Over the Rainbow
My dog died one day in November. Ever since everything felt numb and unfeeling. The world turned gray and cold. Maybe my reaction was a little overboard to some people- but to me? To me it was normal. My dog- Lucy- had been my best friend. Simple things reminded me of her… The ducks in the park that she would bark and chase after, the feeling of excitement that she would get whenever I came home from school, and even parks where we would run and roll in the grass. The thing was that she was all around me, and I could not get rid of her memory, but maybe I didn’t want to. I just needed to accept her death and become my old self.
The day I finally accepted her death was a day in the park. We had gone here all the time with her and I could almost make out the ghosts of my laughs I had shared with my best friend. Another fit of crying came. By now I was used to them. I usually tried to hide them but today I just didn’t care. The tears streamed down my face. Each one representing a memory I had but could never make again. I lay there for a long time trying to stop but not being able to. A light drizzle started as I was in the grass. All my tears that had fallen into the ground were now coming from the sky. Soon after, it stopped, displaying a beautiful rainbow. I then realized that this is what I had been missing. The light after darkness, or the rainbow after the storm. Staring at the rainbow I saw the colors that jumped out at me.
The first one was red. Red like the color of Lucy’s tongue when she was licking my face. Or the feeling red represents- love. I loved Lucy more than I can express. But it was also the color of the spots of anger that appeared in my mind when I heard she had cancer. That nothing could be done. That we had to put her down or let her suffer. I must accept that now. She died peacefully. One color down and one acceptance towards Lucy’s death.
Next, I saw bright orange. Orange meaning playfulness. I can just remember her romping along in the backyard, a rope in her mouth and fierce pleasure and determination in her eyes. The color of joy which she gave me every day with the simplest of actions. Joy is what I saw in her eyes every day. But it can be pessimistic, a habit I have started to take over since her death. Trying not to be happy because she can’t anymore. With that color of the rainbow, I gave away the pessimistic actions that have been plaguing me ready to be the happy optimist that everybody knew and loved. Accepting the good and getting rid of the bad.
I moved on to the next color-Yellow. Yellow is an easy one. Yellow meaning warmth and happiness. Whenever I was in a bad mood or sad about a certain something Lucy would come and nudge me. Then she would come and lay her head in my lap and lick my hand for comfort. Happiness is the memories where we ran like the wind and ate pieces of fruit by the lake. Hope- representing yellow- is the one thing I tried to cling on to when I heard the news. I tried with all my might and all the hope I had it ended up fading in the end. That led to my next feeling I associate with yellow. Cowardice. I was a coward when I locked myself in my room unable to face anyone, even my dad who was experiencing the same things as me. A coward when I was unable to admit my problems with my friends when they asked me why I was acting so different. Like the wind blowing my hair and rustling the grass in the park, I let my cowardice breeze past me, a picture of the past. I will confront my friends, tell them what’s been going on, and I know they will be there for me.
Next, I come to green. Harmony, growth, and fertility. Growth representing the years I grew with Lucy both of us learning new things and sharing the same experiences. Then, safety. Safety representing my comfortable feeling when it was a stormy night and I was curled underneath the blanket with her, knowing she would protect me. Or when I was home alone late hours into the night, the softest of noises making me jump, I would look to the side and I would see my best friend -my loving dog- and know that she was guarding me and that nothing could get past her. I slept soundly those nights. But with green also came greed and jealousy. The greed of wanting to always keep her by my side because she always made me feel at my best. And now jealousy. When I see other people with their dogs laughing and smiling, the only thing I can think of now is that I wish I had that. I wish that my dog's life could be traded for theirs. Now I realize they would be feeling the same way if our situations were switched. I let these feelings go to the air, letting them be swept up and taken.
Moving on. Blue. It had always been my favorite color. Laying down with Lucy, it was the color we saw when we looked up at the sky. Blue has also been associated with calm. When it was just me and my dog against the world I was kept calm, refreshed and happy by her crazy antics. Blue has also been known to go with the term aloof. I learned this last year and never understood. Now I do. Cold and distant- this is exactly what I have been. Not letting anyone get to close to me. Even the people that mean the most to me. I let this aloofness go, tonight transforming back into my open and expressive self.
Indigo was up. Indigo meaning sincerity. Lucy always was sincere. I believe all dogs are. She would always try to be there for you no matter what, always by your side. Faith- another symbol of indigo- something I could always keep up when I had Lucy. No matter how bad things were I tried to keep faith always and forever. I only lost it once and that was when she was no longer there to help me keep it. I would pick my faith back up. I can have it again, for other people and for myself. I had restored my faith and again it was all thanks to my dog. I realized another meaning of indigo. Not being able to work without organization. As the other colors made me realize Lucy was my organization and calm. That’s why I couldn’t work when she was gone. Breathing a calming breath, I vowed to take back my own functions and be able to work again. Even if my organization had left. I could do it again.
