Young Writers Society

We were only allowed three characters. We had to find an article and write about what first came to mind.

A single desk lamp lit a secluded corner of the dark, desolate apartment, and there I sat, my back hunched and my eyes riveted to a piece of taupe-colored stationary. The heading, in thick black lettering, read: “Donald Brown, 3495 Fifth Avenue, St. Louis Missouri. This was the beginning of my first correspondence since my life-changing accomplishment. The letter began;

Dear Jerry Floyd,

I’m writing to inform you of the success I have recently made in pursuit of my greatest dream, the first hover car ever designed and built in St. Louis. I will tell you the WHOLE story. WARNING: there may be a lot of details. You know how I am when I’m excited about a story I’m telling. It all started as I sat at the same desk I sit at now. It was two, maybe three, in the morning; the streets outside my window were completely void of any human life, except for the lone drunk who staggered into the building across the way. In front of me, scattered as if struck by a tornado, lay the plans for the best car ever built. My old, rusty desk lamp was the only form of illumination in the entire room. The single bare light bulb emitted a weak beam directly onto the center of my work. My life’s work spilled across the pages of graph and drafting paper. I was finally finished, the plans were complete. As I reviewed the pages for any minute detail I may have left out, my head began to sway and I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

I woke, practically giving myself whiplash, to the sound of my alarm a mere three hours later. As I sulked about the apartment, the date in the top corner of the clock caught my eye; Monday, July 9, 2010. It was a good thing I had finished the plans last night. Today was the day I would present them to the people who had the power to take my dreams and make them reality. It was the beginning of the single day that would lead me to where I am now. That day I had a meeting with the CEO and the lead designer of U.S. Grand Motors. This was My day, My big chance to impress them with My design and have them produce My dream car. As I glanced back at the clock, I realized that I had thirty minutes to get ready and race down to the restaurant. Pulling on the best clothes I owned, which consisted of a blue and white striped polo, some khaki Dockers, and black dress shoes, I grabbed my plans off the desk. I ran down four flights of stairs, flying out the front door of my building at top speed into the pouring rain. I jumped into my old black Prius. You know the one with the big dent in the door where you hit it with the riding lawnmower in the old neighborhood. Good thing I didn’t need a key. I don’t think I would have been able to get it into the keyhole because of the spastic shaking that ran through my entire body. As soon as the car was in drive, I was off.

The tires screeched as I made the turn off Main Street onto Seventh Avenue. The car jerked forward as I pulled into a tight parking spot at the back of the restaurant. Getting out of the car, I straightened my shirt and walked calmly back to the front of the building. Giving my name to the tall, blonde hostess, I scanned the room looking over the attire of the rest of the occupants. I didn’t look too underdressed. Most of the other diners wore some form of dress clothes, some dressier than others. The room was dusky, illuminated by dimmed lamps and a single candle placed on each table. The dark scarlet carpet was thick and plush under my stiff dress shoes. The crimson wallpaper detailed with gold designs reflected the wavering light of the candles giving the room an ominous, stuffy feel. I followed the young hostess to a table near the back of the establishment. There two men were seated, drinking scotch and smoking. The smoke curled around their heads giving them the look of those mob leaders you see in the old movies.

As the hostess and I approached the table, the younger looking of the two men looked up at me. His dark brown eyes danced in the light of the candle on the table. His short-cropped hair all appeared to be smoothed in exactly the same direction.

“You must be Mr. Brown. Pleased to meet you. I’m Thomas Carl. You can call me Tom.”

“Hello,” I said, “Please, call me Don.”

“It’s nice to meet yo,u Don. This is Mr. Luna, the CEO of U.S. Grand Motors,” Tom said, indicating the man sitting quietly next to him. “He has given me full control of this project, and I now have the right to make all decisions. So, let’s get to straight business. Shall we?” He nodded toward the seat across the table from his.

I took the seat with relief. My hands and knees were shaking so much I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stand. My head was spinning in sheer anticipation.

“I assume those are your plans,” said Tom, glancing at the untidy roll of papers I still clutched in my hand. “May I have a look?”

