Category: Stories Around the Fire

Once upon a time,

Five lit­tle lass­es were play­ing in the gar­den one sun­ny spring morn­ing.  They were qui­et­ly sit­ting in the grass mak­ing daisy chains out of sweet smelling flow­ers. As they sat there sur­round­ed by the tiny lit­tle petals, they began to chat about what they want­ed to do and what they want­ed to be when they grew up

The first lit­tle lass spoke up and said when she grew up, she want­ed a bright red car and the biggest man­sion in the entire king­dom.

The girls all sighed as they dreamed about the glit­ter­ing gat­ed man­sion with the bright shiny car parked out­side framed by a mag­nif­i­cent gar­den and ornate gold­en draperies in the crys­tal win­dows.

The sec­ond lassie soon spoke up, wist­ful­ly say­ing she want­ed to be the most beau­ti­ful girl in the whole king­dom when she grew up. The most beau­ti­ful boy in the king­dom would take one look at her and fall deeply in love with her sweep­ing her off to his palace.

The oth­er lit­tle girls all ooh’ed and ah’ed as they day dreamed of the hand­some prince rid­ing up to sweep their lit­tle friend off her feet and take her away to the land of hap­pi­ly ever after.

The third lit­tle girl did­nt have to think about her dream, she already had it planned. She want­ed to be a star on tv and in movies and have every one in the king­dom adore her and love her. The oth­er lit­tle girls excit­ed­ly thought of fame and for­tunes and sign­ing auto­graphs for wor­ship­ping ador­ers.

It was the the fourth lit­tle girl’s turn next and she announced with a smirk that she want­ed to rule the world and own dia­mond mines with slaves and min­ions at her beck and call.

The oth­er girl’s eyes all sparkled as they imag­ined maids in stiff starched white linen uni­forms wheel­ing pol­ished sil­ver ser­vice trays full of delec­table temp­ta­tions with hand­some men offer­ing their friend rich­es beyond their wildest dreams.

The four lit­tle girls then turned to the fifth lit­tle girl and wait­ed expec­tant­ly to hear what her dream was.

The fifth girl thought for a moment before she spoke.
“I want to be wise” she said qui­et­ly with a gen­tle smile on her face.

The oth­er girls looked at their lit­tle friend. There was silence. The only audi­ble sound was the steady drone of the bot­tle green blowflies gath­er­ing and buzzing around four lit­tle mouths that had by now fall­en gap­ing­ly open. Four litle faces in shock, after lis­teni­ing to their lit­tle friend’s rather bizarre and hor­rid sound­ing dreams.

The first lit­tle girl smiled. Then she gig­gle and then the first lit­tle girl start­ed to laugh her head off, while she turned to the oth­er lit­tle girls. One by one the four girls start­ed laugh­ing. They all laughed, and they laughed and laughed.

Those four lit­tle girls laughed at the fifth lit­tle lass until tears welled painful­ly up in her eyes.

Then they laughed some more when they saw her tears of dis­tress.

The fifth lit­tle girl scram­bled up from the ground, wip­ing the hot tears that were pour­ing down her face in twin water­falls away on her sleeve, as she took one last glance down at all the beau­ti­ful flow­ers in her hand.

She turned and tossed the pile to the wind and then turned and ran home as fast as her tiny lit­tle fae legs would car­ry her.

Arriv­ing home, she raced into her bed­room, slam­ming the door hard behind her. She threw her­self on the bed and sobbed.

She sobbed and sobbed until she had no tears left to sob.

Pick­ing her­self up off the bed, she walked sad­ly up to the dress­er and sat down. Her eyes rose to face her­self in the mir­ror.

She picked her music box up from her dress­er and turned the key before set­ting it back down, with the sounds of Puccini’s La Boheme now sooth­ing her tor­tured soul.

Glanc­ing down at the remain­ing daisy chain entwined around her wrist, she slow­ly brought her arm to her face, nuz­zling the tiny petals and draw­ing the sweet aro­ma deep inside her soul.