The final color, as always in a rainbow, is violet. Violet, as in imagination and creativity. All the different adventures I went on with Lucy and all the different places we visited. Granted most were in our heads but it still counted. She was the best inspiration, always listening when I got older and wrote my fantasies down. Infinite energy has also been linked with violet. Now if one thing described Lucy, it was infinite energy. Her rambunctious personality is what drew people towards her, including me. After tons of playing she still couldn’t sit still always wandering and following me around the house. Even if she got in my way I loved every second of it. Like any other color, violet represents something bad since Lucy’s death. For this color, its attitude, which I have been tending to get more often. I feel a fierce desire to talk back so I can show I am handling myself and I’m fine when really, I was breaking apart. All the snarky comebacks and words snapped at people are all my emotions just boiling over. Letting my attitude go into the soil and earth I’m lying on, I change. Now I’m the happy- go- lucky person, everyone wanted to be friends with. This is who I really am.
Letting all these feelings go with the fading daylight I felt lighter than I have in years. The world was once again colorful to me. My feelings – negative and positive- were now with Lucy. I had let them go this day and now her and all our memories were safe and peaceful. Maybe someday I would join her, but that day was far away. I was happy once again and I knew she was watching over me, in her own place, somewhere over the rainbow.
We sat like eskimos, huddled together, our eyes wide. The door kept banging, and the voice continued. Mom started to cry. She got up and walked around the room, dialing a number.
“It’s okay”, she said, “They won’t do anything to us.”
But when her phone vibrated off, and even dad couldn’t hear our silent cry for help, she started to weep. It’s not comfortable hearing your mother weep while a man bangs on your door.
“Come on, come on!” she’d scream, sliding her finger back and forth along the big crack in the phone screen.
“You kno’wut? I’ll beeback!” He screamed, and he always told the truth when he said that. The cold, harsh truth.
He came the next day, and his fists made the doorknob vibrate. He asked my mother for her name.
“What’s your name?” he’d get impatient, “tell me your name, god-damn-it” he slurred parts of his speech like Stallone. But Stallone didn’t make my mother cry.
I thought he was a coward. He was a monkey; an imitator. We all have a place, and that was his; a low-level sham that banged on people’s doors and tried to shove them letters and scream about vulture funds. My parents had a contract. A contract that asked good money for a one-bedroom, cold-tap piece of shit. Good money that my parents didn’t have.
It was a new chapter of fear for my mother. The screaming thugs came when dad wasn’t around, and we didn’t have any other choice but to sit there, blank. And mom would call dad, and then she’d cry. She cried so much I didn’t think we’d have to pay the water bill.
I was scared, but I couldn’t show it. When I’d walk with dad on Pearse St., his beer hand holding a bagged-up pale ale, his left hand on my shoulder, he’d turn to me. He’d turn and say, “Well, you’re growing up, you’re almost 15. I hope all this doesn’t scare you?” And I’d nod, just to stop his warm beer breath from hitting my face. And because I’d be a coward not to.
But still, there was something so movie-like about all of it. It had become like a charade; a well-timed act of screaming and crying, screaming and crying. Like a scene from Woody Allen with some jazz in the back. And it was fascinating because the menacing voice and the menacing man had become such a feared part of our days, yet we didn’t know his face or his name. Could have walked by him every day, and even given him a fake smile. We didn’t know.
All we knew was that those cowards came when dad wasn’t around. Dad said he saw one of them when we were out of town. He said the guy ran off the second he pushed him off our lock. Cowards might have a strong voice, but if you look ‘em right in the eye they get scared. That’s what all this taught me.
And I’d stand with a voice recorder, holding it right next to the door, trying to catch a man that we’d never seen on his word. Show it to the cops; what an outrageous man! But no one gave a shit. And one time, in the midst of the loud jabber, he stopped. We didn’t know what it meant, we’d never listened to him. All we knew was that pounding was bad and silence was good.
And for half an hour, we sat still. It was unusual for us to sit in the evening with a calm door. We couldn’t just go on with everything like it never happened.
My mom stopped crying, and like she loved to do, repeated, “It’s okay… they won’t do anything to us.”
But it was hard to believe those words from a woman whose eyes were never dry. And like usual, she started to pace up and down the room, but this time without dialing on her phone; it had simply become muscle memory.
But then he knocked again, and my mother started to sob again. By now all of this felt natural.
He slurred something like “blue doormat” that we didn’t get, but when we opened the door he was gone. And so was our blue doormat.
That was when my mom became someone else, and the cold-tap and the small rooms and stupid things like dog crap on the street started to make her cry. It made her cry more than she had ever cried before. And all her anger she saved for my dad - like it was all because of him.
