All or Nothing

There is a cliff right in front of me. I stare down it and I see the water crash against rocks at the bottom of the cliff. It is an awe-inspiring sight, the ferocity of the water is unrelenting. That’s what I like about it, I like its strength and its determination. Above all, however, I love the fact that millions of years ago this cliff wasn’t there and millions of years in the future, this cliff won’t be here any more, and each and every wave that crashes onto the rocks contributes to that. No matter how little each wave seems to do, it does something; every wave contributes to the huge force that is needed to carve out this cliff and then to destroy it.

It is also amazing to see the whiteness of the water and to watch how it is churning and bubbling and spraying up into the air at different directions and then a few metres further out from the cliff the water is calm as anything. The difference is remarkable and also wonderful. That water could be so close together and yet be so different. Cliffs really are amazing in every single way.

The book that I take out of my bag is long but soon I have devoured it. Every single word has been taken out of the book and put into my mind and together the words have created a story of interest. But the words alone have little meaning. The words alone have no interest but together they are great. I look down at the rocks again and I see the waves, crashing onto the rocks exactly the same as they were before. It is the same with these waves. Each wave by itself is not so interesting but together they have made a construction of magnificence.

Soon it is time to go home. Out in the horizon, the sun has lowered itself beneath the sea in the distance and the sky begins to darken. I look up and see that the clouds above are black and full with rain. I walk slowly. If I am slow enough then it will begin to rain before I get home. I love to feel the rain hit me like a thousand needles drilling into me. I love the feeling that wetness brings, the feeling of relief, of thankfulness, as if my troubles have all been washed away. It doesn’t rain though and I go home dry.

There is a cliff right in front of me. I stare down it and I see the water crash against rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The rain mingles in with the water at the bottom. The calm part of the water ripples with every drop of rain. The ferocious crashing part of the water shows no sign of the rain, as if it is oblivious to the water hitting it from above. At the top of the cliff, the rain drills into me just the same as I had hoped that it would the day before. The thought occurred to me, each drop of rain by itself is nothing, practically unnoticeable. Together though, the rain becomes an awesome thing. It can bring about floods, destroy houses, kill people, and destroy livelihoods. And really it is only made up of lots of unnoticeable raindrops.

It’s the same with people. Every person is an individual and also unique. Maybe they might be fat or skinny or dumb or smart or black or white but really they’re all like raindrops. What each one is doing may not seem much but altogether, the human race can achieve huge unbelievable things. The rain forest is a good example. There may be a lot of trees but there are also a lot of people. If everyone cut down one tree then I am sure that a huge decrease would occur in the size of the rainforest.

Or another example might be with an abundant race of animals. I am sure that there more humans than there are some species of animals so it may not seem like much for one human to kill one animal but in the end there will be no animals because of this.

It may not seem much for one wave to splash onto the rocks, but together, all the waves will destroy the cliff. It is the same with raindrops and it is the same with humans. The human species will together do huge and powerful things, which will appear impossible. The problem is, with humans, this huge and powerful thing will undoubtedly be horrific and deadly. It makes me sad to be a part of this huge and deadly thing, which together all humans are contributing to. I am angry to be a human. For the first time for 10 years I go home before the sun sets and I don’t notice the rain, and I don’t feel its splendor. I am trying to make up my mind.

There is a cliff right in front of me. I stare down it and I see the water crash against rocks at the bottom of the cliff. I have made up my mind. I jump and I feel the rocks at the bottom. I feel the water at the bottom. I feel the power of the combination and I smile. I have become a part of it.

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At first he felt nothing. It was an emptiness that seemed to continue long into infinity. He was indifferent, but he was also stunned. A few seconds passed before the full enormity of the words he had just heard set in. The emptiness rapidly filled with uncontrollable hate and anger. He could feel the sides of body swelling, as if about to burst with an infinite amount of red-hot fury.

The rage that he felt was evident on his face. All his features were contorted with fury and an aura of hate pounded out from within him in waves so powerful that the woman was nearly knocked off her feet. For the first time that night she felt fear. Fear that something had been let loose, that she had somehow opened a dam of emotions and it was a matter of time before she was washed away in them. Then she looked into his eyes and saw blinding anger. It was then that the wave of hatred washed over her and she was swept away.

The clock beside his bed began to beep. The beep was sharp and loud and did not fail to awake the man from his sleep. The man sat up from the carpet and crawled onto the bed. He reached one hand over to the alarm clock and switched it before clutching his head in an effort to lessen the effects of the enormous pain that was pounding in his head. He felt terrible, like he would never be normal again. Instead of reaching for the light switch, the man fell onto his bed and slept once more.

When he woke for the second time, day had already come. Light streamed in through the gap in the curtains, lighting up a narrow portion of the room. The first thing he felt when he woke up was something slimy on his hands. The headache was still with him, just as painful as it had been earlier in the night. His body didn’t ache as mush as it had when he had awoken from the floor. He supposed that that was due to the fact that he had slept the last half of his sleep on his bed, a more comfortable place than the floor.

He reached for the light switch, trying to remember what had happened the evening before. He turned the switch and blinked in the sudden light. The slimy thing he had felt on his hands was what he first checked when he could see. The slimy thing he saw was red. The word ‘blood’ floated through his brain and he realized that he had been asleep with blood on his hands.

In horror, he glanced around at his room. Blood had been smeared all over his walls and the floor. All the items of his room were now scattered all over the floor, as if someone had ransacked the room. And there was a body, lying on the floor, unrecognizable because of the way it had been killed. The man shrunk back into the corner of his room as he surveyed the death that confronted him. He was in shock, not only at the gruesome murder that had taken place, but also at the knowledge that he must have done it. Every bone in the body seemed broken and the skin had been torn apart in several different places. He knew who the person who had been murdered was, not because he recognized her, but because he just knew. The memories of what had happened flooded back.