Silently I handed the drawings across the table, and he took them, carefully unrolling the mess. He began to look through the pages and pages of drawings, measurements, and calculations. As his brow knitted together judging my ideas, doubts and questions began to flow through my head like a raging river in the middle of spring flooding. What was he thinking? Was there something I had forgotten? Did he want to help me in achieving my dream? Was this the best work I could have done? Did I turn off the coffee pot last night?

“These are excellent! I’ve never seen better work in my life! I really think we can build this because of your great detail and precise calculations.” Tom interrupted my long, random stream of questions.

“Really?” It was all I could say. All the years and years of planning, drawing, throwing away, and redrawing had come down to this, and Tom, the one person who could pull it all together, said he thought it would work. (By the way, Jerry, you need to get e-mail. This whole letter writing thing is so twentieth century, and my hand hurts.) Anyway, excitement began to rise from the pit of my stomach through the top of my head.

“Sign here, please”, the voice startled me out of my excitement. Tom was holding a pen out and using it to point to a dashed line at the bottom of an official looking document.

I scanned the document, it appeared to be a contract, looking for anything that I might not agree with. Slowly I reached out taking the pen from Tom and signed the piece of creamy, white paper.

“That’s all we need. We’ll call you if there are any questions about the plans. Production will start in a few weeks, and you will be asked to come down to headquarters where you will be put on the payroll”, Tom smiled at me as I stood to leave. “I’m glad that I now have the opportunity to work with someone as intelligent and insightful as you.,” he said.

Jerry, this all happened six weeks ago and production of the car starts tomorrow! (Sorry I didn’t tell you about it sooner.) My dreams are finally coming true, and I will get to see them…

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A pain like wild fire shot through my left shoulder blade and ripped a searing hole in my heart. I felt my body pitch forward with the blow and hit the solid desk. But it was weird, even though I knew that my body had hit the desk, my mind felt as if it were floating. Then I realized that I could see the scene of the poorly lit room looming below me. Blood was spattered across the papers on the desk, and there my body slumped over my letter of excitement and joy. A mask of intense pain was cemented on my usually blank features.

A dark figure hovered behind my lifeless body. When the figure turned the light from the desk lamp was shed across his familiar facial features. It was Jerry, the very friend to whom I had just been writing to tell of my newest achievement. A smoking pistol still hung in his quivering, glove-shrouded hand. His eyes glanced rapidly around the room. His vision finally focused on my olive green down comforter, crumpled in the darkened corner by the bed. He covered the space between him and the blanket in three even, agile strides, snatching up the cover and dragging it over to my still body.

Using his free hand, Jerry, pulled my corpse out of my old, beat up desk chair into the comforter and wrapped it up tightly. Laying the newly formed bundle out on the floor, Jerry, searched the apartment and found a ball of string sitting on my kitchen counter. He sprinted to pick it up. Walking back to my body while unwinding the string, Jerry grabbed a pair of scissors off of my desk and began to secure the comforter snugly around my corpse.

Jerry struggled to lift my body from the floor and made his way over to the door, where he worked to free one of his hands. Opening the door he eyed the hallway looking for any people who might possibly bear witness to his crime. When he saw that the dark corridor was empty, he dragged my body down to the old elevator. The gears squealed and lurched as the box descended to the first floor.

I could feel my soul/spirit, whatever you would call the essence of me that was watching this horror-filled scene unfold in front of me, dry retching as Jerry dropped my body into the dumpster. My legs caught on the edge of the box. Jerry shoved my legs in and slammed the dumpster shut. The last view I had of my shot and broken corpse was the image of my twisted features, shrouded in an old down comforter, surrounded by rotten banana peels, decomposing newspapers, and the remnants of my neighbors’ latest meals.

As the lid crashed closed, I finally realized the detachment of my spirit and body. I hovered there in the air that I can imagine must have been musty and chilled. My dreams had crumbled in the exact instant Jerry, my best friend for more then fifteen years, had shot me in the back, and on the eve of the very day that my dream would become a substantial reality.

