Alright, So here's my return to the lit forum guys. Tell me what you think.
Monday
Why doesn’t anything ever happen on Monday?
Well I shouldn’t say that nothing happens on Monday, plenty of things do. We even have holidays specifically designed for Monday. However, I have yet to see anything truly important occur on a Monday.
This Monday was turning out just like all the rest. I got up, showered and ate the usual breakfast of toast and orange juice, just like any other Monday. I searched for my lost homework that wasn’t really lost at all, only to miss the bus for school, again.
After arriving late to my first class, which unfortunately and possibly ironically, is history, I made an excuse as to why my homework wasn’t done (the same homework that my mother is probably searching the house for) and put my head down on my desk for a mid morning snooze.
This mid morning napping routine isn’t reserved only for Mondays; in fact, I try to utilize this handy tool as often as possible. So far, I’ve managed to completely disregard sixty three history lessons, a barrage of Spanish lectures and at least a handful of boring educational videos spread across a spectrum of different subjects.
This Monday’s particular nap was cut short however, when the class bell, which usually denotes the ending of one class and the beginning of the five minute period in which us students move to our next lesson, sounded.
Raising my head to see what was going on I realized that I, as usual, had been drooling. Quickly wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and glancing around to see if anyone had noticed my attempt to drown myself in my own saliva, I heard Darren Jonesworth, easily the most annoying person in the world, call out.
“A fire drill, huh? Sweet!”
Darren has had a notoriously aggravating habit of kicking the legs of the desk in front of him ever since second grade. Whether or not breaking his leg during a soccer game during recess had started the annoying compulsion, I cannot say. What I do know however, is that I have, for the past nine years, felt its consequences every single day. Why is this you may ask? The answer is both stupidly simple and utterly baffling at the same time. Somehow, (maybe the powers that be have decided I need better reflexes?) Darren Jonesworth has ended up sitting behind me in every single classroom since the week after he returned from his leg injury all those years ago. This has, (thank you powers that be) dramatically improved my reaction time, as well as tortured me relentlessly. It also may have quite possibly prepared me for this very moment, for the second I heard Darren’s voice stop I sat up out of my chair just enough to avoid absorbing the brunt of the shock. Sure enough, my desk rattled viciously under the weight of the red head’s lead foot. As if this was the signal to evacuate the building, the rest of the class proceeded to their feet and made for the door.
Fire drills at my school usually mean “Do nothing for twenty minutes while the fire department takes forever to respond.” This is usually cause for minor excitement and today was no exception.
In elementary school, fire drills were practiced with utmost organization; classes were filed into lines side by side at all designated exits, and remained there silently until the drill was over. High schools apparently don’t care so much for organization, and seem rather dedicated toward a hasty exit. This unorganized blitz most often results in someone getting injured, but today I reached the crowd of people outside the front property line of the schoolyard without hearing or seeing any signs of injury. Turning to face the building and pulling out the slightly crushed pack of cigarettes that always occupies my right pocket I heard someone call out from behind.
“Parkins, you hear what’s going on inside yet?”
The cracking voice instantly informed me that my good friend, Paul Bailey was its owner. I may have been too hasty to think that a ‘no injuries’ fire drill was possible for at that moment (possibly due to the fact that I had yet to acknowledge him) Paul proceeded to slap me across the back of the head, rather violently, causing my still-unlit cigarette to fly out of my mouth and break in half on the ground at my feet. Turning to face my friend, with what I’m sure was nothing short of a death stare on my face, I seethed.
“Way to go asshole,” I said in an angry tone that probably didn’t express my rage quite as well as my face most likely was, “that was my last smoke!”
The tall and lanky blonde boy whom I’ve considered one of my best friends for most of my life shrugged before scratching the back of his head.
“Gee, sorry man, I didn’t think I hit you that hard,”
“Yeah well you did,” I retorted, raising a fist that threatened a punch.
The gesture caused Paul to flinch a little; it always did. Craig Parkins, Iron fist; my friends had named me that long ago, after all agreeing that my punches hurt way too much for my own good. The reputation did have its advantages though, as a fresh pack of cigarettes exited Paul’s pocket.
