CleverUserName's Stories

When You Assume ...

2008-05-08T23:21:35Z

I was wrong, okay?!?

It’s not like you were really straight with me. It never happens!

You said you had a “big day” today. You didn’t look happy about any of it. I could tell your “big day” wasn’t a good thing. I’ve never seen you like this!

You’ve been depressed for weeks, damn it! And you wouldn’t say why! Why … ?

When you woke up and said you couldn’t even move, it started to click for me. You said you didn’t want to see another “one,” whatever that was. The look in your eyes was so desperate, I thought I was doing you a favor.

I love you, don’t you see? I wouldn’t have done this for anyone else, and you know it!

Don’t look at me. I know your eyes detect me. Even with the bullet in between them.

You were never, ever straight with me! I’m so sorry. That’s what happens when you’re so damn coy about your life. Well, you don’t have to worry about “life” any more, eh?

By the way, happy 40th birthday.

Efficacy

2008-05-07T22:16:00Z

The new drug rep, with stars in her eyes and a car trunk full of the newest pharmaceutical to cure man’s ills, found she was lost in the back woods of her new territory.

She hoped her company car knew the way back to civilization. Instead, it led her to a fog bank that obliterated her view of the road before her. At 1 PM, it was an interesting sight.

Knowing that going back wouldn’t help and with nowhere else to go, she drove through it.

On the other side, she saw a little boy who looked out of place, with his old-fashioned clothing, shoes and haircut. She noticed a lesion on him that her drug would treat. Even though she wasn’t a doctor (and didn’t play one on TV, a technology the boy didn’t look like he even knew about), she gave him the drug.

The boy smiled and simply said, “Thank you, madam.” A touch of kindness not normally seen in her modern world.

At that point, the fog enveloped her, her car and the boy. It disappeared, leaving just her and the mindless auto.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

The End

2008-05-07T18:34:27Z

Dirk always enjoyed free-form writing. Said it gave him an “instant creative outlet,” whatever that was.

The blank screen beckoned to him. So he started with the first words; which, fitting to this tale, were “The End.”

Why did he type those words? He began to think. About his three failed marriages. About the son he really didn’t know. About the daughter he refused to acknowledge. His business partner. The missing money. The pool of blood. About his “new life” behind bars.

About the failure his life had become.

His life now became his inspiration for his story. A man looks for love and acceptance in all of the wrong places. In the end, he has neither.

It’s not a really happy story. Won’t be a summer beach read, that’s for sure.

He re-read his story over and over, and his plan took form in his mind. But not on the screen.

Dirk’s last, final plan ended up being his last true action on Earth. Except for the shiv to his wrists, of course.

“Instant creative outlet,” indeed.

The Room

2008-05-07T15:00:35Z

He walked into The Room. Immediately, he was confused.

At first, the walls were completely white. Then they began to change colors. First, just the primary colors. A few seconds later, they began to blend to form others.

Shapes came next. Geometric at first. Then they took organic form. Faces, places, images from his life. For the first time, he experienced feelings about what he was seeing. Happiness at the faces of his children. Grief when his parents’ appeared. Stark horror at the atrocities he saw during the War.

Those emotions then took form on the walls. Some were more distant, so they were small. Others, though, loomed very large, as he just experienced them. Especially the War.

Then the walls changed back to white, but with splotches of red. He felt pure evil from the red. But most of the wall space remained white. For reasons unknown, this made him feel very good.

Finally, two doors opened. He moved … not walked, but moved … through one of them.

Enlightenment.