Jerry slowly turned and walked back toward my building. I followed him back up to my apartment. He went into my kitchen and began searching the cabinets. When he found the one that I used to store all of my cleaning supplies, he pulled out a bottle of bleach, a trash bag, and an old rag. He carried all of these over to the desk and began cleaning up the mess his crime had made. He didn’t even flinch as he piled piece after piece of blood-defiled paper into the trash bag. He took the old rag and drenched it in bleach. Rubbing down the desk, Jerry cleansed the scene of any foul play.

I could feel the anger growing in my mind like a monster that strained against the bars of an iron cage. How could he do this to me? How could he betray me like this? As I continued to watch the tragedy unfold before me, Jerry took a pen out of my desk and retrieved a piece of my taupe stationary from the vertical file on the corner of the desk. After taking the paper and folding it into thirds, he placed it in one of the matching envelopes and put it in his inner jacket pocket. Strangely he began to search the drawers of my desk. When he got to the third drawer on the right he pulled out a small piece of yellow notepaper. I recognized it as one I had used to take notes during the planning stages of my car design. Quickly scanning the page, he stuffed it into the pocket with the stationary.

After carefully placing the chair under the desk, Jerry gathered the dirty rag, bleach, and trash bag and headed toward the door. Seeing as I was already dead and things really couldn’t get any worse than that, I decided to follow him.

Jerry went back to his cozy little house in St. Peters. Before he entered the house, he took the rag, bleach, and trash bag to the back where he threw them in the old, tan, plastic trashcan as if they were any kind of normal trash. He walked serenely into the house.

Grabbing some wood out of the rack next to the fireplace, a newspaper off the kitchen counter, and some matches from a drawer he started a roaring fire. He removed the pen and paper from the inside pocket and placed them neatly on the kitchen table. After running up the stairs two at a time, Jerry sprinted into the small bedroom at the end of the hall. (This is the only time he showed any haste in the entire crime.) He pulled together a set of clothes taking whatever was on top.

His new outfit consisted of a pair of ratty jeans, a black Rolling Stones tee-shirt, and some white ankle socks. He carried the bundle of clothes downstairs to the fire he had started. Changing his clothes Jerry threw each article into the fire as he removed it. The fire flashed and flickered and the clothes turned to ash in the brick fireplace.

After this task was finished, Jerry pulled on a pair of latex gloves and unfolded the piece of stationary. Using the pen he had stolen from my apartment and the piece of notepaper to copy my handwriting, he wrote this letter.

Dear Mr. Carl,

I’m writing this letter to inform you that in the case of my death, I would like you to hand control and credit for the project we are currently working on over to my good friend Jerry Floyd. He can be reached at 6578 Mexico Road, St. Peters, Missouri. Please carry on as planned with Jerry in my stead.

Sincerely,

Donald Brown

The room was black except for the faltering light of the fire that flickered; dim, bright, dim, bright… in a never-ending random rhythm. Even though I had no body to feel the pain, I knew the wrenching ache this strong of a betrayal would set off in any human’s stomach, the feeling that someone had taken the happiest part of you and dropped a two-ton anvil on it repeatedly.

He had used his knowledge of me as a friend to his own gain. He had used our friendship to facilitate his betrayal. My signature-opening sentence, the one I used in almost every letter/e-mail I had ever written; “I’m writing this letter to inform you…” Who knows how many times I sent this very sentence to Jerry. My signature, Jerry even had my signature memorized. He had forged it without a single flaw. He used all of this for evil, and he planned to steal my life’s work.

Jerry refolded the taupe stationary and carefully placed it in the envelope with my address printed in the upper left hand-corner. Getting up from the table, he went to one of the high cabinets in the kitchen. Reaching up he pulled down a well-used yellow pages. Flipping through it, jerry found “U” and then scanning down the page he found U.S. Grand Motors’ Headquarters. Taking up the envelope, he copied the address in the precise center of the front panel, adding to it the name Thomas Carl.

Picking up a new jacket Jerry, took the letter out to his car and began to pull out of the garage. I followed him once more and he led me back to my own street. The street I had lived on during my years of planning. Jerry parallel parked his new silver Honda Accord between an old beat up Chevy pick up and one of those boxes on wheels, they call them Elements, right in front of my street’s public mail box. Silently, Jerry got out of the car and walked calmly over to the mailbox. As he opened the latch ever so slowly it groaned and squealed in protest. When he had the opening wide enough to slip the letter through, he did so and walked slowly back to his car.