“Relax man, I’ve got some right here,” he said nervously, passing me a new cigarette. “No need to break out the big guns.”
I laughed.
“I wasn’t going to hit you,” I lied before lighting up. After a quick drag I added, “So what were you saying?”
“Oh, yeah,” he replied before puffing his smoke, “I heard someone saying that there was a bomb threat.”
“A bomb threat,” I chuckled, “Who threatens a backwater school like ours, renegade Farmers?”
“I dunno, but by the look of things, it’s being taken seriously.”
Before I could ask, a line of fire trucks and police cars rolled into the half moon parking lot in front of the building. It was normal for a couple cruisers to accompany the fire trucks to a fire drill routine, but this many? There had to be half the force here. Was there really a bomb threat? That question was answered soon enough. Stepping out of the lead cruiser was a bulky man who looked well past his prime. His belly looked as if it might explode through his much-too-tight uniform, and with the condition of his jacket it looked as if that piece of material had already suffered that very fate.
The large man then did something I’d never actually thought I’d see off of the big screen. Reaching back into the cruiser, he emerged with a megaphone. After clearing its speaker with a large screeching noise, he spoke into the amplifier.
“Classes are cancelled until further notice,” he began, resulting in a low rumble of gasps and comments, “This school is now under investigation and will be closed. Please return to your homes and await further instruction.”
With that, the large man placed the megaphone back into the cruiser, slammed the door shut behind it and moved toward the front door of the school.
I stood there, mouth hanging open. I’ve seen plenty of weird things in my sixteen years, including things many people wouldn’t believe, but this announcement and its delivery had actually left me speechless. Luckily, in my silence, Paul found some humor.
“What’re you actually sad that this dump is getting closed?”
“Of course not,” I finally managed to say, butting out my cigarette, “It’s just, well… weird.”
“Weird or not,” my friend exclaimed, “School’s closed! What’s better than that?”
*
Most of the student body of my high school lives within the town, so many of them simply walked home. Living out of town though, I wasn’t about to hike it five miles home. Not when they announced that buses would still be running as usual. That figures; the apocalypse could be occurring and yet the stupid school bus company would run their routine as usual. It was a benefit today however, and I was surprisingly glad to hear.
Paul and I joined a few others who decided to have a small get together at a local hangout. Endor’s Game was the name of the local arcade/restaurant; a couple of local nerds had combined nouns from two of their favourite stories to create what they thought was a great entrepreneurial feat. The truth is, most people in town think that the name is stupid. Actually, most people in town don’t really know where the name comes from.
Mystery name or not, Endor’s Game was one of the last places in town where you could smoke inside and that fact alone made it worth paying the ridiculous amounts of money they charged for whatever the substance was that they called “food” there. On this day however, I decided to pass on the Monday special which consisted of a chili dog with cheese and a side of fries.
“Sure you don’t want one?” Paul asked, as we made our way to the second last booth that lined the back wall across from the billiard tables.
I guess I had come on too strong in front of the school and had probably upset him to the point where he felt he needed to make up for his mistake with lunch. The cigarette had been enough.
“I’m sure man,” I said, slumping down into the bench that faced the front of the store, “I don’t think diarrhea is an acceptable apology gift.”
Paul laughed so hard that he started choking. I didn’t notice right away and gave the onlookers a look that hopefully they interpreted as “yeah, I actually know him.” It wasn’t until Marcy, the only female friend I have (I’ve had girlfriends, I just don’t really consider them friends, and have yet to remain friends with any one of them after we broke up for that matter), screamed.
“He’s really choking Craig! Do something!”
At this point, panic broke out inside Endor’s Game and that’s when I saw it.
Over the shoulder of Barry, the head cook of the arcade/restaurant who was successfully applying the Heimlich maneuver to my best friend, it moved. It was a boy, a familiar looking boy at that. He was covered in blood, and seemed to be staggering. I watched him cross the street and enter the alley between Hudson’s bakery and Foot locker as Endor’s Game erupted into applause. Paul had been saved. His chili dog, or what was left of it to be precise, was now on my lap and was starting to burn my leg.
