friendship

Text a

Old friends live far apart. How do you feel? Do you try to keep in touch? Sometimes it's easy to put off writing letters, always thinking that there will be enough time tomorrow. However, as this story shows, sometimes we put it off too late. Maybe reading this story will make you start writing.

The taxi driver has only one letter left.

Foster Hanklow

He must be completely immersed in what he read, because I had to knock on the windshield to get his attention.

He finally looked up at me. "Can you drive?" I asked. He nodded, and when I got into the back seat, he said apologetically, "Sorry, I'm reading a letter." It sounds like he has a cold or something.

"I'm in no hurry," I said to him. "Go on reading this letter."

He shook his head. "I have read it several times. I think I can recite it. "

"A piece of information at home is worth a ton of gold," I said. "At least for me, because I always travel outside." I estimated that he was sixty or seventy years old, so I guessed, "Is it a song written by a child or a grandson?"

"Not family," he replied. "However," he went on to say, "if you think about it, it can also be regarded as a family. Old buddy Ed is my oldest friend. In fact, in the past, we always called each other' old friends'-that is, when we met. I'm just not good at writing. "

"I don't think everyone is so diligent in writing letters," I said. "I write very lazy. I see. Have you known him long? "

"Almost know for a lifetime. We played together when we were young, so our friendship is really long. "

"Go to school together?" .

"High school together? In fact, we are in the same class from elementary school to high school. "

"It's rare to see someone who has maintained such a long friendship," I said.

"Actually," the driver continued, "I have only seen him once or twice a year in the past 25 to 30 years. Because I moved out of my old neighborhood, I naturally lost contact, although you always keep it in mind. He was really a great person when he was here. "

"You just said he was' in'. You mean-?"

He nodded his head. I passed away two weeks ago.

"What a pity," I said. "It's not a taste to lose a friend, and it's even more unbearable to lose a real old friend."

He was driving and didn't reply to the text message. We were silent for a few minutes, but I knew he was still thinking about old Ed. When he spoke again, he talked to himself instead of me. "I really should keep in touch." Really, "he repeated," I really should-keep in touch. "

"Ming," I agreed, "we should all keep in touch with our old friends. However, there is always something, and it seems that I just can't afford the time. "

he gave a shrug of the shoulders. "We used to find time," he said. "It was mentioned in the letter." He handed me the letter. "Look at it."

"Thank you," I said, "but I don't want to read your letter. This is purely a private matter. "

The driver shrugged his shoulders. "Old Ed people are dead. Nothing personal. Nothing personal. Read it, "he urged.

This letter is written in pencil. The address says "old friend", and the first sentence reminds me of myself. "I've wanted to write for a long time, but I just-delayed." The letter continued that he often recalled the happy time when they lived in the same block. Some things mentioned in the letter may be very important to the driver, such as "that time Tim Xie broke the window, that Halloween, we tied up the door of old Mr. Parker, and that time Mrs. Culver always left us to scold after school."

"You two must have spent a lot of time together," I told him.

"As the letter said," he replied, "all we could spend at that time was time." He shook his head and sighed, "Time is frightening."

I feel a little sad in the next paragraph of the letter: "I wrote' old friend' at the beginning of the letter, because we have been old friends for so many years." There are not many people left among us. "

"You know," I said to him, "the letter said that there are not many people left, which is correct. For example, every time I go to an old class reunion, fewer and fewer people come. "

"Time waits for no one," said the driver.

"Have you two worked together before?" I asked him.

"No, but we were always together when we were not married. Later, both of them became family members, so they went to see each other from time to time. But in the last twenty or thirty years, Christmas cards have been mainly sent. Of course, we always write a few words on cards-usually about our respective families, isn't it, what the children are doing, who moved to where, and added a little grandson, all these things-but we have never written a letter or anything seriously. "

"This article is well written," I said. "It says here:' Your friendship for many years is very important to me, far more important than what I can say, because I am not good at saying such things. ,,, I called. "This must make you very happy?"

The driver said something, but I didn't understand it because he seemed to be choking badly. So I went on to say, "I really want to receive such a letter from an old friend."

We are almost at our destination, so I skip to the last paragraph. "So I think you must want to know that I am thinking of you." The letter was signed at the end: "Old friend Tom".

We stopped in front of my hotel and I returned the letter. "It was nice talking to you," I said, lifting my suitcase from the car. Tom? The letter was signed Tom?

"Your friend's name is Ed," I said. "Why did he sign Tom?"

"This letter was not written by Tom," he explained. "I'm Tom. This is the letter I wrote to him before I learned of his death. So I have never sent it. "

He looks a little sad, as if he wants to see something in the distance. "I think I really should have written this letter earlier."

