Young Writers Society

Hi! This is my first time posting a story on YWS, but I had a little something I was writing and thought...well, might as well put it up. Tell me what you think!

After much deliberation I have come to the conclusion that you are ignoring me and/or avoiding me for dubious reasons. I find this vile and condescending and also quite hard to digest, much like a seven week old banana skin.

I must confess that I am also rather angry at the entire world now, also, perhaps some may say, for dubious reasons, but I am sure that it is fine that I take my anger out on you, you disgusting wretches. I shall be in contact again in six weeks to once more molest you and your shady moral values.

Signed furiously,

Vincent A. Forest

P.S. Please get hit by an 18 wheeled 16 tonne articulated lorry and fall thirty feet into a dank stinking rotten ditch full the decomposing carcasses of dead mice and die.

P.P.S I’ll expect my purchase by Thursday.

I slipped my letter into the post box and shuffled off, rather pleased with myself it has to be said. This was actually my sixth letter to those treacherous people at the California state home for the elderly and writing to them was beginning to wear a little thin. I was starting to wonder if those senile old fools actually had the optical capabilities to read my letters at all. Perhaps they mistook them for snazzy little anecdotes on fluffy kittens and rainbows.

My life has sunk low. Last week I read in the paper one of the old biddy’s had fallen down dead and a smirk of spite was seen to cross my lips. What is this? I thought to myself, am I actually happy at this? Is this the most joyful thing to happen to me in past weeks, that a woman past eighty five had popped her fur decked clogs?

Still, I cannot comprehend nor accept incompetence and that this certainly is. My order for a twine jacket (with elbow patches) and a 16 inch long wooden walking stick is late and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around waiting for them while those doddering old folk sit around all day staring out the window in the long slipped past ghost of their youth, chattering on about Cash in the Attic and sitting nibbling on their custard creams and sipping tea from a china pot. I will not have this lazy incompetence, knit me my jacket damn it, before I cut of the supply of bourbons and shortbread squares.

I walked briskly to the corner shop and purchased five more stamps, taking a small stub of a pencil that grated on my skin and pressing it between two finger nails. I bent low to my envelopes and began to scribble an address on each, my breath appearing before me like a spiritual apparition. Surely this shop had heard of central heating?

I stepped back, taking the letters, and pulled my scarf tightly around my neck with a grunt. Then I once more proceeded to the little red box and pushed the envelopes inside. I debated moving to Moscow, perhaps it would be warmer there.

I plucked a silver key from my pocket, climbed inside my battered old people carrier and revved the engine. It took several minutes to start, time I used to contemplate that perhaps it had not been the best idea to go for a people carrier. I had, in short, no people to carry. There was just me. Me, myself and no woman. At all. I didn’t even have a living cat, which, I believe, turns me into something of a social outcast. I wouldn’t know this for certain, of course, as I am not overly given to social meeting of any sort.

To return to the topic that surged through my cold and chattering brain, I had no people to carry and yet had a people carrier. This was something of a contradiction and I wondered what had urged me to buy the hunk of metal in the first place.

Perhaps it was the fact it had so much leg room. I like to put my feet up, although not when I am driving of course. Plenty of leg room is good for the knees and the back is large enough to fit fifteen fully loaded plastic bags into and still have room for a cat. The fact I don’t need this space is, thus, irrelevant.

The car started and I rolled on. The street flashed by and I honked my horn. I didn’t need to honk it, not at all, but I like the sound it makes. A driver flashed me a vile and disgusting finger sign. I shouted with rage at the windows and smashed slightly into his bumper before roaring of into the proverbial sunset. It was then I remembered the ‘baby on board’ sign in the back of the offending driver’s car, like a giant mass of neon light spelling ‘do not ram me’ and so I increased my speed so as not to allow him the chance to get a flash of my number plate.

After I could no longer catch a glance of him in my rear view mirror I slowed the car and turned on the radio. Rap music blasted into my brain and I felt as if my internal organs would wilt and die from this attack and the subsequent strain that had been placed upon them.

Some young lad was chattering on about his, or someone’s mother in a way I shall not repeat for fear of reprisal from the cruel teeth of Karma. I changed the station hastily and the soothing tones of classical music met my ears.

