mjmac_1_
03-09-2009, 05:07 AM
Hey guys first time posting, first time writing a short story in a looong while. Grammar and paragraph is a mess, just wanted some feed back. Be nice though lol, im a rookie
Hope
It was April 20th and my eighteenth birthday was four days away. I would not live to see it. My size 14 doc martin’s packed the dirty snow beneath my feet. I walked through the midst of seasonal limbo, with the warm damp air of spring still haunted by the last frozen vestiges of the cruel Canadian winter. I would not miss it. It was 11:36 am, and in nine minutes the hallways of John McCrae Secondary school would flood with dim mindless drones, also known as “Our future.” I used to convince myself that in another time, another culture perhaps I could have been great. There was a time when I tried. Tried to be funny, tried to dress right, tried to fit in. I guess there’s a learning curve for everything, and now I damn well know that they’re not worth my time. If these MTV saturated, sex crazed Cro-Magnon contemporaries are our future then I don’t want to have any part in it. And I’ll be ****ed if I don’t do my part in stopping it! I gingerly place my dad’s nike gym bag in the center of an empty handicap parking space, and slowly unzip it. I relish every moment, feeling as if I am the hero in a movie I’ve seen a thousand times before. Its now 11:39, and the sun reflects off the UHC 870 pump action shot gun as if a higher being was urging me on one last time. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I loaded the shells into the dark freshly polished barrels. The single most important event in my eighteen years of life, and I am completely stoic as I approach the front doors of the school for one last time. As I reach for the silver door handle I catch a glimpse of my tall lanky frame for one last time. My long black duster flutters in a sudden gust of wind. I pause for a moment, realizing that for the first time in my life I am in control, I call the shots, I have the power.
Realizing that I have little time to assume my vantage point, I thrust the door open and stride down the deserted hallway with the confidence of a deity. Some will live, some will die, but I will decide. I am powerful, I am their god. As I round a corner I hear a textbook hit the ground somewhere in front of me. Then a voice: “I know man, it was pretty epic, throwing up and everything....What?.....Dude, he’s a tank, he polished of that 26’er in like twenty minutes.” He see’s me and the cell phone falls to the ground. I recognize him, yet I doubt he knows my name. Keegan Troy, my grade, my math class, hockey player and borderline Palaeolithic. The perfect virgin kill. I raise the pump action shot gun and point the barrel less than ten feet from his head. The American eagle logo on his hat seems to be taunting me to pull the trigger. As my index finger begins to squeeze the cold lead trigger I remember...
***
It was the third grade and it was recess. It was by all accounts a dark and dreary day, with heavy raindrops pelting the ground as if god was wringing out the last pinch of moisture from a wet towel. Their was a tangible excitement in the air as my classmates frantically comb the soggy ground for earth worms. To this day I do not understand the appeal we saw in adopting the tiny pink invertebrates as pets and yet we did. I suppose it may have been a simple matter of boredom, or perhaps it was a budding curiosity in life beyond our own. Whatever our true reasons were, it was already twenty minutes into recess and I had yet to lay claim to my own earth worm. Panic was beginning to set in. My hands felt cold and damp and smelt eerily similar to the local swamp we had visited on our grade two science field trip. I felt a bone chilling gust of wind penetrate my royal blue addidas wind breaker and my knees sunk deeper into the frosty soil. I felt alone and utterly hopeless.
***
As my eyes welled up with tears I heard the unforgiving wind carry a timid voice. “I have an extra one, its kind’a small but you can have it.”
I swivelled my neck, not daring to move for fear of falling into the joyless quagmire that surrounded me. There was Keegan, his small hands chalk white from the cold holding a gently wriggling worm. I muttered a simple “Thanks”, seemingly unable to express anything exceeding two syllables.
“I kept my milk carton from lunch; we can make a house for them if you want!” He exclaimed with the naive enthusiasm which could surely only be mustered by a child. He offered an outstretched arm yet suddenly I no longer feared the muddy soil around me. It was as if this simple bond between two children, beautiful and unadultered by vice greed or deceit had given me the strength to pull myself out of the dregs of despair.
As I stood in front of the locker banks nestled between room 201 and 203, my arms began to tremble. The barrel is no longer aimed directly at Keegan’s fore head. For a man who only a second ago was drunk on the sensation of true power, I was now powerless to this alien emotion which was beginning to threaten the clockwork precision of my entire nervous system. I looked directly at my target; he was once again chalk white, trembling as he had on that dark and dreary day so long ago. He had not yet uttered a sound. I tried one last time to hold the barrel steady but everything was now coming in and out of focus. I felt a tear roll down my cheek; its warm salty taste sent a chill down my spine. Is there good in the world? My mind suddenly raced with possibilities. Had I figured it wrong? Is there life beyond these dreadful walls?
”HEY YOU! DROP THE GUN!!!!” I turn around. I see the school liaison officer kneeling down, his face contorted and bright red. He is hyper ventilating badly, his pot belly quivering. He brandished a silver pistol, colt 45 perhaps and aimed it at me with the precision of an eleven year old with a cap gun. Seeing him bumbling through this routine its no wonder he was known as “rent-a-cop”, to the school. Perhaps it was the tension, emotional exhaustion, or a sliver of hope but I allowed a smile to creep across my tear soaked face.
