Self Directed writing exercise#6

This exercise is quite possibly the most difficult, demanding and important exercise a writer can ever do. The poet and critic, T. S. Eliot, coined the phrase "objective correlative" to designate what he believed was the most important element in writing: Rendering the description of an object so that the emotional state of the character from whose point of view we receive the description is revealed WITHOUT ever telling the reader what that emotional state is or what has motivated it.
The late John Gardner, recognized in his lifetime as the leading creative writing teacher in the United States, developed the following exercise for students:
A middle-age man is waiting at a bus stop. He has just learned that his son has died violently. Describe the setting from the man's point of view WITHOUT telling your reader what has happened. How will the street look to this man? What are the sounds? Odors? Colors? That this man will notice? What will his clothes feel like? Write a 250 word description.

I'm going to tweak this exercise a bit because I've got an idea of scene I want to write for my own book.

Andrea heard the generals boots long before she smelled him coming. The dinstintive ring of the his metal heels striking the stone floor of the dungeon down below always reminded her of silver bells. If she ever got out of this place alive she would never again be able to endure that damn sound! She could hear the other occupants of the cells scurry to hide and a few whimpers and cries floated out of the darkness. Not for the first time Andrea wondered who else occupied the cells down here and how long they had been here. When she had first woken up from the drug induced sleep she was too distracted with her own fear to take into account her surroundings. Now she cursed herself for a fool for not paying closer attention before they brought her down here. She was a fully trained Praetorian Guard she knew better than to let an emotion rule over her like that! Andrea snorted indelicatly and thought about what her brothers would say if they were here, Gavin would probably crack some joke about her being a chicken and Magnus would just pat her on the back with that look on his face. Just the thought of it made her blood boil and her anger helped clear her mind and sharpen her focus. If she were going to get out of here and be of any use to anyone again she'd have to keep her wits about her.

General Bertram always derived a sick sort of pleasure in hearing the scurry of his prisoners in their cells. He wore these particular boots everytime he paid a visit to his "honored guests" knowing the sound would echo sweetly off the stone and announce his presence to those locked in the dark and dank cells. Bertram would recieve no pleasure in this evenings errand however, he was distracted with one prisoner in particular, so much so that he was finding it difficult to focus on the larger scheme. He was so distracted he didn't even notice he had walked by the prisoners cell until he was three doors down from it. Turning quickly on his heel he marched back to prisoner 242's cell door and barked out an order to his jailor to open it up!

Inside her cell Andrea could hear General Bertrams footsteps ring past her door. She felt her body relax, unaware that she had been holding herself rigid until then. Just as she was about to go back to feeling along the stone walls for some sort of way out she heard the Generals footsteps back track. Why would General Bertram be back tracking? Andrea cocked her head to the side and pressed her ear up against her cell door trying to hear what was going on, all of a sudden her head was ringing as she heard him call out to the jailor to open the cell door for prisoner 242. Whoever prisoner 242 was it sounded like they were in for a long, unpleasant visit with the General.