For twenty minutes or so I drove slowly, so slowly, in fact, I may have been below the national minimum speed limit. If there was a hoard of angry degenerates swarming behind me in their tiny little wussy cars I could not hear them for the strains of Mozart were to strident.

After almost half an hour on the road I arrived at my humble abode, a small semi-detached bungalow with elegant lace curtains at the window and a small ceramic cat on the doorstep. Its actually my second cat, my first was smashed by teenage delinquents.

I parked the car in my gravel driveway and crunched along the path to my front door. As I approached I noticed my cat was still intact. This, I concluded, was a stroke of much needed luck and I declared that as soon as I could find my stationary set I would set to work on my latest letter, detailing my plight of living alone and weary and my hatred of the world in general. This, I decided, would be addressed to my mother, as she had neglected to send me a chocolate egg on Easter. Some may argue this was a kind gesture, as I am actually highly allergic to chocolate in any form, but I would debate back that it is not the chocolate itself that I seek, but, in fact, the thought which the egg symbolises in that my mother is thinking of me and wishing me a happy and teenage delinquent free Easter. I did not receive one and am subsequently angry.

I approached my door in much the same way that a lion stalks its ignorant prey, careful that no traps had been set my any passing teenage delinquents. An acquaintance of mine, Jacques Swindleton, tells me that I am paranoid and in a state of self obsession and perhaps also dangerous manic depression. I tell him that this is not so, I am not depressed at all, merely furious at every human being I chance to meet for the indisputable fact that they are an ignorant swine and a bag of graceless flesh that has not the integrity to be permitted to walk this earth.

He tells me that yes, he knows this and that this is, in fact, my problem. This is not a problem, however, it is a view point and one which I feel is very much validated. I am, in fact, not paranoid at all, I feel that I am entitled to feel insecure when there are teenage, and, perhaps also, senile delinquents, lurking on every corner just waiting to smash ceramic pussies in their droves.

After having sufficiently scouted the area, no traps discovered, I slid a hand inside my pocket to retrieve the small golden key, which I then intended to slip inside the keyhole. But there was nothing. The key was gone, not even a whiff of it, not that keys typically leave much of a whiff in any case, unless kept sealed inside the sweaty pits of a redneck trucker.

My keys were gone. They were, as previously stated, not where I would have expected them to be. What devil had taken them? What soldier of Satan, what bringer of Beelzebub had snatched them from within my unknowing gaze?

I scanned the drive with suspicious eyes. A squirrel ran past. For a second I interrogated his person as a legitimate suspect. However I am allergic to all sorts of animals and no doubt would have sneezed myself into a coma had he come within ten paces.

Surely I had not dropped them? My pocket was deep and thick, could it have been possible? I retraced my steps, scrutinizing every inch of concrete as I passed, thinking that I must look a foolish sight if anyone chanced to gaze in my direction from the path opposite. This thought brought a chill to my person and I quickly turned, checking the road for any signs of a devious stalker. There was no one.

I climbed back inside my people carrier, turning on the engine and listening as classical music filled the enormous space. The carrier, as I have said, is big, big enough to carry, as its name claims, sufficient people. I searched the mats to no avail and turned my watchful eye, akin to that of a hawk on the hunt, to the back seat. There was nothing but dirt and mud, the large and intimidating space empty save for a pair of old wellington boots slick with filth (note: these boots do not belong to me, they are my mother’s old pair which she has carelessly left upon my seat. I do not wear wellingtons, nor do I intend to for I am under the impression they make people look like a farmer. I am not a farmer) I tried to rise from my position but realised I could not. I had wedged myself between the two seats, my front end facing into the car’s rear and my bottom sticking up into the air, the gear stick digging into my abdomen.

For about ten seconds, maybe more, I stopped still and tried to think of a pleasant and painless way out of my predicament. I realised it did not exist and endeavoured to attempt escape and see what occurred.

I pushed down onto the back seat with all my might, in a futile stab at freeing myself, but instead, disaster stuck. The two seats loosened their grip and my entire upper body shot skyward as I pressed down, my head slamming hard into the carrier’s roof. Letting out a cry of pain I twisted around and fell back between the seats, the gear stick ramming into my spine. Kicking furiously and screaming with rage, my stray foot slammed into the reverse pedal and the car, to the strains of Mozart’s fifth, shot backwards, skidding off my gravel driveway. It was then I realised what had happened and removed the offending foot from the pedal, but it was already to late. The people carrier was stranded in the middle of the road. I screamed and began to fight for my life.