And even though my dad could bag up quite a few pale ales in his day, he said he worked hard for us. He said he worked like a 51-year-old jubilee painting at an art gallery. I didn’t know what that meant; I just knew he had a big, nice office where he could escape all of it.
But then my mom had become so weak from all the stress and anger that she had started to give in. She couldn’t yell back at the slurring man, and she couldn’t even stay silent, her mental state had become so jumbled and weak. Sometimes I thought that the man would come to my mom at night, and cut her nerves apart and jumble ‘em up, just so he could toy with her the next day.
Mom finally gave in. All she wanted was to give the man our contract and let out more tears… that was all that helped.
Dad didn’t mind, he was strong in hard times, but he’d try to help my mom out if he could. And even though he felt it shameful to surrender in his fight, give our guns to the enemy, he let my mom do what made her feel better. And so she came around to dad’s office, and started to search through all of the paperwork, to find our contract. She searched everywhere; in the drawers, on top of the shelves, under our blue doormat… boy did that blue doormat look familiar.
Life on Earth is amazing. The golden sphere above my head breathes its comforting heat onto my body. Cool spirits of wind fly past my cheeks. Curious emerald blades push themselves out of the moist dirt, gazing with me in wonder of the immensity of nature.
That is what I remember of Earth. Before my ignorance, before I went astray. I lost myself to the indoors. Day and night were the same. My senses perceived nothing but the tack of a keyboard, the shouting through an earpiece. I hated leaving my games, despised the thought. I wanted to live the games that I spent so much time immersing myself in. And I could; I was old enough. It was so easy to find my supplies; not one person batted an eye. I couldn’t wait to live out through my body what I trained my fingers to do for so long.
Life on Earth is grim. Slabs of grimy walls surround me, hold and choke me like Death itself, dealing rightful justice. Where is Earth, the one I remember from childhood? I have been abandoned, my games have lied to me. For there never was a prison in their world.
Her eyes wandering through the massive crowd of people. One glimpse. That was all it took for her to realize everyone was seeing something different. Something pleasant. In a world full of evil only she could see. One man. He seemed to be doing this treachery. Black hair curling up at the tips of his ears. Pale oval face with big brown eyes that seemed to stare right through her. Questioningly. Standing out in the crowd of people, no one seemed to be aware that he was even there. He was gone.
“Did nobody see that?” she wondered out loud.
A sharp intake of breath, and she was strangled to the ground. A dot of pain. A needle pushed into the hollow of her ear. Everything went black. Awoken, she was on the floor.
“Where am I? What are you going to do to me?” she asked frantically.
The man chuckled. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“You are one of us. One of the Gifted.”
She had a gorgeous luscious hair with light to mid brown hair, with cool tones. Her eyes were blue as an ocean and there were lines of shining green surrounding the pupil. Her noes were small as a button and it was the cutest nose I’ve ever seen. Her lips were red as a cherry and her cheeks were always soft pink. When she was blushing hard, her cheeks became redder and redder. It looked like there was a flaming fire on her cheeks. Her whole face looked beautiful she had a sharp oval face like a shining diamond with no single pimple or acne. Moving down to her shoulders, they were the smoothest shoulders I’ve ever felt. Or was it because she took a long shower almost every day? She smelled like her shampoo and she always wore bright dresses with flower patterns on it. She loved bright colors because that’s what made her happy. Her smile was the biggest, sweetest, whitest smile ever. When I hugged her, she was so soft and gentle like a fluffy teddy bear. She was like a one gorgeous yellow sunflower standing straight with confidence with many other flowers in the field. That's how gorgeous she was. But I can’t see any of this anymore because I just describe my dead best friend who died 2 years ago.
The two rushed forward at each other, swords drawn. Clang! The swords clashed, but at the same time, while Shadow had his eyes on Paul’s sword, Paul had drawn a knife from his belt and propelled it towards Shadow’s chest. His aim was true, because while Shadow withdrew his sword to come in for another strike, he collapsed, blood seeping through the wound at his heart.
“Paaaul,” he rasped, his voice barely a whisper. “Sensei, he…,” his voice trailed off as his eyelids slowly closed.
“What were you saying?!” shouted Paul. “What did Sensei do!?”
“Sensei…” Shadow had spoken his last words, and breathed his last breath. He lay his head on the soil as the eternal sleep took him over. Suddenly, a wave of black rings spread out from Shadow’s body, moving nothing, but carrying power. The wave was directed towards Paul. As soon as it touched him, it dissipated into a black, smoky substance, floating towards the rising sun. But that wasn’t all. Power, fresh but old, coursed through Paul’s veins. He finally had his powers back. As he rose into the air, preparing for his flight back to the dojo, his hands caught fire, likewise with his feet.
