"Waaaah! Wah, waaaaaah!"
Slap!
The mother glared at the toddler who could only stare back in shock.
"Eat your food!" she screamed. She took the child's spoon, scooped up a bit of cold, cold cereal, and stuffed it in its mouth, which it chewed slowly and hesitantly, whilst still staring back at its mother.
The mother, Gabriel, dressed in a frayed, washed out business suit continued to feed her child. Her hair was wispy and her frame was bent by weariness, her nerves at their limits. She looked at the time which sparked fear in her eyes. She was going to miss out on her only opportunity in weeks if she stayed.
"Kyle? KYLE!" she screeched into the hallway of the small house. Her voice raced upstairs, through a doorway, and then into the skinny 21-year old's bedroom, its walls filled with tacked-on posters of dominant characters wielding a variety of weapons, from laser pistols to swords to submachine guns. The young adult's ears were wracked by the screaming of his mother and the momentary diversion from his video games forced his character to die. He slammed his keyboard with both hands, forcefully so as to make a report, but not so hard as to break his keyboard for the second time. He gave pause to his game and then shivered in his ragged T-shirt before answering.
"What the fuck do you want?" he shouted back.
"Come down and feed your sister! I have to go, now!"
"Can't you do that?"
"I said NOW!"
"Sigh, fuck this shit..." Kyle muttered. He pushed his rolling chair away from his computer desk, spun around, and then went downstairs, passing his mother in the hall on the way out.
Gabriel put on her shoes, then, as she left, she shouted, "Remember to take care of Lisa!"
"Yea, yea..." Kyle proceeded to carry on where his mother left off with feeding Lisa.
Outside, in the deep chill of the end of autumn, Gabriel walked to the bus stop two blocks away from her small suburban home to catch the number four bus to get to a job interview.
4, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64; 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64; 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64; 4, 14, 24, 34, 44, 54, 64. Those eight numbers, with their auras of grey-silver, sitting comfortably on a slip of paper, were a miracle. Nicbal, a businessman, was staring at eight kings that would bequeath unto him twenty grand a year for the rest of his life. Though the black man was already well-off, these twenty thousand dollars a year meant an early retirement, vacations to the family, money for his parents, and anything else he could think of... A new car? A large screen television? Pay off his mortgage faster, even? The possibilities were endless. He was floating amongst the clouds. But, first, he would have to claim his prize.
Partially sobered by that thought, he got up from his chair, took his suitcase, and gave a ten dollar tip to the coffee store ladies; he would not miss it. He left the coffee store he visited every day early that afternoon to walk across the street to the lottery office.
Inside apartment number 616 lived a kind, Christian, old lady and a 17-year old foster child named Alice. The lady was not rich in material possessions, but she was rich in spirit.
However, her richness of spirit did not help to make the apartment any less despicable for Alice. The barren living room of the two-bedroom apartment was occupied by only a couch and a television, for which the old lady could somehow afford cable. But it did not amuse Alice, no, not even in the slightest. In fact, she held everything about the apartment and the old lady in contempt. It was nothing like her true home where there were maids and butlers to fulfill her every whim. She had to so much herself and there were no games to play, no people to tease or torment besides the old lady (who was frankly too kind for Alice to harm). All she could do was watch television.
So, she sat down and turned it on with the remote.
Presently, a children's cartoon was on.
This is so stupid, she thought. Such senseless stupidity. How can this possibly amuse children? I suppose children are equally as stupid for this show to have aired for so long. Such silliness and stupidity.
She switched channels. On the television now was a sitcom.
That's so unrealistic. How can anyone laugh at this garbage? All it's filled with are a bunch of lumbering, fat idiots who don't know anything. How did those actors ever get out of preschool? Retarded.
Again, she switched channels. Now, there was a news report about the effects of domestic violence on children.
Bullshit. How much did they have to pull out of their asses to come up with this story? How many children honestly feel that bad going through it? It's not even like they were involved.
Alice was tempted to go to the mat in front of the apartment door, pick up her high heels, and smash the television set with it. But she resisted; after all, that would be impolite.
