Storyline

Many stories and legends tell the origin of the Chinese zodiac or Chinese horoscope (shēngxiào - 生肖), but the most well-known (and also most fun) one states that the Jade Emperor invited the entire animal kingdom to partake in a tremendous race! The first 12 animals able to cross the river, would be assigned to a year of the Chinese zodiac system in order of appearance.

All the animals were very excited and the news spread rapidly. On the day of the race all the animals gathered at the bank of the river. Rat, although the smallest animal in the zodiac system, won the race. It would seem rather unlikely that such a small animal would win this race, don’t you think?

Well, Rat, although very small and not a good swimmer at all, used his brain and played a little trick! He convinced Ox that together they would have a better chance of winning. Ox being very strong and Rat gifted by a marvelous sight would be a winning team! So, Rat hopped on the back of Ox. When they neared the other side of the river however, Rat quickly jumped ahead and was named first animal of the Chinese zodiac, followed by Ox, who came in second. Tiger claimed third prize. Although it was difficult to cross the river, Tiger made it thanks to his strength. Following closely was Rabit, who had crossed the river by jumping from one stone to the other. Dragon, who was expected to finish first, had to stop to make rain to help all the creatures on earth and came in fifth place. Then, a galloping sound was heard and Horse arrived. Snake, hidden in the hoof of Horse, suddenly appeared, scared Horse and was named 6th animal. Horse ended 7th.

After that, Goat, Monkey and Rooster reached the shore. By working together they were able to cross the river. Very satisfied by this teamwork, the Jade Emperor assigned Goat as the 8th animal of the cycle, Monkey as the 9th and Rooster as the 10th. Dog became the 11th animal, since he couldn’t resist to play a little bit longer in the river before crossing it. Finally, the last to arrive was Pig. He got hungry during the race and stopped to grab a quick bite, but fell asleep afterwards. And this is how the Chinese zodiac was formed.

Why Cat & Mouse become Sworn Enemies

 

Cat and Rat where the best of friends, the kind of friends that spends almost every waking hour together. Both were very excited about the news of the great race and immediately started to make plans to cross the river. On the day of the race, Cat wanted to take a little nap before partaking in the race, since it would ask a lot of effort and would therefore be very exhausting. Winning this race, however, was the only thing Rat could think about. So, instead of waking up Cat, Rat silently sneaked out and spurred to the shore of the river. After enjoying his splendid nap in the sun, Cat woke up to discover the race was already over and Rat had finished first. He was devastated and furious at the same time and swore to hate Rat forever. That is why Cat chased after Rat…and cats all over the world nowadays still do.

Posted by : Admin ST-Rex
Source : http://www.hutong-school.com/origin-chinese-zodiac-why-cats-and-rats-are-sworn-enemies
Gallery :

年 (Nian, Year)
There are many legends that are part of the Chinese culture. Many of them exemplify moral lessons, not so different from Aesop and his fables. One story in particular is the story of Chinese New Years.
Long ago in the mountains, there lived a horrible demon creature named Nian. Every year, on the first day of the year, the creature would awaken and descend upon the village. He would eat all the grain and livestock. And if there were any unfortunately children stuck outside, they would disappear.

The villagers lived in fear of this beast and boarded up their houses on this night to protect their families. One year, right before this event was to occur, an old man visited the village. He turned to the villagers and asked, "Why do you fear this creature such? You are many and he is but one. Surely he could not swallow all of you."

But the villagers remained skeptical and locked themselves up anyway. That night, Nian did not come. The old man had ridden him until dawn and the creature went back to its cave hungry. This went on for several nights until the old man revealed, "I cannot protect you forever."

He turned out to be a god and had to return to his duties elsewhere. The villagers were terrified that once the old man left, they would once again see Nian return.

So the old man informed them, "The beast is easily scared. He does not like the color red. He fears loud noises and strange creatures. So tonight, spread red across the village. Hang red signs on every door. Make loud noises with drums, music, and fireworks. And to protect your children, give them face masks and lanterns to protect them."

The villagers did as the old man instructed and Nian never returned again.

In Chinese, the word for New Years is Guo Nian. Literally translated it means to "pass over Nian" or "overcome Nian". That is exactly what the villagers did.

It has become a tradition that part of New Years celebration is to hang lots of red decoration in your house. Streets are filled with music, loud drums, and fireworks all day long. And special paper lanterns are made in a variety of shapes and sizes, paraded through the streets to scare off any demons that might come.

Thus ends the story of Chinese New Years or Guo Nian.

Posted by : admin ST-Rex
source      : http://www.chinesenewyearfestival.org/culture/19-the-story-of-chinese-new-year-

posted by : admin ST-Rex

Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana
tidak seperti cinta yg mereka jajakan di tepian trotoar jalan
murah dan rusak...

Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana
tidak dengan sebatang coklat manis pemberian
hanya menjalani pahit manis kisah cinta...

Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana
sesederhana malam menggantikan siang



Inspired by : Sapardi Djoko Damono
Created by  : A.A.L
Original : http://the-story-liner.blogspot.com/2015/02/aku-ingin.html

Bagai biola tak bedawai, begitulah hidup di tengah badai. Tak bisa menghasilkan melodi yang dapat menggerakkan nadi
Bagai gitar tak bersenar,begitulah pikiran yang samar samar.Tak tercipta nada,hanya gundah yang ada
Bagai piano tanpa string, begitulah suasana jiwa yang hening. Tak bisa menghasilkan simfoni yang memberi hidup warna warni
Bagai drum tanpa simbal, begitu juga perkataan yang bebal.Tak punya irama hanya kebodohan yang sama
Bagai vokal tanpa suara ,begitu juga hati yang lara. Tak bisa menghasilkan senandung karena hati selalu mendung
Akhirnya bagai orkestra tanpa musik, begitulah jika dirimu tidak asik. Tak ada jiwa yang dapat bersenyawa menghadirkan canda tawa

