Chapter 1
Who cares?
As I lay in the dark chilling alleyway on a typical frigid day in
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and looked down to see who has been blowing up my phone for the past minutes. I look down to see three letters on my screen: “D-A-D.” Why? Why must he always manage a way to piss me off? I’ve lived 16 years of my life on my own. What makes him think that now, after 16 years of such lonesome and self-reliance, I need him to worry for me? A 45-year-old workaholic, who seems to want more of me than I want of him, can’t help me in any way. No one can help me anymore. I can’t even help myself.
As I looked down at my phone a second time to make sure it was he calling, I began to tightly grip the technologically advanced item and thrust my arm in a forward motion. It’s as if the phone is in slow motion, as it maliciously hits the alley wall. It shatters in about 27 different pieces as it falls to the floor. I am angry. I’ll admit it; I am angry. What are you gonna’ do about it? Are you gonna’ help me? You can’t help me. I’m in too deep now. I can’t even help myself. I’m sick of it; I’m not who they think I am. I am not who they want me to be. I am gonna’ be the only way I know how to be; me. Why do they care anyway? What makes them think I care about what they say? I don’t give a shit about myself. You think I miraculously am gonna’ give a shit about you?
I had begun to make my way out of the lonely alleyway when it got to me. My hands had begun shaking. I am pissed; after being in such a great mood in the alleyway, knowing that I got away with it again. An aura of bad feelings came through my body as I realized I needed one: a cigarette. If I didn’t smoke a cigarette soon I think I would have to murder someone again. If you can do it once, you can do it again; is that not what they say? That idea quickly dispersed as I realize that I had just made well over $2,000 on the last tramp. That’s enough to buy about 400 packs of cigarettes enough to last me about a year if I’m lucky.
They say cigarettes can kill you; I say ‘good,’ let me die, something’s gotta kill me. Death would be better than the inner misery that I go through everyday. As I went to the nearest Exxon, I saw him; my father. What was he doing there? Was he looking for me? I didn’t need his bullshit anymore. I ignore him, walk into the Tiger Mart and walk right up to the counter.
“Yo, let me get a pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights and a pack of Honey flavored Dutch Master cigars,” I asked, pretending like my father wasn’t standing right next to me.
“What do you need the cigars for?” he asks knowing very well the answer to the question.
“Well, pops, I need something to roll my marijuana in,” I answer sarcastically.
I hate it when he does that. He asks me a stupid question in which he already knows the answer to, as if he needs the satisfaction of hearing the answer twice. Why? Is he just bad at understanding the truth or am I just misunderstood? As I looked up at the clock in the corner of the store, the time read
People say murder is one of the worst sins a man can commit. I say if it’s for money, shit I’d kill my own family. Sometimes, late at night, I think I am crazy. Is that the way a 16 year-old boy is supposed to feel? I haven’t always been like this: I used to be normal, I used to be good, I used to be happy.
Chapter 2
I cared
I know what you’re thinking. You think I must have had a terrible childhood, my parents must have beaten me, I must have gone through so much. No. My parents were good to me. They put food on the table, clothes on my back, and shelter from the cold. They did their part. I failed on doing my part. I was a good student. I had good grades, good attendance, and most of all, good behavior. People say time flies. I say time’s regretful. You always know what you should have done after you have already done it.
I lived happily. Two loving parents who did all they could to keep happy. My best friend,
We fit together like a jig-saw puzzle. It’s like we were made to be together. What goes up must come down. He has his downside of course. He wanted so much of me. It was as if he was trying to shape who I was. He didn’t want me to be me; he wanted me to be like him. Why is that always a problem? Am I not good enough for him? We both looked past the stupidity of that miniscule problem and lived our early lives being best friends. I am Egyptian, he was Swedish and English; I was loud, he was shy; I was hot-headed, he was calm. How could we ever get along?
Fear-more and I met in a very peculiar situation. He was in the cafeteria during his lunch, eating and reading. Three 9th graders came up to him, harassing him for money. He refused to give it to them.
“I’ll give you all the money you need as long as I know your not gonna use it to blaze and commit other stupid things,” he yelled at them chuckling. They started beating him brutally, with no consent of his life; the boys hit him, in the head, in the throat, in the stomach.
I was in 7th grade at the time. I saw the brutal assault on a poor white kid from the other corner of the cafeteria. I had just lightened my cigarette; I took two drags as I ran up to the battle. I ran up to the tallest kid and shoved my cigarette so far into his eye; I felt tears running down my hands. As I started taking a brutal beating from the other two punks, 3 security officers broke up the fight. I looked down at my new-established friend to see blood rushing down his face.
He held his hand up to me and said, “Its kids like you that give
Fear-more would get into fights, only to have me fight his battles for him. He hated the fact that I smoked. He called cigarettes death sticks. Something’s gotta kill me, right? It’s either these cigarettes or the fights he had put me in. He embraced me with his knowledge on things such as “death sticks,” drugs, and alcohol. He taught me more than my own father had taught me. Although this kid was only 13-years-old, he knew more about the good and bad of the world than anyone I have ever met. He helped me quit smoking and resort to something much more useful: school. He didn’t tell me that I should give school my all, or that I should put in effort; he showed me. He was a good student, a good son, and a good person. He made me want to be like that, just by being around him. Fear-more was the reason that I flourished in my middle school days.
What happened, you may ask. How could a kid be so good then become so fucked up? If there’s not one thing I have learned on this shit-hole they call Earth, I learned that shit happens. Shit Happens. Sometimes things happen for the better or for the worse but not you, not me, not anyone, can control it. Why should we trouble ourselves with what happens? Fear-more used to say that if we don’t care about what happens in our lives, who will care for us? You think anyone gives a shit about me? You think I give a shit about myself? You think I give a shit about you?
I know what you’re thinking; your asking yourselves now, “What about his family, his parents, I’m sure they care.” To a parent, a kid is just something they hope to be successful so they can benefit from him/her. Parents have already messed up their lives, so they count on their kids to fix it for them. Whether it’s by going to the college they wanted to go to, or by playing the sport they have always wanted to play. That is why they always try and persuade you to do things and use the excuse that it’s the best thing for you. That’s bullshit.
