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“Zane, you’re part of something bigger than yourself — and without you, the world won’t be the same. You might not understand what it is yet, but you’re going to do something so important and amazing that no one else is capable of, and the world will thank you for it.”
These desperately-constructed thoughts run through my head as I restrain myself from pressing the razor blade against my own wrist. Already, my heart was pounding in my chest like the foot of a scared jackrabbit thumping its foot on the ground. And I hadn’t even done anything to myself yet. The few reasons I had to live — or at least keep myself from self-injury — swirled around my head like a relentless plague, spiting my every suicidal thought. I knew the truth, though; they only resurfaced to remind me how pathetic and illogical it would be to kill myself, especially now, when honestly, my situation wasn’t nearly as bad as other people in my own age group. The tumultuous teenage years… the “rebellious phase”… all the teen-angst I was going through… it would pass soon enough, and I’d be all the wiser for it.
“You’re going to be needed someday.”, I say to myself in the mirror. I try to keep a straight face, but all I can do is chuckle cynically to myself.
“Yeah, right…”
I toss the razor blade on the floor and return to the edge of my bed to bury my face in my hands, holding back a flood of tears triggered by remembering everything wrong with my life and seemingly meaningless existence on this vast and chaotic earth.I took one last look through the string of text messages in my phone — the name at the top clearly read “Katrina”, and simply sounding out her name unleashed another painful wave of precious memories through my already spinning head. My finger scrolled all the way up the little screen, all the way back up to the first series of short conversations between us.
Hey, are you going to Russel’s party on Friday?
haha xD no, ive got other plans
Oh, ok. Did he invite you?
LOL no, i dont know him that well
I see. Well, I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow.
haha sure did you do ms morocco’s HW ?
I’m still working on it. Is it tough for you too?
sorta. i think i’ll finish it in class xD
Well, if you need help, you can ask me.
sure thing zane catch you laterIt was one of those embarassingly pitiful one-way attractions that every teenage kid going through puberty hopes he’ll never have, although it seems to happen to a majority of them, and in the worst ways possible. I’d known Katrina since kindergarten, and our families have always been close, but since acquiring an attraction towards her, I’d become somewhat distant, for fear that my true feelings would push her away from me. It was a plan several pondering, procrastinating months in the making, and although no time ever seemed right, I took it upon myself to finally muster up the courage and say what I’ve wanted to say all along. I scrolled down to the top of a long list dated 3:22 PM February 9th, 2011.
Katrina, can I ask you something?
whatever you want, kiddo
Well, its not easy for me to say, but I want you to hear me out.
why ? :'( are you moving or something ?
Actually I wanted to ask you to be my Valentine.Then, nothing until 6:57 that night — and she’d responded fairly quickly until the last text.
im sorry
tyler already asked me
besides, weve been dating for a while now, i thought you noticed ??The sting of heartache hit me again, and I fell back onto my bed, with my feet still hanging over the edge. I dropped the phone submissively onto the pillow and took a deep breath. Speaking for myself, its true that boys must see girls through some kind of filter when they’re in love. Immediately after she told me about Tyler, it all became clear; how she only hung out with me and my friends at lunch when there was a football meeting and the way she smiled in class whenever he answered a question or how everyone besides me referred to them as “Tyler and Katrina”. What would she want with me, anyways? All i’ve got to show for are above-average grades and a gamerscore of a quarter-million on my xBox 360 profile. And not that I’d proudly display it, but I did have a pretty formidable collection of adult entertainment hidden away on my laptop. Tyler was on the varsity football team and first in line to receive all kinds of scholarships from the best colleges around, not to mention he was friends with all the teachers and high school staff. Everybody wanted to be Tyler’s friend, and although I didn’t associate with him that much regularly, I wouldn’t mind hanging out with him if the occasion ever arose — and yet, I hated him with more than enough passion to put him in the ground if only there was a way to do it legally, and without Katrina becoming stricken with grief, and if I could live the rest of my life with the assurance that he was a necessary sacrifice for my own happiness and survival.