The man remembered being told something he didn’t like. He remembered that the woman had done him harm, lots of it. He remembered the anger and the hate and the fury that had taken control of him. And then he had acted, uncontrollably, with a ferocity that he had not known he was capable of. He had been hurt, and he had been full of hatred, and jealousy, and blinding anger. It had not been his fault, he must have been momentarily mad, insane, not himself. He was a law-abiding man who had never done any harm to anybody ever before. The worst thing he had ever done against the law was to steal a loaf of bread once. He remembered that guilt had brought him to return about two minutes afterwards. It wasn’t him that had done this, it was someone who didn’t exist, who couldn’t exist, who had never been seen before.

He moved his hand off the bed to lean on the wall and accidentally touched a piece of bone that had pierced the wallpaper and was sticking into the actual wall. A piece of meat was attached to the bone and there was blood dripping at regular intervals onto the floor. He shifted his eyes to look at where the blood was dripping to and saw a small puddle of blood that had soaked into the carpet. Little fragments of the body could be seen all around the room, bits of bone, bits of gristle and meat. It was a horrible sight and he couldn’t bear it. He shrunk closer into the corner.

There was now serious thinking that was going on in his head. He knew that her had been momentarily mad, he must have been. This was what he could argue once he had been arrested for the murder. It would be also noted that he had considerable remorse for the crime and that would let him off even more. It would still mean a considerable amount of time in jail but he hoped not life. But the event had occurred once. Would it happen again? Could he control his emotions if something like what had had happened just that evening were to occur again? He doubted it. He doubted it not only because of the way his emotions had taken over but also how helpless he had been whilst his emotions were in control.

He also felt a considerable amount of remorse and guilt about it. Another Human Being’s life had been taken and he was responsible. Not only that but he was responsible for the most gruesome and horrible death that anyone had ever saw. He shuddered. Tears began to flow down his cheeks and fall onto his T-shirt where they were soaked up by the material. Sorrow and guilt are both also very strong emotions. He felt them take over just as he felt his anger take over earlier. A plan formed in his mind and a decision to follow that plan was reached. He was going to punish himself, as he knew that law would not. He was going to show just how sorrowful he was. How had the woman died? The woman had died by being hit repeatedly. Where could that happen where the cause was natural? An image of rocks and the pounding of the sea floated into his mind and he realized just what he was going to do. The sea was ten minutes drive south. There were cliffs by the sea dropped down onto razor sharp rocks at the bottom. The sea was also ferocious there. Ferocious like he had been, full of anger and hate and emotion. Those rocks he would welcome, that anger he would experience. He would show just how sorrowful he was.

Ten minutes later he was there standing by the tall cliffs and looking down below into the fury of the sea. He could see the sea smashing into the rocks spraying itself everywhere. The sea was a charging rhinoceros and he was going to be the focus of it’s anger, just as the woman had been earlier when he had been the charging rhinoceros. He knew what the woman had seen in his eyes, she had seen the crashing waves of the sea hitting the rocks. She had seen the power of the water. She had seen all that he could see.

He jumped and felt a blissful sensation, as if he was ridding himself of the evil that had possessed him. He was riding upon the air, he was flying, and he was purging himself. The rocks jumped up and swallowed him and he saw and felt no more. The wave of hatred washed over him and he was wept away.

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Ben: Half an hour ago I should have just kept walking.

Alexis: Nice day isn’t it?
*Leon looks around, obviously unable to see the weather*
Leon: Very
Alexis: I’ll have a double choc whammy, and don’t hold back on the caramel
Leon: Sure thing
*Ben grabs Alexis and hands Leon a bag*
Ben: Fill this. *pause* Do you think that I’m kidding?
*Ben shoots the camera*
Ben: Do I look like I have all day? Hurry up!
*Leon fills the bag*
*Ben runs out*
*Leon grabs telephone*
*Ben runs back in*
Ben: How the hell did the cops get here so fast?
*Ben sees Leon with the telephone*
Ben: Son of a bitch... Give me the phone
Ben *into phone*: You come in here and I’ll shoot them
*Ben shoves shelf in front of door and begins pacing*
Ben: Shit
Alexis: Got any plans?
Ben: Yes, and they don’t involve me explaining them to you
Leon: It’s not too late to give us up.
Ben: Is it not? OK then, yeah sweet, off you go.
*Leon stands up*
Ben: SIT THE HELL BACK DOWN
Alexis: There’s no way you’ll make it out of here
Ben: You wanna…
Alexis: What are you gonna do with the money anyway? Buy an x-box?
Ben: Shut the hell up or I’ll shut you up!
*Ben hold gun to Alexis’ head, obviously shaking with anger*
Leon: Murder will get you a lot more than just robbery
*PAUSE*
Leon: So are you running away from home? What about your family?
*Ben kicks counter*
Alexis: That’s brave: you don’t like your family so you hold up a dairy and run away.
Ben: Speak not of what you don’t understand.
Leon: Every teenager has problems with their parents. A few problems doesn’t mean that they don't care at all.
Ben: They’ll care plenty. Mum won’t have an ashtray and Dad won’t have a beating bag. They won’t have anything to vent their anger on.
*PAUSE*
Alexis: So what are you gonna do now? Drown your sorrows in alcohol?
Ben: Hell no, I’ve seen what alcohol does to people
Leon: Were your parents alcoholics?
Ben: my father
Leon: I'm sorry
Ben: I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work
Leon: I wasn’t trying to do anything
Ben: You don’t care about me; you’re just trying to psychologize me.
Alexis: What did you expect? You hold up his dairy, take us as hostages, and you expect us to care about you and your childish problems?
*Ben knocks over a chair and runs up to Alexis*
Ben: I’ll shoot ya! I swear...
Alexis: Resorting to violence and threats now? Seems I pinched a nerve
Leon: Shut up. What are you trying to achieve?
Alexis: What do you mean ‘what am I trying to achieve’? This young hooligan marches in and you expect me to sit here calmly and take it, accept that my life might be about to end?
Ben: Shut the hell up. What the hell are you talking about? Who said that anyone’s gonna die?
Leon: Don’t you see he isn’t going to do us any unnecessary harm so just shut up and cooperate.
*PAUSE*
Alexis: Is there really no one that cares about you?
*Ben stares at the ceiling and starts crying*
Ben: Not anymore *sob*
Leon: What do you mean?
Ben: Serenity.
Alexis: Who’s that, your sister?
Ben: No no no, my uncle serenity, of course my sister Serenity you idiot.
Alexis: What happened to her?
Ben: She died.
Leon: oh
*PAUSE*
Leon: You can’t just run away from her death.
Ben: No, but I can run away from her killer.
*PAUSE*
*Alexis hits himself on head, obviously upset with himself*
Ben: I just wanted to leave, get out, get away from it all. The violence, the abuse, the drugs and alcohol...
Alexis: I’m sorry
Ben: You couldn’t have guessed
*Voice from side*: This is your chance. Free the hostages or we’re coming in.
Ben: Go, just go. Go now.
Leon and Alexis: but…
Ben: Go
*Ben shoves both Alexis and Leon towards the door.*
*Ben and Alexis leave*
Ben: Half an hour ago, I should have just kept walking.
*Ben shoots self*