How do they know what’s the best thing for me? They don’t know me or anything about me. The only person that knew me was Fear-more. He really did want what was best for me. He wanted to see me succeed because he knew that would be best for me. He wanted to see me get out of the ghetto and let down the peer pressures of common American culture now days. He wanted me to be good, he believed I was good. He would not get any benefit from me being the right way. Fear-more was just a good, warm-hearted friend.
Why? I know what’s going through your mind. This kid had it all: good parents, good grades, good athlete, and most of all, a good friend. Why has he lost his mind now? What made him go crazy? These questions are typical. One question that is not typical is one that not many people think of. Why is Fear-more constantly used in the past tense? What happened to him? Did he move, did we lose touch, or did he die? I’ll leave you to be the judge of that one.
Chapter 3
Shit happens
After Fear-more left me, everything went down-hill. Within a month of Fear-more’s retiring, my mother left me too. Some tall heavy set man who wanted me to call him doctor said she died from AIDS. My mother did not have AIDS. I went crazy researching everything about this monstrous killer. Stupid me. I soon was puzzled to find out that my mother really did have AIDS and died from it. I went to my father, running, stumbling over my words. We went to the hospital and had him checked for AIDS. To our bitter surprise my father did not have AIDS. I asked to see a copy of my mother’s medical history. She has never been injected with needles or anything of that sort that she can contract AIDS from. There was only one other way the slut could have gotten AIDS. Why? Why would she do that? She had a family; she had a loving husband, an alright son. Apparently I wasn’t good enough for her. I’m never good enough.
It was the day; the day of her funeral. I didn’t wanna go.
“I don’t mourn tramps,” I told my disheartened father.
“She was your mother and my wife. She loved you and raised you,” my father said with a tear in his eye. “NO ONE IS PERFECT!” he screamed at me as he fell to his knees in my arms. He was crying as he kept repeating to himself, “No one is perfect; no one is perfect, no one is perfect, no one is perfect.”
What do I do in a situation like that? Do I run away? As I held a grown man weeping in my arms I thought to myself, “what would Fear-more do?” Would he run? Fear-more would have ran. He’s a coward when it comes to the hands on work. He couldn’t handle keeping his father breathing. After about 5 minutes, I came to a conclusion: Shit happens. I can’t help it. You can’t help it.
We finally got to my mother’s funeral. I looked around to see friends and family there. It was odd. I haven’t seen some of these people in about 7 years. As the sheikh* began his prayers,
* sheikh Muslim priest
more and more people began crying. I was her son, but why? Why wasn’t I crying? It was as if I didn’t care at all. It’s as if the anger I have about the whole situation overshadowed the pain I felt of her death. How could she be with another man? She must have loved him. She wouldn’t give up her family unless she absolutely loved this man. Then it hit me like a punch in a Fear-more fight. Love. If it was love, then love couldn’t keep this man from coming to his angel’s funeral. He had to have been here. I looked around with a malicious intent on finding this prick.
As my eyes gazed from side to side, they landed on my father. He was in my aunt’s arms crying a monsoon on her shoulders. This only infuriated me more; gave me more motivation to find the son of a bitch who ruined my family; who ruined my life. A few moments have passed and I am yet to find someone that can even be thought of as a suspect. Give up? I would never. Ask for help? That was a solo job. No one could’ve helped me. I can’t even help myself.
As I was looking around, frustrated, struggling to see a person who can come close to the man I have pre-imaged in my heart, I come across the shadow. It is the shadow of a tall, heavyset man. Should I look up? Do I want to see the person standing in the shadow? What if it is someone I know? Someone I like? Shit if he had the balls to sleep with my mom he deserves to get it. Get what? I am a 5’11, 130 lb, Egyptian kid trying to make my way living a life of lies, deceit, and anger. What can I do? What am I gonna do, kill him? I am a good kid. I don’t need to resort to violence.
As my eyes slowly started ascending up to see this coward, about 27 different thoughts were running through my mind. This was it. This was the man who ruined my family’s lives. This is the man who made my father cry on my shoulders; the man who killed my mother. What goes around comes around. What you hate most in other people are the very qualities you possess. I hate this man for being a coward; being afraid. Now look at me! I am to big a coward to look this man in the eyes. I don’t even know who it is. Here it comes, I’m looking up. Look out fool. HERE I COME.
As my eyes slowly started ascending up to see this coward, I thought of Fear-more. He loved Martin Luther King Jr. I thought the man was intelligent, but a sissy. How do you expect someone to depict his anger using solutions besides violence?
“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love,” said that sissy King. This fool thinks nonviolence is the answer to our moral questions. To have questions on morals, a man must have morals. What kind of morals does a man have if he was to ruin a happy family of 3?
As my eyes slowly started ascending up to see this coward, I finally convinced myself that King’s wise words don’t go for my little situation. This was it. My eyes looked to see who this shady coward was standing in the back of the funeral.
As my eyes slowly ascended, I got this weird tingling sensation; as if someone was staring at me. I quickly look up at this man to see him staring directly at me. I was in shock. This man looking peculiarly familiar began moving his lips.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” I barely made out what this bastard was saying.
How do you not know? The thought of who this man was began pulsating through my mind. He looked familiar; as if I have seen him many times before but never cared to pay attention to who he is. It was as if this man was someone who I should know; someone important. The man was looking at me in the most eerie sense. It was as if, by him looking at me, he knew everything I was thinking about. What’s wrong with this fool? How is he stupid enough to show up, knowing very well that I would be here? That is a level of disrespect and disregard that no sane man would do willingly.
This man knew he was gonna be pushing someone’s buttons by coming today. He knew damn well what he was doing. My eyes dropped down to the shadow where they had seemed to find a comfortable sanctuary. Anger began rushing through my veins, being pumped quicker and quicker through my heart. Slowly I took all this in and realized this man had just spoken to me. It is rude if I don’t answer him back. As I find my way up to him again, I said the only thing my heart let me:
“Fuck you,” I yelled in hatred rushing at this man.