It was all worthless speculation… nothing I could say or do would ever change her mind or give me any peace of mind, so I just cried and fell into a sleep haunted by nightmares of having the girl I loved taken from me time and time again, condemning me to a lonely existence full of bitter anger and envy. In most of these twisted dreams, I was the tragic hero of my own unwritten story… ever reaching for the light, but all too often falling short. As I tried to hold onto the rare sequences in which Katrina and I lived happily ever after, that ever-familiar whine of an alarm clock bled through my thick skull and shattered every fictional world I held so dear.6:15 AM
The digital wedges making up each number burned their annoying dim light into my adjusting eyes. The clock violently vibrated across the desk next to my bed, adding to the bothersome cacophony which shouted and yelling from the speakers inside the awful machine.
Monday. I’d spent the whole weekend locked away in my room, leaving only to grab a bite to eat or do whatever chores my parents left for me to take care of while they were away at work. I hardly talked at dinner, and refused to join them when they would invite me to watch a movie with them in the living room. Although Mondays were usually the worst day of the week for me and so many other reluctant teenagers, today felt different, somehow. It didn’t necessarily start any better or worse than the typical school week day, but something stirred inside me — a kind of uneasy restlessness and energized invigoration that continued to spark up and flare deep in my chest. I shook it off as just another side-effect of a broken heart, and got out of bed for the first time since Wednesday. It had snowed Thursday, so we had an extended weekend. I probably wouldn’t have gone to school anyways, but it was nice knowing I didn’t have to make that decision.
Downstairs, either everyone had left already, or they were still asleep. Regardless, I popped a waffle into the toaster and sat at the table with my head lying on top of my crossed arms.
“Just a few more seconds of rest.” I promised myself; never a good idea when you’re on a schedule. I remember hearing the metal from inside the toaster scrape up and eject my waffle, but it failed to pry me from my already deep slumber. The irradiation from a beam of sunlight through the kitchen window in what finally woke me up, after almost an hour of sitting slumped over on the table. My grogginess disappeared as soon as I realized I had no idea how long I was sleeping. One look at the clock confirmed my fears, and I made a dash through the house to put together my school supplies into my backpack. As I passed the kitchen, I yanked my cold disc of sweetened bread out from the slotted oven and hurried out the door, fumbling with my house key as I struggled to keep the waffle in my teeth.
The last kid had just stepped through the door of the bus when I finally rounded the final corner onto the sidewalk where the big yellow vehicle always stopped at precisely 7:24 each morning. I grimaced at the clock on my phone as it ticked on to read “7:25 AM”, and picked up my already fast pace to reach the compressing doors just before the driver shifted gears and hit the button to retract the lighted stop sign. The overweight lady at the wheel made a double take when I appeared at the door, but with some mercy and slight annoyance, she switched the lever over and let me inside. I took the first seat I could find, which was next to a kid whose name I didn’t know. I don’t think anyone usually sat in the same seat as him, but he didn’t seem to pay much attention to me anyways, so I kept to myself for the whole ride to school. I must have dozed off several times, but each bump in the road jolted me awake. The other “well-rested” teenagers smirked and chuckled each time my head dropped or I looked around startlingly.
As fate would have it, first period was Intermediate Algebra with Mrs. Morocco — and my seat was right next to Katrina’s. She was already in the room and sitting with her friends, laughing and talking with her friends by the time I arrived. I sat at my assigned desk and wondered if she even noticed me come in. After the bell rang, I saw Katrina glance my direction from the corner of my eye. Throughout class, she stayed in her chair on the other side of the room with her friends, leaving me alone and brooding with my other indistinguishable classmates. The first agonizing hour of the day flew by surprisingly quick, and before I knew it, the students had emptied out of the room with the sound of another irksome bell — everyone except me and Katrina piled out, and she unexpectedly appeared on the outside of my desk and waited patiently for me to gather my things and head for the door. Once we were outside, she stopped me and forced a smile which evaporated a second later.
“Hey… I want to talk to you later. Are you doing anything today at lunch?”
Surprised, I shook my head and hoarsely responded, “No.” Katrina lightly smiled again and started to walk away.
