Why Read online

  WHY?

  A story by

  Michael Edward

  Copyright 2011 Michael Edward

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the author.

  This book is a work a fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Written in U.S.A.

  I am a storyteller who just finished a six part epic story that I have been working on for more than half my life. It has affected my family and friends in ways that I am sometimes embarrassed by. It has affected my health mentally and physically, so when I wrote “THE END” it was a feeling that one rarely experiences. Like the birth of your children or the first time you meet the love of your life. It was an experience, an accomplishment. I pushed my chair back and stared at the computer. For a reason I still cannot explain I pulled up to my desk and grabbed my keyboard. I blacked out and twenty-three hours later this is what I had written.

  CHAPTER 1

  I’m running, running faster than I’ve ever ran before. I don’t know what they are or why they are chasing me. It’s dark and I run through the woods using the sporadic slices of moonlight, allowed by the branches, for vision. It is cold and breath is visible. I hear a loud low pitch roar from behind me and then I hear a loud high pitch roar from above me. I don’t turn around or look up as I run. I zigzag through the trees using all my concentration on trying not to trip and fall. I feel them gaining with each step of my stride but there is nothing I can do. I am running as fast as I can. I feel the hand reach out and grab my shoulder then my vision fades to blackness.

  I wake lying in my bed by myself. I’m breathing heavily for the first minute then I re-group mentally. I sit up and look across the floor to my shoes. I know what I have to do. I know where everyone is and they will let me do it. They will leave me alone.

  Five minutes later I sit in the cold dark basement staring at the computer in front of me. My vision is blackness, and my thoughts are yells echoing throughout my mind. I know what I need to do. I need to sleep before I can no longer wake but I’m not going to sleep. Not now, not yet. I can’t. I won’t. Time is something I fear I don’t have. Fear and panic is what I feel. This place I am in is cold, dark, and scary.

  I’m in this basement staring at the computer but all I see is blackness. Why is that all I see? Why?

  My life was simple and still is so what is my problem? What scares me? What scares anyone? What creates fear that stops one from moving forward? Is it one situation or is it many mixing with consistency? For everyone I imagine it is different. I think my own is the consistency of disappointment.

  I am alone right now. How did that happen? When did that happen? I sit here in this dark place alone. How did that happen? Was it the inability to slow my mind and control my insecurities? Is that the reason for why I am here? Why am I here? I know I know the answer to that question. I have to, if I don’t then who does? It’s me. It’s always been me. I’m mad. There is no way I would have let myself slip so far out of control. But I did.

  When did I get lost? I don’t remember. Yes I do. I have to. I know.

  I am a storyteller that can’t write. It’s sad but it’s the truth. I guess I can’t go forward if I don’t admit that. When and where did I lose my confidence? I think it began when I was young with the first story I ever wrote.

  I come from a small town in Kentucky and when that’s all you know it’s everything.

  The story was simple. I was a teenager stuck on an island with a girl my age. We created a life and a family, that’s what the story was about. Sure I didn’t write it like that but I was only eight or nine. It was my Mom who didn’t need to read it in front of people.

  From the first word my Mom spoke when reading the story my mind started creating images. They were images that I didn’t understand and could not handle when I saw everybody smiling, laughing.

  Why? Why would she read that to everybody? That is what my young mind was thinking.

  I know my Mom didn’t mean any harm. She thought it was cute and was sharing it with people she cared about. I found it embarrassing and humiliating. I couldn’t lift my head off the table the entire time she read.

  But that can’t be it. That cannot be the reason I am here. Maybe it is the memory of the second story I ever wrote. That was embarrassing as well.

  This story was not as simple as the first one but it was pretty simple. I was in the seventh grade. The teacher assigned a writing project where we had to write a four-page story about anything. The teacher told me that she couldn’t wait to read what I was going to write. Her words are the first words that ever made me believe that I could be a writer. She said that I had a great imagination and that she could not wait to hear what I would write.

  That’s funny because looking back through my memories I remember her saying, “Hear” but I didn’t put any value to that. I was placing the value in a different area. I didn’t know that people just say things maybe they mean them maybe they don’t. She was probably just being nice to a smiling kid, one of her students. She didn’t have any idea that I would put such value on her words.

  I remember on the bus ride home it was all I could think about. I got off the bus and ran all the way home. I was happy and I could not wait to tell my mom what the teacher had told me.

  My Mom was a stay at home mom who babysat twelve kids and had three of her own. It also seemed that all the kids in the neighborhood flocked to our house. When I told her what the teacher said, my Mom smiled and then one of the babysitting kids needed help and took my mom away from the conversation.

  I didn’t care. I ran upstairs into my room and got my paper and pencil out of my bag. I sat on my bed replaying my teacher’s words in my head. She said I had a creative imagination so that meant I had to come up with a great story. I needed a story that would not make my teacher wrong.

  I sat on my bed thinking for an hour but I couldn’t come up with a story that was creative enough. She said that she couldn’t wait so my story had to be great, but I didn’t know what to write about. Then it hit me. I needed to write about love. The only problem was that I was eleven years old and I didn’t know about love. I didn’t know it could be cruel. I didn’t know it could hurt.

