Just Another Story Blog

Here, you'll find a collection of short stories I have written as I slowly descend into madness.

These stories are my own. They have been birthed from the inner-most depths of my brain, and drawn power from the well of my creativity.

Uprooted

With nights as dark as the night that had come before, and days as cold as the next, we would not survive much longer here. I don’t know what time it is, I do not know what day, I do not know how long this war had raged or these fires have burned.

I sit upon the moist earth and draw lines in the mud with my dirty fingers. It passes through the gaps in my fingers and sticks between the cracks in my skin. It soothes me to feel the warmth of the dirty beneath the cold surface, makes me believe that there might be life somewhere on his desolate planet. It is good to believe in something when there is nothing worth believing in. Some choose the solace of someone they cannot see; I choose the solace of knowing that somewhere else is better than here, that not everything is evil and wrong.

The sound of the tent unzipping breaks the silence of the moment, and I can hear footsteps approaching. She sits down beside me, her face streaked with dirt, hair matted, eyes heavy and tired.

‘You look terrible,’ I say, forcing a weak smile.

‘So do you,’ she smirks, a small gesture in a bleak world.

I survey the land around us. The thicket of trees that seems to thin as it stretches north have yet to be touched by the white-hot destruction. Their leaves are amber and green, so unlike the rest of this godforsaken world.

“How is he?” I ask finally, unable to withstand the silence. She hesitates, turning her head back toward the camp for a moment.

She sighs. “He’s not well. “

“It’s the isolation,” I say. “The fires may burn you, the bombs may destroy you, and the famine will starve you, but it’s the isolation that drives you to insanity.”

She shifts uncomfortably, her legs tucked under her body. Her dirty face is painted with an expression of sadness and aprehension. “He’s been using up the food rations.”

I nod, already aware of his transgressions. “Is there any alcohol left?”

“He has the last one. I tried to get him to stop but… no, there’s none left.”

I worry. We have not been without alcohol for some time, and the last time we ran out He threatened to set the entire campsite ablaze. If we run out of food, I dread to think of what might happen then.

She strectches her arms out wide, yawns, and lays quietly on the ground. I can see her eyes are still open for some time as she stares out into the vast nothingness that spreads before us like an ocean.

I am ready to drift into slumber. My eyelids are closing and I can no longer support my body. I drift, my body forcing me back into awareness. I steady my body. It is my turn to keep watch, and She is asleep beside me, positioned fetally among the dirt and dead leaves. I put my hand on her frail body to assure myself that I am not alone, to assure myself that She has not yet gone home.

For a moment, I feel as if we might survive. That at least we may fight for as long as we can, may break free from this darkness that surrounds this weak place. But that moment does not last as I hear the tent open again from a distance behind us, and I hear the sound that had filled the ears of all the alliances and renegades: the click of the bullets being loaded into the gun echos in the silence of the dusk. I get up and turn around. He stands at the tent’s entrance, soaked with alcohol, hair drowned in dirt and gin, the skin of his face pulled back with humorous contempt. There’s a gun in one had and a bottle in the other. He’s hunched over slightly, his posture excessively poor.

“You were going to kill me,” he says, voice wild with isolation.

“No one is going to die tonight,” I say, slowly stepping in front of her still slumbering body. “Please, put the gun down. We don’t have enough ammunition left to fight our silly wars with each other.”

He spits in my direction. The hatred in his eyes is all too apparent, they glitter with the kind of fury normally reserved for the enemy. I know there is no resolving this issue. We cannot move past a conflict that was meant to spill blood.

I pull the small pistol from the waistband of my jeans. I point the gun at his face, my finger resting calmly on the trigger, ready to tighten at a moment’s notice. ‘We are the last of us.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” he drops the bottle to the ground and points the gun at me, his finger tightening aggressively around the trigger. 

She stirs somewhere behind me, her feet scuffling against the ground. I hear her get up and the small sound of a quiet gasp. I try to keep my hand out to guard her behind me, but she is defiant. She pushes past me and stands between us, a human shield for both sides. There is nothing I can do but lower my gun.