Created by : admin ST-Rex

Previous :Screens

On the first day of Kindergarten my mother had elected to drive me to school; we were both nervous and she wanted to be there with me all the way up to the moment I walked into class. It took me a bit longer to get ready in the morning due to my still-mending arm. The cast came up a couple inches past my elbow which meant that I had to cover the entire arm with a specially-designed latex bag when I showered. The bag was built to pull tight around the opening in order to seal out any water that might otherwise destroy the cast. I had gotten really adept at cinching the bag myself; that morning, however, perhaps due to my excitement or nervousness, I hadn’t pulled the strap tight enough and halfway through the shower I could feel water pooling inside the bag around my fingers. I jumped out and tore the latex shield away, but could feel that the previously rigid plaster had become soft after absorbing the water.
Because there is no way to effectively clean the area between your body and a cast, the dead skin that would normally have fallen away merely sits there. When stirred by moisture like sweat it emits an odor, and apparently this odor is proportionate to the amount of moisture introduced, because soon after I began attempting to dry it I was struck by the powerful stench of rot. As I continued to frantically rub it with the towel it began to disintegrate. I was growing increasingly distressed – I had put as much effort as a child could into his very first day of school. I had sat with my mom picking out my clothes the night before; I had spent a great deal of time picking out my backpack; and I had become exceedingly excited to show everyone my lunchbox that had the Ninja Turtles on it. I had fallen into my mom’s habit of calling these children I hadn’t yet met my “friends” already, but as the condition of my cast worsened I became deeply upset at the thought that surely I wouldn’t be able to apply that label to anyone by the time this day was over.
Defeated, I showed my mom.
It took 30 minutes to get most of the moisture out while working to preserve the rest of the cast. To address the problem of the smell my mom cut slivers off a bar of soap and slid them down into the cast, and then rubbed the remainder of the soap on the outside in an attempt to cocoon the rancid smell inside of a more pleasant one. By the time we arrived at the school my classmates were already engaged in their second activity and I was shoehorned into one of the groups. I wasn’t made very clear on what the guidelines of the activity were and within about five minutes I had violated the rules so badly that each member of the group complained to the teacher and asked why I had to be in their group. I had brought a marker to school hopes that I could collect some signatures or drawings on my cast next to my mother’s, and I suddenly felt very foolish for having even put the marker in my pocket that morning.
Kindergarteners had the lunchroom to themselves at my elementary school, but some of the tables were off limits, so I didn’t have to sit alone. I was self-consciously picking at the fraying ends of my cast when a kid sat across from me.
“I like your lunchbox,” he said.
I could tell he was making fun of me, and I grew really angry; in my mind that lunchbox was the last good thing about my day. I didn’t look up from my arm, and I felt a burning in my eyes from the tears that I was holding back. I looked up to tell the kid to leave me alone, but before I could get the words out I saw something that made me pause.
He had the exact same lunchbox.
I laughed. “I like your lunchbox too!”
“I think Michelangelo’s the coolest,” he said while miming Nunchuck moves.
I was in the middle of rebutting by saying that Raphael was my favorite when he knocked his open carton of milk off the table and onto his lap.
I tried very hard to stifle my laughter since I didn’t know him at all, but the struggling look on my face must have struck him as funny because he started laughing first. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about my cast, and thought that this person would hardly notice now anyway. Just then, I thought to try my luck.
“Hey! Do you wanna sign my cast?”
As I pulled out the marker he asked me how I broke it. I told him that I fell out of the tallest tree in my neighborhood; he seemed impressed. I watched him laboriously draw his name, and when he was done I asked him what it said.
He told me it said “Josh.”
Josh and I had lunch together every day, and whenever we could we partnered up for projects. I helped him with his handwriting, and he took the blame when I wrote “Fart!” on the wall in permanent marker. I would come to know other kids, but I think I knew even then that Josh was my only real friend.
Moving a friendship outside of school when you are 5 years old is actually more difficult than most remember. The day we launched our balloons we had such a good time that I asked Josh if he wanted to come to my house the next day to play. He said he did and that he’d bring some of his toys; I said that we could also go exploring and maybe swim in the lake. When I got home I asked my mom and she said it would be fine. My enthusiasm was boundless until I realized that I had no way of contacting Josh to tell him. I spent the whole weekend worrying that our friendship would be dissolved by Monday.
When I saw him after the weekend I was relieved to find that he had run into the same obstacle and thought it was funny. Later that week we both remembered to write down our phone numbers at home and then exchange them at school. My mom spoke with Josh’s dad, and it was decided that my mom would pick up Josh and myself from school that Friday. We alternated this basic structure nearly every weekend; the fact that we lived so close made things much easier on our parents who seemed to work constantly.
When my mom and I moved across the city at the end of 1st grade I was sure that our friendship had seen its last day; as we drove away from the house I had lived in my whole life I felt a sadness that I knew wasn’t just about a house – I was saying goodbye to my friend forever. But, Josh and I – to my surprise and delight – stayed close.
Despite the fact that we spent the majority of our time apart and only saw one another on weekends, we remained remarkably similar as we grew. Our personalities coalesced, our senses of humor complimented each other’s, and we would often find that we had started liking new things independently. We even sounded enough alike that when I stayed with Josh he would sometimes call my mom pretending to be me; his success rate was impressive. My mom would sometimes joke that the only way she could tell us apart sometimes was by our hair – he had straight, dirty-blonde hair like his sister, while I had curly, dark brown hair like my mother.
One would think that the thing most likely to drive two young friends apart would be what’s out of their control; however, I think the catalyst of our gradual disengagement was my insistence that we sneak out to my old house to look for Boxes. The next weekend I invited Josh over to my house, in keeping with our tradition of alternating houses, but he said that he wasn’t really feeling up to it. We started seeing progressively less of one another over the next year or so; it had gone from once a week, to once a month, to once every couple months.