“MY POWERS ARE BACK!!” he shouted out to the world, full of energy. He looked down at Shadow’s dead body, the knife in its chest, and shook his head. Don’t let this distract you, he told himself, It was a rightful kill. He’s already done too much damage to this place, and you just fixed it.
. . .
2 years ago…
Shadow smiled to himself. He knew his plan was going to work. He slung the bag of ‘money’ over his shoulder and kept his pistol low. He turned around and gazed in the distance, trying to see how much chaos he had created with the fire at the Bank of America. Police were sprawled over the city looking for him, but one specific policeman who lived in the very neighborhood Shadow was walking in was the policeman he wanted to be discovered by.
“Throw the gun and the money down and put your hands where I can see them!” a voice called out behind Shadow. Shadow smiled. Luck was on his side today. He turned around and threw the bag and the gun towards the cop, which actually contained 5 pounds of plastic explosive, more than enough to put a little hole in the street. The cop, Matthew, had a surprised look on his face, but he barely had time to move his lips before more than half of his body disintegrated into ashes.
Another boy came running down the street to look at the commotion, looked down in the crater and immediately realized what had happened. He knew enough about bombs even without his brother being a cop, and he knew that this much damage needed a big amount. He sank to his knees at the bottom of the crater, clutching the fabric and the badge of his brother’s uniform as tears rolled freely down his cheek. He looked at what remained of his brother’s body, then looked up and screamed, “WHY?” It was only then when he noticed a dark man, as dark as the moonless sky above, standing at the edge of the crater, smiling.
“You can call me Shadow, and by the way, Paul, I know who you are and I’m sorry, but these were my orders,” he said.
“I will kill you one day, you-” Paul uttered a single foul word.
“Watch your mouth, kid. You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” said Shadow, with hint of humor in his voice. Paul screamed and charged at Shadow. He tired kicking Shadow, but Shadow just grabbed his foot in mid-kick and flipped him over. In a flash, Paul was back up on his feet, ready to lash out again, but all that was left in front of him was a small, black wisp of smoke and the fading shadow of a man.
. . .
Three weeks later, Paul arrived at the foot of the mountain. After all his research, this had seemed to be the most sensible place if he wanted to train to become a ninja. He had laughed about to himself when he thought of the concept, but he still decided to give it a shot. Now he couldn’t turn back, and even if he wanted to, it’d be impossible, because he parachuted on to this island off a plane somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. He looked up as far as he could into the fog, which was about a few meters ahead of him. He sighed and started his climb.
. . .
Sensei stared down the mountain, wondering how long his newest pupil would take to get to the top of the mountain, but at the same time, he was conflicted about what had happened. The death he had wanted had not happened, but still, the target had been weakened. He summoned an orb of light using the magic that he mastered about a year after his mother’s death. He shook his head. That was why most of his pupils failed. They got stuck in the past, and couldn’t move ahead. Their sorrows drowned them.
From the corner of his eye, he saw movement, breaking his train of thought. Moments later, a boy stumbled out of the fog to where Sensei was standing, panting like a dog on his knees. He looked up and said, “Sensei! Please can you help me- huuuuh! - train- huuh... someone killed my brother- I want to learn how to fight back! Please!” His breaths were becoming more steady.
“Very well. But right now, I sense anger and hatred boiling in you, and you are only bent on revenge. Only, and only if you can change your intentions, and control your emotions, then I will train you,” said Sensei said, surprising on how much thrill the child had to train.
“YES! Thank you, Sensei, thank you! Yes, yes, yes, yes!” shouted Paul, filled with enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm he had. Over the span of only one year, better than any other student Sensei had ever taught, Paul had a black belt and a medal, but he had no chi to bring magic from within him, but he could take someone else's. Paul had also grown quite affectionate for Sensei and likewise with Sensei. Tears rolled down Paul’s face as he turned around to leave the mountain. Sensei teleported Paul back home with his magic to start his search for Shadow.
That very night, Sensei sat in his cabin, staring at the tiny hologram projector on his desk. Suddenly, it lit up blue and projected a small form of Shadow. “Do you have any progress with the target?” demanded Sensei, his voice cold enough to freeze lava.
“I’ve set up a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow, starting from his dead brother,” smiled Shadow.
“Breadcrumbs?” Sensei asked, confused.
“Never mind,” said Shadow. “I basically set up a trail of clues, starting at his brother’s grave stone, which I know he’ll visit right away. Then he’ll come straight to me.”
“Good,” said Sensei, reaching for something in the depths of his desk. “Don’t be too overconfident, and this is just to make sure you won’t end up like the others.”