She removed the flower chain gen­tly from her wrist, tak­ing care not to dam­age the tiny ten­der petals then soft­ly placed it inside her music box.

She looked down in silence at the heart shaped music box, watch­ing the pur­ple faery danc­ing mer­ri­ly and proud­ly around her cir­cle.  a sin­gle tear run­ning from her left eye and dropped into the box.

Sad­ly she closed the lid of the music box on the bright and beaut­ful pur­ple bal­le­ri­na, crush­ing her and forc­ing her to fit  down in the dark­ness of the box.

The echo of the  lid slam­ing down bounced soft­ly off the wall before slow­ly fad­ing out. Until that moment she had been danc­ing mer­ri­ly around on the dance floor, hap­py, bright and beau­ti­ful.

Now there was silence in her still­ness.

The silence grew. She nev­er told any­one her dreams again. She kept them locked deep with­in her heart along with that ever for­got­ten daisy chain in the music box.

Her dreams were hope  and she didn’t want to share them when there were so many of those four oth­er lit­tle princess­es just wait­ing with hatred in their hearts, to crush all hope that grew.

The room is ster­ile. In the cen­tre of the room stands the cold steel mechan­i­cal out­line of a bed, sur­round­ed by three uncom­fort­able hard seats and four stark white walls. The aro­ma of dis­in­fec­tant and bleach hangs heavy in the room, cloy­ing the sens­es with the chem­i­cal smells.

You are lying in the bed, uncon­scious, with pads and tubes all over your pale frag­ile form, hooked up to var­i­ous machines with beep­ing nois­es and bright col­ored lights flash­ing inter­mit­tent­ly. I stroke your hand gen­tly as you stir and groan, set­ting off yet anoth­er end­less light flash­ing on the machine clos­est to your head. The tears pour down my face unchecked as melan­choly mem­o­ries of the two of us flood through my sens­es.

We were four, it had been rain­ing and it was the first time in days we had been allowed out­side. We were in the yard play­ing and I was run­ning towards you try­ing my best to con­trol the soc­cer ball I was kick­ing between my legs. You moved towards me, I skipped side­ways and lift­ed my boot to kick. Sud­den­ly I slipped and lost my bal­ance and I end­ed up face plant­ed in the slop­py dirty mud at your feet. You laughed

We were five and you got into big trou­ble at school for chas­ing that stuck up girl with the gold­en pig­tails. You caught her and then tossed her uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly into the sand­pit. I laughed

We were six and we got our first bikes for Christ­mas off San­ta Claus. We went out­side to ride them along the street and proud­ly show them off to the neigh­bor­ing kids. We both laughed.

We were sev­en and we were rid­ing those bikes to school. You were just ahead of me when a car came screech­ing around the cor­ner on two wheels, drove up onto the gut­ter and straight into you. Nobody laughed. We nev­er laughed again.

Pain floods my sens­es as my mind trav­els through time to anoth­er place. I couldn’t look at you lying there bro­ken on the grey cement or at the bright red liq­uid stain slow­ly spread­ing about your crushed body. Even now today I still can’t open the box in my mind that con­tains those pic­tures. It is still too raw, still too graph­ic and still too real for me to view.

Your life stopped there that day as mine was just begin­ning.

I was eight and I was cho­sen for the state soc­cer team. You had the first of many surg­eries to repair your bro­ken body. Your pelvis was rebuilt and jaw wired, with bone tak­en from your hips to replace the shat­tered shards of cheek­bones. Your bro­ken back was set in trac­tion and the doc­tors final­ly per­suad­ed the fam­i­ly to remove what was left of your left leg.

I was nine and won “dux” of the school. That was the year when they found out the blood they had giv­en you was con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and your liv­er began to fail. Your organs shut down and you had swelling on the brain. That year was the begin­ning of the psy­chosis and tor­ment that dogged you for­ev­er more and that was the year you begged me to help you to die.