For my 12th birthday my mom threw a party for me. I hadn’t made that many friends since we’d moved, so it wasn’t a surprise party since my mom had no idea who to invite. I told the handful of kids I’d become acquainted with and called Josh to see if he wanted to come. Originally, he said that he didn’t think he could make it, but the day before the party he called me to say that he’d be there. I was really excited because I hadn’t seen him in several months.
The party went pretty well. My biggest concern was that Josh and the other kids wouldn’t get along, but they seemed to like each other well enough. Josh was surprisingly quiet. He hadn’t brought me a gift and apologized for that, but I told him it wasn’t a big deal – I was just glad that he was able to make it. I tried to start several conversations with him, but they seemed to keep reaching dead ends. I asked him what was wrong; I told him that I didn’t get why things had become so awkward between us – they were never like that before. We used to hang out almost every weekend and talk on the phone every couple days. I asked him what happened to us. He looked up from staring at his shoes and just said,
“You left.”
Just after he said that my mom yelled in from the other room that it was time to open presents. I forced a smile and walked into the dining room as they sang “Happy Birthday.” There were a couple of wrapped boxes and a lot of cards since most of my extended family lived out of state. Most of the gifts were silly and forgettable, but I remember that Brian gave me a Mighty Max toy shaped like a snake that I kept for years afterwards. My mom was insistent that I open all the cards that had been brought and thank each person who had given one because several years before on Christmas I had torn through the wrapping paper and envelopes with such fervor that I had destroyed any possibility of discerning who had sent which gift or what amount of money. We separated the ones that had been sent by mail and the ones that had been brought that day so my friends wouldn’t have to sit through me opening cards from people they had never met. Most of the cards from my friends had a couple dollars in them, and the ones from my family members contained larger bills.
One envelope didn’t have my name written on it, but it was in the pile so I opened it. The card had a generic floral pattern on its face and seemed to be a card that had been received by someone else who was now recycling it for my birthday because it was actually a little dingy. I actually appreciated the idea that it was a reused card since I’d always thought that cards were silly. I angled it so that the money wouldn’t fall to the floor when I opened it, but the only thing inside was the message that had come printed in the card.
“I Love You.”
Whoever had given me this card hadn’t written anything in it, but they had circled the message in pencil a couple times.
I chuckled a little and said, “Gee, thanks for the awesome card, mom.”
She looked at me quizzically and then turned her attention to the card. She told me it wasn’t from her and seemed amused as she showed my friends, looking at their faces trying to discern who had played the joke. None of the kids stepped forward, so my mom said,
“Don’t worry sweetheart, at least you know now that two people love you.”
She followed that with an extremely prolonged and excruciating kiss on my forehead that transformed the group’s bewilderment into hysteria. They were all laughing so it could have been any of them, but Mike seemed to be laughing the hardest. To become a participant rather than the subject of the gag I said to him that just because he had given me that card he shouldn’t think that I’d kiss him later. We all laughed, and as I looked at Josh I saw he was finally smiling.
“Well, I think that gift might be the winner, but you have a couple more to open.”
My mom slid another present in front of me. I was still feeling the tremors of suppressed chuckles in my abdomen as I tore the colorful paper away. When I saw the gift I had no need to suppress the laughter anymore. My smile dropped as I looked at what I’d been given.
It was a pair of walkie-talkies.
“Well go on! Show everyone!”
I held them up, and everyone seemed to approve, but as I drew my attention to Josh I could see that he had turned a sickly shade of white. We locked eyes for a moment and then he turned and walked into the kitchen. As I watched him dial a number on the corded phone attached to the wall my mom whispered in my ear that she knew that Josh and I didn’t talk as much since one of the walkie-talkies had broken, so she thought I’d like it. I was filled with an intense appreciation for my mom’s thoughtfulness, but this feeling was easily overpowered by the emotions resurrected by the returning memories I’d tried so hard to bury.
When everyone was eating cake I asked Josh who he had called. He told me he wasn’t feeling well so he called his dad to come get him. I understood that he wanted to leave, but I told him that I wished we could hang out more. I extended one of the walkie-talkies to him, but he put his hand up in refusal.
Dejected, I said, “Well thanks for coming, I guess. I hope I’ll see you before my next birthday.”
“I’m sorry … I’ll try to call you back more often. I really will.” he said.
The conversation stagnated as we waited by my door for his dad. I looked at his face. Josh seemed genuinely remorseful that he hadn’t made more of an effort. His mood seemed suddenly bolstered by an idea that had struck him. He told me that he knew what he’d get me for my birthday – it would take a while, but he thought that I would really like it. I told him it wasn’t a big deal, but he insisted. He seemed in better spirits and apologized for being such a drag at my party. He said that he was tired – that he hadn’t been sleeping well. I asked him why that was as he opened the door in response to his dad’s honking in the driveway. He turned back toward me and waved goodbye as he answered my question,
“I think I’ve been sleepwalking.”
That was the last time I saw my friend, and a couple months later he was gone.
Over the past several weeks the relationship between my mother and I has grown increasing strained due to my attempts to learn the details of my childhood. It’s often the case that one cannot know the breaking point of a thing until that thing fractures, and after the last conversation with my mother I imagine that we will spend the rest of our lives attempting to repair what had taken a lifetime to build. She had put so much energy into keeping me safe, both physically and psychologically, but I think that the walls meant to insulate me from harm were also protecting her emotional stability. As the truth came pouring out the last time we spoke I could hear a trembling in her voice that I think was a reverberation of the collapse of her world. I don’t imagine my mother and I will talk very much anymore, and while there are still some things I don’t understand, I think I know enough.
After Josh disappeared, his parents had done all that they could to find him. From the very first day, the police had suggested that they contact all of Josh’s friends’ parents to see if he was with them. They did this, of course, but no one had seen him or had any idea of where he might be. The police had been unable to turn over any new information about Josh’s whereabouts, despite the fact that they had received several anonymous phone calls from a woman urging them to compare this case with the stalking case that had been opened about 6 years before.