“Okay. See you then.” With a wave of her hand, she disappeared into the crowd of bundled up kids ranging from the ages of fourteen to eighteen. Behind the school buildings and the imposing, snow-capped mountains, the sun rested ever so brightly just above the horizon, and I wondered what made it so happy. As I regained my composure and headed in the direction of my next class, a sizable cloud formation rolled in front of the hot orb. I had other things to think about, but somehow I noticed just how odd it was that the first cloud since the snowstorm last week would be big enough to cast a shadow over the entire school.When lunch finally came, I was starving, and I helped myself to a meal from the cafeteria before joining my friends at our usual spot in the outside quad. I figured Katrina would come find me, since I never knew where her and Tyler ate lunch, and I waited. None of my usual pals came to join me, but another group of kids congregated nearby where it was usually empty, and I started to get worried. Halfway through devouring my spongy hotdog and nearing the end of a small bag of chocolate milk, Katrina finally showed up. With the sun at her back, I couldn’t help but be in awe of how marvelous she looked: her naturally darker blonde hair looked almost evangelic in the sun’s light, and the plaid buttoned-up shirt she had on hugged her body in such a way that all the little details of her arms, shoulders, chest, and hips blossomed into accents that were impossible to ignore; her skin-tight blue jeans clutched her waist and legs without a single wrinkle or tear, leaving me to admire her sleek, slender thighs and calves. In my eyes, she was the very image of perfection — her skin was free of any rashes or blemishes, and her petite chin and nose molded her face into such an innocently beautiful design that I choked every time I saw her. This time was different, although I still felt a pit in the bottom of my soul when my eyes came across her. To be polite, I set my tray of food to the side and got to my feet, wary of whatever it was she had wanted to speak with me about.
“Hi, Zane…”, she said, in her softest voice.
I replied with a sort of grumble. “Hey.”
That awkward pause that ensued whenever serious matters are concerned came over both of us, and for a while, we just stared — and avoided staring — at each other.
“Um…”, she finally started, only for her confidence to fall short. More nervous than i’d ever been in my life, I scratched my head until she opened her mouth again.
“Zane, I’m sorry… I never knew you liked me, and Tyler’s the first guy to ever really ask me out.”
When she said his name, I felt my fists involuntarily clench. “Yeah.”, I said under my breath.”
“I kept thinking you were going to ask, but it never happened, and now i’m with him, so there’s nothing I can do, really. I actually did like you for a while, but I guess I didn’t wait long enough… I’m so sorry.”
My eyes lit up at her last bit of information, and I lifted my head to look at her. I would never have the audacity to suggest she break it off with Tyler, or that she see me on the side, so I went back to my sulking and kept everything I was thinking inside my cramped little dome. Katrina put her arms around me and hugged me tight. Only after registering the fact that she was hugging me did I put my arms around her, with significantly less force. When she decided she was finished, she quietly said, “Goodbye.” and turned to leave. I could tell something in her eyes was off, and I foolishly convinced myself she would never cry a single tear over me, although that would have been the only logical explanation for the redness in her cheeks and the solemnity in her upturned brow.After school, I thought I would walk home instead of taking the bus, as I still had a lot on my mind and needed time by myself to clear everything up. After a few minutes, I came to a set of railroad tracks out on a dirt mound, far from any houses or other signs of sophistication. With no train in sight, I climbed up the hill to sit on the tracks, hoping to rest my legs and find some source of inspiration. Dead trees void of branches littered the desert landscape and appeared to stretch for miles in every direction, but I had a good idea of where I was in relation to my house. I used to play out here when I was younger, and when my friends and I thought more of life than sitting on a couch with a game controller and staring at a strobed screen full of colors and noise. Of all the things whirling around me head, a train’s whistle seemed to grow louder than everything else, and I laughed, shaking my head at the coincidence — except it was no coincidence. Once the whistle was loud enough to subdue all my other vivid daydreams, I got up and whirled around in time to see the front end of a locomotive engine baring straight toward me. Stepping backwards, I tripped on a plank of wood in the tracks and fell back onto my rear. With the train too close for me to do anything else, I put my arms out in front of me and braced myself for an unimaginable amount of pain that could only result in my own death.
Instead of the gruesome sound of crushing bone and flesh, a symphony of grinding and buckling metal came to my ears. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the cars behind the engine had lifted into the air and slammed back down onto the tracks, and the front end had a rough impression of my body.
