Reader's Ink discussion

“ROCK” p.105. “Like the flick of foam on the crest of a tidal wave. The shout was born down on a thunderous roar. In the insulated chamber, sworn to long silence by the earth itself, the noise consumed everything in its path. The stone beneath Anna’s boot soles quaked. The Stokes chattered against the limestone. Anna could feel the frame ratcheting in her hands. The feeble clacking of metal was lost in the greater chaos. Helmet lights slashed in the darkness, cutting across each other in the void, vainly seeking the source of the racket. In a second Anna saw those beams turn from gold to brown. In another instant they were smothered completely.”…

Put yourself in Anna’s position after the rock slide, and found out she had crushed Frieda’s throat, and killed her. This is something I’ve pondered a lot, how would you feel and handle yourself if you were in the same situation.

I would've felt far more guilty than Anna seemed to. Obviously, her intent was not to kill and an entire rock slide caused her to land on Freida, but she seemed to cognitively GET IT that it wasn't her fault weirdly too quickly.

I like your point Ashley about guilt. Not sure if I'd thought specifically about that. But have pondered how I'd feel if due to me, someone lost their life. I've spent the last week at the hospital with a dear friend of my husbands that due to severe congestive heart failure, he past away two evenings ago. With heavy heart, I spent precious hours with his family all coming in from East coast, to support in any way I could, but knowing I was losing a dear friend. The kids were facing guilt as they had to stop a certain medication, and it threw him in awful reactions. We knew the possibility of him dying was huge, but happened sooner than expected. But to have him not suffering any more is huge. Thinking about Frieda, she knew that she had been hurt on purpose, and so Anna knew that too. I would have felt terrible if I had crunched her.

Carol- I'm so sorry to hear about the loss.

I tend to think everything is my fault, so I probably would've been like post-rescue Sondra as far as my mental state is concerned.

I just re-read your comment Julie, I thought I was the only one that did that. Guess I'm with good friends....