User blog:Eeneend/8: A Story I Wrote

Hey, below, you can read a short story I wrote as an entry for the Young Writers Competition. You see, I'm in class G2B, which means I do FLE (Fast Lane English, its a class in which you get an extra amount of English, which explains why I have no problems comunicating in English. It has nothing to do with Bionicle, I just tought you might enjoy. I haven't been doing grammar checks on this story lately, so if you see a mistake, or just want to say something, please leave a comment. It's supposed to be a thousand-words story, it's in fact a fourteenhundred-words story, so I have to remove some sentences, but I can't choose.

The Roundabout Accident
‘Like walking trough a blizzard, the last few years of my life had been. Everything that showed the scars were the places in my mind my naive dreams about my normal life had been torn away. I remember the day the sorrow started as clear as I remember how I forgot to unlock the door earlier this morning. To you, that seems a meaningless mistake, but even the most meaningless mistake can change every thing you know to be. This is also how I met my friend. The event took place at a nice-seeming roundabout in mid-July. Everything went right in those days. I just received my drivers-licence, I bought a car, an old, damaged car, with the money I hardly earned with my job at the shopping mall. Even with some financial support from my parents, it was barely enough. Just for fun, I drove my car around the roundabout a few times, I should never have done that, and suddenly, out of the nothing he shouldn’t have come out of, a biker appeared. His poor bike barely fell apart, it was even older and more damaged that my own wrecked car. I barely touched his vehicle, still, he dropped down, his bike, of course, was entirely fallen apart. The basket case just lay on the ground, I never figured out if he acted like he was unconscious, or actually was. However, he sued me, I, somehow, lost. It cost me my car, my parent’s love, my social life, and my drivers-licence. Those days, that was everything I used to have besides my life. I felt guilty for him, after all, I did something I shouldn’t have been doing, no matter how innocent it might sound.

A few days after the lawsuit, my victim decided to pay a visit at my cheap, near-rotten student’s home. After he tried to ring the bell a few times, almost separating it from its wall, he decided just to knock. I first attempted to hide and pretend he wasn’t there, but in fear and out of mercy, I stood up from the ground I was hiding on, and walked near the door. As my hand touched the latch, and unlocked the door, it was rudely pushed open from the other side, as if good manners were no more. Even more rudely, he just walked into the room, wearing muddy boots, something I decided to ignore. He turned around, pointed his finger at me and asked: ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m Mike,’ I said, wilfully hiding my surname. ‘I didn’t ask for your name, I asked who you are, that’s something entirely else. Your name says nothing but your name, and I didn’t ask for that’ he said, as if I was nearly dumb. I didn’t want him to have any opportunity to pretend he was smarter than I was, so I continued, ‘I am a nineteen year old student. I study philosophy, my hobbies are reading, writing, and constructive art. Now I would like to know who you are, and your name, please.’ ‘My name is simple, it’s Richard, you will find out the rest later.’ I remained silent. He stayed the whole afternoon, talking about things I didn’t want to hear, with me begging that he would go away.

Months passed. He often visited, chasing off most of my former friends, and bringing down my study. He often let me puzzle, and laughed at me when I brought him the answer, which was often right, something he kept denying.

Once, on a Saturday, I went to work, in the shopping mall, as I usually do. While my hands were storing unhealthy food and other commodities nobody wants but everybody buys, my mind was still talking to Richard, I hoped he wouldn’t come around soon, I at least wouldn’t appreciate another visit, I think. As if my thoughts had become reality, I saw him standing in front of the dustbin, he waved, out of habit, I waved back. He just stood outside, looking at me doing my job. After the store closed, I walked outside. ‘How are you?’ He asked. ‘Great,’ I replied, being sarcastic. ‘How are you?’ ‘I feel like a hare running four miles in pursuit of an ice cream lately,’ he answered, think about that,’ he said. ‘I would say you feel like you’re after something, something nice, but the longer you’re running, the smaller it gets,’ I replied. ‘Nice answer,’ he said. ‘What are you persuading?’ I asked. He remained silent for a few moments, ‘Your loyalty,’ he answered. After he said that, he walked away, leaving me behind.

It took me days to understand what he was doing, and who he was. He wanted me to be his friend, but he also ruined me. I still felt guilty about the accident, but that thought was slowly getting oppressed by the hatred towards the lawsuit and its impact, which was, of course, caused by him, wasn’t it? It apparently also took him some time to figure out what to do. His next visit took place nearly two weeks later. I noticed him sitting in the park as I walked home, just after I did my job, as usual. He stood up from the stool he sat on and started walking beside me; I gently greeted him, without any trace of sarcasm. Spontaneously, he asked: ‘Shall we go to my home?’ I may have seemed calm, but inside I was panicking. ‘Maybe,’ I answered, ‘I actually wanted to go home, and relax.’ ‘It’s only a few streets away from where you stand,’ he told me. I forgot what my exact words were, but he somehow talked my feet over his threshold.

His living room was a total chaos; it reminded me of a dump, a very unorganized dump. ‘Welcome to my apartment. Please, don’t mind the mess; I haven’t been able to clean it up lately.’ I sat down on his couch, trying to avoid crushing his property. ‘What did you mean with “I’m running after his loyalty, but the longer I persuade it, the lesser it gets,” I didn’t entirely understand that,’ I spontaneously asked. Of course, I think I understood what he meant long before, but I wanted to be sure. ‘You know what it means,’ he said, ‘don’t ask things you already know, it’s annoying.’ ‘You do mean that you’re chasing my friendship, and the more you want it, the lesser it gets,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, from the sound I heard, I could tell that he was looking for something. After a few minutes, he walked back to the living room. He sat down next to me, in his hand, he held a small, crumpled envelope, he gave it to me. ‘Be careful with it, its content is very valuable, in your eyes at least.’ ‘What’s in it?’ I asked him. ‘You will find out automatically after you opened it. You have to go now, and don’t open it before you’re home.’ I stood up from the wore-out couch, and walked to the door, as I opened the door, he said: ‘Thank you.’ Not being aware of the thorough meaning of this words I simply replied: ‘You’re welcome.’

After I reached my home, I quickly opened the envelope and spread its contents out on the coffee table. In front of me lay a few thousand pounds; astonished as I was, it had cost me over forty-five minutes to come to the conclusion that it was indeed a lot of money.

Only a few days after my visit, he committed suicide. It stunned me. I wanted to hate him, to vent my anger on him, but it would be foolish to say I did. He was my friend, I can’t deny that. His mother blamed me; every member of his family blamed me. They didn’t invite me on his funeral, something I couldn’t care about. I still walked in. His funeral was old-fashioned, long, and boring, not even close to the funeral he would have chosen.

I felt good. I simply ignored all the scorning eyes of my friend’s family, and my own, all the things they whispered, and everything they kept me away from. I knew my conscience was entirely clean, and that’s what matters.

Eeneend