If Josh’s mother’s grip on the world loosened when her son vanished, it broke when Veronica died. She had seen many people die at the hospital, but there is no amount of desensitization that can fortify a person against the death of her own child. She would visit Veronica twice a day since she was recuperating at a different hospital; once before her shift, and once afterward. On the day Veronica died, her mother was late leaving work, and by the time she arrived at her daughter’s hospital Veronica had already passed. This was too much for her and over the next couple weeks she became increasingly more unstable; she would often wander outside yelling for both Josh and Veronica to come home, and there were several times her husband found her wandering around my old neighborhood in the middle of the night – half-clothed and frantically searching for her son and daughter.
Due to his wife’s mental deterioration, Josh’s dad could no longer travel for work and began taking construction jobs that were less well-paying, so he could be closer to home. When they began expanding my old neighborhood more, about 3 months after Veronica died, Josh’s dad applied for every position and was hired. He was qualified to lead the build sites, but he took a job as a laborer helping to build frames and clean up the sites and whatever else was needed. He even took odd jobs that would occasionally come up; mowing lawns, repairing fences – anything that to keep from traveling. They began clearing the woods in the area next to the tributary to transform the land into inhabitable property. Josh’s dad was tasked with the responsibility of leveling the recently deforested lot, and this job guaranteed him at least several weeks of work.
On the third day, he arrived at a spot that he could not level. Each time he’d drive over it, it would remain lower than all the surrounding land. Frustrated he got off the machine to survey the area. He was tempted to simply pack more dirt into the depression, but he knew that would only be an aesthetic and temporary solution. He had worked construction for years and knew that root systems from large trees that had been recently cut down would often decompose leaving weaknesses in the soil that would manifest as weaknesses in the foundations above. He weighed his options and elected to dig a little with a shovel in case the problem was shallow enough to fix without needing a machine that would have to be brought over from another site. And as my mother described where this was, I knew I had been at that spot both before the soil was broken and before it had been filled in.
I felt a tightening in my chest.
He dug a small hole about 3 feet down until his shovel collided with something hard. He smashed his shovel against it repeatedly in an attempt to gauge the thickness of the root and the density of the network when suddenly his shovel plunged through the resistance.
Confused, he dug the hole wider. After about a half-hour of excavating he found himself standing on a brown blanket-covered box about seven feet long and four feet wide. Our minds work to avoid dissonance – if we hold a belief strongly enough our minds will forcefully reject conflicting evidence so that we can maintain the integrity of our understanding of the world.
Up until the very next moment, despite what all sense would have indicated – despite the fact that some small but suffocated part of him understood what was supporting his weight – this man believed, he knew, his son was still alive.
My mom received a call at 6 p. m. She knew who it was, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. But what she did comprehend made her leave immediately.
“DOWN HERE … NOW … SON … PLEASE GOD.”
When she arrived she found Josh’s dad sitting perfectly still with his back to the hole. He was holding the shovel so tightly it seemed that it might snap, and he was staring straight ahead with eyes that looked as lifeless as a shark’s. He wouldn’t respond to any of her words, and only reacted when she tried to gently take the shovel from him.
He dragged his eyes slowly to hers and just said, “I don’t understand.” He repeated this as if he had forgotten all other words, and my mother could hear him still muttering it as she walked past him to look in the hole.
She told me she wished she had gouged her eyes out before she faced downward into that crater, and I told her that I knew what she was about to say and that she need not continue. I looked at her face and it was expressing a look of such intense despair that it caused my stomach to turn. I realized that she had known of this for almost ten years and was hoping that she’d never have to tell me. As a result she never came up with the proper arrangement of words to describe what she saw, and as I sit here I’m met with the same difficulty of articulation.
Josh was dead. His face was sunken in and contorted in such a way that it was as if the misery and hopelessness of all the world had been transferred to it. The assaulting smell of decay rose from the crypt, and my mother had to cover her nose and mouth to keep from vomiting. His skin was cracked, almost crocodilian, and a stream of blood that had followed these lines had dried on his face after pooling and staining the wood around his head. His eyes lay half-lidded facing straight up. She said by the look of him he had not been long-dead, and thus time had not brought the mercy of degradation to erase the pain and terror that was now etched into his face. She said it was as if he had fixed his gaze right on her, his open mouth offering an all-too-late plea for help. The rest of his body, however, wasn’t visible.
Someone else was covering it.
He was large and lay face-down on top of Josh, and as my mother’s mind stretched itself to take in what her eyes were attempting to tell her she became aware of the significance of the way in which he laid.
He was holding Josh.
Their legs lay frozen by death, but entangled like vines in some lush, tropical forest. One arm rested under Josh’s neck only to wrap around his body so that they might lay closer still.
As the sun passed through the trees its light became reflected by something pinned to Josh’s shirt. My mother stooped to one knee and raised the collar of her shirt over her nose so that she might block out the smell. When she saw what had caught the sun her legs abandoned her and she nearly fell into the tomb.
It was a picture…
It was a picture of me as a child.
She staggered backwards gasping and trembling and collided with Josh’s father who still sat facing away from the hole. She understood why he had called her, but she could not bring herself to tell him what she had kept from everyone for all these years. Josh’s family never knew about the night I had woken up in the woods. She knew now that she should have told them, but to tell him now would help nothing. As she sat there resting her back against Josh’s dad’s. He spoke.
“I can’t tell my wife. I can’t tell her that our little boy---” his speech staggered in fits as he pressed his wet face into his dirt-caked hands. “She couldn’t bear it…”