“Wha-” asked Shadow as Sensei hit the button he was looking for, and he held it as Shadow’s screams rang out into the night.
. . .
Paul first stop, even before entering his home, was the graveyard. He spotted his brother’s grave stone almost immediately, but there was something strange about it. On the grave lay a shadow of a man, and the inscription wrote: Find me in the Amazon. Rage poured into Paul like a waterfall. He stared at the shadow, stared at the inscription, and then remembered Sensei’s first lesson: Control your emotions. He slowly calmed down, taking deep breaths. He knew where he had to go. The Amazon Rainforest. He knew his journey wouldn’t be an easy one, but he had to right Shadow’s wrongs by ending him. He turned around and touched the medal Sensei had given him. He pressed the center, with an image of the Amazon in mind, and disappeared, leaving the graveyard empty once more.
…
It took Paul almost a year to find Shadow’s hideout. The teleportation magic Sensei gave him had brought him as far as the Amazon, but the search was for Paul. Shadow obviously had to have set up traps for Paul. On his second day, he was on top of a tree, scouting, when a ball of fire materialized a few yards from him and flew at the tree. He jumped off towards another tree, which almost immediately burst into flames. Thankfully, he had miscalculated the jump, but he still landed hard on the rough, rugged ground. Paul got on his knees and examined his hands. They were bleeding badly, but that wasn’t the current problem.
In front of Paul, leaves and twigs steamed and disintegrated by the heat, and the source of it was either getting stronger, or coming closer. Paul stood up while twirling around and delivering a killing punch in one motion, but his opponent was fast, and hot. He knew something had pushed his hand aside, leaving him with blisters, but there was nothing to be seen for miles around except the brown and green of the forest.
A whooshing sound filled Paul’s ears, one that was very familiar to him after sparring so much in the dojo, and like lightning, Paul drew the knife concealed in his belt and stabbed it into the air behind him at chest level. The air rippled and cooled for a second, and then a shadow fell on the ground, and in a few more seconds, its source was revealed. In Paul’s arms lay a completely charred figure, everything on its body rough and black, except for its eyes, which were a glazed milky white, but sparkling like stars. For a moment, Paul just stared in disgust, when he was suddenly thrown back by an unseen force.
When Paul opened his eyes, the charred thing had been reduced to ashes, and Paul felt strange... and powerful. Fresh energy coursed through his veins, but it was becoming to much. He tried pushing it out, and suddenly his hands burst into flames, and spread across him in a matter of seconds, but Paul just felt more alive, not harmed or different in any way. I’m hallucinating. This can’t be happening, Paul thought, and then without warning, he was started to rise slowly. Yeah, I’m definitely seeing things. Many thoughts raced through his mind at the moment, but he couldn’t believe this was actually happening to him.
Soon, the whole forest was spread out below him. He willed himself to stop, and he did. Paul then noticed that he had had his breath held the whole time, and let it all out. After a few more deep breaths, Paul willed himself forward, and he found himself drifting towards nowhere in particular. He did the same thing to rise a bit higher, but then a tiny flash of red and orange down in the forest caught his eye. In the blink of his eye, it had covered everything and was still expanding. Only one thought came to him. Fire.
He swooped down before he could change his mind and landed in the very center. Paul blinked once, then twice. He felt completely normal. The air suddenly chilled, and a shadow spread over him. Paul looked up and saw a distinct figure hovering above, but he didn’t need anything to recognize who it was. Shadow. He shot up into the sky, and only then he realized that Shadow had stopped the fire. This made him falter, and that was all Shadow needed to get away.
Paul spent the nine months like that. He would start fires to lure Shadow out, but every time he got away. Paul had been following Shadow’s general direction of escape, but that one Monday night, he hit home.
Paul had been wading through some bushes when he stepped into the clearing. Ahead of him stood a cave with a barred entrance. As he approached, two devices popped out of the rock. One started scanning him, and as it got to his chest, the other device spoke: “Object recognized.” A small snake-like thing erupted from it and snatched Paul’s medallion, and also drained his powers. He immediately crumpled to the ground, feeling weak and powerless, but gathered enough strength to stand. As he did, the bars slowly lowered into the ground, leaving Paul free to enter.
Something didn’t feel right though. The air chilled, like the hundreds of times before, and Paul looked up to face Shadow. “Took you long enough,” he mocked.
“Trust me, your death will be a lot quicker,” replied Paul. Paul drew his sword, as did Shadow, who lowered to the ground. They both made eye contact, then started running towards each other. Their swords met in midair, and held there for a second. As Shadow drew back, Paul threw the same knife he had used to kill the creature which gave him his powers. Shadow crumpled to the ground, blood slowly spreading from where the knife hit him.