For the three seconds I was running at this man not one thought was going through my mind. It was as if I was in a state of unconsciousness. I had no clue what I was doing or why I was doing it. All I know is that when I got on top of this man and began to beat the white out of this man’s skin pigment I felt like I was above all else. No one could stop me. No one could help me. I am what I am. I am unstoppable. I am invincible.
Chapter 4
What do they want?
“There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people,” says Muhammad Ali. A man who made his living off beating people up, claims that there is more pleasant things to do. Hypocrites. I don’t know about everyone else, but I got more pleasure out of beating that man’s head in and watching him cringe behind his shadow than I ever got. It’s been two years since my mom’s death. Two years! I still have no clue who the man I killed was. I don’t know his name. The only thing I remember about him was the way he was cringing while I stole his life.
Cringsdale; the name I gave the murderer. It annoyed the hell outa me not naming him so I made up any bullshit name; the first name that came to mind. How? You are wondering. Why aren’t I in jail? Well, behind this incredible rage, behind all the words, behind the beatings, behind the pain, but before the love, is something people often miss about me. I have my own mind and not to brag but I am kind of a genius. When the cops tried to file a suit against me for the murder of Cringsdale, I used the idea of self-defense saying that he hit me, too. Within two months I was a free man with no worries of being locked up.
It has been two years since all this has happened. I thought about it on various accounts and answered all my questions on the subject; all but one. After I did what I was obligated to do, so many people looked at me differently. My dad went crazy, my relatives stopped talking to us, and the police kept an eye on me. I am 16 years old. I need to live my own life. People say a person’s teen-aged years are the most difficult years in a person’s life. I agree. Parents never seem to understand what’s going through our minds. The law enforcement never seems to understand, our school administration never understands, shit, my own friends never even understand.
Why? Why don’t I save myself in god? God doesn’t understand either. As a teen, so much is expected of you. Your friends want you to be one person, while your parents want you to be someone completely different. The ladies want you to be someone but the school wants you to be someone else. How do I win? How can I make everyone happy? How do I win? I already lost. I lost my mother and Fear-more. I didn’t make them happy. They made me happy. Why didn’t I make them happy?
Parents want you to be the perfect son. They want straight A’s in school or else you’re a failure. They want you to be captain of every sports team your on. They want you to be polite. Eat with a fork and knife, use napkins when needed. What happens when you’re not capable of getting those straight A’s? Am I a failure then? Have I failed in your eyes? Was I incapable of making you happy? Will I lose you too?
Friends; they want the most, ironically. Friends want you to be that cool, ladies man alcoholic they are. What if I don’t like drinking? What if I think it is dangerous and unhealthy? Am I failure? What if I don’t wanna be the friend you want me to be? Am I failure yet? The problem is usually your friends and parents are pulling you in such opposite directions that you have no clue what’s right from wrong. People say it is a man’s god given right to be able to differentiate between what is wrong and what is right. They are right. God has given man this right, but he takes it all away from us by giving us parents and friends. What your parents say is wrong, your friends say is right. What is a teen-ager to do then? Are we failures? How do I win? Can I win?
What do they want from me? After two years of deep thought I came up with the most logical conclusion. I should be the way I want to be. Do what I want to do. Listen to no one but myself. “I aint gonna be the champ the way you want me to be the champ, im a be the champ the way I wanna be the champ,” Muhammad Ali.
Chapter 5
Lost
It’s
After sitting there for a couple of moments I decided to start. It was at that moment, when I took out my cigar and a bag of weed when I realized: I’m not happy. I am not happy. That is why I have to resort to killing people and selling drugs for a man I don’t even like just to make money to buy more drugs and poison sticks. That is why I have to inhale all these harmful chemicals into my body to kill my brain and make it stop thinking about all the bad. Inhale it so I can be stupid. So I can be stupid like the rest of society.
Then again, how am I supposed to stop? How do I stop living the only way I know how? Run? No way. I am not running away on this one. I refuse to be like Cringsdale. I will not cringe behind my shadow. The truth of the matter is I can’t help myself. I can’t stop all my wrong doings without anyone else’s help. Only problem is, who’s gonna help me? My dad can’t help me. Like I said, parents shape you to be the way they want you to be. Therefore his help is biased and unwanted here. I need someone pure, someone who cares for the good of me, someone that gets no good from helping me besides the satisfaction of knowing he/she did good on this painful place they call Earth. Rolling this weed, I realized it. I realize I need to stop the sinful, hurtful, bad life I have been living. I killed a man because he made my father cry. Now it is that very man I killed for who is crying. What you hate most in other people you have in yourself. I need to change. I need help. I can’t live this life anymore. I am lost.
Chapter 6
Not Me
Finally, I finished rolling the weed. As I look around for any police, I hold my Bic lighter up to the brown leaves I quickly turn the lever and a spark ignites. As I inhale quickly hoping to get the leaves to start burning I look up at the stars. People say when someone dies that’s where they go. Up above. Is that where my mom is? Is she one of those stars? Does she deserve to be? She ruined her only son’s life. She made me kill her love. Or did she? Did I kill the man because of what he did with my mom or did I kill him because I felt like that’s what society says I should do?
Who cares? The man’s dead and so is my mom. Oh my god. By killing this man did I re-unite them? Are they happy? What if he wasn’t lying? Cringsdale could have been telling me the truth. What if he had no clue my mom was a married woman. After a couple of hits of weed I came to the conclusion that it was my mother’s fault. She lied to this honest, innocent man and drove me to such anger that I lost my sanity and killed my good friend, Cringsdale.
It rarely occurs in one’s life where one can blatantly accept himself as the doer of wrong. Someone can do something so wrong but never admit to it. Not me. I am no coward, I will not cringe. I was wrong. I should have not killed Cringsdale. He knew my mother better than anyone. He knew what my father and I did to drive her away. He knows what made her throw away her life for something she thought was better. The only person that can answer all these conspiracies was Cringsdale.