After a moment he stood up still shuttering and lumbered toward the grave. With a final sob he stepped down into the coffin. Josh’s dad was a big man, but not as big as the man in the box. He grabbed the back of the man’s collar and pulled hard – it was as if he intended to throw the man out of the grave in a singular motion. But the collar ripped and the body fell back down on top of his son.
“YOU MOTHER FUCKER!”
He grabbed the man by the shoulders and heaved him back until he was off of Josh and sat awkwardly but upright against the wall of the grave. He looked at the man and staggered back a step.
“Oh God … Oh God, no. No, no, no please God, PLEASE GOD NO.”
In a struggling but powerful movement he lifted and pushed the corpse completely out of the ground and they both heard the sound of glass rolling against wood. It was a bottle. He handed it to my mother.
It was ether.
“Oh Josh.” He sobbed. “My boy … my baby boy. Why is there so much blood?! WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?!”
As my mother looked at the man who now lay facing upwards, she realized she was facing the person who had haunted our lives for over a decade. She had imagined him so many times, always evil and always terrifying, and the cries of Josh’s father seemed to confirm her worst fears. But as she stared at his face she thought that this didn’t look like who she imagined – this was just a man.
As she looked at his frozen expression, it actually looked serene. The corners of his lips were turned up only slightly; she saw that he was smiling. Not the expected smile of a maniac from a film or horror story; not the smile of a demon, or the smile of a fiend. This was the smile of contentment or satisfaction. It was a smile of bliss.
It was a smile of love.
As she looked down from his face she saw a tremendous wound on his neck from where the skin had been ripped out. She was at first relieved when she realized that the blood had not been Josh’s. Perhaps he had suffered less. But this comfort was short-lived as she realized just how wrong she was. She brought a hand up to her mouth and whispered, almost as if she was afraid to remind the world what had happened,
“They were alive.”
Josh must have bitten the man’s neck in an attempt to get free, and although the man had died Josh couldn’t move him. I began crying when I thought of how long he might have laid there.
She looked through the man’s pockets for some kind of identification, but she only found a piece of paper. On it was a drawing of a man holding hands with a small boy and next to the boy were initials.
My initials.
I’d like to think that she was remembering that part of the story inaccurately, but I’ll never know for sure.
As Josh’s father carried his son out of the grave my mom slid the piece of paper into her pocket. He kept muttering that his son’s hair had been dyed. She saw that it had – it was now dark brown, and she noticed that he was dressed oddly; his clothes were all far too small. After Josh’s dad delicately laid his boy on the soft dirt he began gently pressing his hands against his son’s pants to feel his pockets; he heard a crinkle. Carefully he retrieved a folded piece of paper from Josh’s pocket. He looked at it but was vexed. Absently, he handed it to my mother, but she didn’t recognize it either. I asked her what it was.
She told me it was a map, and I felt my heart shatter. He was finishing the map – that must have been his idea for my birthday present. I found myself strangely hoping that he hadn’t been taken while expanding it – as if that would somehow matter now.
She heard Josh’s father grunt and looked to see him pushing the man’s body back into the ground. As he walked back toward the machine that had found this spot for him he put his hand on a canister of gasoline and paused with his back toward my mother.
“You should go.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I did this.”
“You can’t think like that. There was nothi--”
He interjected flatly, almost with no emotion at all. “About a month ago a guy approached me as I was cleaning up the site on the new development a block over. He asked me if I wanted to make some extra money, and because my wife’s not working right now I accepted. He told me that some kids had dug a bunch of holes on his property and he offered me $100 to fill them in. He said that he wanted to take some pictures for the insurance company first, but if I came back after 5:00pm the next day that would be fine. I thought this guy was a sucker since I knew clearing that lot was coming up so someone would’ve had to do it anyway, but I needed the money so I agreed. I didn’t think he even had $100, but he put the bill in my hand, and I did the job the next day. I’ve been so exhausted that I didn’t even think about it after it was done. I didn’t think about it until today when I pulled that same guy off of my son.”
He pointed at the grave and his emotions started to push through as he broke into a sob.
“He paid me $100 so that I would bury him with my boy…”
It was as if saying it aloud forced him to accept what had happened, and he collapsed onto the ground in tears. My mother could think of nothing to say and stood there in silence for what felt like a lifetime. She finally asked what he would do about Josh.
“His final resting place won’t be here with this monster.”
As she looked back when she reached her car she could see black smoke billowing and diffusing against the amber sky and she hoped against all hope that Josh’s parents would be ok.
I left my mom’s house without saying much else. I told her that I loved her and that I would talk to her soon, but I don’t know what “soon” means for us. I got into my car and left.
I understood now why the events of my childhood had stopped years ago. As an adult, I now saw the connections that were lost on a child who tends to see the world in snapshots rather than a sequence. I thought about Josh. I loved him then, and I love him even still. I miss him more now that I know I’ll never see him again, and I find myself wishing that I had hugged him the last time I saw him. I thought about Josh’s parents – how much they had lost and how quickly that loss had come. They don’t know about my connection to any of this, but I could never look them in the eyes now. I thought about Veronica. I had only really come to know her later in my life, but for those brief few weeks I think I had really loved her. I thought about my mother. She had tried so hard to protect me and was stronger than I would ever be. I tried not to think about the man and what he had done with Josh for more than two years.
Mostly I just thought about Josh. Sometimes I wish that he never sat across from me that day in Kindergarten; that I’d never known what it was like to have a real friend. Sometimes I like to dream that he’s in a better place, but that’s only a dream, and I know that. The world is a cruel place made crueler still by man. There would be no justice for my friend, no final confrontation, no vengeance; it had been over for almost a decade for everyone but me now.
I miss you, Josh. I’m sorry you chose me, but I’ll always cherish my memories of you.
We were explorers.
We were adventurers.
We were friends.
Source : http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/kyshm/friends/
Credit : Dathan Auerbach
Posted by : admin-ST-Rex