I didn't open my suitcase immediately after I entered the hotel room. First, I have to write a letter and then post it.

Second unit

friendship

Text b

If I can't hold on, my friend will die there, and the old hunter Bill McIntosh warned himself again and again.

Never abandon a friend

Jim hutcheson

"Are you going to watch the football match this afternoon?" Bill McIntosh asked 59-year-old Royce Weding. The two of them were drinking beer at the Eureka Hotel in Hong Town, Australia. Royce shook his head. "I promised my mother to burn a piece of land in my house."

Bill is thin and strong. He is 79 years old, but he doesn't look that old. He looked at the hot air outside. A breeze blows from north to south, which is the most suitable condition for burning. However, Bill was uneasy about Royce doing the work alone. The farmer has a bad leg and it is difficult to walk.

They walked from farm to farm to find jobs together and have been good friends for 30 years. Now Bill lives alone 12 miles east of the town and lives by hunting foxes and rabbits. He goes shopping in town once every two weeks and helps Royce who runs his own farm. "Let me help you," said Bill.

They set off in Royce's car. Before long, they bumped on a sandy road and walked towards a field with an area of 120 hectares and overgrown with weeds. "Fire is the only way to get rid of this thing," said Bill. They tied an old tire to the hook with a 50-foot chain. Bill poured gasoline on the tire, struck a match and jumped into the car.

The two men drove slowly against the wind in the south of the farmland, leaving a burning grass belt where they passed. In the middle of the ground, the car rushed forward and unconsciously fell into a grassy sand pile.

The breeze suddenly turned and blew behind them, and it became stronger and stronger. The fire was raging with the wind, and a fire belt suddenly turned into a wall of fire, and it came straight at the two. "Let's get out of here!" Royce said.

He tried desperately to back the car out of the sand. But the wheels are sinking deeper and deeper in the soft sand.

The fire immediately rushed to the two. Bill pushed open the door, but he heard a loud noise, the fuel tank exploded, the car flew three feet off the ground, and he himself was thrown into the air. After the car fell back to the ground, Royce found himself stuck on the steering wheel. At this time, the car seat and the roof were also on fire.

Bill was lying where he fell, out of breath. His shirt front, shorts, bare arms and legs were soaked in burning gasoline. Then the car caught fire. Seeing this, he sat up in shock. "Royce!" He shouted, struggled to get up and rushed to the car.

He opened the car door and caught Royce's arm in the smoke. "I'm stuck," Royce said. "You go!"

(1) The flame licked Bill's arms, face and legs, but he held on to Royce. "I won't leave you here," he knew.

Bill plunged his heel into the sand and pulled hard. Suddenly, he fell on his back and Royce was dragged out of the car. He pulled Royce away and quickly put out the fire on Royce and his legs and arms with his bare hands.

Royce saw another explosion shaking the car and the car was swallowed up by flames. "If Bill hadn't pulled me out, I would be burned to ashes now," he thought. He lowered his head ...-Look, he was very surprised at the severity of his injury. His abdomen and left hip were badly burned. To make matters worse, the fingers were completely deformed by burns.

Bill was lying face down. He was burned to death. On the forearms, hands and legs, pieces of charred meat hung down.

Bill looked at his friend and saw that Royce was desperate, so he said, "I'll call someone. You resist. " Royce nodded, but when he watched Bill walk slowly across the blackened field, he really didn't know how his friend had walked nearly two miles and had to cross three fences.

(2) The life experience of living with those tough guys who live in the Australian jungle for a lifetime has permanently engraved two principles in Bill's mind: No matter how difficult it is, don't lose heart and don't abandon friends. At this moment, every step he takes, his body hurts like a needle, which is completely supported by these two qualities. (3) If I can't hold on, Royce will die there, and Bill warned himself again and again.

"What happened to that dog?" Royce's old mother, Vicky Wei, looked out of the window. Hearing the voice behind her, she was startled and turned to see Bill leaning against the door.

"Oh, my God, what happened?" She asked in surprise and quickly hugged Bill, who was sitting down along the doorframe.

"We are on fire," he whispered, almost speechless. "Go and call someone." Vicky helped Bill sit down, put a wet towel on him to relieve the burn pain, and then picked up the phone.

They got on the bus and went to the hospital in horsham. During the bumpy journey of one and a half hours, the two injured people said nothing about their pain. "We really should go to the football match," Royce began, trying to cheer himself and his friends up. Bill also gently-smile.

Soon, Bill was awarded the Medal of Courage at the City Hall in recognition of his bravery in saving others. (4) But the most exciting moment for Bill was that half a year after the release of Fire, Royce, who had just been discharged from the hospital, walked into the Eureka Hotel and invited him to drink beer.

"We won," Royce said, and they raised their glasses. "To the friendship between life and death."