Tuesday, February 14, 2006

"Reality"

Aaaaaaaaaah! I finished my science journal but I'm still stressed.

I'm listening to loud, fast music. It's kind of stressing me out. Plus it's like 9:13 PM. That's late.

Anyway I had Hebrew School so I have no time to post so I'm double dipping. This is my short story for English. It's called "Reality", and is a chilling tale of blah blah blah.

Here it is...

Craig was never a bad man, really. He had grown up in Trenton, and went to ITT Tech in Dayton, Ohio. There, he met his wife, Jamie. They had settled in a townhouse, and had 2 children, Henry and Patrick. He was living a simple life, not passionate about it, indifferent really.

Craig had finished his job for the night, picked up some eggs, and headed home. He said hello to his sons, kissed his wife, announced that he was going to change his clothes, and walked up the stairs.

He walked into his bathroom and looked in the mirror. The face staring back at him was one he barely recognized. It was no longer the bright, happy face of a young man, working the job he loved. It was the face of a man who was defeated, working the job he loathed, day-in and day-out, to support a family. A family whose kids were growing up too fast, and whose wife barely spoke to her husband. The bags under his eyes were dark, as if someone had painted them that way. His hair was black, but no longer had its sheen.

A late fall storm thundered outside. It rained harder. Craig could hear his kids below him, talking to their mother. They were 8, but somehow, they were already at that stage where they ignored their dad.

Craig cried for a minute or two. His wife walked in.

“Jamie,” he cried, “It’s okay, I’ll be down in a second”. Before, she would hug him, comforting him, telling him it would be alright.

Those were old face times. Now, she would just look at him pityingly, almost angrily, and then leave.

The evening passed uneventfully from there, Craig ate his dinner of spaghetti, complementing his wife on it. She ignored him. He made Pat practice piano, and then headed upstairs. An hour later, he kissed his kids goodnight.
The fluorescent green clock from the microwave flashed 11:17. Craig was making his lunch, and his breakfast. His wife used to make it for him, cracking jokes as she saw her kids and husband off at the same time, talking about her “men”.

Not anymore. And he couldn’t figure out why.

Craig stuck the brown bags in the refrigerator, and moved to his room. He got in bed, staring at the ceiling, until sleep took him.

Craig awoke, and light streamed in the window. He sighed to himself, and then rolled out of bed. He dressed, and maneuvered down the stairs. His wife heard him.

“Morning honey” she greeted him. She wasn’t usually up this early.

“Hey, what smells so good?” he asked.

“Eggs,” she answered, gesturing to the boys, “I made them special for the kids and you.”

Craig looked at them. Eggs! Things could be looking up. Henry was kind or pushing his around his plate, while Pat had eaten his, but he wasn’t getting up. He was very still. He was just sitting there, and then…

Pat fell. He fell of his chair, hitting the floor with a thud. Craig was sprinting over to him, while his wife didn’t notice.

Craig saw that he was dead immediately. Pat was as white as chalk. The man had seen enough movies to know the boy had eaten something poisonous. He looked towards the eggs; they looked fine, though…

He turned towards his wife. Jamie was still making eggs.

“Honey,” he said, “Patrick’s dead.” It sounded stupid coming out of his mouth. He didn’t mean to say it as confirmation; he meant it as a question. He was wondering why she wasn’t answering him. She had just learned her son had died.

“Oh, I know,” she insisted.

“How?” Craig demanded.

“He ate your eggs.” Craig didn’t really get it. He didn’t get it until she turned towards him with the steaming hot frying pan. He got it when he threw through himself to the ground, hearing the pan whistle above him.

He grabbed the fearful Henry, propelling them both towards the door. The toaster flew past his head when his hand grabbed the knob, and as he turned it, he felt the hot pan hit the side of his face.

Jamie watched Craig fall. She noticed him landing an odd position, but then she figure out why. She went to grab Henry, but Craig got there first. He hit the door hard with his feet, and Henry didn’t need any advice as to what to do. He rushed out the kitchen door, down the hall, around the corner, and out the front door.

Jamie was angry. She raised the frying pan, hitting Craig’s head. She raised it one more time, and crashed it down.

Craig awoke. He was drenched in cold sweat, from something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. As he lay in bed, he noticed something familiar about the scene. He couldn’t figure out what. He dressed himself, and walked down the stairs, into the kitchen.

“Morning, honey” She was making eggs. And then he remembered. But it was just a dream. It couldn’t be… There was no way it could be… He looked over at Pat, for confirmation of what, somehow, he already knew to be true.

He wasn’t moving.

Anyway that's that. It's short because it could only be 3 pages and it had to be double spaced.

Feel free to rave! Heh heh. Kidding.

Oh and that guy Cheney shot had a heart attack...

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

i thought cacciatore hated the "dream" kind of stories...

Anonymous said...

lol... i read about the cheny thing... still funny even though i'm a devout republican!

And yeah... didn't cacciatore say NO DREAM STORIES... it was amazing tho.

Anonymous said...

was the first guest commenter an administrator or just someone pretending to be one?

Anonymous said...

ignore the other curious comment...i wasn't thinking since the person obviously wasn't using an admin. account

Sam Austin said...

No, the end of the story couldn't be a dream. This one is like what happened in his dream is about to happen.

He's like kind of out of touch, but even then he knows what's comin

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Frances said...

oh, ya. u showed me this about 2 months ago. lol.
that was still scary tho.
sry melissa i'm stealing the computer ur using. u can have it bac now. . .
~Frances =)

Anonymous said...

Scary. I never liked the thought of wives killing their husbands...a divorce is so much easier. Murder usually involves a lot of suspician, you have to hide it, etc. Anyway, other than that, it was good.

Leah said...

So, it appears you've joined the darkside. Everyone our age always writes gratitous violence.... It sucks. Sorry, but as a writer, here are my comments:
Craig's reaction isn't believable. If a family member died, your first reaction would be "Jesus Christ, somebody call an ambulance" not "Oops, looks like he's dead." It's just hard to write because you can't really imagine it happening. And the ending's still cliqued. You spend too much time on the "mirror" thing.
There, it's over. Don't cry. We had to do a short story too, but we got more space. I did a 10 page action-survival thing. On another place. It's not really believable. 14-year-old vs. giant evil cat results in cat getting dinner, not cat falling in convienent pit. Man, I wrote a lot.

Leah said...

Holy calzone! Just thought of a more original (in my opinion anyway) ending. How about just as she's about to bring the pan crashing down on his head it turns into a booming noise with a headache. We then slowly discover (there is gradual description of the crash) that Craig is in a car crash and has been hallucinating. Policeman says "Sir, sir", then a catchy end line like "Paramedics told his family later that he was the first person to ever say 'Thank God' before they died." Except better. Christ, "Jamie was angry"? Edit, man, edit!

Anonymous said...

Three words:
seven up is rigged.

Two more words:
I can't count.

Oh, something else:
Sam, I think you may be able to tell who I am by the namething...

Abby said...

and the moral, kids, is to make sure your wife is mentally stable before deciding to work overtime and come home late more than is absolutely necessary.

haha juuuuust kidding, I liked it a lot, sam.

Anonymous said...

Aha abby's post was funny...

sam got burned.

Anonymous said...

I CAN'T BEILIEVE U POSTED THAT!!!WHAT HAPPENED TO NO SECRETS ON BLOGS??