As if surviving wasn’t peculiar enough, upon examining myself, I could find no cuts, bruises, or signs of any damage to myself whatsoever. Still, my whole body shook and my heart pounded as though the threat of being flattened was still looming. In a matter of seconds, everything readjusted, and I could stand still again, but I quickly realized that whoever was inside the train would have been severely injured from such a powerful impact, and I rushed over to the side of the engine to check on the conductor. With one surprise after another, I discovered there were no passengers and no engineer — just empty ruined boxcars and a huge pile of broken steel up front. It was all so much to take in, and I wasn’t sure what was real anymore. I started to feel dizzy and vomited on the tracks. I ran for home as fast as I could, just wishing this day would end and I could go back to my brooding seclusion again.
Even if I was stupid enough to try and explain what had happened, there wouldn’t be a soul alive on this planet who would have believed me.Thank’s much, big K! Please let me know if I ever cross the line — I’ll do my best not to, but I hope you’ll serve justice if I lose sight of the goal
I somehow managed to convince myself it was all a dream, and I was just about ready for my life to return to normal — until I heard the TV blaring downstairs and got up from my bed to investigate. There stood my mom in her bathrobe with a hand over her mouth, staring intently at the screen. I wiped the sleep dust from my eyes and announced my presence by saying, “Good morning, mom.”
Caught by surprise, she gasped and turned toward me, stepping away just enough so I could watch the morning news.“… after consulting with all local and out of state railroad companies and carefully examining the wreckage itself, it has been determined that these cars were elaborately painted and constructed to be life-sized train models. What’s most interesting is the human-shaped indentation on the front engine, although no bodies have been recovered as of yet. There is still speculation as to who or what was driving the train forward, and whether or not this has all been one big, very dedicated prank. We hope to have more information about the mysterious crash later today, but until the debris has been cleared, we’re advising pedestrians to stay clear of the train tracks just to be safe. Back to you, Fred.”
My mother pulled me in close to her and put her hand on the back of my head, holding me tight and nestling my hair with her forehead. I could tell she was crying. I can always tell when she’s crying.
“Oh, that’s right over where you boys used to go and play all the time… I’m so glad you were nowhere near there when it happened. After what happened to Curtis, I don’t know if I could go through it all again…” She was sobbing so hard I thought I might begin crying just by association — and her merely mentioning Curtis made me want to give her a lecture about how nothing “happened” to him… but right now, that could wait.
My eyes kept returning to the scene on the television. The locomotive and its haul looked so strangely familiar, and I was about let it go when it finally clicked in my head. I finished consoling my mom and rushed to my brother’s room upstairs. Just past the door, as intact as the day it was set up close to seven years ago, stood the long-coveted miniature model train community, complete with flashing lights, tunnels, and automated controls for directing where and when each engine traveled. I carefully lifted one of the rows of cars and turned on the TV in my room. Sure enough, the trains depicted in the crash were identical to the string of toys in my hand. I woozily dropped the trains and sat down on my bed, trying to piece together all the details. I could still hear my mom sniffling from the other room as she got ready to leave for work.
“It’s getting late, Zane. You better have something to eat.”, she called.
I responded inaudibly then shook my head in an attempt to clear my head of all the confusion. I said “Yeah.” again so that she could hear me and pulled on some clothes. As I left the room, my foot knocked the set of trains to the side. I glanced back and forth from the toys and the blank TV screen for a short while longer.Despite the recent trauma in my life, nothing like it happened again for quite some time, and I carried on as normally as I could. School was still boring, riding the bus was a chore, and my classmates were as dumb as ever. Katrina and I didn’t see each other as much, which was to be expected. The hurt didn’t seem so bad, though, especially since I was still worried about the other life-changing event that happened the same day. No matter how I looked at it, there was no way of denying I had some hand in putting the train right were it happened to be. But how or why did I do it? It wasn’t a conscious decision… and the fact that it perfectly resembled the model from my brother’s set meant that it must have somehow manifested from my subconscious. And how had I not been killed or even injured by the collision? The possibility of them being holograms or hallucinations was out of the question — other real people had touched and seen them, but only I remained doubtful of their real existence.