“Sensei…” Shadow had spoken his final words. A wave of dark rings circled from out of Shadow, and as they hit Paul, his powers came back to him. He looked one last time at Shadow, then turned around to fly back to the dojo.
When Paul got back, Sensei was asleep in his office, but there was a picture of Paul’s own face on a bulletin board, with KILL written over it. This was what Shadow tried telling him. Without a second thought Paul unsheathed his sword and put it in Sensei’s heart, tears forming and dropping from his eyes. Heartbroken, he walked out and gathered his things to leave.
“ACE!” I yelled out the back door of my house and into the dark woods of Laramie, Wyoming. “Ace!” I yelled again as I stepped onto the wet wood deck. I yelled one more time before I turned back and stepped into my tall boots. I hopped down the wet steps onto the damp mixture of soil and leaves. I walked down the trail, calling out. I walked even further down our usual trail. “ACE!” I called, hoping I would hear something back. I snapped my head to the left as something scuttled in the underbrush.
I took a step forward and craned my neck to see behind a tree. There he was, sniffing frantically around a patch of leaves and decaying wood. I walked towards him as he looked up, with a look of terror in his eyes. He nosed down into the leaves, sniffing and pushing with his snout. I walked over and crouched next to him, watching as he started to use his hind legs to push away the dirt. Tattered clothes started to show in the gaps in the leaves that Ace was creating. Slowly, a body started to emerge from under the dark leaves. I stood up, walked to the other side, and looked around into the woods around us. A broken twig drew my attention towards path of twigs and large footprints. I walked over and picked up the broken stick.
I took it back to where Ace was still frantically uncovering the body. I looked down at the body; a young man with a lumberjack beard and deep blue eyes looked back at me. I walked towards his feet and pulled off one of his muddy Timberland boots. I took the heavy shoes back to where the footprints started and turned the boot over. I held the boot down next to the footprint on the ground. They didn’t match.
I stood up, muttering to myself about what in the hell I had just found. I started walking back towards the trail.
“SHIT!” I yelled as my feet flew out from under me. I landed on my back, splattering mud all around me.
“Great! This day is going great,” I muttered sarcastically to Ace. I stood up, looking back towards the body. I stared down at the crater in the mud. A brown triangle protruded from the side of the crater.
I bent over and pulled at the triangle; it lifted out of the leaves easily. I brushed the dirt off of the unmarked leather wallet. I pulled open the two flaps of leather, a Colorado driver's license showed through a dirty, glossy plastic window. I read the name George Yost through the plastic. My heart skipped a beat. That was my dad’s name.
I ran frantically back to my house, Ace at my heels. I sprinted up the stairs. “Danny!” I yelled down the hall towards his room. “I need to talk to you.”
“Coming,” he retorted. I pulled out the wallet as he lumbered down our hallway.
“Take a look at this,” I said, tossing the wallet to him.
“What the hell is this?” he asked as he looked inside. “This is Dad’s. Where the hell did you get this?”
I told him about everything: the body, the wallet, the twig and the footprints. “Holy shit,” he said as his face went blank with confusion.
I stepped into my tall boots that lay on the mudmat as Danny did the same. I slid open the big, heavy glass door and stepped out onto the porch. I walked down the slippery steps, still wet from the spring rain.
“Which path is it?” he asked as he shivered in the wind. “Hold on, I’m gonna grab a sweatshirt.” He turned back to the house and opened the door.
I looked out into the dark mass of wood and leaves that made up my backyard. Something scuttled behind the first line of trees. A small crack rang out and the scuttle resumed. A figure rose from the leaves; a dark silhouette against the trees. The shape darted to the left, crossing the path and sprinted deep into the woods. Danny stepped out of the door, now wearing a sweatshirt.
“Did you see that?” I asked, my voice nervous and urgent.
“No, was I supposed to see something?” he asked.
“No, but some weird shit is happening.”
I led him down the steps and into the woods. The dark path squished below our feet as we trudged down the trail. The scuttle returned and I turned back, beckoning for Danny to stop walking.
“Listen,” I whispered, hoping it would happen again. Nothing.
“Damn!” I muttered as I resumed walking.
“What!” Danny asked, now picking up on my emotions.
“You missed it again!” I exclaimed. “Wait, listen.” My body froze up like a rock. A shape scampered from behind a tree into the dark corner of our vision.
“What the hell Luke? What’s happening right now?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I craned my neck around, hoping to see the figure. Nothing. I kept walking, trying to figure out what in the hell was happening. We finally made it to the tree where the body lay.
“Here it is,” I said, turning back towards Danny. “Take a look for yourself.”I walked towards the body. I stood, watching Danny kneel, examining the body. “I found the wallet over here when I slipped on the wet leaves. There were footprints over there, like somebody else came and dropped him,” I finally said.
