The extract under consideration comes from a short story written by an American writer

Don Shea. He was born in the USA, NYC. Don received his BA and MA at NYU
(philosophy, English, American Studies). Later Donald joined IBM as a programmer and
worked for it as a personal project. During this time he wrote one of the 1-st poetry
generating programs and was published in Avant Guarde magazine and in the Doubleday
anthology Quickly Aging Here.
After IBM, the author took an opportunity to run own software company for 3 years. The
next 10 years he worked as a management consultant with Booz Allen. To date, he published
around 60 pieces, most of them stories, in venues such as The North American Review , The
Gettysburg Review, Story Quarterly, Brevity, The Utne Reader, Other Voices, and numerous
other magazines. These works had been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, broadcast on
NPR's Selected Shorts, and performed by Speaking Of Stories. As the honor he was
included in the Norton anthologies Flash Fiction and Flash Fiction Forward, the Great Books
Foundation Short Story Omnibus. Story collection "Injuries and Damages", were nominated
for the Iowa Short Fiction prize.
The given extract was published in ONTHEBUS 2002 and tells about 2 lovers who are
going through a difficult time in their relationships. The basic theme and attention is devoted
to the warm memories about their period together. The main hero, whose name is unknown
to the readers, is involved into thoughts about his beloved woman, his perfect lady. Those 5
years together were literary "the happiest time of their life". Although the narrator in some
way regrets about separation "there wasn’t really anything to discuss", "Were there tears? Of
course there were tears. We cared about each other. We cried quite a bit". However, he feels
no pain being without her anymore, they part in a nice way "she made it so easy for me to be
with her, that I could not do it myself", "no fights, no accusations".
The setting of the events in the given extract is realistic and presented in detailed way as
we can see the house and time of the season, feelings and emotions.
From the point of view of presentation the text is the 1st person narrative. The type of
speech is plain making it more narration than a simple description.
The characters we meet in the extract under analysis are man and woman, their names
are unknown. Judging by the description, it's easy to define that man is loving, caring guy,
despite the feeling about his pragmatism. As for the woman she's smart, supportive and
knows how to treat her man nicely.
The types of speech employed by the author of the analysed extract are:
Epithet - (perfect parting, smart woman). Allusion - "Smart women know this". The
author also uses Alliteration to emphasize attention to the phrase and is used for emphasis:
"She left a list of things that needed to be done to the house and garden", "She was quick to
pack, bit she took her time saying goodbye to my cat, who she also loved", "It was a perfect
parting". Frame repetition - "I’m not coming back" she said. She said it sweetly", "Were
there tears? Of course there were tears", "The next day I felt relieved. I felt expansive".
Summing up the analysis of the given extract one should say that Don Shea brilliantly
uses different stylistic devices which help to reveal the main character’s nature in order to
create a true-to-life atmosphere of the events depicted. The author shows that parting can be
not only painful and frustrating process, but also nice and warm one. He gives an example
that you can stay in good relationships even with your Ex.