What comes to mind?
imperfection feil sneak a look tyvtitte/tjuvkikke stifle dempe heaving riste instinctively på instinkt nonchalantly ubekymret/ubekymra crinkled his brow rynket pannen / rynka panna
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About the Author
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indecisive ubesluttsom/tvilrådig
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sobbing hulke
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GLOSSARY
He heard somebody sobbing. It was the woman sitting next to him. At first he hadn’t noticed. He’d simply spotted the empty seat when he boarded the bus and sat down in it. But once he was settled in he heard a strange sound like an imperfection in a machine wheel. Click, click, click, click, rhythmic, constant. Hard to tell what it was, what with the bus noises and all, but after a while he identified it. The woman next to him was sobbing. He turned just enough to sneak a look. She wasn’t trying to cause a scene or anything, since she had buried her face in her hands to stifle the sound. But she couldn’t hide the depth of her sorrow, no matter what she did. Her shoulders were heaving, yet the way she was being bounced around by the bus made it look kind of silly. What in the world could cause such unhappiness? He faced forward and instinctively leaned away from the woman. He didn’t want people to think he had anything to do with her. But he had to hold on to the seat in front to keep his balance, and even then he rocked a little. He glanced at his fellow passengers. A college boy in the aisle nearby was staring at him, but he looked away when he realized he was being watched. Too obvious. No doubt what he was thinking. He glared, wanting to catch his eye one more time to let him know he had obviously nothing to do with the woman. But the college boy not only looked away nonchalantly, but even turned his back on him. No one else paid him any attention. She kept sobbing. Impossible to tell how long she’d been at it. But she’d begun long before he sat down. The other passengers would have to be deaf not to hear it. Some were already glancing his way. The person in the seat in front turned to look, then quickly faced front again without showing any emotion. He crinkled his brow to show how disgusted he was, but even that didn’t prove he had nothing to do with the woman. A couple of indecisive seconds later he slid over until he was more off the seat than on.
Yuan Qiongquiong
Yuan Qiongquiong (1950–) is a Taiwanese novelist, essayist, screenwriter and poet who focuses on women’s role in the family and workplace and on battling stereotypical female roles. Often her stories end unresolved, and the reader is left to reconcile inner conflict with external experience. Written in 1988, this short story was first published in the collection Tales of Tapei.
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