Read "Three Days Before the Shooting" by Ralph Ellison online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
UNDERSTAND ME, I was there; sitting in the press section at the start of the shooting. I had been rereading M. Vannec's most unexpected letter when suddenly it was as though a certain long-forgotten night of violence to which he referred had flared from the page and accelerated into chaotic life.
First, the popping sound had drawn my attention down to the orating Senator; then, far across in the visitors' gallery, there came a flash of movement-and then it was as though the letter had caught flame in my hands. Then, for some reason the photographic image of the elegant magnesium-bodied sports car which ignited and burned during the recent running of the Le Mans Grand Prix-that awe-inspiring sabre of flame and destruction-flashed through my mind just as I was looking out past the great chandelier of the chamber to see an elegantly dressed man lean over the visitors'- gallery rail and point down to where, gripping the sides of the lectern and tossing his head, Senator Sunraider was speaking. Then things seemed to reel out of phase.