Then the long nights, that were also days, in the hospital. And the long blanks, that were also nights. Needles, and angled glass rods to suck water through. Needles, and curious enamel wedges slid under your middle. Needles, and - needles and needles and needles. Like swarms of persistent mosquitoes with unbreakable drills. The way a pincushion feels, if it could feel. Or the target of a porcupine. Or a case of not just momentary but permanently endured static electricity after you scuff across a woolen rug and then put your finger on a light switch. Even food was a needle - a jab into a vein...

("For The Rest Of Her Life")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés surgery recovery hospital needles



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Then the bandit turned tail and broke for the open.

Greeley hit the sidewalk only seconds after him, big as he was and with a panic-stricken woman to detour around. A slice of hindmost heel was all he saw of the man. The store entrance adjoined a corner; that gave the fugitive a few added seconds of shelter, and as Greeley flashed around it in turn, again the breaks were the lawbreaker's.

There was a school midway up the street toward the next avenue. It was a couple of minutes past three now, and a torrent of young humanity came pouring out of the building by every staircase and exit, flooding the street. In through them the sprinting man plunged, knocking over right and left the ones that didn't get out of his way quickly enough. If it had been hazardous to take a shot at him in the store, it would have been criminal out here.

The kids parted, screaming in delighted excitement, as Greeley tore through them after the bandit with uptilted gun, but he couldn't just callously knock them flat like the man before him had. He sidestepped, got out of their way as often as they did his, and he began to fall behind the other, lose ground.

The kids weren't just on that one street - they had dispersed over the entire vicinity by now, for a radius of a block or more in every direction, in frisky, milling, homeward-bound groups. Through them the quarry zigzagged, pulling slowly but surely away. He kept going in a straight line, because it was to his advantage to do so - the presence of these kids made for greater safety - but he was already far enough in the lead so that when he should finally decide to turn off - the answer was pretty obvious; a taxi or a doorway or a basement. Any of them would do.

("Detective William Brown")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés cops police chase burglary bandit footchase



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Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody.

He was. He was going to shake hands with death.

He wasn't particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn't have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn't going to be alive anymore ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn't used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he'd always kept it by him in the present. He couldn't visualize it. So he wasn't as unnerved by it as the average man would have been.

("3 Kills For 1")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés fear imagination death execution death-penalty death-sentence electric-chair corporal-punishment



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There's an innocuous explanation for everything. Everything is a coin that has two sides to it, and one side is innocuous but the other can be ominous.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés explanations ominous innocuous



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It's six o'clock; my drink is at the three-quarter mark - three-quarters down not three-quarters up - and the night begins.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés night dusk alcohol drink evening



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The big weekend rush is on. The big city emptying itself out at once. Just a skeleton crew left to keep it going until Monday morning. Everybody getting out - everybody but me, everybody but those who are coming here for me tonight. We're going to have the whole damned town to ourselves.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés new-york-city



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New York. The world's most dramatic city. Like a permanent short circuit, sputtering and sparking up into the night sky all night long. No place like it for living. And probably no place like it for dying.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés new-york-city



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I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés fear alcohol



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Now the evening's at its noon, its meridian. The outgoing tide has simmered down, and there's a lull-like the calm in the eye of a hurricane - before the reverse tide starts to set in.

The last acts of the three-act plays are now on, and the after-theater eating places are beginning to fill up with early comers; Danny's and Lindy's - yes, and Horn

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés night new-york-city twilight evening city-at-night midnight the-blue-hour



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I turn my head a little. The radio's caroling "Tonight," velvety smooth and young and filled with plaintive desire. Maria's song from West Side Story. I remember one beautiful night long ago at the Winter Garden, with a beautiful someone beside me. I tilt my nose and breathe in, and I can still smell her perfume, the ghost of her perfume from long ago. But where is she now, where did she go, and what did I do with her?

Our paths ran along so close together they were almost like one, the one they were eventually going to be. Thin fear came along, fear entered into it somehow, and split them wide apart.

Fear bred anxiety to justify. Anxiety to justify bred anger. The phone calls that wouldn't be answered, the door rings that wouldn't be opened. Anger bred sudden calamity.

Now there aren't two paths anymore; there's only one, only mine. Running downhill into the ground, running downhill into its doom.

("New York Blues")

Cornell Woolrich

Mots clés romance relationships break-up



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