The Excerpt:

I gave the old man some money and went out into the street. Gedali and I parted, and I went back to the railroad station. There at the station, on the propaganda train of the First Cavalry, I was greeted by the sparkle of hundreds of lights, the enchanted glitter of the radio transmitter, the stubborn rolling of the printing presses, and my unfinished article for the Krasny Kavalerist. — Isaac Babel, The Red Cavalry Stories (specifically, The Rabbi)

Analysis: broad in scope, but then settles into something mundane and practical — the weight of a task that needs doing, that you bear with you until you finish it, and that drags you down to settle in reality — like the thought process turning some shade of depressed and settling into the dust.

The Exercise:

She paid her bill and went out into the street. She slid into her car, turned the key in the ignition, pulled out and headed out of town. The houses faded out so fast, and the asters danced along the side of the road, and the sunlight played off the wheat, flashed on the radio dials, flashed on the tractor being driven through a field by a tanned and sullen farmer; and she drove towards home and towards a kitchen waiting for supper to be made.

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