Cringsdale was the only memory I had left of my mother. How do I repay him? I kill him with my bear hands, slowly so he feels as much pain as I have felt for the past 2 years. After all this thought of my misunderstanding I realize I need to take more drags of this joint. I need to inhale so much smoke into my body to get my mind off the painful topics teen-agers must live through.
What do I do now? After I finish smoking this marijuana, after I go to sleep and wake up. The weirdest thought that runs through my mind everyday is the thought of the man or woman whose life I will be ruining or taking tomorrow. What crack head will I sell my drugs to tomorrow? What disrespectful man will I get paid to kill tomorrow? This life isn’t for me.
“This isn’t me. This isn’t me. This isn’t me,” this is all I can say as my eyes slowly shut and my head lays back against the stairs in front of my house.
Chapter 7
Weird Dream
The small plane swept from side to side as smoke sputtered from the last remaining life of the engine. The half torn canopy was tearing away at the gust of the wind. At the control was Captain Cyril, Ace fighter Captain of the British Air corps. If one thing could be said of Cyril, it was that he was a survivor. He was a crack shot, and had an almost suicidal disregard for personal safety. He commanded his own squad, which was notorious for having the highest casualty rate of any squad in the corp. Unfortunately Cyril had family connections, which prevented him from being sent away. So the Air Corp. command could only look on with increasing appall as the casualties mounted. They twiddled their collective thumbs and quietly prayed that some German Nazi would get lucky and shoot the fool down. Not that they ever did. If God smiled on the stupid, he positively beamed on Cyril who emerged from one hair-raising escapade after another without so much as a scratch.
Behind Cyril sat Cringley, a sissified man, half-witted forced to go along with Cap. Cyril as a navigator since the Air Corps weren’t willing to lose another good soldier. Cringley cried aloud for his mother as the plane circled through the war torn skies helplessly falling. The cause? A lone German Nazi thought he would take a swipe against Capt. Cyril. His fate? About a hundred different flaming pieces falling through the sky, but not before getting in a couple shots at Capt. Cyril’s plane. In the cockpit, Capt. Cyril tapped the fuel gauge. The arrow trembled slightly, but refused to budge away from the nearly empty reading. Damn, thought Capt. Cyril, what a predicament to be in. Lost in a storm, nearly out of fuel, with an idiot in the back seat. Thunder roared below, echoing through the sky. If it wasn't for the storm Capt. Cyril would have taken her down and tried for a visual check of the terrain. He caught blurred views of the ground through the odd gap in the clouds. He strongly doubted the damaged plane would survive the buffeting down there. Still, that would become academic in a few minutes, when his fuel ran out.
While Capt. Cyril thought of any other possible option to get out of this mess and Cringley cried aloud for his mother, a silver object whirred past them followed by a loud hiss of wind. Both looked peculiarly at the object. They were both dumbfounded and for an instant, forgot their worries.
What on earth is that Cyril?" gasped Cringley, peering over the Captains shoulder.
"Dashed if I know," said Cyril, too surprised to make any attempt to hide his ignorance.
"It looks like a china saucer, turned upside down," observed Cringley.
The object indeed did look like a saucer, but it was about 45 feet wide in diameter. What truly dumbfounded them was that the object was held aloft without any evidence of a propeller or wings.
"No wings, no propellers, how the devil does it stay up?" mused Cyril.
The plane hovered impossibly in the air for moments, surrounded by a bright blue beam. Cyril and Cringley were paralyzed where they sat. Though they still had access to their five senses, neither one of them could so much as twitch a finger. Helplessly they watched as they were dragged inside the silver dome. They were inside a circular chamber with a vaulting dome roof, lit by myriads of multicolored lights. One of those lights was shining on the biplane from above. It hovered silently in mid air. Directly ahead of them was the damaged flying saucer. It too hovered with no apparent support, apart from the beam of light.
"I always wondered what heaven would be like, and its just like the picture books, all white and peaceful." said Cringley, looking around.
Realization hit Cyril and he gave the gunner a withering look.
"You moron, we're not dead, yet. And this isn't heaven, we're inside that floating machine in the sky."
A flicker of motion from above caught his eye. In the white domed ceiling, a hatch was opening. From out of it emerged the strangest looking collection of objects that Cyril had ever seen. There wasthree of them, small, about the size of footballs, and made of metal. They all possessed multiple spindly arms. They drifted down like silver balloons and hovered around the flying saucer. Their attention seemed to be focused on the damaged section of the saucer. In a smooth operation they removed the scorched panel and two of them took it away. Moments later they returned with a replacement panel. Cyril watched them seal it into place. After some moments, the panel was in place and the small robotic machines, content with their work, drifted away back to the hatch from where they came from.
Cyril and Cringley sat for what seemed like eternity in disbelief at what was occurring around them. The whole situation had an eerie presence to it. The repaired saucer came to life and slowly drifted to the opposite side of the monstrous dome and exited out of a sliding door back into the stormy skies. A few minutes later, the hatch on the roof opened up and the small minuscule robots emerged again, this time in greater numbers and bearing many unknown utensils. Cyril stared at them as they came close to them. They surrounded the plane from all angles. Their small, thin mechanical arms began prodding the plane. They scanned almost every square inch of the plane with their mechanical fingers. Cyril and Cringley were not touched, but felt the radiating coldness from the machines. The machines disbanded and returned again. This time they did not poke or prod, but started dismantle their plane while Cyril and Cringley sat their paralyzed, unable to fight away the machines. The canvas covering was sliced up, rolled into neat bundles and taken away. Nuts and bolts were undone and the framework vanished from around them. The little metal thieves carried their spoils away. Within minutes Cyril and Cringley were left alone again, suspended in mid air, still held in their relative positions. Even their seats had had been taken. All they had left were the clothes they were wearing. The two men just hovered there, too stunned by events to say anything. They didn't have to wait long. The metal things returned.