Previous : Maps

I've intentionally withheld some details from a lot of my stories. I’ve let my hopes concerning the way things might be influence my evaluation of the way they actually are. I don’t think there’s any point to that anymore.
At the end of the summer between Kindergarten and 1st grade I caught the stomach flu. This has all of the components of the regular flu; however, with the stomach flu, you throw up in a bucket and not the toilet because you are sitting on it – the sickness gets purged from both ends. This lasted for about 10 days, but just before it had passed the sickness was granted an extension in the form of pink eye. My eyelids were so fused together by the dried mucus generated during the night that the first day I awoke with the infection I thought I had gone blind. When I started 1st grade I had a kink in my neck from 10 days of bed-rest and two swollen, bloodshot eyes. Josh was in another Group and didn’t have my lunch, so in a cafeteria bursting with 200 kids I still had a table to myself.
I started keeping spare food in my backpack that I would take into the bathroom to eat after lunch since my school meals were usually confiscated by older kids who knew I wouldn’t stand up to them since no one would stand with me. This dynamic persisted even after my condition cleared up since no one wants to be friends with the kid who gets bullied, lest they have some of that aggression directed toward themselves. The only reason this stopped was due to the actions of a kid named Alex.
Alex was in the 3rd grade and was bigger than most of the other kids in any grade. Around the 3rd week of school he started sitting with me at lunch, and this put an immediate end to the shortage of my food supply. He was nice enough, but he seemed kind of slow; we never really talked at length except for when I finally decided to ask why he had been sitting with me.
He had a crush on Josh’s sister, Veronica.
Veronica was in 4th grade and was probably the prettiest girl in the school. Even as a 6-year-old who fully endorsed the notion that girls were disgusting, I still knew how pretty Veronica was. When she was in 3rd grade, Josh told me, two boys had actually gotten into a physical fight which erupted out of an argument concerning the significance of the messages she had written in their yearbooks. One of the boys eventually hit the other in the forehead with the corner of the yearbook and the wound required stitches to close. While not one of those two boys, Alex wanted her to like him and confessed that he knew Josh and I were best friends; I gathered that he had hoped that I would convey his ostensibly philanthropic deed to Veronica and that she would presumably be so moved by his selflessness that she’d take an interest in him. If I told her he would continue to sit with me for as long as I needed him to.
Because this was during the time when Josh mostly stayed at my house building the raft and navigating tributary with me I didn’t have the chance to bring it up to Veronica because I simply didn’t see her. I told Josh about it and he made fun of Alex, but said that he would tell his sister since I wanted him to. I doubted that he would. Josh was annoyed that people seemed to be so taken with his sister. I remember him calling her an ugly crow. I never said anything to Josh, but I remember wanting to say, even then, that she was pretty and would one day be beautiful.
I was right.
When I was 15 I was seeing a movie at a place my friends and I had come to call the Dirt Theatre. It was probably nice at some point, but time and neglect had weathered the place severely. This theatre had movable tables and chairs on a level floor, so when the theatre was full there were very few places you could sit and see the whole screen. The theatre was still open, I imagine, for three reasons: 1) it was cheap to see a movie there; 2) they showed a different cult movie twice a month at midnight; and 3) they sold beer to underage kids during the midnight showings. I went for the first two, and that night they were showing Scanners by David Cronenberg for $1.00.
My friends and I were sitting in the very back. I wanted to sit closer to the front for a better view, but Ryan had driven us so I relented. A couple minutes before the movie started a group of girls walked in. They were all pretty attractive, but whatever beauty they might have had was eclipsed by the girl with the dirty blonde hair, even though I had only caught a glimpse of her profile. As she turned to move her seat I caught a full view of her face which gave me the feeling of butterflies in my stomach – it was Veronica.
I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Josh and I saw progressively less of one another after we snuck out to my old house that night when we were 10, and usually when I’d visit him she’d be out with friends. While everyone stared at the screen, I stared at Veronica – only looking away when the feeling that I was being a creep overcame me, but that feeling would quickly subside and my eyes would return to her. She really was beautiful, just like I had thought she’d be when I was a kid. When the credits started to roll my friends got up and left; there was only one exit and they didn’t want to be trapped waiting for the crowd to clear. I lingered in hopes of catching Veronica’s attention. As she and her friends walked by I took a chance.
“Hey, Veronica”
She turned toward me looking a little startled.
“Yeah?”
I got out of my seat and stepped a little into the light coming in through the open door.
“It’s me. Josh’s old friend from way back . . . How . . . How’ve you been?”
“Oh my god! HEY! It’s been so long!” she motioned to her friends that she’d be out in a second.
“Yeah, a few years at least! Not since the last time I stayed over with Josh. How is he anyway?”
“Oh, that’s right. I remember all you guys’ games. Do you still play Ninja Turtles with your friends?”
She laughed a little and I blushed.
“No. I’m not a kid anymore . . . Me and my friends play X-men now.” I was really hoping she’d laugh.
She did. “Haha! You’re cute. Do you come to these movies every time?
I was still reeling from what she said.
Does she really think I’m cute? Did she just mean I was funny? Does she think I’m attractive?
I suddenly realized that she had asked me a question, and my mind grasped for what it was.
“YEAH!” I said much too loudly. “Yeah, I try to anyway . . . what about you?”
“I come every now and then. My boyfriend didn’t like these movies but we just broke up so I plan on coming from now on.”
I was trying to be casual, but failed. “Oh, well that’s cool . . . not that you guys broke up! I just meant that you’d be able to come more often.”
She laughed again.
I tried to recover, “So are you coming the week after next? They’re supposed to show Day of the Dead. It’s really cool.”
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
She smiled, and I was about to suggest that maybe we could sit together when she quickly closed the space between us and hugged me.
“It was really good to see you,” she said with her arms around me.
I was trying to think of what to say when I realized the biggest problem was that I had forgotten how to talk. Luckily Ryan, who I could hear approaching from the hallway, came in and spoke for me.
“Dude. You know the movie’s over right? Let’s get the fuck outtu— OHHH YEAAHHH.”
Veronica let go and said that she’d see me next time. She was played out of the room by the porn music Ryan was making with his mouth. I was furious, but it dissipated as soon as I heard Veronica laughing in the lobby.
Day of the Dead couldn’t come soon enough. Ryan’s family was going out of town so he wouldn’t be able to drive us, and the other friends I was with that night didn’t have cars. A couple of days before the movie I asked my mom if she could take me. She responded almost immediately by denying my request, but I persisted and she picked up on the desperation in my voice. She asked why I wanted to go so badly since I had seen the movie before and I hesitated before saying that I was hoping to see a girl there. She smiled and asked playfully if she knew the girl and I reluctantly told her it was Veronica. The smile disappeared from her face and she coldly said “No.”