The three of us stand in a stiff silence, she’s looking at him and I’m looking at her and he’s staring at me, neglecting to lower his weapon. I take a cautious step forward, a hand outstretched to pull her back towards me, to safety. My fingers just touch the thin fabric of her clothes.

He fires the gun. The light flashes in the dawn and the bullet rips the quietness of the air before it buries inself into fabric of flesh and bone. She puts her palm to her chest where her heart rests beneath her ribcage and looks to me. There is blood across her shirt, small and dark but growing brighter and spreading. Her eyes say everything her lips cannot as she reaches out to touch my hand. Our fingertips touch for just a moment, and then she’s gone, nothing but a pile of deadness on the floor of the forest.

He points the gun at me before I am able to react. We are both facing each other, with death held in our hands. Our eyes are level. There’s a hate in his and a worthless pleading in mine. I’ve heard the stories from other camps, seen the carnage left behind by insanity. I have seen the blood and mutiny, all of it. The ugliness had reared its pitiful head too long ago and it does not intend to leave us untouched.

His finger twitches against the trigger; I pull hard. The guns go off at the same time. The bullets hit in different places. Mine, in the head. His, in the stomach. He falls before the pain surges through my body like a lighning bolt. I drop the gun before my body drops itself. I land near her, and I want to reach out and touch her but I dare not disturb the dead.

I do not want to die here in such a lifeless place. The canopy of living trees is not so far away now as it was before. I believe I can make it, it is close enough. There is something that let’s me bring myself back onto my feet, but I do not know what it is. I know that I no longer feel as if I am inside my own body. There is an emptiness in my stomach as I saunter forward, as if I am on the outside looking in through my eyes. It is a strange feeling, but I no longer feel any pain. I am numb.

I stumble, and then finally crawl, toward the rich sapplings; the beacons of hope in the darkness. The amberness of the leaves beckons me to its embrace and I collapse into the fallen foliage. My clothes are stained with the stickiness of blood — I am so close. The sappling is only a few feet away. I can’t slip away now. Not yet. I need one more final moment of beauty before my world closes in on me. I need to know my existence is not worthless. I need to know there is still something left in this world worth dying for.

With a minute surge of adreneline and determination, I push myself onto my knees, hands now dripping with my own blood. And I crawl, forcing my body onward, suddenly much colder than the air around me. The world begins to dim as I can feel myself slowly slipping away. But yet I perservere, knowing that greater men have died for less and that there is nothing honorable in an ugly death. By the time my hands graze the gentle bark the world is almost gone. The coldness of loss is filling up my body, and I can barely keep my eyes open. My breathing is heavy and slow and I shake like a dying elder gasping for his last breath. I position myself into a sitting position, my legs splayed out into the dirt, my fingers buried in the leaves.

As I sit against the bark of a dying tree, I look up and for a moment I can see a small break between the branches above me. Through the leaves I can see, no matter how small the sight, a glimpse of the downing sun that has perservered through the eternal darkness. The sun that has torn through the ashes and fire and acidic rain. The sun that falls on my face, that is the last lightness that I see.

A Life in Retrospect

A Life in Retrospect. 

The car sped down the empty lane. A barren landscape raced by. My heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. The sound of the road was roaring in my ears. It was all I could hear. It was the last thing I would hear. 

The canyon grew closer. I was going faster. The sun burned. The wind howled. I held my breath. Closed my eyes. Ready. 

One. I don’t remember. The world had yet to form before my eyes.

Two. A room. Blue. Ducks. 

Three. A house. Small. A dog. A mom.

Four. I was running in a yard. Chasing our dog. My parents were watching, laughing as I laughed. I tripped, fell onto the grass. But I got back up without crying. I kept running, but now I just ran to run.

Five. It was my birthday. There was a big cake. Kids I didn’t know. My parents. Parents I didn’t know. Balloons strung up around the yard. Candles burning. Singing. Some laughing. I blew out the candles, a wish on my lips.