Like the reporter said… probably just some elaborate hoax…
A few weeks went by, and I had almost completely forgotten about the incident. Incrementally, I returned to my normal self. I talked to my family at dinner and watched movies with them on the couch; I was cheerier with my friends, and Katrina and I had even started to wave and say hello to each other again. I tried not to acknowledge her when Tyler was around for courtesy’s sake, but for the most part, the damage to my psyche had already started to mend itself. But as I had already learned, nothing in my life was ever as simple or easy as I was led to believe.After a long day at school, I stepped off the bus and headed toward home. I hadn’t noticed anything too out of the ordinary, save for a van parked in the neighborhood that wasn’t usually there. Wanting only to get home and relax, I paid no mind to it, even after its engine revved up and the vehicle began plodding down the street in my direction. Before I knew it, the van had pulled out in front of me, with a pair of men in ski masks ready to open the back door and pull me inside. The hoodlums wasted no time in gagging me and tying my hands with rope, which I found most uncomfortable. I had no idea just how long they drove before stopping abruptly in the parking lot of our local supermall. Gunshots and sirens could now be heard outside the car, and now I really started to panic.
My dad was a cop.
Even the idea of my dad getting hurt because of me was enough to put me into shock. For that reason, I really struggled with everything I had to try and get away before a shootout occurred between the would-be kidnappers and a large detachment of the Sacramento police department. I could see enough of the showdown from the tinted windows of the van, but I was too far away to make out faces. Regardless, somehow I knew my dad would be there, and I couldn’t help think of how ironic or coincidental or fateful it was that he should be rescuing me after responding to the report of an anonymous teen seizure. The masked criminals had since left the van to hide behind it as a shield from the oncoming bullets — not all the officers present had been fully informed of the situation, so I was in danger on both sides of the battle. After a couple minutes of twisting and turning, my gag came loose, and I wriggled far enough out of the rope on my hands to crawl toward the back of the van. I had to freeze right where I was when I saw who sprang up from behind the door of a recently parked cop car; there stood my dad with his pistol aimed straight at the criminals behind the van, and mirroring my dad knelt one of the armed kidnappers, his finger already on the trigger of his own high powered handgun. As futile as it seemed to yell a warning, I screamed at the top of my lungs for my dear old dad to look out, although it wasn’t my voice that saved him.
The milliseconds in which my dad and the criminal exchanged bullet seemed to go by slower than minutes, and what transpired brought shivers to my spine. I had seen plenty of videos on the internet about real battles in war, and I played enough violent video games to become desensitized to real life blood and gore, but what made me sick was the recurrence of strangeness which simply would not leave me alone. As the criminal’s bullet sped toward my father, I watched it begin to lose its metallic luster and silvery shine, transforming into no more than a spitwad of harmless water that gently splashed onto my dad’s cheek. With a tortured smile, I watched as he startlingly wiped his face and examined the clear liquid; once he had ensured it wasn’t blood and his overall health was intact, he fired several more shots in succession at the kidnappers. With the threat largely taken care of, it was up to my dad to check on the abducted child — and what a shock he got when it was my face he strained to identify.Four men with extensive criminal backgrounds were admitted to the hospital for multiple gunshot wounds, and I was questioned at the police station for hours before my dad I returned home. In the car, I replayed the scene in my head a million times, each time coming to the conclusion that these strange events could not be ignored any longer. I thought about saying something about it to him, but after both of us went through such trauma, I figured he wouldn’t believe me anyways. It remained my secret in the days to follow, although I couldn’t leave the notion alone. Twice now I’ve experienced greater forces at work, forces either under my control or directed through my own concentration. It wasn’t so difficult to explain how, while my emotions were jumbled, I so strongly envisioned death that its bringer manifested through a locomotive, but I came to my senses before it could carry out its original mission. Just as well, I could imagine my desire to keep my father safe must have, in one way or another, changed the properties of the bullet which should have ended his life.
So I stand here, in the middle of the wooded desert, staring, pondering into the distance, hoping for the assurance that these supernatural events aren’t just some random string of pranks being played by gods of yore, or some cosmic entity.“That tree is on fire.”, I repeat in varying intensity, with my open hand stretched out toward my lifeless victim.
“That tree is on fire.”, I keep saying, promising myself this isn’t as stupid as it sounds. Because…
“That tree is on fire!”The embers from the bonfire flicker in my eyes as I revel in my accomplishment. Soon enough, the tree is reduced to a burnt formation of ashen branches and black twigs. A real, genuine smile, the first in a long time, spreads across my face.
“Boy, if she could see me now…”
no, i dont know him that well
did you do ms morocco’s HW ?
tyler already asked me
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