"Now what?" exclaimed Cyril. "Don't say they want our clothes as well,"
"Maybe they're going to take us apart," suggested Cringly.
The strange machines had arrived bearing unfamiliar tools and materials. They descended towards the two worried looking men and promptly began moving around them in a blur of speed. The two men looked in wonder as a metal framework began to take shape around them. Within this framework bizarre devices were placed and linked. A metal skin was placed over the frame. It didn’t take long for Cyril to figure what the purpose of this makeshift room was.
“I guess for once in your life you were right Cringley,” Cyril said, beginning to realize his pot of luck had finally run out.
Chapter 8
Awake
Clash! As I wake up terrified, I look up to see my father’s face tired and distorted. I quickly realize he was very tired and angry from a lack of sleep. I don’t care; Shit happens. I never told him to come out at
He’s not that bad. He’s a good father; he tries. He always gives me money when I need it; he comes out to look for me even though he knows I’m safe.
“Son, you sleep out here all night?” he asked sounding sorry.
“Yeah dad,” I answered solemnly.
“My god, why son? Was there something wrong with your bed? Was the temperature in your room uncomfortable-?”
“Dad, you wanna go to diner and get some breakfast?”
Immediately, the face that was once filled with fatigue quickly switched over to excitement. The man couldn’t believe himself. He was so excited at just the thought of him and me going out again together willingly. It has been a while since my father and I got together. I don’t know why I asked him. Usually, it takes me sometime to ask a question like that out of the blue. Not this time. Maybe I’ve begun to change. Maybe I’m not that same scumbag who killed some poor person last night.
After moments of thinking I realized I had asked that question for reasons beyond me. I did not ask because I had nothing else to do, I did not ask because I was hungry; I asked because I want to spend some time with my father. He and I have been distant the past two years and I think he needs me. He needs me and I need him. That’s how a family is, you see. Two or more people who live together and love each other. They will be there no matter what; whether you’re up or down. I can’t live this life anymore; this life of sins, anger, resentment, and hatred.
I’m a good kid. Why am I letting all the people on the streets bring me down? I’m not like them. How do I break it to them? I can’t just leave them all at once. I can’t just tell them I dislike them now. The fact of the matter is that my friends and I are different.
“Let me get my coat,” my dad responds nonchalantly, as if he was trying to hide his excessive happiness.
I nod my approval and he goes inside. They’re not like me. They don’t have a future, they don’t have a father who loves them, and they don’t have morals. It is kids like that who corrupt the rest of us. I can’t blame it on them. I chose to kill them, I chose to smoke, I chose to hate. What I did not realize was that in hating everyone else, I only hated myself.
Discomfort soon becomes anger; insecurities become sins; love becomes hidden. I know what I need to do. The sad part of the story is that I’m intelligent. I can be something. It is insecurities that throw me off. I know what is right from wrong. I know what I need to know. I’m just not sure on how to go about doing it. The life I have been living is wrong and painful. I know I need to change myself and those who surround me. I just don’t know how I’m gonna do it.
Discomfort is relieved by family; insecurities are relieved by friends; love flourishes. That is my problem. I have 1/3 of the solutions. I have a family in my dad. I had a friend in Fear-more but he abandoned me. Love. Haha. I thought I was in love before.
“Come on son, hop in the care, let’s go,”
I look up at him, smiling, waiting for his smile in return so it can flourish. He looks down at me, hands me my coat, and we start walking to the car. About 27 feet away from the car I feel a warm object on my upper back. At first I felt discomfort, my first instinct was to move away from it but something wouldn’t let me. After about three seconds I began to accept it. Discomfort is overcome by family. As I get in the car only one thing is in my mind. Love. Love is deceitful. Love is pain. Love is the key to happiness.
Chapter 9
Love
“There's a lot to be said for self-delusionment when it comes to matters of the heart” – Diane Frolov.
Most people mistaken love for something else such as lust, happiness, and fun. This is not love. Happiness is part of love, but happiness alone is not love. Love, as defined in the dictionary is, “a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.”
Not even a dictionary, something we all use as a sanctuary when it comes to words, can define this emotion. “Recognition of attractive qualities,” Ha! That is the very thing love is not. The recognition of attractive qualities is called lust. I’m gonna tell you what love is. Everyone as a teen-ager seems to infatuate the idea of being in love. 1 in 3 teen-agers claimed to be in love at least 1 time by the age of 17. I call 1 in 3 teen-ages fools. I can not say that I have never thought I was in love. We all have, but it is our responsibility to realize soon afterward that love was not the emotion we had felt, but stupidity the sense we possess.
Teen-agers who claim to be in love are not in love. They want to be in love. Love is all around us. It is in every song, every movie, and in every novel. Everyone wants to know what it feels like to be in love. They wanna know what everyone is always talking about. The worst quality a human being possesses is dishonesty. People lie. I lie. You lie. Lying is an awful trait to possess but can be accepted. The worst lie is a lie to oneself. When we swear we are in love, we are lying to ourselves. Our brain wants to be in love so badly that the next person that comes along we swear we love. That is bullshit.
I was once in love. I can honestly say that I loved her. I bet you can guess what happened to her. Yeah, she left me, too. Why is it that every good thing I have with someone must end? Shit happens right? Fear-more, my only true friend left me, my mother left me, and now her. I will not, I can not mention her name. Let’s just call her Adoreay.
She was a tall, beautiful girl who I had grown up with as a child. When we were younger she lived across the street. We used to play together all day long, everyday. She was my best friend. I thought of her as my big sister who I had fun with. I remember the day perfectly. I was 10 years old, she was 11. I was sad, she was crying. Her dad had just announced to her that she was moving across the city and it would be very difficult for her to come see me on a regular basis. She was my best friend. I played with her and no one else. I trusted her with anything.
That is one thing I loved about her even as a child. Kids have a tendency to have big mouths and tell other kids secrets. Every secret I ever told Adoreay she kept to herself. I could trust her with everything. When she moved away she was crying. When she moved away I was anxious. I knew it couldn’t end like this. She was bound to come back. God would not allow it. No one can just take away such a precious person from me without giving me something in return. It was at that moment I knew I loved her.