I sat by your bed­side back then in a room not unlike the one I was now seat­ed in. The same cold, white and ster­ile feel­ing per­me­at­ed every fibre of my being then as it does now. I told you I loved you. I plead­ed with you to live. I cried for you to keep going. I encour­aged you to have the strength to con­tin­ue. I asked you to make the best of what you had and keep liv­ing. You still begged me to help you die. I remem­ber my anger as I told you nev­er to speak of it again. You didn’t, those words nev­er passed your lips again. Instead yet anoth­er light fad­ed from your eyes.

My teen years were full of achieve­ments while your teen years were full of hos­pi­tals, doc­tors and more ago­niz­ing pain. I met a pret­ty girl, fell in love and we got mar­ried. You met with many spe­cial­ists and psy­chi­a­trists. I got pro­mot­ed to man­ag­er of my divi­sion and you got anoth­er assort­ment of pills to keep you qui­et and rel­a­tive­ly pain free.

We had our first baby as you had your first break­down. My lit­tle girl took her first steps and stum­bled into my arms as you began new ther­a­pies on your dam­aged brain. Our sec­ond baby was born around the same time the doc­tors told you that you had a tumor. I watched him laugh and coo and run around on his stumpy legs. I watched the tears pour from your eyes and I watched you wipe them away. I watched you gri­mace in pain and I watched you turn away in soli­tude.

Your bro­ken back had nev­er mend­ed and your only mode of trans­porta­tion was a motor­ized wheel­chair but even that now is cast­away back deep in the dark dusty shed at home gath­er­ing cob­webs. You haven’t been out of bed for near­ly a year now. The tumor was found to be inop­er­a­ble, grow­ing insid­i­ous­ly and evil­ly inside your already dam­aged head.

Tomor­row is the big day though. A new med­ical pro­ce­dure is to be tri­aled. It requires the implant­i­ng of tiny elec­trodes into your brain that will send elec­tri­cal impuls­es into the tumor. Accord­ing to the new team of spe­cial­ists, com­bined with a week­ly course of intense radio­ther­a­py it should shrink the tumor. They haven’t said too much about the side affects, although they tell me that it will be “uncom­fort­able” for you. I vivid­ly remem­ber your last course of radio­ther­a­py, which if any­thing had made the tumor grow. I remem­ber how your face was burnt with the skin peel­ing off in strips and I remem­ber how the inside of your mouth and throat were raw with weep­ing blis­ters. I remem­ber how you end­ed up being tube fed direct­ly into your stom­ach when you could not longer swal­low food or water.

Sud­den­ly the loud inces­sant beep­ing of one of the machines per­vades my sens­es, bring­ing me back to the stark real­i­ty of now. Your breath­ing has slowed, each breath seem­ing­ly requir­ing a great effort from your heav­ing weak­ened body. The machine sounds loud­er now as more lights flash. Med­ical staff come run­ning into the room and I am pushed away to the cor­ner shad­ows.

I stand strick­en as I watch them work on your with­ered shape. For a few min­utes there is fran­tic activ­i­ty and peo­ple yelling instruc­tions. The voic­es take on a pan­icked tone and then every­thing falls silent. A nurse turns to me and looks sad­ly into my eyes. Noth­ing needs to be said as she turns back and slow­ly pulls a sheet over your head. The machines are switched off one by one and the med­ical staff qui­et­ly leave the room.

I am left alone with you but you are no more. I am alone. For the first time in my life I am tru­ly alone. I kneel down by your side and I am stone faced as I gen­tly touch the sheet that cov­ers you one last time. I stand up and then walk into the tiny bath­room that is attached to the hos­pi­tal ward. Lean­ing over the bowl I try to gath­er my thoughts. It is hope­less. I am blank. I can­not think. I can­not feel. I am numb.

My hand mechan­i­cal­ly reach­es onto my jack­et pock­et and pulls out a plas­tic wrap­per. I bare­ly glance at the label with “mor­phine” writ­ten across the front in bold black let­ters as I drop it in the toi­let bowl. I press the but­ton, star­ing into noth­ing­ness as the wrap­per is flushed away through the sewage sys­tem.

