Ralph Ellison's Narrative

A man and his family get out of their car with many boxes in the back and a moving truck that parks on the side of the road next to their new house. As they start packing the boxes in the house a police car pulls up next to the family’s car and parks next to the moving truck. The officer gets out of his vehicle and walks up to the father and shows his badge as the Sheriff of the town. The Sheriff begins his explanation of why he is there, but the father already knows.

“Mr. Ellison Oswalt.” the Sheriff says with a hint of anger in his voice. “Sheriff.” Ellison replies with a calm voice. “ You better not cause any problems around here Mr. Oswalt, after your last book you managed to piss off a lot of officers!” Sheriff says loudly so even Ellison’s
He notices a molded cardboard box in the middle of the attic floor. Ellison slowly walks towards the box, careful to not hit his head on the roof. He finally gets to the box and looks inside to see a Super 8 filming camera with homemade tapes. One particular one he picks up has the title “Pool Party”. He brings the molded box down to his office and sets the camera and movies up with a projector screen. He sets up a random movie and watches at it starts with a family having fun in their backyard just playing, but the camera is hidden in the bushes, Ellison recognizes the backyard but can’t quite figure out what it is. He finally notices that it’s the backyard of the house he just moved into. The scenes in the movie change to dusk, but it’s still in the backyard, he realizes that a branch in the tree is still attached to the tree while in his backyard it is not, probably why he didn’t recognize it right away. He sees four people lying on the ground below the tree. He sees a saw being used to cut a branch, the branch that is missing from the tree in present time. As the branch falls to the ground the family is pulled off the ground and hung up on the branch and are slowly suffocating from the tight noose around their necks. Ellison is disturbed from this video and he's seen some bad things from his previous stories. The film ends and so
He watches as the family is playing in their swimming pool and then it turns to night and the person holding the camera begins to walk on a sidewalk of some sort. The person stops and lifts the camera and shows the pool and the there are three benches with people tied to them and a rope being laid across the pool the person then pulls the rope and the benches into the pool and all the family members drown till they die. Ellison notices something in the water so plays the tape over and over again but doesn't recognize it. Ellison falls asleep from exhaustion, it is presently 10 P.M.

Ellison wakes up to the smell of smoke. He is dazed and confused and unaware of his surroundings. Ellison realizes to his dismay that the film on the machine has caught flame and is burning the machine as well. Before he can actually put out the flames the machine is obsolete and the films have all been burned. Ellison finds that there’s nothing left for him and there would be no book for him. Ellison begins walking around his house thinking of how he can continue his book and finally figures that his only option is to ask the Sheriff for the case evidence. Then a loud bang comes from the