Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books Write For Newspapers | Write An Ezine | Write A Blog | Writing Skills & Tips | Novel Writing Software Please take a moment to bookmark this site and join our free hot tips list. Read & Rate Our Writing Contest Entries! See what other people have written, and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an opportunity to view a wide variety of short stories and see what kind of original material is being submitted to us on a daily basis. After you rate an entry, you will be randomly redirected to another entry to rate. You may read and rate as many entries as you wish! The user-rating system is simply a fun way for writers to receive a public opinion of their work, and does not affect the judging for the cash prizes. If you wish to enter the contest, you may enter for free here. Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Kris Humphries No one understands. The Workings of my life, twisted together in an unreal knot. So much has happened I don’t know where to begin. Maybe, perhaps, at the beginning. I was born a little one on the eighteenth day in a month; a month filled with cold – icy cold – chilled cold – unbearable cold. I nearly froze. A life not yet lived ~ yet nearly dead. Why? I was left. Left alone. So young. Young and alone I was left. An ice bank on the side of a road is where I was found, cold and alone. A nice woman picked me up. That’s what I was told. But how should I know? Not yet alive, not yet dead, I don’t remember. To a hospital I went. The first of many. Too many hospitals. Far too many hospitals. And this was the first, and I suppose the best. They cleaned me up, warmed me up, fed me, and like everyone else in my young life: they abandoned me. No! Maybe that’s going back too far. I mean, what use is it to you in hearing the story of a three day old? Nope, no interest at all. I wouldn’t want to hear it. I wish I never had. I know! Let’s jump up years beyond – A young child I’d grown into. Foster homes I’d blown through like a wayward wind, and then torn from suddenly. Many homes, not just one or two. All good homes. Nice parents. Nice siblings. Nice friends. Suddenly gone Forever. What? Were you expecting to hear about a disturbing life filled with abuse? It wasn’t there. I’m sure it happens, but not to me. I had the good homes. Plural. Sometimes I sit here and think; and I think that they decided to place me in every good home they could find. A gypsy they made me out to be. Yet, I don’t think I was meant to be a gypsy. A baobab tree that’s me. Roots gnarled and twisted, just itching to take root, thrust aimlessly up into the air. Yes, that’s me. The baobab tree. Skip skip skip to my loo ~ I never had a loo – or even my own room. But I could skip, and I still can. Now I will. Skipping skipping skipping on – farther into my life. School, some kids hate it, others love it, I just wanted to go. Finally I did. I suppose at first it was just too hard to make sure I was enrolled, with all that moving. But by the time I was fifteen I’d had maybe three years total schooling, and never all at once. Never at once. Not once at once. I’d wanted to go - I’d beg to go, and one day they’d get settled with me and I’d enroll. It wouldn’t be long before I was off to another home. Once it was the very next day. But I’m digressing. Fifteen. I was fifteen, with three total years of formal schooling when a director found my file. It could have been a new beginning. I could have been made to attend like the others my age. Instead, it was the beginning of the end. The police got called in. I’m not sure how or why, but police were called. A big investigation was begun – and off to another home I went. I was sixteen by the time it was over, and in school for the longest period yet. I was happy. For the first time. Yet I was waiting. Shoes drop. All the time. I’m used to it. I expect it. Sure enough the shoe fell, just after my sixteenth birthday. And let me tell you, it wasn’t sweet. I said shoe, but I meant boot. It was a boot that fell. A big hard black boot. It fell square on the top of my head, disrupting my life. In the form of a camp, a boot camp of course. Schooling for troubled teens, that’s what they called it anyway. I didn’t understand. I wasn’t troubled. I just wanted a normal life. School teachers friends A life. And soon I’d have none. Left left left right left – if only I could have left. I’d wanted too. I’d have given anything to leave. Not possible. Chain link barbed locks guards hemmed in. They called it school – but it should have been called a prison. No! Prison is too nice a word for what I went through there. Hell Hades Tartaros: those words all fit. I don’t know where it was located. I was put on a bus. A crowded bus - at first. Dwindle dwindle dwindle down, it did. Till I was the only one left, scared and alone. Not knowing what to expect in my new school. I believed them then, for I had not yet crossed that river… the river of Acheron I’m sure. I was scared, but I had hope. Life had to get better. Finally I was off – and officer was there to meet me. He led me to a car. We drove some more. Lush plants bright and green flew by. Exotic birds flitted by my window. I believed my life was looking up. Then I saw the first fence, the officer opened the gate