I look up into the mir­ror. It is your face that star­ing back at me. I step back into the room for the final time. It seems dark and still, an empti­ness with­in an empti­ness. The cloy­ing smells and aro­mas appear to have van­ished as I walk slow­ly out of the room and head off up the cor­ri­dor towards the nurs­es sta­tion.

Good­bye my broth­er. Good­bye my twin. Good­bye to half of me.

You see Bro, when I was a lit­tle kid, I kin­da had this prob­lem… I loved you too much to let you go. Now that I am old­er, I kin­da have a prob­lem… I love you too much to make you stay.

Sarah stopped and straight­ened, wip­ing the sweat from her brow as she looked around at the moun­tains sur­round­ing her. It was a steamy spring day in the trop­ics of Aus­tralia. On the hori­zon threat­en­ing fore­bod­ing stom clouds gath­ered and slow­ly drift­ed inland.

She turned to review her morn­ing accom­plish­ment in the gar­den and walked back slow­ly towards the farm­house to make lunch for her her­self and her small son Bai­ley, who was play­ing qui­et­ly under the man­go tree which was burst­ing with pre sea­son fruit near­by.

As she stepped into the house, she stopped a moment and frowned, peer­ing out­side again into the sun­shine. It was so still, unusu­al­ly so for this time of day, calm and very silent. No birds were chirp­ing away in the trees that were gen­tly sway­ing on the hills nor were the rab­bits skip­ping over the mead­ows and play­ing hide and seek with each oth­er. “Eerie”.

She shrugged as she stepped inside and went to switch the tele­vi­sion on as she made the sand­wich­es.

She froze as the pic­ture came on and the voice boomed into the room. The mid­day news­cast­er was high­ly agi­tat­ed as he splut­tered out his lines. Sera lis­tened and watched intent­ly, try­ing to grasp exact­ly what she was hear­ing.

“I repeat, New Zealand has been total­ly destroyed by a mas­sive vol­canic erup­tion and numer­ous death­ly shock­waves that have caused the island coun­try to sub duct between two tec­ton­ic plates. It is believed that hun­dreds of thou­sands of lives have been lost in the cat­a­str­phic dis­as­ter”

“No, thought Sarah and shook her head, this can­not be hap­pen­ing and leaned for­ward to hear more.

The news­cast­er con­tin­ued, Sarah’s face and body was begin­ning to reg­is­ter the hor­ror and enor­mi­ty of what she was hear­ing. A chain reac­tion had occurred along the Pacif­ic plate, start­ing with deep quakes reg­is­ter­ing in the New Guinea region and after a peri­od of calm it seemed all hell had bro­ken loose. Vol­ca­noes spew­ing molten lava had sud­den­ly sprung up along the pacif­ic and naz­ca plate edges where it inter­sect­ed with small­er plates, instant­ly cre­at­ing new islands where none had pre­vi­ous­ly exist­ed. The stress­es caused from the plates shift had caused quakes all over the plan­et at it’s weak­est spots, cul­mi­nat­ing in a mas­sive hor­i­zon­tal slide of two plates inter­sect­ing south of new Zealand.

Shak­i­ly while still lis­ten­ing to the news­cast­er Sarah ran and called Bai­ley inside, stop­ping a moment to reflect and observe the dark for­ma­tions on the hori­zon, they took on new mean­ing now, she thought as an ice cold chill ran up her spine.

She lived inland about 200 kilo­me­tres from the sea, on a moun­tain mead­ow, which seemed at the moment to be a safe spot as the news­cast­er began to list the areas affect­ed by the mas­sive tsunami’s that the series of seis­mic events had cre­at­ed. Her face fell as the tele­vi­sion switched to footage of a mas­sive wall of churned up mud­dy, dirty brown water bar­rel­ing towards the Syd­ney Har­bour Bridge, swal­low­ing the Opera House, with just the peaks of the sails vis­i­ble as the water con­sumed every­thing in it’s path.