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I heard a knocking and then a dog barking. Crawling back into the shadows I risked a peek around the corner of the building. Staying low and in the blackness of the shade of the house I looked around and saw what I wanted to see. A large man wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap was at the door, this was part of the plan. Hurriedly I crawled back along the side of the house and came to a stop underneath a small bathroom window. Pulling out a stick from my jacket pocket, I pushed it underneath the small gap in between the window frame and the window, and bent it around. With great concentration and skill I unhooked the metal bar that was holding the window in the position that it was in and pushed the window open.

What I saw was an ordinary bathroom, with a smallish bath opposite to the sink and a shower what was in the bath, such that if you were to use the shower then you would have to stand in it. Moving quickly and stealthily I moved over to the sink and pulled the cupboard doors underneath it open, revealing a medicine cabinet. I quickly did a search of the cabinet but didn’t find anything that I wanted to find.

Somewhere in this household was a bit of the $50 million in cash that was stolen from us. We suspected it was in here because the manager of the largest Petrol Company in the south island owned this large house and they had “somehow” gained a profit of $50 million for the year. Everyone was happy about this because it meant that petrol prices went down but our organization wasn’t. We knew that some of the money must be in here so that the owner of the house, who was fat and ugly, didn’t have to go to the bank every time he wanted to buy something, we knew him to well for that.

Gently pushing the door open I moved through the corridor like a shadow. I could hear voices by the door, it seemed that Robert, who was a member of our organization was doing a good job. The plan was that Robert kept the guy busy while I got the money as fast as I could and got out of there. Robert, not knowing when I was done was just to stay there as long as he could. I knew that I would rather be in Robert’s position instead but Robert was better at engaging people in conversation so I was elected to go and get the money.

Creeping into the living room of the house I heard a shuffle of feet coming toward the room that I was in. Quickly I crouched behind the large sofa and watched the door open. Almost at once I knew that I was not well enough hidden. Frantically I scrambled for a better hiding place but I didn’t find it. Fearfully I watched as a large man walked into the room in a black jacket. Robert was stunned as he looked at me. Peeking over his shoulder he mouthed at me to hurry up. I obliged, standing up and moving toward the bookshelves where he was pointing. He must have found out where the money was from his conversation with the guy. As I moved over to the bookshelf, Robert came to help me look for it. Neither of us heard the door creak open or saw a man followed by a woman, probably his secretary silently move in. I did hear the “BANG” that followed though and immediately I turned around to stare straight at the gun barrel that was pointing straight at me. I didn’t take a moment to reconsider, looking down at the dead body of my companion, Robert, I pushed the gun away, slamming my fist into the murderer’s head. The woman screamed as I kicked the man in the head as he fell and then I properly came to my senses. The way to survive was to get the hell out of there.

I jumped over the still body of the guy and pushed the woman aside. As quickly as I could I ran my way through the house and out the front door where I turned toward the road where the getaway car was. Jumping straight into the car I first noticed that I was being followed. Damn, the man wasn’t as badly hurt as I hoped that he was. I pushed down on the accelerator, hard, and sped off as quickly as I could. The woman was holding a cellphone, undoubtedly ringing the police. And I didn’t even get the money! I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a man in a motorbike hot in pursuit of me. I had to get him off my tail if I was to get through this saga a free man. I gently eased on the accelerator to slow down a bit. The motorbike was catching up to me. I had a plan though and this was what I wanted. Speeding up I made the motorbike have to quicken up as well to keep up with me. And then I let go of accelerator, pushing all my strength into the brakes and pulling the handbrake. The motorbike slammed into the back of my car and then flew off into the trench by the side of the road. I took a look back as I pushed the handbrake down again and pushed onto the accelerator. There was a body on the mangled up, totally destroyed motorbike and it was smeared with blood. Now that I had got him off my tail I had every chance to get away. Who knows if I would or not. What I knew though was my life had been changed forever.

