Ok, this is my first post. I really hope you like it. I would like to continue it, but for now, all I want is criticism! I'm here to improve myself as a writer.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they come to a realization that changes it, drastically. When they are touched by knowledge to such depths that their way of thinking is forever altered. Most people don’t come to this realization, however, until they are too old to do anything about it. They never have a chance to truly reap the rewards of a life that they now know how to live. The wise men and women of the past are those people. People who are able to see the underlying truth of the world, their thoughts no longer swayed by outside influence.
I am one of the special few for whom this realization has been granted in the early years of my life, although I wouldn‘t exactly call it a blessing. Just sixteen, I was always one to question the world around me. Always one to gawk at societies ability to consistently pin the blame on one another, and resort to violence to solve all their problems.
It came to me one day, while watching Spongebob.
Ok, well it wasn’t exactly the show that brought it on, but what happened afterwards. I wasn’t really watching it, anyways. I was just kind of staring absent-mindedly at the screen, when my mother came running in through the front door, a terrified look on her face.
As usual, I couldn’t help but gape at the similarities between my mother and I. You would think that living with her would make me used to it, but as I usually did as of late, I couldn’t help but wonder how we could be so alike. Her golden-chestnut hair, deep brown eyes, tan skin and full lips were an older reflection of my own. Our thoughts were even uncannily similar. It was like we were twins, just a generation apart.
I couldn’t keep this train of thought for long, though. The look of sheer fright that was plastered on her face made me anxious.
“Mom, what happened?” My voice was shaky, frightened of the answer. My mom was naturally head-strong and brave. I didn’t think I had ever seen her so scared.
And then she fell to her knees and burst into tears. Her answer came out in short, blunt sobs.
“You’re father… he’s… dead…” Her eyes found mine, and they held mine in a gaze that was oddly pleading; as if she thought it was her fault.
I couldn’t even find the words to reply. My heart felt like someone was holding it in a death grip. The tell-tale lump in my throat began to rise, and I knew that soon tears would be spilling out of my eyes, and I would be sobbing incoherently like my mother. Before I was taken over by emotion though, I asked her, “How?” My voice was shaky still, even more so than before. I fought the oncoming tears with nearly all my strength.
Still on her knees, she pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead, as if to force a thought or image into the back of her mind. After two or three solid minutes of this, the tears stopped flowing and she looked up at me, her eyes cold and dead. It was like the calm after a storm.
“He was shot.” She answered me in monotone, her voice reflecting what I could already see in her eyes. I burst out in tears at her harsh, unfeeling reply.
~)(~
My father had been shot at random in a drive-by that killed two other people. They were killed on a moderately busy street called Sunny Hills Road and 6:20pm that Saturday. My father had been walking to the grocery store. Apparently the guy who murdered them had a death wish, because he turned himself in the next day, practically begging the police to kill him. They did, much to the relief of the murderer. His name was Jay Hawkins, and he was twenty-three years old.
To this day, I wish they had just let him suffer.
Three months after his death, my mom explained the pleading look I had seen in her eyes that first day.
“Allison, I should be dead right now.” She told me sadly, as I sullenly chased a lone cheerio around the bowl with my spoon. Her words brought my gaze from the cheerio up to her face, and I saw there were tears forming in her eyes. I gave her a questioning look; her words confused me. Without prompting, she continued. “That day, before you woke up, I complained to your father about how I had to go food shopping later that day, and how my back ached… I wasn’t really serious, but…” Her voice broke, “He said he would go in my place. He was always so good to me, he even recommended that I take the day off, and do something for myself…” She trailed off. I knew now why she felt guilty, but I didn’t blame her for anything.
“Mom, there was no way you could have known. Just please… don’t feel guilty.” I wasn’t sure what to say, but I hated the pathetic look in her eyes. She looked like a puppy who had done something bad and was expecting a scolding. I couldn’t do that to her, and yet I didn’t know what to say. So I stayed silent.
Seven months after that, our life was back to normal, just minus one. The worst part was the quiet; I could no longer hear my fathers booming laugh as he watched TV, or hear him and my mother quarrelling half-heartedly over some trivial little thing. The biggest difference for me, however, was the way I viewed the world around me. I no longer gossiped about others with my friends, but looked at things from that persons point of view. I silently scolded the risky and stupid things people around me did, things that I would have once been a part of. It was like my father’s death had shocked the world into ultra-clarity. I could no longer relate to my friends, whose only worries were what parties they would attend over the weekend, or what dress to wear to the dance. I would talk to them, sure. And laugh, and contribute when necessary. But I could no longer consider them real friends. They no longer understood me, and I no longer understood them.