“****!” I exclaimed bolting out of the seat, causing the beanie mess to fall to the floor. “Paul, can’t you laugh without dying?”
“Sorry Craig,” he gasped, still catching his breath, “Next time I’ll choke somewhere else.”
Marcy glared at me.
“What’s your problem anyway? Everyone in here was worried about Paul except you. What was so interesting outside anyway?”
Had my friend really been choking for that long? Apparently it was long enough for Marcy to notice I hadn’t been paying attention. Then again, she wouldn’t have thought a choking teenager was a big deal if she had seen the creature outside the window.
“N-nothing,” I sputtered, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. Everyone in the place was suddenly glaring at me. “I’m just…gonna…go.”
Surely receiving the evil eye from every possible angle, I exited the restaurant.
After a minute of thoughtless walking, I suddenly remembered what had caused me to look like a complete ass to my friends. Marcus Hayes. That was the name of the classmate who had been covered in blood, staggering into the alley way now a few blocks behind me. Curiosity stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Can this day get any more bizarre?” I asked myself out loud. The only answer I received came in the form of a whipping wind, caused by a fast moving sedan. Before I knew it, I was in a full sprint, heading directly for the alley between Hudson’s Bakery and Footlocker.
If you’ve ever been to a bakery in your life, you know how good it smells. If you’ve ever worked beside footlocker however, you know how that can smell. The alley between these two workplaces had to have been marked an ‘occupational hazard.’ Dumpsters lined both the eastern wall of the bakery and the western wall of Footlocker and any cartoonist I know wouldn’t have hesitated to add those hazy green ‘stink lines’ above each of them. Plugging my nose, I stepped further into the alley, only to find that the cause of the assault on my sense of smell was coming from neither the rotting pastries on my left nor the old shoes on my right.
A few feet beyond the pastry dumpster, just out of side from the road, laid a corpse. Who exactly the body belonged to, I couldn’t have been sure. Most of its skin had been torn off in a fashion that resembled a half eaten game bird sitting atop a thanksgiving dinner table. Even more shocking than the discovery of the body however, was the fact that huddled over it, eating its flesh, was Marcus Hayes.
Monday
Why doesn’t anything ever happen on Monday?
Well I shouldn’t say that nothing happens on Monday, plenty of things do. We even have holidays specifically designed for Monday. However, I have yet to see anything truly important occur on a Monday.
This Monday was turning out just like all the rest. I got up, showered and ate the usual breakfast of toast and orange juice, just like any other Monday. I searched for my lost homework that wasn’t really lost at all, only to miss the bus for school, again.
After arriving late to my first class, which unfortunately and possibly ironically, is history, I made an excuse as to why my homework wasn’t done (the same homework that my mother is probably searching the house for) and put my head down on my desk for a mid morning snooze.
This mid morning napping routine isn’t reserved only for Mondays; in fact, I try to utilize this handy tool as often as possible. So far, I’ve managed to completely disregard sixty three history lessons, a barrage of Spanish lectures and at least a handful of boring educational videos spread across a spectrum of different subjects.
This Monday’s particular nap was cut short however, when the class bell, which usually denotes the ending of one class and the beginning of the five minute period in which us students move to our next lesson, sounded.
Raising my head to see what was going on I realized that I, as usual, had been drooling. Quickly wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and glancing around to see if anyone had noticed my attempt to drown myself in my own saliva, I heard Darren Jonesworth, easily the most annoying person in the world, call out.
“A fire drill, huh? Sweet!”
Darren has had a notoriously aggravating habit of kicking the legs of the desk in front of him ever since second grade. Whether or not breaking his leg during a soccer game during recess had started the annoying compulsion, I cannot say. What I do know however, is that I have, for the past nine years, felt its consequences every single day. Why is this you may ask? The answer is both stupidly simple and utterly baffling at the same time. Somehow, (maybe the powers that be have decided I need better reflexes?) Darren Jonesworth has ended up sitting behind me in every single classroom since the week after he returned from his leg injury all those years ago. This has, (thank you powers that be) dramatically improved my reaction time, as well as tortured me relentlessly. It also may have quite possibly prepared me for this very moment, for the second I heard Darren’s voice stop I sat up out of my chair just enough to avoid absorbing the brunt of the shock. Sure enough, my desk rattled viciously under the weight of the red head’s lead foot. As if this was the signal to evacuate the building, the rest of the class proceeded to their feet and made for the door.