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Hello, is anyone there? I wouldn’t want to do this for nothing. There should be someway for us to communicate in a two-way direction, you know like the streets downtown where there are cars going in both directions, but there isn’t. It is a one way communication between us that I am not even sure it’s communication because no one might be there.
Now that I think about it though, I suppose that wherever there is a one-way street in town, there is another one way street going the opposite direction. I hadn’t thought about that until I just then. If that is true with this bit of one-way communication then there must be a different way that you are communicating with me. Let me sit here for a while, so I can figure out what it is.

I have figured out the answer now. It is a clever answer too. I doubt that anyone else would have thought about it. I suppose that being different like me has its advantages. I suppose that when you become a genius like I am then you will know how it feels, but at the moment I am different from everyone else so whoever you are you must not be quite as genius as me. Or you could be more of a genius than me, I suppose it is quite possible. But then you probably wouldn’t be reading this so it is all right. I think I can quite justifiably say that anyone who is at the other end of this bit of communication is not as much of a genius as I am.
Why was I talking about myself as a genius again? I think it had something to do with driving down a one-way street. What is there that is genius about driving down a one-way street? I can’t quite remember. Maybe I am not as much of a genius as I thought. I think that I came to the conclusion that anyone who was at the other end of this communication was not as much of a genius as I was. If that is still true then considering how much of a genius I actually am, not in my fantasies but in actual real life, in reality, then I don’t suppose that anyone is at the other end of this communication. If that also is true then I am doing this for nothing, which was what I feared in the first place. In other words I am wasting my time and for people like me my time is very precious. I have to therefore halt my communication and do something else. Goodbye!

I’m back again and I wanted to say how I had a dream. I’m still not sure whether there are any people at the other end of this communication. I think that there is even though you are in the future and you will not even know that I ever existed until you read this. If that is the case then the whole point of writing this is so that in the future people will know that I existed and they will also know all about me. I might become famous after I die. That would be good. I would like that.
Anyway, I was going to talk about my dream. It was a strange dream, even for me. At first I was in an aeroplane. Maybe the people in the future won’t know what aeroplanes are so I will explain what they are for the people in the future. Aeroplanes are big cars that can fly. They have engines on their wings so that they can fly and they carry lots of people for long distances. The aeroplane I was on was going to someplace that I can’t remember and I can’t remember why I was on the aeroplane but I think that I can sort of remember what went on in the aeroplane. There was a sporting team on board and they joking with each other and having fun. I can remember being jealous of them because of this, I never have fun and I doubt I ever will. Anyway I was scared of them and I didn’t want them to see me but they did and they were mean to me. They stopped the aeroplane in the middle of the ocean and kicked me out after being mean to me. Then the aeroplane flew away and I was left there, alone.
What that dream means, I have no idea but since I am a genius I will try to work it out. Perhaps I should start with the fact that aeroplanes can’t land in the middle of the ocean. Aeroplanes land on solid ground and they need a runway to take off and land and as far as I can remember, the ocean is not a runway. So why would this sporting team go on an aeroplane make the aeroplane land in the ocean? Maybe they didn’t and I was thrown out of the aeroplane while it was still in the air. But I didn’t do anything to them. I was trying to keep out of their way. Maybe the purpose of the dream is to tell the people about how some people can behave in our world in this time. Or maybe there is no purpose of the dream, maybe you are getting bored and that is not at all what I want because it is my destiny to tell the future generations of humans that reside on this planet the lifestyle of humans at the present. I can’t do that if you get bored and stop reading.

So, I’ve been thinking about what this thing really means and I have decided that it is a way for me to let all my emotions and stuff out onto the paper. I read about it on the Internet. It’s called a diary what I am writing and plenty of people write them. They are good for you to write because sometimes they can make you feel better about yourself and they can help you make decisions about your life. This also proves how much of a genius I am. There is something that is good for me (the diary) and so I do it even though no one tells that it is good. There must be some inner voice inside me that is telling my brain, not telling me because I never knew until I read the report on the Internet, that writing diaries is good. So that means that this communication is for me. I originally thought that I was communicating with some unknown person out in the world. Then I thought that I was communicating with some unknown person in the future, but then I, with all my genius, realised that neither of these could be. So some inner voice tells my brain that the solution is on the Internet. I have no idea why this inner voice is not telling me, only my brain. Anyway so I go on the Internet and now I have the whole solution. I doubt anyone would have figured out what I had figured out because I no one else has my genius. I am too intelligent for my own good.

I have been thinking about my intelligence and I have been wondering. I suppose that if I was really intelligent then I would be able to be like everyone else. I don’t know whether I am unlike the other people that live in my town because I am more intelligent than they are or less intelligent than they are. I just know that I am very different from everyone else. I suppose that being like everyone else is an advantage. They all have fun and friends and other things that I am jealous of them for but for some reason I am incapable of these sorts of things. I wouldn’t call myself crazy, and I wouldn’t call myself a loony like they call me. But that’s all stupid like the stupidest thing that I have ever heard and I hate this like it’s the last thing to hate and I should hate it with all the hate that I can muster. I’m mad about it but I can’t express myself about it like other people seem to be able to.
So the fact that I want to be like the others is a fact that points towards the fact that I am less intelligent that others are. They all have fun by going out to various places and I have fun by writing in this diary. I suppose that a diary doesn’t really compare with these other ways to have fun but I can’t go out because I can’t face up to the fact that I am different.

I have worked out why I am different. It’s because I must be from a different planet. As a baby, I suppose that my spaceship that I was travelling on was flying past Saturn when the enemy Zyroud’s attacked. The battle lasted long and was ferocious but finally the enemy was victorious. One lucky shot managed to hit the power generator on the bottom of the ship and the shield came down. Knowing that there were only minutes to live, they threw me into the last emergency capsule and I was flung out into space seconds before an enemy laser beam hit the ship and it exploded into a million pieces. The emergency space capsule landed a few minutes later on the planet earth where I was found by the two earth beings that became my foster parents.
I had better go and ask them whether this is true but I am sure what they will say. They will deny it and then that will be that. I will just not believe it when they say this.