Love is the ability to overcome the greatest obstacles for the greatest of feelings. I was young, she was young. She had 14 months on me. She was older. We lived across the city from each other, but I had never stopped thinking about her. She left and we lost touch. It was as if for the time she was gone I was an empty man. That era in my life was a blur. I wasn’t the same kid I was.
She never left me. Love is the ability to be separated physically but never be separated mentally. Although she lived far away from me, she always remained in my heart. Three years later she came back. Adoreay had come back for me, to reestablish our love. I knew I was in way over my head but I had to eventually let her know what I had thought of her. She came back but we weren’t the same little kids who used to play ding dong ditch in the neighborhood. I grew about a foot and a half. She developed into a full bred lady. I was about an inch taller than her in height, but much smaller than her in heart.
After days of us ‘catching up on good times’ I confirmed it to myself. I wasn’t being dishonest. I was telling myself the truth. I really did love this girl. I looked past our age difference, our distance, and our adolescence. There was one thing I failed to look past. Adoreay was a well brought up girl with manners and self-respect. She was good. I was alright. She was gorgeous. She did well in school. The whole neighborhood knew her as the gold in the mine.
Her fourth day back we had decided to go to the diner we always used to go to. She ordered the salad; I ordered the ice cream sundae. I sat across from her not helping the obsession that was pouring out of my heart for her. I sat there gazing at her sweet beauty listening to her calm, comforting voice. They say a man who has a girl’s laugh has her heart. If this was true I had her heart along with all her other organs. If there was one thing I knew how to do it was make Adoreay laugh and smile. When she was in the worst of moods, I was the first to realize it and change her mood before anyone else could. As we sat across from each other at the table, her laughing and me in amazement, we began talking about our mistakes; our regrets.
“So Adoreay, why’d you move back?” I asked her, knowing the answer to the question
“I had to; my father didn’t like it back there. Why, don’t you want me back?” she asked me laughing.
“Absolutely…Not. Haha, of course I’m so happy to see you again. Ever since the day you left, I thought about you everyday. Every night. My heart was empty without you in it.”
Looking at me with her eyes wide opened she softly touched my hand and said, “You are too cute”
I looked at her and began smiling.
“So, you, uh, you had a boyfriend back there?”
“No, no boyfriends, boys are trouble and I have more important things to worry about then boys,”
“Well you’re a beautiful girl, I’m sure you had many offers,” I exclaimed, trying to find the real reason she didn’t have a boyfriend, if there was one.
“Ha, it’s funny you said that. Some guy at my old school used to annoy me all 3 years. He used to ask me why I was so unattainable and why I was the way I am. It got to be pretty hurtful because I didn’t wanna take the risk of having some guy crush my feelings.”
She looked down at her half-finished plate of salad with a sad face. At that moment I realized I had dug to deep. Knowing she wasn’t as happy as she usually was I needed to think of something to say to her to cheer her up. Love is honesty. So I told her the first thing that popped into my head.
“You know Adoreay, let me tell you something. Where do you find gold? Deep down in the bottom of a mine, very difficult to attain. Where do you find diamonds? Deep in the mountains, very difficult to attain. Where do you find emeralds? Deep down in valleys, very difficult to attain. All of these objects are thought to be the most precious and valuable objects on this planet and are very hard to attain. You, Adoreay, are the most precious of these items and will not be attained without difficulty.”
As I continue to look at her, I can see tears filling up in her eyes. We stood up not saying a word and I went to pay for the precious meal. As we departed our ways that night, I went to bed at about
I could never bring myself to telling her how much I really did love her. She was unattainable. She was too good. She deserved better than me. I took it as my duty to make sure she got what she deserved. She was the good one. She had the future. She was beautiful. She was admired. She was my angel.
Chapter 10
Sleep
This is tiring. It is difficult. It is very weird to talk about love. I know how I feel and that’s all that matters to me. There was only one problem; she doesn’t have a clue as to how I feel. Why? Why didn’t I ever tell her? The most self-destructing emotion a person can feel is regret. It is ok to be sad, angry, even depressed, but to regret something is the hardest to deal with. They have medicine for depression. Do they have medicine for regret?
Sometimes I try to convince myself that what I did was the best thing to do. I try to convince myself that for once I actually did the right thing. Maybe if I told her she would have completely rejected me. I can’t handle being turned down by one more person. Maybe it would have deteriorated our friendship. I’d rather have Adoreay as a friend then not have her at all. Or would I? I try to convince myself I did the right thing, but I know that I didn’t. But hey, what else is new? Shit happens.
It doesn’t matter if I told her or not. I lost her, too. What goes around comes around. My mother left me, Fear-more left me, but I left Adoreay. She was only trying to help. She wanted what’s best for me. After so many people left me, hurt me, I left and crushed the love of my life; one of the only people that actually care for me. After my mom had died and after I got sent away for killing Cringsdale everything went downhill, but you already know that.
I started getting into my drugs and “thug life.” Adoreay desperately tried to stop me from my self-destruction. She did everything in her power to stop me from taking the fall of my life. She offered me her help, her friendship, her love. I was stupid. All I could do was push her away. I never understood myself. I was angry and heartbroken when those whom I loved left me. Why did I leave someone who loved me? Why did I hurt her?
After I started going downhill, Adoreay realized I was stupid and I wouldn’t take her love and help so she left me alone. If I were to see her around she would look down as she walked past me without even saying ‘hello.’ This hurt me. Although on the outside I pushed her away, I was really screaming for her help and love. But you know how I get with telling her how I feel. After a while we lost complete touch. Although she lived across the street from, it was as if she didn’t exist. She may have stopped thinking about me, but I never stopped thinking about her.