“Was there anything else?” he asked.
“There was a broken twig, but that’s all that I found,” I replied. I walked over towards the footprints that led away from the body. “Are we just gonna go on with our lives and tell someone or stay here pondering about why our dad’s wallet was by this body?”
“We shouldn’t tell anyone yet. There has to be some explanation for this. I know you never really knew Dad, but we can’t tell anyone yet.”
“Why not? What if he actually murdered this guy?”
“He’s family; you don’t know him like I do,” Danny said.
“Well when I find a dead body in the woods with my runaway dad’s wallet nearby, what am I supposed to think?” I said with added snark and frustration. “I don’t care how well you knew or know Dad! I still think we need to at least tell Mom. We’re 14 and 17.This is a homicide, and it happened IN OUR BACKYARD! Not even counting the fact that there’s a creature or person running around, scaring the shit out of me!”
“Whoa, Luke, chill out a little. It’s gonna be okay,” he said as he looked around, now realizing what he was supposed to see earlier. I stood up, sucking in deep breaths and looking around. I went back over to the body, looking for a different clue. I dropped onto my knees next to the body and stuck my hand into the left jean pocket.
I pulled out a set of car keys. It was a carabiner with miscellaneous bronze keys and a big black Ford remote starter. I crawled around to the other side and dug my hand into the right pocket. I pulled out a thin, black leather wallet. I pulled open the flaps and removed an Idaho driver's license.
“Buck Roscoe,” I said as I threw to keys to Danny. “Only 22.” I stood up, brushing the dirt off of my knees. “We’ve gotta get home.” I walked past Danny who stood, examining the keys.
“Yeah, let’s get going.” We made it back to the house, with Ace wagging his tail at the door. I slid the heavy glass open and stepped out of my boots. I walked into the living room and flopped down into my beanbag chair and powered on my controller.
Minutes later, I stood up from the beanbag chair as a thumping came up the front porch steps. I pressed pause on the PS4 controller and went to the window to see who it was. All I could see was a big dark figure. I walked to the front door and cracked it open. I saw a face and immediately recognized him. I swung the door all the way open. It was my dad.
School can be a scary place when you don’t know who or what you’re dealing with. I was the new kid at school and I’d heard stories already. It seemed like the whole school had been talking about how some of the teachers were monsters. I figured it was just something to give people a way to talk about tough teachers. Middle schoolers are like that, but what if I was wrong? I had no idea what would happen if I got off on the wrong foot with one of these monsters.
It all started in Mrs. Hollaster’s class, she was my computer teacher. Everyone in my class dreaded going to her class. You could tell by the way they begged our teacher to let us stay in the classroom. Mrs. Hollaster always told us to make sure we go to the restroom before class began. She threatened noon detention, counting us tarty, and even after school detention. No one thought she could actually do that, but when the lunch room started getting less packed people started going the the bathroom before class..
About five minutes into computer class one day, my stomach started to hurt. Was I hungry? No, I had just eaten. Then I remembered, I hadn’t used the bathroom. Could I hold it until class was over? No, it was an emergency. Oh my, I’m going to have lunch detention for the first time. I was dreading having to ask Mrs. Hollaster to go, but I slowly walked up to her desk.
“Can I go to the restroom,” I quietly asked. She was nodding her head like she was saying “yes,” but she wasn’t looking at me. Even though I didn’t think she was saying “yes” and I should probably ask again, I went anyway. If she had been saying “yes” she would yell at me for asking again. “How many times do I have to answer you, young lady?” she’d ask.
As I was washing my hands in the bathroom all of these thoughts started scaring me. Had she heard me? What if she hadn’t? What happens now? I was completely freaking out.
“What am I going to do?” I asked myself.
A few seconds later, the door slammed open. My heart started to pound.
“What are you doing in this bathroom without permission?” Mrs. Hollaster screamed. I wanted to hide behind the trash can but that only make her more mad. What would provide me the most protection if she was a monster? Why didn’t I think of all this ahead of time, I wondered. I would have just held it a little longer!
“I don’t know,” I replied, half whining. “I came and asked you if I could.”
“And what did I say?” she demanded.
“Nothing, but you were nodding your head.”
“Well there's nothing we can do about it now, can we? Just don’t do it again!” she exclaimed. I was embarrassed and shaken up. I didn’t want to go back to class because although her words said it was over, her past threats made me question the situation. What would she do when I got back to class?
Turns out I didn’t need to worry. When we got back in the classroom everyone was laughing because they knew I had gotten in trouble. They probably heard our conversation from the restroom. She’d gotten pretty loud. She told everyone to shush up or she’d give the whole class lunch detention. They instantly got back to typing, all of them in unison, just like little minions. Could it actually be that she was a monster with mind control powers? I took a seat and got back to work, too--just in case. That incident messed my whole day up, but the next day I was back up and running. Surely there were no monsters with mind-control powers--unless they’d already gotten to me.
