Page 213 - BRAVE NEW WORLD By Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
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Brave New World By Aldous Huxley
still hovered on the fringes of the group, "Go!" the
men shouted again. One of them bent down, took a
stone, threw it. "Go, go, go!" There was a shower of
stones. Bleeding, he ran away into the darkness.
From the red-lit kiva came the noise of singing. The
last of the boys had climbed down the ladder. He
was all alone.
All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare
plain of the mesa. The rock was like bleached bones
in the moonlight. Down in the valley, the coyotes
were howling at the moon. The bruises hurt him, the
cuts were still bleeding; but it was not for pain that
he sobbed; it was because he was all alone, because
he had been driven out, alone, into this skeleton
world of rocks and moonlight. At the edge of the
precipice he sat down. The moon was behind him;
he looked down into the black shadow of the mesa,
into the black shadow of death. He had only to take
one step, one little jump.
He held out his right
hand in the moonlight. From the cut on his wrist the
blood was still oozing. Every few seconds a drop fell,
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