I can’t live without her much longer. I know what I need to survive; I need her. I know what I need to do to get her; I need to change. The only problem is the transition in between. In order to survive a man needs one thing: a strong woman he loves. Adoreay was my strong woman. She’s all I need. I love her. I never stop. A person can never stop loving someone if it is truly love they feel. This is tiring. Do you feel happy? A person’s mind works in mysterious ways. As I sit here laying on my bed, different thoughts run through my mind. I guess this is my personality. Events such as the loss of my best friend and mother have shaped me. The stupidity of myself in losing the only one I truly loved destroyed me. And the utter emotion of knowing what is expected of me but not knowing how to reach it overshadows me. I need to change who I am. How can I change now? I have so much hatred and anger for those who have left me. With all this anger and resentment, change is a difficult task to commit myself to. As I realize what I need to do, my eyes slowly start descending and soon close. Only free thoughts and fantasies roam through my head now. Dreams again take over freely.
Chapter 10
My dream
The small plane swept from side to side as smoke sputtered from the last remaining life of the engine. The half torn canopy was tearing away at the gust of the wind. At the control was Captain Cyril, Ace fighter Captain of the British Air corps. If one thing could be said of Cyril, it was that he was a survivor. He was a crack shot, and had an almost suicidal disregard for personal safety. He commanded his own squad, which was notorious for having the highest casualty rate of any squad in the corp. Unfortunately Cyril had family connections, which prevented him from being sent away. So the Air Corp. command could only look on with increasing appall as the casualties mounted. They twiddled their collective thumbs and quietly prayed that some German Nazi would get lucky and shoot the fool down. Not that they ever did. If God smiled on the stupid, he positively beamed on Cyril who emerged from one hair-raising escapade after another without so much as a scratch.
Behind Cyril sat Cringley, a sissified man, half-witted forced to go along with Cap. Cyril as a navigator since the Air Corps weren’t willing to lose another good soldier. Cringley cried aloud for his mother as the plane circled through the war torn skies helplessly falling. The cause? A lone German Nazi thought he would take a swipe against Capt. Cyril. His fate? About a hundred different flaming pieces falling through the sky, but not before getting in a couple shots at Capt. Cyril’s plane. In the cockpit, Capt. Cyril tapped the fuel gauge. The arrow trembled slightly, but refused to budge away from the nearly empty reading. Damn, thought Capt. Cyril, what a predicament to be in. Lost in a storm, nearly out of fuel, with an idiot in the back seat. Thunder roared below, echoing through the sky. If it wasn't for the storm Capt. Cyril would have taken her down and tried for a visual check of the terrain. He caught blurred views of the ground through the odd gap in the clouds. He strongly doubted the damaged plane would survive the buffeting down there. Still, that would become academic in a few minutes, when his fuel ran out.
While Capt. Cyril thought of any other possible option to get out of this mess and Cringley cried aloud for his mother, a silver object whirred past them followed by a loud hiss of wind. Both looked peculiarly at the object. They were both dumbfounded and for an instant, forgot their worries.
What on earth is that Cyril?" gasped Cringley, peering over the Captains shoulder.
"Dashed if I know," said Cyril, too surprised to make any attempt to hide his ignorance.
"It looks like a china saucer, turned upside down," observed Cringley.
The object indeed did look like a saucer, but it was about 45 feet wide in diameter. What truly dumbfounded them was that the object was held aloft without any evidence of a propeller or wings.
"No wings, no propellers, how the devil does it stay up?" mused Cyril.
The plane hovered impossibly in the air for moments, surrounded by a bright blue beam. Cyril and Cringley were paralyzed where they sat. Though they still had access to their five senses, neither one of them could so much as twitch a finger. Helplessly they watched as they were dragged inside the silver dome. They were inside a circular chamber with a vaulting dome roof, lit by myriads of multicolored lights. One of those lights was shining on the biplane from above. It hovered silently in mid air. Directly ahead of them was the damaged flying saucer. It too hovered with no apparent support, apart from the beam of light.
"I always wondered what heaven would be like, and its just like the picture books, all white and peaceful." said Cringley, looking around.
Realization hit Cyril and he gave the gunner a withering look.
"You moron, we're not dead, yet. And this isn't heaven; we're inside that floating machine in the sky."
A flicker of motion from above caught his eye. In the white domed ceiling, a hatch was opening. From out of it emerged the strangest looking collection of objects that Cyril had ever seen. There was three of them, small, about the size of footballs, and made of metal. They all possessed multiple spindly arms. They drifted down like silver balloons and hovered around the flying saucer. Their attention seemed to be focused on the damaged section of the saucer. In a smooth operation they removed the scorched panel and two of them took it away. Moments later they returned with a replacement panel. Cyril watched them seal it into place. After some moments, the panel was in place and the small robotic machines, content with their work, drifted away back to the hatch from where they came from.
Cyril and Cringley sat for what seemed like eternity in disbelief at what was occurring around them. The whole situation had an eerie presence to it. The repaired saucer came to life and slowly drifted to the opposite side of the monstrous dome and exited out of a sliding door back into the stormy skies. A few minutes later, the hatch on the roof opened up and the small minuscule robots emerged again, this time in greater numbers and bearing many unknown utensils. Cyril stared at them as they came close to them. They surrounded the plane from all angles. Their small, thin mechanical arms began prodding the plane. They scanned almost every square inch of the plane with their mechanical fingers. Cyril and Cringley were not touched, but felt the radiating coldness from the machines. The machines disbanded and returned again. This time they did not poke or prod, but started dismantle their plane while Cyril and Cringley sat their paralyzed, unable to fight away the machines.
The canvas covering was sliced up, rolled into neat bundles and taken away. Nuts and bolts were undone and the framework vanished from around them. The little metal thieves carried their spoils away. Within minutes Cyril and Cringley were left alone again, suspended in mid air, still held in their relative positions. Even their seats had had been taken. All they had left were the clothes they were wearing. The two men just hovered there, too stunned by events to say anything. They didn't have to wait long. The metal things returned.
"Now what?" exclaimed Cyril. "Don't say they want our clothes as well,"
"Maybe they're going to take us apart," suggested Cringly.