  This story was going to be great. It would surely impress my teacher. I would write about when I was in the third grade and I liked a girl. She was beautiful. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. That was the kind of girl my Mom said that I would end up with. Up to this point in my young life no one ever told me that just because you like someone that didn’t mean they’d like you.

  I had a friend named Jeff. He was a good kid but when I told him I liked this girl he thought he should tell her and he did. For weeks, every time he saw her he told her. He told her in the hall and in the classroom. He even told her I loved her. Then the day came. Valentine’s Day was the day that I was waiting for. Until this day I had said nothing to her. The night before I had my Mom take me to the store and we bought special cards, little hearts that I knew she would like. I scanned through the cards and picked the perfect card for her then I wrote out my feelings.

  Like I was saying it was Valentine’s Day in the third grade and I was happy. At the end of the day all the kids passed out their cards to everyone in the class. I had all my cards in a small paper bag and I got on that bus smiling. I couldn’t wait to get home and read her card. I got off the bus and I ran home. I sat down in the living room with my Mom, younger brother, and the babysitting kids. I dumped the cards onto the floor and searched with excitement.

  I found the ca
rd and when I read it my heart sank. She wrote, ‘If you love me, shut up.’ That was it. That was all she wrote.

  Now back to the seventh grade. That was the story I was going to write for my teacher. I thought it was romantic, funny and sad.

  So I wrote the story to the best of my education and with all of my heart. When I was finished I was proud. I knew my teacher was going to like it. When she read this story she was going to know that I did have a creative imagination.

  The next day in class I was going to find out why my teacher chose the words, “I can’t wait to HEAR your story.”

  We turned in our stories and then my teacher asked for volunteers. She was going to use students to help her read the stories to the class.

  That is when I realized that I was in trouble. The girl that wrote, “If you love me, shut up,” was one of the students the teacher asked to help.

  I sat in the back of the class watching the girl reading the stories. There were three helpers plus the teacher reading but I knew who had mine. I saw the girl laugh and I watched helplessly when she called one of the other helpers over. I saw them laughing as they read and I saw them look at me. I knew what was coming next and there was nothing I could do. I watched the girl and her friend walk over to the teacher with several stories. I saw them tell the teacher what story they wanted to read first. The whole time they were smiling but not in a good way.

  She read my story to the class and they all laughed. I know why they laughed but at the time it was devastating. She made me feel like I was nothing and she had no problem in making fun of the style that I chose to write the story in. When the bell rang I sat at my desk listening to the comments as the kids teased but that didn’t hurt as much as the look on my teacher’s face. I should say the look on my teacher’s face when she turned away from me and left the room. If you had had read it you would understand the teacher’s reaction.

  I was in the seventh grade and I wrote like I was a first grader. It was wrong by all the rules of grammar and it didn’t matter that I poured my heart into it. That was a bad day for me and it would be a few years before I would try to write again. I told myself I would never write again.

  Right now, sitting in front of the computer, that thought makes me smile. I still cannot write. Not properly anyways.

  That can’t be it. That’s not why I sit in front of my computer unable to control my thoughts. I was in the seventh grade; I’m thirty-three now.

  I stare at the screen and see blackness for a different reason because of a different story. I know what story. This time there isn’t a bad ending. There isn’t even an ending. I’m thirty-three and I’m still writing a story that I started when I was fifteen. That story is called, The Beginning of the End (T.B.O.T.E).

  My parents separated then got divorced. Mom moved my little brother and me to a different state for a few months. It was hard and well I just didn’t fit in. They would pick on me and they would chase me, it wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t fun.

  Then we moved to another state and it was better. They were still picking on me but I was getting better at fighting back.

  My Dad though, who I have few memories of from when I lived in Kentucky, began to change. He would drive two hundred miles to see us play ball then he’d drive back home the same day. He also began a tradition that changed my life for ever.

  My Father would take my younger brother and me on vacation during spring break. We would travel to Florida and stay for a week. It was fun.

  We would drive so that meant that there was a lot of time to waste. I started bringing notebooks and my Walkman.

  On one trip my Father didn’t drive straight through to Florida. We stopped at a hotel South of Macon Georgia. I remember that night clearly. It was two in the morning and I couldn’t sleep. I was a goofy teenager and I allowed certain things to bother me beyond my control. One thing that bothered me was snoring and on this night there was plenty.

  What I’m about to say may sound like exaggeration but it matches my memory perfectly. On this night it wasn’t just my Dad snoring, it was also my little brother and the two of them combined was more than I could handle.

  I lay on that bed for what seemed like forever until I couldn’t take it. I got up and grabbed my pen and notebook. I went into the small bathroom and shut the door. Even with the cheap bathroom fan on I could hear the sounds of my brother and father sleeping.

  I went out into the room and grabbed my Walkman then I walk back into the bathroom. I put the headphones on and played the only tape I had. It was ZZ Top, a band that still to this day is one of my favorites.

