Reading Response #3

So Arrow defeated the sniper that was going to assassinate the cellist, which was a tad disappointing. However, the cellist still has one performance left which still leaves the potential for a dead cellist. However, with Nermin suddenly killed and Arrow randomly reassigned a new mission by a Colonel that was just introduced to the story, I’m not sure how we’ll end up hearing about it. This seemed like an awfully random twist for the story to take so close to the end. I hope they explain the series of events that caused this or even why it’s happened. Hopefully it won’t be a drastic attempt to transition into a different story last minute.

Despite this random twist in plot, there was one particularly interesting development. This was Kenan’s decision to leave Mrs.Ristovski’s two water bottles behind. This was foreshadowed near the beginning of the story when Kenan described his frustration with Mrs.Ristovski’s rudeness and apparent lack of consideration for other. When he first promised to take her bottles and fill them for her, he debated leaving them right on her doorstep to teach her a bit of a lesson. Of course he decided against this for one reason or another at the time. My guess would be that he thought this would be immoral or out of character. This is what makes his decision particularly interesting. Watching people being shelled quite close to him obviously changed something in him. Whatever change occurred, he no longer felt bad about leaving Mrs.Ristovski’s bottles behind. I really look forward to seeing the interaction he has with Mrs.Ristovski’s when he returns. I wonder if he will rationalize his leaving the bottles to her, or is he will return to feeling bad.

I mentioned in an earlier journal how seeing each person narrate their experience shows you a lot about their character, especially in a time of war. This has clearly continued to be a very effective way of describing the character and the setting. Galloway continues with this theme of revealing aspect of character through war when one of Dragans old friends is shot relatively close to him. In this time of immense pressure we see him shut down and fail to act. He described how he feels like an observer in the world around him, not noticed by anybody, or able to do anything.