The strange machines had arrived bearing unfamiliar tools and materials. They descended towards the two worried looking men and promptly began moving around them in a blur of speed. The two men looked in wonder as a metal framework began to take shape around them. Within this framework bizarre devices were placed and linked. A metal skin was placed over the frame. It didn’t take long for Cyril to figure what the purpose of this makeshift room was.
“I guess for once in your life you were right Cringley,” Cyril said, beginning to realize his pot of luck had finally run out.
Clash! I quickly wake up and sit up on my bed. This is the second night in a row I have had this dream. Cringley? Cyril? Who were these people? After sitting on my bed, thinking about the different possibilities these 2 characters could be, I came to a conclusion and decided to stick with it. Cyril, the main character was me and Cringley was Cringsdale. Although Cringsdale and I were not the best of friends like Cringley and Cyril were, all other things pointed to this direction.
Cringley, like Cringsdale, was a sissy. I believe every dream has a meaning. What was the meaning of this dream? My worst enemy and I together as friends, fighting together. Maybe this was god’s way of telling me something. Maybe Cringsdale was truly a good man, a friend. THIS HAS GOT TO BE IT. These weird dreams were a message from god telling me to stop living the stupid, sinful, and hurtful life I have been living. If Cringsdale was my friend and a good person, then the woman whom he was in love with must have also been a good person. For the first time in my life I felt like I was thinking right. Shit happens. Sometimes you just gotta forgive and forget. Shit happens.
Chapter 11
Change
People change…Things change… I need to change. They say nothing lasts forever. I believe my sins will be a burden on my shoulders to carry forever. If nothing lasts forever, then how come people say first impressions last forever? Contradictory. People are hypocrites so I’ve learned not to listen to anyone but myself. People say they want you to change but when you change no one lets you. When I walk down my block, people already have a preconceived judgment of me. The scariest thought is the idea that I can’t do something. I can’t change if people won’t let me.
I know what I need to do. I don’t care if people don’t think I could change. I can’t live a life of drugs, murder, and hatred anymore. I have a father who loves me and girl who’s heartbroken because of my stupidity. Many people have hurt me in my life and those few people who haven’t hurt me I found a way to hurt. I need to stop what I’m doing and become a real man. I enjoy making fun of people for being cowards such as Cringsdale and Fear-more but it is me who is afraid. I am afraid of people helping me so I push them away. I am afraid of change. Like I said, what you hate most in other people are the very qualities you possess.
What irritates me more than anything is that everyone does stupid things and have annoying habits. The important thing is that one realizes the wrong doing one is committing and stops doing it. Everyone changes, it is those very changes that make life worth living; if everyone was to stay the same way for their entire lives, one would never see success. If Malcolm X never did anything wrong and never went to jail, he would have never changed his life and the life of millions of people across the nation.
It is now my turn. I need to change myself and the relationships I have with those people who love me. To help me start my changing I wrote a list down in my head.
To change:
- go back to school
- concentrate in school
- get on good terms with Adoreay again
- be optimistic
- get on good terms with my father again
- get over the loss of my mother and fear-more
- Stop hanging around the kids that corrupted me
It is difficult to change if you don’t have anyone to help you change. Luckily, I had someone; someone I loved. Suddenly her tall beautiful complexion was all that filled my mind. Love is the ability to continue to have feelings for someone regardless of how far they are away from you. It is funny how things change. At first, Adoreay and I were physically separated when she moved. Now, because of my stupidity, we are mentally separated. She still lives across the street from me but I rarely talk to her. My first step in changing was to get back together with her. I need her in my life. I can’t live another day without her. She is the catalyst. She will know exactly how to help me. The only problem was getting her to believe me. I have messed up with her in the past but I need her to realize now that I want to change; I need to change.
Chapter 12
I’ve changed. I care
After many days and weeks, I changed everything about me. It has been hard. If there is one thing I learned through this experience, it is that everything good is hard to get. Where do you find gold? Deep down in the bottom of a mine, very difficult to attain. Where do you find diamonds? Deep in the mountains, very difficult to attain. Where do you find emeralds? Deep down in valleys, very difficult to attain. All of these objects are thought to be the most precious and valuable objects on this planet and are very hard to attain.
The ability to change one’s self is far more valuable than any rock could ever be. It has been 33 days and counting since I have smoked so much of a puff from a cigarette. People who say it is difficult to quit smoking possess a weak will. Anyone can do anything as long as they truly want to. A little bit of nicotine isn’t to break me. My mother’s death wasn’t enough to break me. I am invincible. I started going back to school and started getting my straight A’s again.
I even fixed the deeply wounded relationship I had with my father. My father, in seeing me change, decided to change some things about him as well. He used to be a career-driven workaholic. He cut his hours down leaving more room for him and me to go out and build a bond that is impossible to be broken. My father and I go to the diner for breakfast every Sunday morning. I learned to forgive my mom for what she did. There could have very well been other reasons for her doing what she did.
People make mistakes. There is not one person to ever walk this Earth who has not made at least 1 mistake. Stop and think right now, I’m sure you can think of at least 10 mistakes you have done. That’s not including you listening to me talk about my life. It is ok to make a mistake. Making mistakes isn’t the wrong thing to do. It is the way we handle our mistakes that is either right or wrong. The ability to mess up and know that you will not mess up again.
The best thing I have done in my life, my greatest accomplishment was getting her back. Adoreay was the girl of my dreams; the only girl I truly love. It was a problem at first to tell her how I felt. Now, I can’t stop reminding her. She was the reason I did all of this. We made a deal, if I changed my life completely and stopped all my stupidity she would follow her heart. I stopped all of it, and we have now been together for 30 days.
Even in school, I went from all general classes straight to advanced placement classes. I have the respect of my teachers and all my fellow peers. I am going somewhere. “ Life is pleasant, death is peaceful, it’s the transition that’s troublesome.” Isaac Asimov.
Thank you for helping me change,
Ahmed Ragab, Cyril
posted by Bernie at 12:53 PM
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