Fire drills at my school usually mean “Do nothing for twenty minutes while the fire department takes forever to respond.” This is usually cause for minor excitement and today was no exception.
In elementary school, fire drills were practiced with utmost organization; classes were filed into lines side by side at all designated exits, and remained there silently until the drill was over. High schools apparently don’t care so much for organization, and seem rather dedicated toward a hasty exit. This unorganized blitz most often results in someone getting injured, but today I reached the crowd of people outside the front property line of the schoolyard without hearing or seeing any signs of injury. Turning to face the building and pulling out the slightly crushed pack of cigarettes that always occupies my right pocket I heard someone call out from behind.
“Parkins, you hear what’s going on inside yet?”
The cracking voice instantly informed me that my good friend, Paul Bailey was its owner. I may have been too hasty to think that a ‘no injuries’ fire drill was possible for at that moment (possibly due to the fact that I had yet to acknowledge him) Paul proceeded to slap me across the back of the head, rather violently, causing my still-unlit cigarette to fly out of my mouth and break in half on the ground at my feet. Turning to face my friend, with what I’m sure was nothing short of a death stare on my face, I seethed.
“Way to go asshole,” I said in an angry tone that probably didn’t express my rage quite as well as my face most likely was, “that was my last smoke!”
The tall and lanky blonde boy whom I’ve considered one of my best friends for most of my life shrugged before scratching the back of his head.
“Gee, sorry man, I didn’t think I hit you that hard,”
“Yeah well you did,” I retorted, raising a fist that threatened a punch.
The gesture caused Paul to flinch a little; it always did. Craig Parkins, Iron fist; my friends had named me that long ago, after all agreeing that my punches hurt way too much for my own good. The reputation did have its advantages though, as a fresh pack of cigarettes exited Paul’s pocket.
“Relax man, I’ve got some right here,” he said nervously, passing me a new cigarette. “No need to break out the big guns.”
I laughed.
“I wasn’t going to hit you,” I lied before lighting up. After a quick drag I added, “So what were you saying?”
“Oh, yeah,” he replied before puffing his smoke, “I heard someone saying that there was a bomb threat.”
“A bomb threat,” I chuckled, “Who threatens a backwater school like ours, renegade Farmers?”
“I dunno, but by the look of things, it’s being taken seriously.”
Before I could ask, a line of fire trucks and police cars rolled into the half moon parking lot in front of the building. It was normal for a couple cruisers to accompany the fire trucks to a fire drill routine, but this many? There had to be half the force here. Was there really a bomb threat? That question was answered soon enough. Stepping out of the lead cruiser was a bulky man who looked well past his prime. His belly looked as if it might explode through his much-too-tight uniform, and with the condition of his jacket it looked as if that piece of material had already suffered that very fate.
The large man then did something I’d never actually thought I’d see off of the big screen. Reaching back into the cruiser, he emerged with a megaphone. After clearing its speaker with a large screeching noise, he spoke into the amplifier.
“Classes are cancelled until further notice,” he began, resulting in a low rumble of gasps and comments, “This school is now under investigation and will be closed. Please return to your homes and await further instruction.”
With that, the large man placed the megaphone back into the cruiser, slammed the door shut behind it and moved toward the front door of the school.
I stood there, mouth hanging open. I’ve seen plenty of weird things in my sixteen years, including things many people wouldn’t believe, but this announcement and its delivery had actually left me speechless. Luckily, in my silence, Paul found some humor.
“What’re you actually sad that this dump is getting closed?”
“Of course not,” I finally managed to say, butting out my cigarette, “It’s just, well… weird.”
“Weird or not,” my friend exclaimed, “School’s closed! What’s better than that?”
*
Most of the student body of my high school lives within the town, so many of them simply walked home. Living out of town though, I wasn’t about to hike it five miles home. Not when they announced that buses would still be running as usual. That figures; the apocalypse could be occurring and yet the stupid school bus company would run their routine as usual. It was a benefit today however, and I was surprisingly glad to hear.