himself – so I wasn’t worried. Yet. A few minutes later we came upon another fence, this one had wires. Queasiness tickled my stomach. Another gate – armed guards appeared a few minutes later. Truly frightened now. One last gate covered with barbed wire was passed when the building finally came into sight. Surrounded by trees and plants I don’t recognize; it’s hard to see. Trust me when I say: it’s something you don’t want to see. I was quickly integrated into the routine. Wake up early – oh so early, way before the dawn. Run a mile or two or three, always at the mercy of “Sergeant”. If you make good time (oh so fickle is time) then to the mess hall it is. Breakfast. A meal. Of sorts. Sometimes gruel. Sometimes bread. Sometimes crust. A few gulps of water… then on to cleaning duties. After all is clean – by their standards of course – into classrooms we went. This was my favourite time of day. The “Sarg” was hard on us – but taught us all the same. Reading Writing I finally learned. Aren’t you glad? You wouldn’t be reading this now. But for “Sarg”. Tick tock tic tock went the clock… Soon, all too soon, classes ended. Out we marched – never speaking a word. Past the classrooms, past the kitchen, past the mess hall, on out the doors. Run a mile or two or three, always at the mercy of “Sarg”. Make good time? Onto lunch. Paltry meals. Little taste, little meal. Clean up duty. Study time. Work projects. KP duty. Dinner time. Real food for once. A turkey – that’s how I felt, all stuffed, and yet cooked as well. Finished eating? Cleanup time. Then outside. Run a mile or two or three. What-ever “Sarg” wants – “Sarg” gets. Tired yet? No rest for the weary. Energy shrinks away through the day – and still we have to go see the shrink. I often wonder why they call her that. Maybe because she shrinks your soul, your essence, the very you. In the beginning you go in a whole person, with problems true, but still: You. Soon you shrink away to a shell. A broken shell, trampled on the beach worn down to a grain of sand. Blendt in to nothingness in the beach of life. Broken Mirror brings seven years bad luck. Broken spirit brings a lifetime. These sessions are meant to break you. With this brokenness we each traveled on to a nightmare each night. Night should be a time of refuge… right? A time to sleep. Rest. Not quite. Counseling sessions bring on nightmares. “Sarg” brings on other fears. It’s hard to sleep when sleep brings fear and harder yet when you don’t know what’s coming. A daily routine. For over two years. No hope to escape. Helpless. All of us. Until that bright day when a reporter showed up unexpectedly. Who was more surprised, “Sarg”, us, or them I do not know. Breaking news. Stop! Put a stop to this nonsense! Was “Sarg”’s mantra. He tried to rid our world of these outside forces, but he couldn’t. We didn’t want him to. He couldn’t. Home Sweet Home. No rainbow for me. But away from that place. A home in my mind. I soon found. Streets cars people. A maze that both frightened and excited me. Eighteen, an adult. In charge of my life. I’m the boss. Me myself I. No one else can determine my life. I’m taking charge. On my own ~ WHOO HOO! A party, my life became. One town after another, looking for a home, for some way to turn myself upside down and take root. I might have finally become the boss, but my main problem became finding one. A boss, job, work, paycheck. The way to make my home. A drifter it made me. A gypsy yet again. No real schooling, wrong experiences, listless life – all conspiring against me. I found myself alone again; this time on city streets. The story of my life: wrong place wrong time. Coincidence or not? Again. The form of a gun this time. One silver, shiny, gun glittering in the smog laden night. Mistaken identity. How I don’t know – I had no identity to mistake with another’s. Somehow it happened. A shot rang out. Piercing the night. Cutting it like a knife. One big cliché after another. Pain tore through me, ground rushed up to meet me; consciousness fled me… and soon – my life blood wept for the life it craved. I laid there still blotchy ebbing away – still always the baobab. And my subconscious wondered, pondered, at the meaning of it all – the reality of it all. Am I really here – is this my life or a dream? ‘Noooooooo!’ I woke from the spiraling fall of time. Stuck, I’m still stuck, trapped, enslaved in my fear filled school. No way out. Pulse racing I await the terror I know will soon come again. And then… Spiraling down… Fooled you! Storytelling is my specialty. What else am I to do in this web woven around me of dozens of foster families and little schools. Time just slips away. Slipping slipping  like sliding on a slip and slide. It’s cold now. The ground is hard and icy. Did you know babies thought so much? I do I did. Too weak to cry the only sound my frozen lips could form was a weak mew. Compensate… I had too. Dreams of a life my life lived? Not lived Not yet lived? Ever lived? I wait. Will she find me? Will anyone? Am I to become the baobab? I don’t want to. No baobab life for me. I want a family, a home, a chance. The question becomes a quirk of fate a paradox of time. Is the baobab alive… Or was it ever? people have rated it so far. is the current average. |
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