My parents say that they are sure that they had me and they are my true parents. They said that the story that I had come up with is silly and I should just forget it. I would have carried on believing it though if I hadn’t thought of another solution. I have come up with the idea that there is no earth. There is no world, there is no me.
That may sound strange but I’ll try to explain it to you and then if it still sounds strange then I’ll try to explain it more thoroughly but no matter whether you understand my idea or not I believe that I have hit the nail right on the head. I believe that there is no world etc because it is all a trick. At first it was watching a movie called the Matrix that gave me this idea. Then the idea of an inner voice speaking to my brain, not me reinforced the idea. I should be my brain and my brain should be me so if something was speaking to my brain without me knowing it then something would have to be totally and horribly wrong.
Then something occurred to me. I remembered that everything I could see and hear and feel and smell etc was transferred through my brain so I could be aware of it. What if my brain was corrupted? What if the stuff that I could see and hear and smell and feel etc were not the stuff that was actually happening? What if what I could see was what someone else was making me see? What if what I could hear was what someone else was making me hear? What if the whole world was absolutely different from what I thought it was? Then I would have no idea about it.
Then I realised that I must have hit the truth. I was different only because I thought I was different. I was different only because someone wanted me to think that I was different. Someone who had hacked into all my senses and changed them all so I saw a strange world where everyone was different from what I had originally thought was reality and everyone was nicer than this reality. That meant that lots of things might not exist. How could I be sure that my parents existed? They might just be a part of this conspiracy. It would be easy enough for the someone who was doing this to do that. Just make me see and hear them and I would believe that they were actually there. It had amazing simplicity.
Thousands of possibilities then flowed through my head. Maybe I was an experiment to see whether this sort of thing could work, possibly for warfare purposes. Maybe I was a prisoner of the Zyroud’s and they didn’t want me to cause a rebellion so they kept me imprisoned like this or perhaps… the possibilities were infinite. All the possibilities however had me in a position where I was a prisoner. I don’t like the idea of being a prisoner. I wish to be free from this prison. Let me free. I want freedom. LET ME FREE!

Since no one let me free by that afternoon I decided to let myself out. It would take work I knew but how much work I didn’t know. But what I did know was how much I wanted to be like everyone else. I knew that getting out of the prison was going to be a step toward being like everyone else because I wouldn’t be laughed at and I wouldn’t be scoffed at and it wouldn’t be made know to me just how totally different the rest of the world was to me. I was called mad and crazy and stupid and insane and a number of other different words that I didn’t like and I wanted it to stop. This was my chance to use my intellect to attempt to get myself free.
Since it was my senses that were the components of my imprisonment I decided that I would have to turn them off. This I found hard. I tried to walk around with huge earmuffs on and my eyes shut firmly but this didn’t work because I kept bumping into things and this was no good because it meant that I was feeling things that weren’t there. It was the only plan I had so I decided to carry on with it all afternoon to see if anything was changed. I got my scarf and wrapped it over my eyes so I wouldn’t see even if I accidentally opened them. Then I went outside.
Going outside like that was a mistake. I should have known how it was never going to work. All I did was become the laughing stock of the entire neighbourhood as I attempted to walk around the block dressed like that. It was like I had a sign on me saying laugh at me and everyone was only too happy to oblige. It would have been all right if they hadn’t taken my earmuffs and scarf off to make sure that I knew they were laughing at me. In a way I had a victory though. I found out that even though they were laughing at me I didn’t know it while I was attempting to free myself. I was oblivious to the hilarity that I was apparently causing and as they say, ignorance is bliss. Maybe I should use the ignorance factor more often.

The only way I could shut down my nerve system was to break my back. What ran through my mind as I decided to do this was nothing. I felt nothing telling me not to do it, I felt nothing telling me of the pain that might be associated with it, I felt no emotion over what I was about to do. It was an attempt to get free and so I would do it whatever anyone else said. That was a month ago. In hospital the news came finally which told me how I was a danger to those around me and to myself and even though I had a broken back I was capable of doing harm to those that I was a danger to. They sent me to a place where I had never been before which turned out to be a room which had soft stuff on the walls and had the door was locked all day and all night. I was in a prison within a prison and this was crazy. My attempt to free myself from a prison only created another prison within that prison which I would have to reside. It is all crazy and I want to be free of it. I’m not a danger to myself, or those around me. I can’t even move from the hips down. The whole prison routine is stupid and I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns. I have decided that if anyone then everyone else is crazy. I’m not. Its only natural to want to free myself from a prison is it not?

This is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid this is stupid.

I stand here by the cliff now and I look down. I cannot see the bottom. I escaped from the first prison and now I am to escape from the second. Another crawl brings me closer to falling over the side of the edge and a clumsy swing of my arm causes the wheelchair to go crashing over the side. I can see the searchers in the distance, I think that one of them has seen me. I have no time to waste. I am going to free myself from this prison. I am going to gain freedom. Goodbye.

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I pointed out to my mother what it was I wanted on the menu.

“Can I have that?” I asked

“Alright, pass the menu here,” she replied and held out her arm for it. I gave to her.

I looked around. There were paintings of scribbled lines on the walls. I didn’t know what was so special about those sorts of paintings; it seemed to me that a six-year-old could have drawn them.

I looked at my mother. She was talking to a waiter, presumably ordering our food. I watched the waiter walk back, behind the counter. A buzzing noise came from behind it and I automatically looked towards the door. A pretty woman had walked in and was leading a boy by the hand toward an unoccupied table. The boy broke from her grip and ran back towards the door where he had come from. I thought that he was going to run back outside but he stopped and reached for something.