That cruel twister of fates that was Karma had me in its grasp once more and I was powerless to resist it. Obviously it intended me to pay for my insults to the elderly. They deserve it, those senile old incompetent fools.

I gripped the sides of the seat in a frenzy and began to pull, succeeding only in dislodging my bottom and causing it to slip into the rear of the car, my knees raising and pressing against my chest.

I heard a distant thudding, growing in volume with each second that passed. At first I thought it was my own heart, quivering with fear at the prospect of having an 18 wheeled 16 tonne articulated lorry slam into the side of my people carrier and send it spinning from the road, my body sealed inside, like a metal, and also somewhat oversized, tomb.

Then, with a chilling flash of recognition, I realised what the thumping was. It was not my heart, it was too loud, already rising above the great melody of Mozart. No, it was that curse upon society, that plague which scours the land and draws the infidels and degenerates from the darkest corners of their juvenile detention centres. Rap music.

The beat was utterly unmistakable, even from the distant from which it emanated I could tell that it was without a doubt rap, or perhaps hip-hop, blaring from the wound down windows of some flashy, neon-lit monstrosity, laden with polished chrome and ‘bling’, a truly pimped out ride. No doubt behind the wheel sat a, or even a gang of, teenage delinquents, ready to smash every ceramic cat in the area. They would not stop for me. I had to escape.

Struggling madly I pulled my legs free from the grip of the two seats and hauled my body onto the back seat, catching a fleeting glimpse of a silver streak of a car racing towards me through the rear window. In a panic of fear I threw myself forwards into the front seat, wrenching myself over the gear stick with a wince of pain, and dived forwards below the steering wheel, slamming my fingers onto the accelerator.

The people carrier jerked forwards with a roar of power and I heard the crunch of gravel as it passed onto my driveway. I pulled back, collapsing with exhaustion onto the front seat; exhaustion and relief. My life was saved, no teenage delinquent driving a souped-up old banger with a stylised number plate would run me down today.

When I had sufficiently recovered from my ordeal I climbed out of my people carrier and locked the door, stepping onto the pavement and glaring with venom at the silver car as it sped past. The pumping rap music faded into the distance, like a cloud on a summer’s day, a particularly hostile and antagonistic cloud.

I turned and once more approached my doorway, giving up all hope of finding my key and deciding, despite the protestations that my mind presented before me, to retrieve my spare. I picked up the ceramic cat figure and, sniffing slightly, smashed it into the doorstep, the thousands of fragments scattering out onto the pavement.

There was a soft clatter and a key fell from within the cat’s belly, dropping among the broken remains of my ornament. I picked it up and proceeded to unlock my door, contemplating that perhaps the act of smashing my cat to retrieve a spare key was, in fact, a thinly veiled irony that was intended to show to me that if I was not very careful I could easily sink to the depths of the teenage delinquents who had before shattered my pet in an attempt at depraved vandalism.

The key clicked into place and the front door swung open at my push, revealing the desolate pit beyond. I had a most terrible feeling in my gut, the feeling that the loss of my keys and near destruction of my precious carrier of people at the hands of a pimped out Ford Fiesta were just the start of an evil far bigger. Karma had me in its foul grasp and intended to make me pay for my wrong doings. It would not relinquish its grip on me easily.

As I entered my home I reached down into the inside pocket of my duffel coat, feeling for my ball point pen and a scrap of paper. Next to my instrument of truth I felt a small metallic object, cold to the touch. My eyes narrowed as I inspected. I almost screamed with rage for I realised instantly that these were, in fact, my lost keys.

I threw off my coat in anger and slammed my fist heavily into my bedroom door, knocking it open with a crack. It wasn’t the door that had cracked. It was my knuckle. I squinted in pain and held the offending hand close to my body, wrapping it in the folds of my shirt. Then I slunk back outside and opened the door of my people carrier, backing it onto the road.

I instructed my Sat-Nav to take me to the nearest hospital. I pulled out of my cul-de-sac and onto the next road, where the cool calming tones of a woman, the sort of woman who would be best suited to a job as a personal secretary or perhaps a walking advert for a cleaning solution, commanded me to turn right at the next bend. I turned the contraption off.