A bullet pierces through the silence..... Blackness......
Hope
It was April 20th and my eighteenth birthday was four days away. I would not live to see it. My size 14 doc martin’s packed the dirty snow beneath my feet. I walked through the midst of seasonal limbo, with the warm damp air of spring still haunted by the last frozen vestiges of the cruel Canadian winter. I would not miss it. It was 11:36 am, and in nine minutes the hallways of John McCrae Secondary school would flood with dim mindless drones, also known as “Our future.” I used to convince myself that in another time, another culture perhaps I could have been great. There was a time when I tried. Tried to be funny, tried to dress right, tried to fit in. I guess there’s a learning curve for everything, and now I damn well know that they’re not worth my time. If these MTV saturated, sex crazed Cro-Magnon contemporaries are our future then I don’t want to have any part in it. And I’ll be ****ed if I don’t do my part in stopping it! I gingerly place my dad’s nike gym bag in the center of an empty handicap parking space, and slowly unzip it. I relish every moment, feeling as if I am the hero in a movie I’ve seen a thousand times before. Its now 11:39, and the sun reflects off the UHC 870 pump action shot gun as if a higher being was urging me on one last time. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I loaded the shells into the dark freshly polished barrels. The single most important event in my eighteen years of life, and I am completely stoic as I approach the front doors of the school for one last time. As I reach for the silver door handle I catch a glimpse of my tall lanky frame for one last time. My long black duster flutters in a sudden gust of wind. I pause for a moment, realizing that for the first time in my life I am in control, I call the shots, I have the power.
Realizing that I have little time to assume my vantage point, I thrust the door open and stride down the deserted hallway with the confidence of a deity. Some will live, some will die, but I will decide. I am powerful, I am their god. As I round a corner I hear a textbook hit the ground somewhere in front of me. Then a voice: “I know man, it was pretty epic, throwing up and everything....What?.....Dude, he’s a tank, he polished of that 26’er in like twenty minutes.” He see’s me and the cell phone falls to the ground. I recognize him, yet I doubt he knows my name. Keegan Troy, my grade, my math class, hockey player and borderline Palaeolithic. The perfect virgin kill. I raise the pump action shot gun and point the barrel less than ten feet from his head. The American eagle logo on his hat seems to be taunting me to pull the trigger. As my index finger begins to squeeze the cold lead trigger I remember...
***
It was the third grade and it was recess. It was by all accounts a dark and dreary day, with heavy raindrops pelting the ground as if god was wringing out the last pinch of moisture from a wet towel. Their was a tangible excitement in the air as my classmates frantically comb the soggy ground for earth worms. To this day I do not understand the appeal we saw in adopting the tiny pink invertebrates as pets and yet we did. I suppose it may have been a simple matter of boredom, or perhaps it was a budding curiosity in life beyond our own. Whatever our true reasons were, it was already twenty minutes into recess and I had yet to lay claim to my own earth worm. Panic was beginning to set in. My hands felt cold and damp and smelt eerily similar to the local swamp we had visited on our grade two science field trip. I felt a bone chilling gust of wind penetrate my royal blue addidas wind breaker and my knees sunk deeper into the frosty soil. I felt alone and utterly hopeless.
***
As my eyes welled up with tears I heard the unforgiving wind carry a timid voice. “I have an extra one, its kind’a small but you can have it.”
I swivelled my neck, not daring to move for fear of falling into the joyless quagmire that surrounded me. There was Keegan, his small hands chalk white from the cold holding a gently wriggling worm. I muttered a simple “Thanks”, seemingly unable to express anything exceeding two syllables.
“I kept my milk carton from lunch; we can make a house for them if you want!” He exclaimed with the naive enthusiasm which could surely only be mustered by a child. He offered an outstretched arm yet suddenly I no longer feared the muddy soil around me. It was as if this simple bond between two children, beautiful and unadultered by vice greed or deceit had given me the strength to pull myself out of the dregs of despair.
As I stood in front of the locker banks nestled between room 201 and 203, my arms began to tremble. The barrel is no longer aimed directly at Keegan’s fore head. For a man who only a second ago was drunk on the sensation of true power, I was now powerless to this alien emotion which was beginning to threaten the clockwork precision of my entire nervous system. I looked directly at my target; he was once again chalk white, trembling as he had on that dark and dreary day so long ago. He had not yet uttered a sound. I tried one last time to hold the barrel steady but everything was now coming in and out of focus. I felt a tear roll down my cheek; its warm salty taste sent a chill down my spine. Is there good in the world? My mind suddenly raced with possibilities. Had I figured it wrong? Is there life beyond these dreadful walls?
”HEY YOU! DROP THE GUN!!!!” I turn around. I see the school liaison officer kneeling down, his face contorted and bright red. He is hyper ventilating badly, his pot belly quivering. He brandished a silver pistol, colt 45 perhaps and aimed it at me with the precision of an eleven year old with a cap gun. Seeing him bumbling through this routine its no wonder he was known as “rent-a-cop”, to the school. Perhaps it was the tension, emotional exhaustion, or a sliver of hope but I allowed a smile to creep across my tear soaked face.
A bullet pierces through the silence..... Blackness......