A moment later the entire restaurant was plunged in darkness.

A moment after that the lights had come back on.

Then the lights went back off.

The boy was obviously playing with the light switch. I watched in the darkness as the woman ran toward the boy and pulled him away from the wall, turning the lights back on while she was doing it.

The restaurant was filled with light again.

The boy started screaming at the top of his voice, not unlike a toddler might have done. He struck out at the woman, scratched her, kicked her, bit her and struggled to get free. She held on though with what must have been a grip like a vice. ‘What was wrong with the boy?’ I wondered to myself. Around me people were obviously wondering the same thing.

“What a strange boy,” murmured an old woman that was sitting at the table next to ours.

“I wonder what’s wrong with him?” asked the old man that was sitting next to her.

At the table on the other side of ours, there was a younger man who wasn’t quite as nice as they were.

“What a retard!” he came out with, rather abruptly.

The boy had now finished his tantrum and was sitting down at the table. I was amazed at how expressionless his face was. After I had a tantrum I was always sulky and angry for at least an hour afterwards. This boy was very different. Perhaps he was a retard.

“My son is autistic.” The woman that had gone in with the boy explained to the crowd of people that were staring at their table. That settled it. The boy was a retard.

After my mother and I had finished our meal and were driving home I asked my mother a question.

“What does autistic mean?” I asked.

She launched into an explanation about mental illnesses.

“So that means that that stupid boy was a retard,” I said.

“No it doesn’t. The boy was probably not stupid at all. He was different, yes, but he can’t help being different. He has different needs to you and me but that doesn’t give anyone a right to call him names. He should be treated with the respect every human deserves.”

For the rest of the car trip I thought about what my mother had said. It made sense; the boy couldn’t help being different. He couldn’t help being strange and I was sure that if he had a choice then the thing that he would want most was probably to be normal. That wouldn’t be strange at all.

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I looked at my new black shoes before I pulled back the sides of them to relieve my sore and aching feet. I had only walked three blocks in my new school shoes and already my feet were covered in big red blisters, the sort that are sore even if they are only touching air.

I sighed and looked up at the world again. To my right was the sports ground, hidden by a thick row of untidy, jungle-like trees. To my left was a cliff with tall overhanging oak trees at the top throwing the entire road into shadow and causing the thick frost that crunched under my feet. Ahead was the footpath, curving around the trees on my right and heading to the school, the last place I wanted to be on this cold, frosty and extremely painful morning. I gritted my teeth and looked ahead at the line of trees that hid the school that I was walking slowly towards. I did not relish the thought of spending the day in my new shoes, which already were causing me pain; but then again, I thought to myself, I had no choice. The thought didn’t bring me any comfort at all.

It was then that I realized that in the last few seconds of thought, the world had changed completely. I knew what had happened because it had happened before. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew that there was something around me. A sort of a ghost, except I knew that it wasn’t a ghost. It was the Thing.

I turned my memory back to when I had last encountered the Thing. It had been two years ago, when I was playing hide and seek in the forest and I had felt it come upon me. It made the air ripple as it touched my skin just as water does when exposed to a breeze. I remembered that moment vividly as I had felt a sudden and explosive burst of panic. I had run as fast as I could out of the trees and onto the clearing of grass where my family had been having a picnic and as soon as I had come into sight, the Thing had disappeared.

As I had felt before, a sudden burst of panic exploded within my body and I had the sudden desire to run. My body tensed up apprehensively and adrenaline flowed into my muscles as I began to get ready for the sprint for the school as fast as my new shoes would allow. Then the Thing disappeared.

Moments later a car skidded around the corner behind me and came thundering past, blowing air over me as though washing away what had been near me. It had been to no avail however because as soon as the car had turned the corner up ahead, the Thing came back.

I felt it again, the unnerving desire to run. I sped my pace up to a very brisk walk, but I didn’t run because I was afraid of what might happen if I did. The thought hit me that the Thing couldn’t do anything to me because it wasn’t there but that thought didn’t convince me. The feeling of danger was very real. It turned out that my very strong hunch that there was danger in the Thing was correct. A large branch fell from one of the tall overhanging oak trees above me and landed just in front of me. I was left in no doubt that it was the Thing that had thrown it at me.

The freezing coldness of the wind pierced my jacket and my insides felt as though they had turned to ice. I supposed that it was all the doing of the Thing, as though the Thing wanted to prove to me that it could do me damage and that I had better watch out.

Another car came past causing the Thing to go away again. The Thing wasn’t going to do anything while there was a chance that there was a person watching. I had half a mind to call out for the car to stop. I was desperate to make the Thing to go away but I was too shy. I didn’t want myself to seem weird to anyone else as it was the first day of school and I wanted to make friends. Almost immediately afterwards I regretted this decision because as the car also rounded the corner, the Thing came back.

I began to run. It felt like the best thing that I could do, the only thing. I would do anything to get away from the Thing. As the corner came closer and closer, the Thing began to get more and more desperate. The corner was coming up quickly and I had hope. Hope for the first time since the Thing had come that I could get away from it and get to school. The hope felt glorious, as if I was swimming in a pool of sweet, honey. It washed away all my fears like a long hot shower washes away mud after a soccer game.

And then I rounded the corner as I had seen the two cars go around it and there in front of me was the school. I felt victorious as the Thing disappeared and with a huge grin on my face, I marched right into the school grounds. I felt glad in every way except for one. My feet still hurt.