Six. I rode down the street on my bike. Training wheels still stuck to the back tire. I was wearing a Power Rangers helmet. The bike wobbled. I fell. My mom came running over to me and I started crying. The kids on the street laughed at me. All except one. 

Seven. I was at school. I was talking to my friend, detailing the great idea for my newest invention. She listened. A classmate shoved me into my locker. He held me up by my shirt. My friend yelled at him and tried to kick him. He let go of me and pushed her to the ground. I punched him in the face and broke his nose. 

Eight. I had my first kiss. I didn’t know her. It was weird. It was her birthday and I was there and I didn’t want to do it but she made me. She was nine. Taller than me. Strange. I didn’t want to do it.

Nine. My first date. Another girl. Still not the girl I wanted. The date was in my house. My parents put out candles and made me wear a suit. I gave her a fake rose and she pretended to like it. We talked about school. About science and history. She liked Stalin. I made her leave. 

Ten. It was the school’s science fair. I made a big volcano. It didn’t erupt. It was supposed to erupt. It didn’t. I lost. Kids laughed at me. My parents weren’t there because they needed new jobs and I was alone in the big crowd. I ran to the bathroom and started crying. 

Eleven. I stayed shut up in my room. I sat in front of my computer. The digital glare reflecting off the glasses that were too big for my face. I typed like a maniac. And then I got lost in the Internet and saw things I shouldn’t have seen and then I was fascinated and overwhelmed and I didn’t know what was happening to me. 

Twelve. I knew what was happening now. I liked what was happening. I started exploring the internet. The world. I saw things I wanted but I couldn’t have. That made me frustrated. I tried to talk to my parents about it but they were too busy working. So I stayed in my room still and kept exploring. 

Thirteen. I lost it. It was just another girl. Her parents weren’t home. We went there after school. I lied to my parents about it. She was weird and pushy. I didn’t want to do it. But she yelled at me and made me do it. She told me not to tell anyone after. But she did. She told everyone. I told my friend and she let me cry because I didn’t know what was happening. I could never tell my parents. 

Fourteen. I started smoking. It was weird. I kept coughing. It felt like my lungs were on fire, but I liked it because it made me feel like I was alive. I spent all my money. I told my parents it was for books, so I stole the books to cover up my lie. I never got caught. 

Fifteen. I got caught. I got put in jail when I tried to lift a case of beer from a quick mart. My parents bailed me out and didn’t say anything to me. They didn’t talk to me much after that. But I kept lifting beer. I didn’t stop. 

Sixteen. I stopped. I slowed down. I tried harder. I went to school, got good grades. I kept my friend and gained some others. And then I got ambitious. And then I lost my new friends but still kept my old friend. But she stopped talking to me. I wanted to move away, go to a different school. Go to college. Learn. Grow. 

Seventeen. I collapsed under the weight of responsibility. I went back to my old school. She was still there. But she didn’t want to talk to me. I left her. I left my family. I left everything. No one wanted me around anymore. I was a vagrant. Lost and wandering. I didn’t know what to do. 

Eighteen. I cleaned up. I got a scholarship to the college I wanted. She started talking to me again. We went to college together. I knew then. But she had a boyfriend and I was weird and strange and her best friend. She didn’t want me. I wanted to run away, still. Everything was right but everything was just as wrong. 

Nineteen…

The car was almost at the edge. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my blood. And then I realized: What was I doing? What was going through my own mind? I passed by a dead animal on the side of the road. And then I realized that I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t that dead animal on the side of the road. I was alive and I knew what it felt like. I had been through my own war and had come out with wounds, but they were healing. And they would keep healing if I let them. Things would change. Life would continue. I could stay friends. My parents still loved me. I was smart. Smart enough to know. 

I slammed on the breaks, stared out over the edge of the canyon, and turned the car around. 

A Long Series of Short Stories

I have abundant spare time. Recently, I have been thinking: Why not do something with that time? And why not make it short stories? And why not make those short stories on Tumblr?

And with that, I am here. I plan on doing a short story every week to see how this pans out. If that’s too challenging, I might scale it back to create one every 2 weeks. We’ll see how it goes. 

Cheers.