What was hap­pen­ing here, she hugged Bai­ley to her chest, He seemed to sense some­thing was wrong and he looked quizzi­cal­ly into her eyes, His own deep blue eyes star­ing inno­cent­ly and ques­tion­ing­ly at her. “Mum­my” he said and touched her face with his tiny warm hand. “What is mak­ing you sad”.

Sarah choked and could­n’t answer him, she kissed him, then held him tighter as the voice and images droned on and on through her sens­es. The news­cast­er was fair­ly yelling now, his face was beet red as he told of the cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing destruc­tion of Cal­i­for­nia. Ten min­utes before­hand Mt St Helens had explod­ed, blow­ing a near­ly a kilo­me­tre off the top of her and spew­ing lava miles into the sky, the shocks had trig­gered the San Andreas fault to give way in a reac­tion of quakes through to south­ern Cal­i­for­nia, each mea­sur­ing over 9 on the Richter scale.

The news­cast­er stopped as a hand came into cam­era view and passed him yet anoth­er sheet of paper. He frowned and sighed as he turned to face the cam­era. It was almost with a dull monot­o­ne that he read from the lat­est item to hit the desk.

“Due to the mas­sive series of seis­mic events along the pacif­ic rim of fire, the earth has cre­at­ed such a wob­ble that it is now believed the moon has been thrown errat­i­cal­ly out of it’s nor­mal orbit around our plan­et. It seems that these events will con­tin­ue and it is as yet unknown when the events will sub­side. Emer­gency mar­shal law has been enact­ed all over the coun­try. Please stay tuned for instruc­tion bul­letin to fol­low.

Sud­den­ly the earth beneath Sarah’s feet became unsta­ble. She squealed loud­ly as she felt a rush of pow­er come towards her. She felt like she was on the edge of a high cliff, with a steam train rush­ing at her full steam, a roar rang in her ears as she ran to escape the con­fines of the house, Bai­ley still held tight­ly against her chest. Sarah fell out of the front veran­dah and laid there as the Earth ren­dered, shook and screamed beneath her. The air around her rushed and roared. Bai­ley start­ed scream­ing, his voice blend­ing in with the screams of the earth. The wrench­ing and tear­ing con­tin­ued as the sky dark­ened and a thick orange brown cloud filled the air. Inside the house the TV became silent, but the shak­ing con­tin­ued, get­ting stronger and stronger.

Sarah pulled Bai­ley clos­er and crawled away from the house as behind her the foun­da­tions of the 150 year old farm­house tore away and the build­ing col­lapsed with a screech of torn met­al. The ground tore apart in front of her and she stopped crawl­ing and she watched in seem­ing­ly slow motion as the gar­den she had ten­dered to so lov­ing­ly that morn­ing slid away down into a pit that had appeared, swal­low­ing it all in one long move­ment. Sarah screamed now as on the dis­tant moun­tain peaks, bright red rivers of molten lava appeared, burst­ing into the heav­ens like New Year’s fire­works against the dark­ened skies.

Bai­ley stared trans­fixed as steam vents siz­zled up in gey­sers and all around cracks appeared on the ground like a maze of spi­der webs over the area. Trees were uproot­ed and crashed back down with an almighty wrench­ing sound

The roar was loud­er now, the shak­ing seemed to be build­ing to a crescen­do, a sym­pho­ny of hor­ror and Sarah found she could not move or make a sound and then it hap­pened. The crescen­do peaked, there was a flash, a crack of sound, blind­ing colour and in that instant of ago­niz­ing pain Sarah called Bai­ley’s name. Then there was noth­ing as an explo­sion ripped through the solar sys­tem and the Earth was no more.

 

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Well I wrote this for a con­test but do not wish to kill the sto­ry­line by cut­ting it in half to fit the 600 word cri­te­ria …so i thought I would post the sto­ry again for you all to read and hope­ful­ly enjoy. This is only the first draft. It still needs refine­ment. I like to write and then leave my piece for a bit and come back all fresh to do the sec­ond draft as I always look at it dif­fer­ent­ly then. Sera