That Special Night
What Heart I Have Left--Toriano Davis
A Paranoid Exaggeration.
I Remember......
“Rainbows are just colors showing off. It’s a pathetic cry for help.” I for one prefer darker colors but, whatever. They remind me of him, Kael Williams Jr., My grandpa. He was my friend, my family, and my mentor. I remember the days he would sit me and my little sister Angie around his favorite cotton chair. Of course it was worn out, covered in patches that were probably holding the whole thing together, but it was still his favorite chair. He would rest in it like it was his cocoon and he would always start his stories off by saying, “My adventure began...,” and that would always get a chuckle out of me and my little sis. My grandpa always had a way with people he knew how to make us smile. That night he told us a story about his boxing days. When he was young he was a force to be reckoned, with a record of 23-4-0 and he was on his way to the pros. “Kids you wouldn’t believe the freaks I had to step in the ring with, but I always got them with the 1-2 combo!” He boasted while flailing his arms around like he had won something. “Grandpa, if you were good why you stopped?” Angie teased. My grandpa sat, and he said “My dear that is a whole other story for another time…” He smiled, but I could see a slight look of remorse in his eyes, by then he stopped speaking and sent us off to bed. Grandpa usually tucked us in, but when he didn’t I couldn’t just sleep, so I crawled out of bed and I looked silently through my door. He was viewing over his old red grit covered gloves with a bottle of whiskey resting on his lap.
Not the Gun
The gun popped along to the staccato of her heartbeat, thumping against her ears like the time when David Stefani told her she was beautiful.
“Oh, god.” Her cry flew across the pavement with a flutter of startled birds. For an endless moment, all was silent, the air broken only by a shuddering exhale from the crumpled figure on the ground.
A hooded form trembled as crimson seeped into his shoes, staring at the boy beneath his feet who had three bullet holes kissing his chest. “I’m sorry,” he choked as he brought a shaking hand to his mouth. A final pop burst through the silence. His hood exploded from his head, revealing eyes that widened before rolling back. He fell like a judge’s mallet, hard and sharp.
The girl stood facing the scene, her knees threatening to lose the battle with gravity. On the ground not twenty paces away lay her past and her future, folded perfectly into each other, one lifeless body cupping the other in curled absolution.
Gravity won out. She stumbled to the ground, retching into the dizzy space between her hands. 911, she thought, I need to call 911. She fumbled into her jeans for her phone, punching in the three infamous numbers from where she crouched.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“There’s a shooting. My friend—my friends have been shot.” Her voice caught. “Oh, god, there’s so much blood. Please, send an ambulance! I think…I think they’re dead.” She began to sob, making the speaker blow with her gasps.
“Ma’am, please calm down. Where are you?”
“I’m at the park near Williams street,” she exhaled. “I didn’t come in time…I couldn’t stop him…” Anger invaded her throat. “They were friends! It was the gang that killed them, not the gun.”
With Age Comes Wisdom
For seventy-one years, the bench had sat in the same place. His perch on the hill provided a view of a pristine field with a small stream flowing gracefully through it. Across the field sat another hill. Atop the hill sat the bench’s best friend; a mighty oak tree. While the bench had been at his post for seventy-one years, the tree had been growing for one-hundred-and-fifty years. For thirty-two years the tree grew alone. He dreamed of having a friend to share his thoughts with, but for thirty-two years he sat alone. The day the bench was built across the stream inside of the park lines went something like this.
“…hey bench.”
“Hello?” It was the benches first word.
“How’re you?”
“Sore.” The bench stretched its frame, trying to break it in.
The bench and the tree spent seventy-one years together. The tree was like the bench’s father. He taught him many things during his first thirty-two years, but the tree learned just as much from the bench. One brisk spring morning, a group of humans were gathering around the tree.
“What are they doing to you, Tree?”
“Probably just another team of scientists studying trees.”
The companions spent two days wondering what the humans were doing to Tree. On the third day, the humans returned.
“Looks like the scientists brought some science equipment this time,” said Bench.
“It would appear so.”
Bench fell asleep as the scientists conducted their experiments on Tree. They sure were loud. The Bench had never learned something and not shared it with Tree. Upon waking, he did just that. For seventy-one years they had learned many things. But in seventy-one years, Bench had never learned of lumber jacks. Tree would never know either.
Shark attack!