Paul and I joined a few others who decided to have a small get together at a local hangout. Endor’s Game was the name of the local arcade/restaurant; a couple of local nerds had combined nouns from two of their favourite stories to create what they thought was a great entrepreneurial feat. The truth is, most people in town think that the name is stupid. Actually, most people in town don’t really know where the name comes from.
Mystery name or not, Endor’s Game was one of the last places in town where you could smoke inside and that fact alone made it worth paying the ridiculous amounts of money they charged for whatever the substance was that they called “food” there. On this day however, I decided to pass on the Monday special which consisted of a chili dog with cheese and a side of fries.
“Sure you don’t want one?” Paul asked, as we made our way to the second last booth that lined the back wall across from the billiard tables.
I guess I had come on too strong in front of the school and had probably upset him to the point where he felt he needed to make up for his mistake with lunch. The cigarette had been enough.
“I’m sure man,” I said, slumping down into the bench that faced the front of the store, “I don’t think diarrhea is an acceptable apology gift.”
Paul laughed so hard that he started choking. I didn’t notice right away and gave the onlookers a look that hopefully they interpreted as “yeah, I actually know him.” It wasn’t until Marcy, the only female friend I have (I’ve had girlfriends, I just don’t really consider them friends, and have yet to remain friends with any one of them after we broke up for that matter), screamed.
“He’s really choking Craig! Do something!”
At this point, panic broke out inside Endor’s Game and that’s when I saw it.
Over the shoulder of Barry, the head cook of the arcade/restaurant who was successfully applying the Heimlich maneuver to my best friend, it moved. It was a boy, a familiar looking boy at that. He was covered in blood, and seemed to be staggering. I watched him cross the street and enter the alley between Hudson’s bakery and Foot locker as Endor’s Game erupted into applause. Paul had been saved. His chili dog, or what was left of it to be precise, was now on my lap and was starting to burn my leg.
“****!” I exclaimed bolting out of the seat, causing the beanie mess to fall to the floor. “Paul, can’t you laugh without dying?”
“Sorry Craig,” he gasped, still catching his breath, “Next time I’ll choke somewhere else.”
Marcy glared at me.
“What’s your problem anyway? Everyone in here was worried about Paul except you. What was so interesting outside anyway?”
Had my friend really been choking for that long? Apparently it was long enough for Marcy to notice I hadn’t been paying attention. Then again, she wouldn’t have thought a choking teenager was a big deal if she had seen the creature outside the window.
“N-nothing,” I sputtered, suddenly feeling very embarrassed. Everyone in the place was suddenly glaring at me. “I’m just…gonna…go.”
Surely receiving the evil eye from every possible angle, I exited the restaurant.
After a minute of thoughtless walking, I suddenly remembered what had caused me to look like a complete ass to my friends. Marcus Hayes. That was the name of the classmate who had been covered in blood, staggering into the alley way now a few blocks behind me. Curiosity stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Can this day get any more bizarre?” I asked myself out loud. The only answer I received came in the form of a whipping wind, caused by a fast moving sedan. Before I knew it, I was in a full sprint, heading directly for the alley between Hudson’s Bakery and Footlocker.
If you’ve ever been to a bakery in your life, you know how good it smells. If you’ve ever worked beside footlocker however, you know how that can smell. The alley between these two workplaces had to have been marked an ‘occupational hazard.’ Dumpsters lined both the eastern wall of the bakery and the western wall of Footlocker and any cartoonist I know wouldn’t have hesitated to add those hazy green ‘stink lines’ above each of them. Plugging my nose, I stepped further into the alley, only to find that the cause of the assault on my sense of smell was coming from neither the rotting pastries on my left nor the old shoes on my right.
A few feet beyond the pastry dumpster, just out of side from the road, laid a corpse. Who exactly the body belonged to, I couldn’t have been sure. Most of its skin had been torn off in a fashion that resembled a half eaten game bird sitting atop a thanksgiving dinner table. Even more shocking than the discovery of the body however, was the fact that huddled over it, eating its flesh, was Marcus Hayes.
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