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Remember When
The basketball hit the ground, bounced once, then rolled under a rosebush. Three sharp shrieks rang out from the upstairs window where his older sister, Clare, had been watching.
Alex stood motionless, his eyes unblinking, his lungs frozen as the yard gate slammed back into its rusty latch. Within seconds Clare was tearing out of the back door and across the lawn towards him. He did not notice her until she had clamped both hands on his arms and begun to shake him witlessly. Alex turned away from the gate and stared at his sister. For someone so beautiful, her features seemed remarkably grotesque as she screamed and screamed into his face, her razor-thin eyebrows higher than he’d ever seen them go. He looked down at his torso; the wooden knife handle was all that remained, jutting out from his gut as though it were a slab of luncheon meat.
‘OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!’ screamed Clare, flapping about him like a banshee.
Alex remained mute. Nothing was making any sense. It was like he’d just tuned in to a silent film. Why couldn’t he hear? It was obvious his sister was screaming her head off, he could see the spit flying from her mouth, he could even lip read some of the words, and yet still he heard nothing.
‘We have to go to the hospital. We have to go now, you hear me?’
When Alex failed to respond Clare began to pull him.
‘We don’t have time, you’re bleeding all over the place. We need to go now! Come on!’ she demanded, tugging at his arms, enough to budge him
He shuffled forwards and swatted her away.
‘Let me go’ he insisted in a strange, pensive voice.
‘I can’t Alex! We have to go...please,’ begged Clare, who had begun to cry hysterically.
Her mind felt gridlocked; she didn’t know what to do. She knew her brother would bleed to death if she didn’t act fast. Attempting to compose herself, she took hold of his shoulders and began to speak to him more calmly. From her speech Alex could decipher the words ‘phone’ and ‘ambulance.’ As she began to move away he reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist.
‘Don’t leave me,’ he pleaded, his eyes flooded with dread, ‘I don’t want to die here.’
Clare studied him for a moment, looked down at the wound then cupped his cheek in her hand and tried to smile through her tears. She began to speak very slowly aware that he was having trouble understanding her.
‘You’re going to be fine o.k.; I just need to go inside to ph-’
Without warning a thunderous, crashing noise echoed through the garden. Alex jerked his head; his hearing had finally been penetrated. Clare was looking towards the hedges.
‘What the hell was that?’ he heard her say.
Neither had time to find out what had caused the noise as at that moment the most awful pain ripped through Alex’s abdomen. He doubled over; gasped for breath then slowly lurched forwards and fell onto his side, missing his sister’s fingernails by centimeters.
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Christopher Atley knew he was done for. Tears blurred his vision as he sped down Carlisle Road and swerved into Malbrough Avenue, veering up onto the pavement, almost clipping a mailbox. He could not wipe Clare’s face from his mind. He continued to replay the moment, when his eyes had met hers through the upstairs window pane, seconds before the stabbing. He knew then, as he did now, that she’d never be able to forgive him. Alex was her brother; he’d killed him. The circumstances were irrelevant. What was once so important now seemed frivolous. Who cared what Alex had done? Surely it wasn’t enough to warrant this?
His mobile phone began to vibrate against the dashboard. ‘Fuck you Steven! Fuck you!’ he shouted picking it up. ‘This is your fucking fault,’ he bellowed as the phone continued to vibrate in his hand. He tossed it out of the window.
Alex was dead; there was no getting past it, he’d felt the knife go in all the way. He’d just killed someone.
Breaking hard he opened the car door and vomited next to a water gratin.
‘God forgive me,’ he thought as he retched, ‘please don’t let him die.’
There was a loud beeping noise, a screech of tires but Chris continued to throw up, right until the blue transit van came hurtling towards him.
He woke up with his left leg dangling over his shoulder.The first thing he heard was the distant sound of a girl screaming. Chris recognized the voice in an instant. It was Clare. He looked up to the sky and closed his eyes.
Sometimes revenge isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Last edited by Holden Blake : 04-28-2008 at 03:49 PM.
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Good luck.