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The first we knew of it was when a shadow began to descend upon the valley. We watched in fear and amazement as this darkness, eating away at our valley like a disease, came from nowhere into our lives. The sun was blotted out for days on end and when it did poke its head out from the gloom, we cheered, even if it was only short-lived. We knew it was a sign but we couldn’t guess what sort of a sign it was. There was much speculation over what should be done, even the suggestion of some messenger going off to Lavisville, the biggest city in the country came out but no one in our little community knew where this city was, it was only known from stories told by weary travelers.

I was playing in the creek that ran down from the mountains in the north, when the shadow first came. Tristram was looking for gold in the creek and I had trudged along after him. Tristram was my only brother and he was older than me by 3 years. Our father had died many years ago, the villagers say even before I was born. I was helping Tristram forage in the creek for stones that looked sort of yellow because that was what he had told me gold looked like. I looked up at the sky just as everything went sort of blackish, we could still see, only everything had a sort of duller, darker look to it, and the sun was covered so it was colder.

At first we had thought nothing of it but days later the tree outside our house went brown and for the first time in living memory it began to drop its leaves. Tales had been told of the so called “Autumn” which was the time where trees lost their leaves and everything got cooler and the days got shorter. We thought that finally autumn had found our little valley and was changing it. Tales also had been told of the “winter” which always followed autumn and brought freezing cold weather and white slushy stuff called “snow” and the tales said that animals died of the cold or went to sleep during the entire winter. That of course would have been disastrous for us, as the animals were our source of food.

Tristram and I had grown up in the valley and had always lived there but Ursula hadn’t. Once she had lived in a place far south of here where seasons occurred, so when the news of the arrival of autumn came, the entire village flocked to our house and begged to hear more about these mysterious seasons. She told exaggerated stories of the hardship they went through during the winter months and then as the villagers including Tristram and I were becoming apprehensive of what was surely to come, she told us that this was no season, this was some other mystery, not a season. The news ran through the town like a virus. Town meetings were held to try and work out what was to be done. Eventually it was decided that a group of the town members were to climb to the highest mountain that was in the area of the shadow and try and look over it to see what it was and if anything could be done about it. Even though we were not one of the group that was to go we figured that Ursula was to go and therefore we wanted to go.

The next day we woke to the excited murmurs of the group about to leave to go north. As we hurriedly got dressed Ursula came in and told us to go to our grandmother’s house and although we accepted her proposal we had no intention of doing this. Once we were fed and packed we waited with increasing thrill until the group agreed that it was time to go, and then we went, moving behind them like panthers pursuing their prey.

All through out the day we followed at a safe distance from the group, as we knew that until we got far enough away they would send us back home if we were discovered. I knew that Tristram wanted us to catch our own food for the first day or two before we made our presence known but I had my doubts. I hadn’t yet been taught the village’s methods of hunting but Tristram had been taught how to do this for two whole years now. Well I was just going to let him do the work. Unfortunately when it came time to catch our lunch, Tristram gave me a brief run-down of what his plans were, how they were going to succeed, and what he expected me to do.

I ate a half-raw rabbit for lunch that day but I was very proud of myself for the fact that I had not only learned how to catch a rabbit but had done it myself with what I could say, relative ease. Even Tristram was pretty impressed with how I had performed. Maybe, I thought to myself, I could be like one of those people in the ancient fairytales that were told around the place, strong, handsome and able to live off the land easily. It was a pretty good daydream and I was sorry to end it when Tristram came running to tell me that we needed to leave because the group that we were following was going.

After two days of living like that we decided that we were far enough away from home to not run the risk of being sent back. We knew that we would get into a lot of trouble but it didn’t matter because already what we had done was fun enough to be worth any punishment that they could give us and we would carry on with them which meant yet more fun. Hopefully not too much work though. So that lunch we crawled into the camp and then popped into what we knew as Ursula’s tent to be greeted with a scream and then a spanking. We later found out though that Ursula had been pretty sure that we were going to follow them and wasn’t surprised at all when we showed up.

Immediately we were given jobs to do around the camp like packing people’s bags and collecting the water from the creek that we had followed up to here. Although we were very tired we were glad when it was time to leave to keep walking up the mountain. Now that we were in a group however it was a lot easier to keep on going because we could chatter away with our friends and Ursula and it took our minds from the tiredness that had formed in our legs and was spreading gradually upward.

That afternoon we passed over the summit of the shadow and were able to stare at each other in brilliant sunshine which was something that we had not seen for a long time. Just before the sun went down over the horizon in the west we saw what was undoubtedly a black carpet. Even though we were able to see from under this black carpet and we could walk out from under it we could not see down, underneath it from above. It looked like we would never find out why the shadow had gone over the valley from up here, but we agreed to go to the top of the hill anyway, before turning around to go back. I fell asleep quite early, as I was extremely tired from the amount of walking that we had done. When I woke up it was still dark. For a moment I had thought that the shadow had risen to above us but it hadn’t. I heard voices outside that had real urgency with them. I was about to go and see what was going on when Tristram came sprawling into my tent. The look on his face was of pure terror and he told me in a quick murmur: “The shadow has gone, Tim, and so has everything within it.” As I was scrambling to see if what he said was true, Tristram held me back and I didn’t bother to struggle. I watched as Ursula crawled into my tent as well, making it a real squash as it only fitted one person. She told me to get dressed quickly and to get out of there, which I did.

What I first realized when I first got out was that there was a distinct panic in the air, and that a whole small group of the adults had gone back into the area that was once covered in shadow. The second thing that I noticed was that the area that was once covered in shadow was now totally bare, no trees, no houses, and no villagers. It appeared that the shadow had eaten them up and had now left. When I told this to Tristram who I next saw though he told me that we didn’t know what had happened to them and that there was no point to go around guessing things. That was typical of him to always be acting all grown up. When I tried to tell Ursula what I thought though, to my surprise she told me just the same thing so I concluded that Tristram had come up with the same thing as I had but had already been told that by Ursula. I then got too confused so I stopped thinking about that and started thinking about what was there to be done. I noticed as well that the sun had risen and that it must surely be time for breakfast.