  I was in High School and I had a friend that was a Foreign Exchange Student named Dutch. He was a cool guy but he didn’t understand English very well and he read it even worse. In the bathroom I was going to write him a letter and mail it to him when I got to Florida. That was a promise I made him before I left. I remember staring at the blank paper in front of me. I was hesitating. I wanted to write something cool something funny. I really liked Dutch. He was a good guy.

  I started the letter with “Dutch is…”, then I stopped and several seconds passed. I was going to write a bunch of cuss words that I knew Dutch wouldn’t understand but I didn’t. I wrote something else.

  “Dutch is running, running faster than he had ever run before. He doesn’t know what they are or why they are chasing him. Loud low and high pitch roars erupt from all around him as he runs. Faster, he has to run faster.”

  That’s how it began. I wrote for hours in that bathroom. I wrote until my Father and brother woke. Twenty-eight pages by the time I put my pen down.

  I don’t know how to explain it. I saw it and I felt it. I saw everything. I was sitting in that bathroom, watching a scene unfold in my mind. The scene was something I began experiencing and as I did I wrote. I wrote without awareness.

  I took a deep breath. My mind was tired in a way that I had never experienced. I didn’t know what had just happened. I read what I wrote and had no idea where it all came from. I wrote twenty-eight pages and they were good for a fifteen year old. I had no idea I could do that. I let my brother and Father read it and they agreed it was a good story, bad writing but a good story.

  I wrote every night on that vacation and soon writing became a tradition that I would do on every vacation after. We began going to Florida with my Father twice a year, spring break for a week, and then two weeks in the summer. For my Father they were business trips and he was working most of the days. For my little brother and me it was vacation.

  I began bringing multiple notebooks and I continued to write. At night my younger brother and I would take walks on the beach or through the hotel. We would talk about the story and what should happen next. After the walks I would go into the bathroom and shut the door. I’d put my headphones on and begin writing.

  Writing began to consume me. I could think of nothing but the story. It began to bleed into my life and not just on the vacations. My high school career was greatly affected by ‘The Beginning of the End.’ That’s an interesting name because it’s probably the beginning of my end.

  In high school I had a math teacher who would allow me to take notes the first ten to fifteen minutes of class then he’d let me pull my desk aside. I’d put on my headphones and he’d let me write the rest of the class. I flunked the class and I deserved the F, but it was cool and I got a lot of writing done.

  At home my Mom didn’t understand me. It was hard to communicate with her because I let everything in life distract me and I wasn’t very helpful. The story, my girlfriend and work became more than my young mind could control. My sleep became less and my intense writing increased, this created issues when it came to living my life.

  It is probably these issues that I am dealing with now. Is that it? Is that the reason I see blackness? Is that the reason I fear? It can’t be. I need to stay focused.

  High School? I remember High School. Fun times, bad times, sad times, that’s what it was. Then the story, T.
B.O.T.E. took over my thoughts and dreams. At night I began hearing voices.

  I know what most people think when they hear that but most people aren’t always right. People forget that everything has an opposite. If there is a bad, then there is also a good.

  The voices I would hear were always speaking about T.B.O.T.E. and I knew exactly what they were. I would sometimes lie to myself but inside I knew why I was hearing them. I know why I hear them today, now at this moment. They say what they always say.

  Tonight I’m going to stay focused. I will not allow distraction. I’m going to find out why I see blackness, why I’m scared and why life escapes me.

  I hear the whispers behind me. I see the shadows out of the corner of my eye when I turn my head. Vanishing, appearing, speaking, threatening, encouraging. It’s too confusing. What do they want? Why are they behind me and why do they wait? Why not end me now? Or are they watching me end me. Are they the reason I see blackness?

  The blackness is all around me right now. It’s all I see, it’s all I see. Why is it all I see? Why do I hear the whispers of stories? I feel the hand, the hand on my shoulder and then I feel the cold breath on my neck. I turn around but there is nothing. Why? Is the presence real? Is it all just something I created from my experiences?

  My first girlfriend was in High School. She was real, real mean but I guess I liked her. She would read the Story and I guess I have to say that she was encouraging in that area of my life. She is the one who taught me how to be jealous, very jealous.

  There was this one time we were walking into a grocery store and a pretty woman was walking out. I looked at the woman when she walked by and my girlfriend saw me. I turned to her and smiled. At this time in my life I didn’t know it was bad to admire beauty, so I was innocently smiling.

  I was a geek and I didn’t know anything about anything. I’m still a geek and I probably still don’t know anything.

  My girlfriend asked me if I looked at the woman and I said no. I saw a look in her eye as she smiled at me and then she repeated her question. I didn’t know that the truth was so bad but when I told her yes, yes I did look at the woman, it took three seconds for her to react. She reared her fist and punched me in the cheek and I am not going to lie, it hurt. She was wearing the new ring I gave her and the punch left an imprint of the ring’s design on my face. You would think that I would have left her but I didn’t. I was young and I had a pretty girl that liked me.