I didn’t see anything suspicious that morning, but that changed when I got to the cafeteria for lunch. Everything’s suspicious in the cafeteria! We were going through the lunch line. At the doorway to the kitchen, Mr.s Chang made us point to the list of lunch choices she had. It was supposed to show what we had reported to our teachers that morning. I had told Mrs. Armstrong I wanted crispy chicken, or option two in cafeteria speak. But, when I pointed to my name on the list, it was blank.
Mrs. Chang started screaming at me, “Well, I’m going to give you lunch detention for today because you didn’t put your lunch option down and then you tried to lie about it.”
I tried to explain to her that I had put the option down. “I asked for crispy chicken,” I said.
“No you didn’t or you’d know you put it down. You’re lying again.”
“Well, I didn’t write it down. Our teacher wrote it down for us.”
“Well, then that’s another lie, isn’t it?”
I decided not to even argue about it anymore. There was a whole line of kids waiting behind me and I clearly wasn’t getting anywhere with this lady!
I turned and walked toward the door, headed to the lunch detention room.
“No,” Mrs. Chang called after me. “You’ve got to get a salad from the salad bar if you’re hungry!”
I sighed and turned toward the salad bar. Why was she so concerned about my eating all of a sudden? As I got my tray and started picking out salad toppings, I realized that Mrs. Chang was standing behind me now.
“Let me help you”, she said taking the tongs from my hand. “You obviously don’t know how to use them.” She started pinching carrots and dropping them on my tray.
“That’s enough,” I told her as the pile started to grow.
“Just a couple more, honey,” she said in a high-pitched, cackling voice. I couldn’t help wondering if she might have a little witch in her. As she kept piling carrots on my tray, I began to wonder what her obsession was with them, but I dismissed it and headed to detention.
I sat down to eat in silence as the detention rules stated. I looked at my salad and noticed the carrots were all dried and crusty. Could this possibly be the same carrots I’d seen in the cafeteria? Oh well, I thought and I ate them along with the rest of my salad.
Detention’s not so bad. You just have to eat quietly outside the cafeteria. Then, when you’re done you go out to recess like everyone else. I threw my trash away and headed out, glad to have this experience past me. “Guess there were no monsters involved afterall,” I thought. But then it hit me. A nauseous feeling began to rise in my stomach. Strange as it seems, it felt like I had a headache in my stomach and little tiny creatures might be crawling around in there. I made a u-turn and headed to the nurse’s office.
On my way there, Mrs. Chang stepped out of the cafeteria and blocked my path.
“Why are you roaming the halls?” she asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be outside?”
I almost told her that I was headed to the nurses office, but what if she was one of the monsters? What if she’d intentionally done something to those carrots? I turned around and went back out to recess.
Mrs. O’Loughlin was on duty that day. “Why didn’t you go to the nurse,” she asked.
“I thought I’d get better out here--fresh air and all,” I told her.
“OK,” but let me know if you need anything, she told me.
I sat under a tree to rest and think of my next plan. I noticed others sitting around talking. Maybe I wasn’t the only one. Should I do something about this? Tell someone? Who was safe to tell? Were there really monsters in this school?
I decided my safest bet was to wait and see and that’s where I am now. Watching carefully and trying to lay low to see what’s going on. I’ve never asked to go to the restroom in Mrs. Hollaster’s class and I always bring my lunch to school.
It was not until I had swallowed that I heard the footsteps.
There I was, staring into an ocean of midnight, frozen in place, as if to melt into the colorless scene.
I listened to the rain splatter onto the ground from the leaky ceiling, my eyes closed shut, longing to disappear.
Drip.
A gun barrel dug into the back of my head.
Drip.
I opened my eyes.
Drip.
A single tear silently rolled down my cheek.
Click.
I breathed.
Drip.
Friends are are like a wonderful sweet nectar that sometimes in spring are sweet but when time comes they become bitter and inedible. They are there like a cloud in the sky so peaceful and calm but sometimes rain down on you with their harsh words. They are like lemonade on a hot summer day but are also like the brain freeze that follows. They are like angels but are devils at times. They are like glue always sticking to you but are also like water slipping away from you. They are like water to your to a plant and your fire. They are like grass to a giraffe but are also lions at times. They are like the snow that softly covers your branches protecting you from the cold winter. They are a blessing but also a burden. They are the ones who cherish, respect, and support you through good times and bad. They are the ones that tell you that you are never alone. They are the ones that help you grow stronger to endure the hard journey of your life.To be alone is to be cursed. Friends are life. You cannot live without them. Remember that.