Ursula supplied not only our breakfast but also a story about something like this happening in a place near where she used to live. She said that it was a doing of a man who could do magic and called himself a wizard. She also said that he was an evil wizard, who used his magic to consume who villages to gain energy. She said that he must have been going to look for more of his food when he came across our little community in the middle of nowhere. It must have been ideal for him, as he didn’t want anybody to know about him and be forced to keep a lookout for him. She also said that we were in mortal danger, having survived his shadow he now ran the risk of us telling people about him and his presence in the area. Also our only chance of surviving was to not be caught, and to go to the nearest place of civilization which was safe, which we figured, was Lavisville.

The speed in which we were packed up and ready to leave was phenomenal. Within two minutes of the conclusion of the tale, we had left the place where we had camped for the night and we were walking toward the horizon in the east where it had been said that Lavisville was. Our pace had been picked up dramatically and the chat was no longer cheerful and enjoyable. There was barely any chat at all now and although Tristram and I were glad that the wizard hadn’t eaten us, we felt that we no longer enjoyed this trip. However we went along with the rest so as not to have too much chance of getting caught.

We traveled for more than a week until we had lost track of how long it had been since we had left the village, and fatigue had set among us like a termite traveling to the centre of a tree and killing from the inside. Tristram had been caught by the fatigue and we had to carry him to the next camp. It seemed we had no choice now but to let the exhausted rest for a while. I watched Ursula who seemed to now have taken over the leadership over the group since the day we saw the shadow lift, care over the tired. She gave them love and they got better, not enough for us to leave now but sufficiently better to cut down on the length of our stay here.

The next day I woke up earlier than usual and found that Ursula was the only other person awake. Automatically I moved toward her as she was my mother and she saw me and beckoned for me to come over.

“This fatigue, it can’t all be coincidence for it to happen all at once.” She said to me and I understood what she meant and listened carefully to what she had to say now.

“I took a walk this morning while it was dark and I couldn’t be seen easily and I saw something.” She pointed toward the bushy area to the left of us and I understood that she must mean me to see something that was in there. We moved quietly towards the area that she had pointed at and it took us 10 minutes for us to get there but it was well worth the 10-minute walk.

What we saw was an arrangement of footprints that was in a funny pattern, sort of like the way that I noticed Ursula used to walk but Ursula had never walked this strangely. I heard her whisper that it was a wizard’s way of walking and then I knew that the camp was under attack. I left Ursula behind, crashing through the undergrowth like a mad rabbit, running as fast as I knew how. Ursula, I knew would be following me but she would never catch me before I got back. What had been a 10-minute walk turned into a 2 minute run and as I came into the camp I saw that everything was on fire. Screams filled the air and I saw that the place was in chaos. I had no idea of what I wanted to do but I knew that I had to do something. There was a definite feel of magic in the air.

Ursula, panting, came to a halt next to me but she seemed to know exactly what to do. She pushed me forward and then followed me to the centre of the camp where we felt the most magic was. Undoubtedly she had no ideas of running away and seeking refuge from this horror whatever it was. And then I realized that Ursula had been right about the evil wizard, there was no escape from him, we had to fight and there was the slimmest chance that we might survive. The closer we got to the area that we were heading for, the more I crept behind my mother, paralyzed with fear and anticipation of the worst. And then we were there; standing with the tallish man that was definitely the person behind these horrors. A reddish glow shimmered around the wizard’s outline like protective armour made from light.

“Reya!” my mother whispered as she stared at the figure and the wizard looked up and saw us.

“Ursula!” He said in reply and I wondered how he could ever have known my mother’s name. “Ursula, it’s been a long time hasn’t it?” He croaked and a grin broke out in his face.

“You haven’t changed from the time when we went to magic school together, haven’t you?” My mother said, forcing the words out of her mouth. I was in shock that my mother had learnt magic at a magic school, I never knew of that before and wondered why I was not told.

“You were always the weakling, unable to complete anything, not able to perform any magic.” Reya replied as I figured that was what his name was.

“Well it will be a shame to kill you but I suppose I will have to.” Reya spoke remorsefully, as if he enjoyed the killing that he had done. As he stepped forward a rumbling sound came from the ground beneath him and a large pit formed from under his feet. He jumped to the side and nodded his approval at Ursula who was now panting from the effort of doing her magic.

“It was a nice try but now you have exhausted yourself. Take a rest and watch while I slaughter your son.” I suppose that meant me. I wasn’t going to give in though. I picked up a wooden stick and hurled it at him with all the strength I could muster but it vanished before it hit him and he laughed. As he brought his hand in the air to perform some deadly curse my mother yelled in terror and dived at Reya.

“Noooooo” she yelled and I watched as if in slow motion, as Ursula wrapped herself around his legs and clutched there, sobbing and screaming at the same time. He reached down to pull her away from him and then toppled losing his balance and falling to the ground. Ursula pulled with all her strength at his body and down they fell into the pit that had been made, both of them screaming at the same time. Down they fell beneath the earth and into the clutches of death. Tears fell down my face as I moved over to the pit and stared down, unable to see the bottom, unable to see their blood, run together in a puddle on the bottom of the pit. My mother had gone along with the evil of the wizard and again a sacrifice of the brave and good was needed to defeat evil. I would now go and find Tristram and together we would build a community and try and forget the evil of Reya, but we would never forget our mother who was courageous, virtuous and was loyal.

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