Muffly
ENG 300
Worst Story Ever
Told
Collected from an Introduction to Creative Writing
workshop at a 4-year college in NYC
CHAPTER I
Amber Tanya Charles is eleven years old. She is in
the sixth grade at P.S. 205 in Queens, New York. She has been on the
honor roll since the first grade. Her hobbies are singing, dancing, and
playing the piano. Her best friend is Lisa Hernandez who is thirteen
years old and very mature for her age. Amber and Lisa have known each
other almost for ten and a half years. Lisa's grandmother has been
Amber's babysitter since she was six months old. Buttercup is the name
of Amber's Shih Tzu dog, Amber had got her for a Christmas gift last
year. She is the most adorable and loving little doggie in the world.
She is very affectionate and loving.
The fact that she was beautiful was
undeniable, but for Ryan the attraction went far beyond the physical. He
had already sown his wild oats, had plenty of sexual escapades back in
the throes of his drug addiction. But kicking his habits and
transferring to a new school to get away had taught Ryan what it really
meant to be lonely, and corny as it may sound, meeting Chris was like a
light at the end of a tunnel. They knew everything about each other from
his drug addiction, to her hatred of her father, to their past sexual
experiences. Everything was out in the open.
Nicholas knows that if he
expects to sleep in his own house that night, he must act like the
proper gentle-man he used to be when he met his wife five years ago, and
not like the secretive painter he has evolved into. She had the elegant
looks of Audrey Hepburn, but these looks quietly faded after she
miscarried their child and became enraged with the cruelty of the world.
These canvas paintings have long been covered by large white sheets.
Our
eyes meet. There he is, wearing all black. It's the way he smells. It's
the fresh hair cut, the well kept goatee. I show him my posters of
Linkin Park and Metallica. I show him my skateboard. I show him my
Batman sheets and he laughs at me. He lays me over the Bat Signal and
takes off his wet clothes. I'm waiting.
His studio was almost filled to
capacity with decorative oil paintings of their pond and surrounding
marshland.
CHAPTER II
Oh my God, I don't believe I don't have cable
again. Why is the T.V not working, oh my God! My show, my show! "Hello.
Yes. This is unbelievable. How are you going to tell me that I have to
wait until Monday to get my TV fixed? Why can't somebody come in today
to fix this?" I asked. "How can you tell me that? I've got to go this
whole weekend without a TV. This is outrageous. All my bills are paid on
time. How can you run a business like this?"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I
cannot believe that it took me so long to apologize for what has been
the darkness at the end of your tunnel. Sue Sue, I haven't told you this
before, but I can't stand living this way anymore. I want to move
forward, not
backwards from now on. Let's not live in the past anymore.
I want to fall in love with you all over again. I swear...oh, I swear,
things will be better than before."
"I want that too. Let's do this for
Little Johnny's sake."
CHAPTER III
I believe actually the day before we got our puppy, Maggie,
my dad (who needless to say can be embarrassingly corny at times) said
to me "Caitlin, I want you to think about how Maggie is going to change
your life." Before we brought Maggie home (I'm not exaggerating) we must
have blew upwards of four hundred dollars on literally dog crap. My dad
has a habit of annoyingly telling everyone and I mean everyone when he
gets excited. I mean a new watch, so you can imagine what a new puppy
did to him. Having Maggie around wasn't like having any other family
member she was different. It's not like when she gets mad she won't want
to play or she will ever get to busy to listen if there is something
important to tell, so what if she might not talk back, sometimes I think
I like that better. I can remember one morning around this time that my
brother had left a cookie on the counter and Maggie (still not having
completely abandoning her criminal ways) stole it and ate it. Its common
knowledge that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, and my ten year old
brother thought that he had just gone and killed our puppy just as he
was starting to like her.
As I have gotten a little bit older and more
comfortable thinking about things that are not always so concrete I have
thought about that question quite often. Maybe my dad's corniness has
rubbed off on me. How has Maggie changed my life?
"That's stupid." Was
my brothers response. Don't you just love how little kids sometimes
reach inside our brains and pull the words right out. It's great because
they say just what you are thinking only your to afraid or polite to
blurt it out.
Our flight leaves in exactly two hours. Our Carnival
Destiny cruise ship leaves from San Juan, Mexico in exactly eight hours.
With great anticipation, I board the plane. I read a magazine to try
and pass the time. It's not working. The seconds feel like hours. I
throw a Bob Marley CD into my Discman. As I sit back, I think about how
much fun we are going to have.
See I have my own little tradition. I
always seem to get constipated before a plane ride. I like to think that
there is this little man living in my colon and when he gets word that I
will be traveling by air he brings his hammer and nails and builds a
little door that stops the poop from coming out. It sort of comforts me
if I picture it that way. Anyway for some reason, even though I was good
and stuffed up, I didn't think it would be enough this time, so I
decided to wear dirty clothes and underwear.
Within in the first night,
Rob and I decided to enter the Millionaire's Club. We had gotten changed
into our suites just before dinner. I threw on my favorite cologne,
Abercrombie and Fitch, and tied my Armani shoes. I geld my hair and put
on my new fossil watch. I looked over at Rob when we were finished
getting ready. We had never looked this good. If either of us were gay,
we would never have made it out that night. My body tingled from head to
toe, as I realized how beautiful life could be. I was as free as the
birds that fly above. The ocean, land, and air that night could not have
been more graceful.
As I was in the middle of my daydream, I realized
the phone had been ringing. I quickly went for it. It was Sophie. "Hi,
you know that tonight is Betty's sixty-fifth birthday celebration." I
met Sophie in middle school, she was a weird child, didn't
dress like
the rest of us. She had an ugly hair cut, braces, and at one point even
thought she was a hippie, but she was a great person with a good heart.
I fished around in the purse for my key, jumped into my Denali and
headed for the highway. As I put my signal on for my exit I suddenly
felt a blow to my head. I lay senseless. A pickup hit me from the right
side. I couldn't feel my legs. Sharp pains ran up and down my body. I
couldn't move. I just laid there. High pitched screams were coming from
somewhere. It was all happening so fast. Blood was everywhere. I closed
my eyes and began to pray.
Finding out later, I had been in a comma for the past month.