I decided that I would call Veronica to see if she could pick me up. I had no idea if she still lived at home, but it was worth a try. But then I realized that Josh might answer. I hadn’t talked to him in almost 3 years, and if he answered I obviously couldn’t ask to talk to his sister. I felt guilty for calling to speak with Veronica and not Josh, but I dismissed that feeling quickly; Josh hadn’t called me in years either. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that was still embedded in my muscle memory from having dialed it so often all those years ago.
It rang several times before someone picked up. It wasn’t Josh. I felt a mixture of both relief and disappointment – I realized in that second that I really missed Josh. I would call after this weekend and talk to him, but this was my only chance to see if Veronica could or would take me so I asked for her.
The person told me I had dialed the wrong number.
I repeated the number back to her, and she confirmed. She said they must have changed their number and I agreed. I apologized for the disturbance and hung up. I was suddenly intensely sad because now I couldn’t contact Josh even if I wanted to; I felt terrible for having been afraid that he might answer the phone. He had been my very best friend. I realized that the only way I could be put back in touch with him would be through Veronica, so now, not that I needed one, I had another reason to see her.
I told my mom the day before the movie that I was no longer concerned with going, but was hoping she could drop me off at my friend Chris’ house. She relented and dropped me off that Saturday a couple of hours before the movie. My plan was to walk from his house to the theatre since he only lived about a half-mile away. They went to church early on Sundays so his parents would go to sleep early Saturday night, and Chris was fine with not coming with me since he had planned on chatting with this girl he met online. He said that the walk back to his house would be even lonelier after she laughed in my face when I tried to kiss her, and I told him not to electrocute himself when he tried to have sex with his computer.
I left his house at 11:15.
I tried to pace myself so I’d get there just a little before the movie. I was going by myself and so I didn’t want to just hang around there waiting. On the way to the theatre I figured that if Veronica showed up at all it would be too lucky for us to arrive at the same time, so I debated whether I should wait outside or just go in. Both had their pros and cons. As I was grappling with these concerns I noticed that the steady stream of streaking car lights that had been overtaking me had been replaced by a single, constant spotlight that refused to pass. The road wasn’t illuminated by streetlights, so I was walking in the grass with the road about two feet to my left; I stepped a little more to my right and craned my neck over my left shoulder to see what was behind me.
A car had stopped about 10 feet behind me.
All I could see were the violently bright headlights that were cutting through the otherwise stygian surroundings. I thought that it might be one of Chris’ parents; maybe they had come to check in on us and seen that I was gone. It wouldn’t have taken much pressing for Chris to confess. I took one step toward the car, and it broke its pause and started driving toward me at a slow pace. It passed me and I saw that it wasn’t Chris’ parents’ car, or any car that I recognized for that matter. I tried to see the driver but it was too dark, and my pupils had shrunk when faced with the blinding lights from the car just moments before. They adjusted enough so that I could see a tremendous crack in the back window of the car as it drove away.
I didn’t think much of the whole affair; some people find it fun to scare other people – I’d often hide around corners and jump out at my mom, after all.
I timed it right and got there about 10 minutes before the movie. I had decided to wait outside until around 11:57, since that would give me time to find her inside if she was already seated. As I was considering the possibility that she might not show, I saw her.
She was alone, and she was beautiful.
I waved to her and walked to close the distance. She smiled and asked if my friends were already inside. I said that they weren’t and realized that this must seem like I was trying to make this a date. She didn’t seem bothered by that, nor was she bothered when I handed her the ticket I had already bought. She looked at me quizzically, and I said, “Don’t worry, I’m rich.” She laughed and we went inside.
I bought us one popcorn and two drinks and spent most of the movie debating whether or not I should time reaching my hand into the popcorn bag when she reached in so they would touch. She seemed to enjoy the movie and before I knew it, it was over. We didn’t linger in the theatre, and because this was a midnight show we couldn’t loiter in the lobby, so we walked outside.
The parking lot of the theatre was big because it connected with a mall that had gone out of business. Not wanting the night to be over just yet I continued the conversation while causally walking toward the old mall. As we were about to round the corner and leave the theatre out of sight I looked back and saw that her car wasn’t the only one left in the parking lot.
The other one had a large crack in the back window.
My immediate uneasiness turned to understanding.
That makes a lot of sense. The driver of that car works here and must have figured I was on my way to the movie.
Injecting real horror into the life of a horror fan seemed like an obvious move.
We walked around the mall and talked about the movie. I told her that I thought Day of the Dead was better than Dawn of the Dead, but she refused to agree. I told her of when I called her old number and about my dilemma about who would answer the phone. She didn’t find it as funny as I now did, but she took my phone and put her number in it. She commented that it might be the worst cell phone she’d ever seen. Her evaluation wasn’t rescinded when I told her I couldn’t even receive pictures on it. I called her so she’d have my number and she programmed it in.
She told me that she was graduating, but she hadn’t done well in school so far that year so she wasn’t sure if she’d even get into college. I told her to attach a picture of herself to the application and they’d pay her to go there just so they could look at her. She didn’t laugh at that one and I thought she might be offended – she might have thought I was implying that she couldn’t get in based on her intelligence. I nervously glanced at her and she was just smiling and even in this poor light I could see that she was blushing. I wanted to hold her hand but I didn’t.
As we walked down the final side of the mall back toward the theatre I asked her about Josh. She told me she didn’t want to talk about it. I asked her if he was at least doing alright and she just said “I don’t know.” I figured Josh must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and started getting into trouble. I felt bad. I felt guilty.
As we approached the parking lot I noticed that the car with the cracked back window was gone and that her car was now the only one in the parking lot. She asked me if I needed a ride and even though I really didn’t I said that I’d appreciate it. I had drunk my whole soda during the movie and all the walking was putting pressure on my bladder. I knew that I could wait until I was back at Chris’, but I had decided that I was going to try to kiss her when she dropped me off, and I didn’t want this biological nagging to rush me out of the car. This would be my first kiss.
I could think of no ruse to conceal what I needed to do. The theatre had long closed so I only had one option. I told her that I was going to go behind the theatre to piss but that I’d be back in “two shakes.” It was obvious that I thought it was hilarious and she seemed to laugh more at how funny I found it than at how funny it clearly was.