As he turned his head to look down the street to where my apartment building stood ominous in the night, the streetlight played across the flawless features of his face. There growing from the center of his dimpled chin to the flushes of his ruby cheeks was a smile.

Seeing as I could clearly foresee the conclusion of his heart-wrenching plan, I decided to return and haunt my apartment. Then maybe I would go to U.S Grand Motors and see if Tom would carry on with my plans. That’s when the blazing red and blue lights split through the early morning fog that covered the street. As the cars sped towards, me the sharp sounds of the sirens were blurred together. My field of veiw followed the cars as they turned right into the alley where my body now lay on a layer of decomposing rubbish. I flew over to the mouth of the alley and there they all were, huddled around the opening of the very dumpster in which I now lay.

The throaty gurgling sounds of intense conversation danced toward me. Within the minute, three more police cars, an ambulance, and the District Attorney had arrived at the scene.

This may sound a little strange but I felt the urge to discover what would become of my plans and dreams. Thanks to the new tube-mailing system I knew that the letter Jerry had just mailed had reached Tom’s office by now. The clock on the sign of the bank down the street announced the time as 5:14 am. Tom was easily at his office by now.

After only knowing Tom a short six weeks, I had already gotten a pretty good idea of what his schedule was like. We had worked and worked and worked in order to rearrange each of our schedules so that we could plan for the production of my car. All of this planning was now working to my benefit. Tom was usually at work by five and was already well into his second cup of coffee by 5:30 am. He would check his mail when he first entered the office. I went down to headquarters to see what he would make of the note and the fact that I would not show up at seven to oversee the beginning of production.

When I had made it to headquarters and found my way to Tom’s office (the ability to walk through walls really helped in this endeavor), I could see that he had received the letter. The torn envelope had been cast aside and now lay lightly on top of the trashcan next to his desk. The conspicuous corner of the taupe stationary protruded from a muddled vertical file that was perched on one of the shelves behind his desk.

As I waited for the production of my car to begin, I watched the regular buzz of people swell and subside, swell and subside. When 7:00 am finally came, Tom left his office. I could only presume that he was going to the production site. I followed him through the jungle of stout cubicles. When he finally escaped the endless labyrinth, he turned toward the elevators. When the closing doors of one of the elevators caught his eye, Tom sprinted the short distance between him and the closing doors, inserting his hand with practiced ease. Gliding into the elevator, he hit the button for the third floor. The box slid down and smoothly clicked into place as the doors opened. Tom stepped out onto a large observation deck. The floor of the room, which he now overlooked lay two stories below, while the ceiling loomed two stories overhead. Nearly fifty workers stood below the platform with their eyes pasted on Tom’s unreadable face.

The minutes ticked by so slowly that it seemed almost as if time had stopped. When the huge digital clock mounted on the wall opposite the platform read 7:10 Tom began:

“My fellow employees of U.S. Grand Motors,” his voice rang out, reverberating off the cement walls. “I apologize that Mr. Brown has not appeared to witness this great day of his biggest dream. Today, my friends, we begin the production of Mr. Brown’s dream hover car. Now, let’s get to work.”

The plan had been set in action, and Tom was still giving me credit for my years of hard work. At this point I decided to leave this scene and return to the scene of my resting place (the dumpster). Suddenly as I passed the break room, I saw a public announcement flash up on the television screen. As I read these words, I was unable to move due to sheer amazement. “Jerry Floyd was arrested this morning in connection with the murder of the car designer Donald Brown. Strands of hair found at the crime scene and a bloody rag found at Mr. Floyd’s own residence are among the articles of evidence against him.”

I could feel it now; the strange sensation of dissolving that had begun in my core and worked its way out through my head and all of my limbs. This was it. I knew that Jerry would pay for his crimes and that Tom would continue production and would give me credit. Within seconds, I was no longer in the world that I had known since childhood for now I was in a place full of peace and joy. As I studied the paradise, I now found myself in, a voice of pure silver called me into my true home.