The eleventh fairway of a tiny golf course on a hot, airless night. One of the great stars in the American golfing firmament, insensible with drink, was in a bad temper.
“Go to hell!” he spat. It was past midnight.
Socks at half-mast, missing putts that he would normally hole blindfolded, he swore violently under his breath, like an axman at work in a tangled thicket. He was then at the height of his sporting career. He unscrewed the top of a flask and drank the contents.
He hit his third shot out of bounds at the 17th. Like a red rag to a bull. His face suddenly turned puce with futile rage, the ball bounced away, and he chased it. He fell with a thud that left him winded.
He lay exhausted and inert, his eyes closed, and with little to distinguish him from one already dead. He lit a cigarette to calm his nerves, and watched the smoke wreathe into the night air.
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary
The plane shuddered as it entered some turbulence.
“This is the captain speaking. The weather has changed for the worse, so please fasten your seat belts. Well, as I was saying, the more famous I became, the worse I painted. Mass adoration is a highly addictive drug. I was swept along by the crowd, a fantasist with delusions of grandeur. A con artist, painting by numbers. Without Patti to validate my feelings, they seemed not to exist. I was shooting up cocaine, I was drinking copiously, I blew my mind on LSD . . . art in the nineties! When in Rome, you know? The rest, as they say, is history—a big unframed abstract. Self-doubt creeps in, and that swiftly turns to depression, artifice, and outright fakery. We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too. It all got too much for me, and I couldn’t cope.
“Well, that’s enough of me gabbering about myself. I don’t want to harp on about the past. It has been an honor to have you. We look forward to seeing you again, and welcome to Washington.”
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins COBUILD Primary Learner’s Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary, The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Familiar Phrases
He pulled the door to behind him, closed his eyes, and sagged against the wall.
From a hundred throats came the cry “Vive l’Empereur!”
Source: New Oxford American Dictionary