Instead, she stayed seated and switched channels agai
There they were. Her parents, standing in the kitchen, facing each other. The servants were gon
Alice's pupils contracted to mere points. She did not want to see more. She turned off the televisio
Her father pointed a finger at her mother. The mother spat in the direction of the father, the bit of spittle landing at the feet of hi
Alice screamed and threw the remote at the scree
Suddenly, her father stepped toward her mother. The mother took a step back and just as suddenly, reached behind her and grabbed a knife off of the table, brandishing it in front of
Alice screamed again and clapped her palms to her eyes, obtaining darkne
Oh, the blood, the blood! Her mother's blood intermingling with her fathers! Their bodies sprawled on the ground! Oh, and the screaming, the shouting! But most of all, the screa
ming, the screaming, Alice's screams! Her cries of anguish as she leapt off the couch and thrashed about, trying to rid herself of the images!
She suddenly found herself in the apartment's kitchen, desperately scratching at the lock that kept safe the sharpest of knives, that kept them out of reach of the foster children. She was hyperventilating. She would not be able to reach the knives. But the images, the screams, the shouts! They would not stop!
Alice ran to the balcony of the apartment, opened the sliding door, and jumped.
William, a Korean immigrant, drove the number four bus. Every day, he picked up and dropped off passengers of various kinds. Fellow immigrants, the poor, the homeless, invalids, the middle-class, and once in a while, the rich. He liked his job because he had a chance to see all those sorts of people. Occasionally, he would help the people get to where they needed to go by giving directions and instructions. His job did not pay him much, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.
Today, his most peculiar passenger was a woman with wispy hair wearing a frayed, gray business suit. She had bags under her eyes and her face twitched sometimes - probably out of exhaustion. Despite all of these signs of extreme fatigue, she had a smile on her face.
"You have good day?" William asked her when she got on.
"Not yet," she had said with a weary smile. William had smiled back and nodded as she paid the bus fare. The last passenger boarded the bus, then, he drove off.
He reached an intersection beside which an apartment stood and stopped the bus, waiting for the red light to turn green. He was the first vehicle his lane. Then, the light changed. William pressed his foot down on the accelerator and turned the steering wheel left. Someone suddenly screamed. He turned around to look back at his passengers, his foot still on the pedal.
A woman in a frayed, gray business suit sat down beside Josh, a cultist, who looked at the briefcase he was holding. It was locked by two sets of 3-digit combo locks. The code for both of them was 666. Already, the two codes were 666 and 665. All he had to do was change the five to a six and open up the briefcase. That was all he had to do to fulfill the wishes of his cult.
Josh's thumb played with the five, switching it from five to four and back again. Why was it so hard?
These people are around me are innocents, aren't they? he thought to himself. Do they really deserve this fate? Are humans as parasitical as we make them out to be? These people probably have lives, families, aspirations, wishes...
Five. Four. Five. Four. Five. Four. Five.
Josh shook his head. He was too sane a man to trigger the bomb.
The cult leader should have picked someone else.
He was about to switch the five back to a four when suddenly, someone screamed at something outside. Caught in mid-thought, Josh was startled. His thumb slipped.
Six.
Nicbal saw the girl jump from the balcony six stories high. Even though he saw the bus coming, he had to save the girl, or at least try; the apartment was just across the street from him. He thought he could make it in time. Thus, he sprinted, despite the bus.
The bus driver will see me and stop anyway, he thought.
Half of the bus exploded. Gabriel, Josh and half a dozen others died instantly. William, scorched by the flames of the bomb, pressed even further down on the accelerator. Amazingly, the flaming wreck responded and proceeded to speed up. It smashed head on into Nicbal who fell to the ground and was then run over by it. The burning bus crashed into the cars of the lane it was turning into, killing William and the driver of the car it obliterated. Alice fell to her death; the last images that filled her vision were of the bus exploding and the inferno consuming the graves of her parents.
Kyle, a high school dropout who had no friends, lost his mother who had divorced his father years ago, and was not employed, nor in education, nor in training, slashed his own throat later that night leaving Lisa to be found by her neighbours half-starved several days later. She was transferred to the care of her grandparents but was later set up for adoption because of her grandparents' already strained financial situation. Nicbal and his lottery ticket were consumed by the raging fires of the bus. His family never heard from him again. The old lady who took care of Alice lost faith in her God and became an atheist. The cult which Josh was in held a feast in his honour. He was posthumously awarded for his service to the cult.
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COMMENTS
It doesn't feel as heavy-impacting as I thought it would be. This might go under a few revisions before it gets to the place I want it to be at. But, I might not have time to revise it. In any case, I appreciate any feedback you have.
Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Oct 22 2011, 8:07 pm by Sand Wraith.