On the way toward the theatre I stopped and turned toward her. I asked her if Josh had ever told her that kid named Alex had done something nice for me. She paused to think for a moment and said that he had; she enquired as to why I had asked, but I said it was nothing. Josh really was a good friend.
When I went to go behind the theatre I realized that there was a chain-link fence extending off and running parallel to the walls of the building. Where I stood she could still see me, and the fence seemed to stretch on endlessly, so I thought I’d just hop it, duck out of sight, and return as quickly as I could. It may have been too much of an effort, but I thought it polite. I climbed the fence and walked just a little ways until I was out of sight and urinated.
For a moment the only sounds were the crickets in the grass behind me and the collision of liquid and cement. These sounds were overpowered by a noise that I can still hear when it is quite and there are no other noises to distract my ears.
In the distance I heard a faint screeching which quickly subsided only to be replaced with a cascade of thundering vibrations. I realized quickly enough what it was.
It was a car.
The growling of the engine got louder. And then I thought.
No. Not louder. Closer.
As soon as I realized this I started back toward the fence, but before I could get very far at all I hear a brief, truncated scream, and the roar of the engine terminated in a deafening thud. I started running, but after only two or three steps I was tripped by a loose piece of stone and fell hard and fast onto the concrete – my head striking the corner of a chair as I fell. I was dazed for maybe 30 seconds but the renewed rumbling of the engine drew my senses back and my equilibrium was restored by adrenaline. I redoubled my efforts. I was worried that whoever had crashed the car might harass Veronica. As I was climbing over the fence I saw that there was still only one car in the parking lot. I didn’t see any evidence of a crash. I thought that I might have misjudged its direction or proximity. As I ran toward Veronica’s car and as my orientation changed I saw what the car had hit. My legs stopped working almost completely.
It was Veronica.
Her car was sitting between us and as I closed the distance and walked around it she came fully into view.
Her body was twisted and crumpled like a discarded figure meant to represent a catalog of things the human body cannot do. I could see the bone of her right shin cutting through her jeans, and her left arm was wrapped so hard around the back of her neck that her hand fell on her right breast. Her head was craned back and her mouth hung widely open toward the sky. There was so much blood. As I looked at her I actually found it hard to discern whether she was laying on her back or her stomach, and this optical illusion made me feel sick. When you are confronted with something in the world that simply doesn’t belong, your mind tries to convince itself that it is dreaming, and to that end it provides you with that distinct sense of all things moving slowly as if through sap. In that moment I honestly felt that I would wake up any minute.
But I didn’t wake up.
I fumbled with my phone to call for help but I had no signal. I could see Veronica’s phone sticking out of what I thought was her front right pocket. I had no choice. Trembling, I reached for her phone and as I slid it out she moved and gasped for air so violently that it seemed as if she were trying to breathe in the whole world.
This startled me so much that I staggered back and fell onto the asphalt with her phone my hand. She was trying to adjust her body to get it into its natural position, but with every spasm and jerk I could hear the cracking and grinding of her bones. Without thinking I scrambled over to her and put my face over hers and just said,
“Veronica, don’t move. Don’t move, OK? Just stay still. Don’t move. Veronica, please just don’t move.”
I kept saying it but the words started to fall apart as tears came streaming down my face. I opened her phone. It still worked. It was still on the screen where she had saved my number and when I saw that I felt my heart break a little. I called 911 and waited with her, telling her that she would be ok, and feeling guilty for lying to her every time I said it.
When the sound of sirens tore through the air she seemed to become more alert. She had remained conscious since I found her, but now more of the light was coming back into her eyes. Her brain was still protecting her from pain, though it looked as if it was finally allowing her to become aware that something was terribly wrong with her. Her eyes rolled over to mine and her lips moved. She was struggling, but I heard her.
“Hhh...he...P...pi...picture. M...my picture...he took it.”
I didn’t understand what she meant, so I said the only thing I could “I’m so sorry, Veronica.”
I rode with her in the ambulance where she finally lost consciousness. I waited in the room that they had reserved for her. I still had her phone so I put it with her purse and I called my mom from the hospital phone. It was about 4am. I told her that I was fine, but that Veronica was not. She cursed at me and said she’d be right there, but I told her I wasn’t leaving until Veronica was out of surgery. She said she’d come anyway.
My mom and I didn’t speak that much. I told her I was sorry for lying, and she said that we’d talk about that later. I think that had we talked more in that room – if I had just told her about Boxes or the night with the raft; if she had just told me more of what she knew – I think that things would have changed. But we sat there in silence. She told me that she loved me and that I could call her whenever I wanted her to come get me.
As my mom was leaving Veronica’s parents rushed in. Her dad and my mom exchanged a few words that appeared to be quite serious while Veronica’s mother talked to the person at the desk. Her mother was a nurse, but didn’t work at this hospital. I’m sure that she had tried to get Veronica transferred, but her condition was prohibitive. While we waited the police came in and talked to each of us – I told them what happened, they made some notes, and then they left. She came out of surgery and 90% of her body was covered in a thick, white cast. Her right arm was free, but the rest of her was bound like a cocoon. She was still under, but I remembered how I felt when I had my cast before Kindergarten. I asked a nurse for a marker, but I couldn’t think of anything to write. I slept in a chair in the corner, and went home the next day.
I came back every afternoon for several days. At some point they had moved another patient into her room and set up a screen around Veronica’s bed to act as a partition. She didn’t seem to be feeling better, but she made more moments of lucidity. But even during these periods we wouldn’t really talk. Her jaw had been broken by the car, so the doctors had wired it shut. I sat with her for a while, but there was nothing much I could say. I got up and walked over to her. I kissed her on the forehead and she whispered through her clenched teeth,
“Josh . . .”
This surprised me a little, but I looked at her and said, “Has he not come to see you?”
“No . . .”
I found myself really irritated. “Even if Josh had been getting into trouble, he should still come see his sister,” I thought.
I was about to express this when she said, “No . . . Josh . . . he ran away . . . I should’ve told you.”
I felt my blood turn to ice.
“When? When did this happen?”
“When he was 13.”
“Did . . . did he leave a note or something?”
“On his pillow . . .”
She started crying and I followed her, but I think now we were crying for different reasons even if I didn’t realize it. At this point there were a lot of things I still didn’t remember about my childhood, and there were a lot of connections I hadn’t yet made. I told her I had to go but that she could text me any time.
I got a text from her the next day telling me not to come back. I asked why and she said she didn’t want me to see her like that again. I agreed begrudgingly. We texted each other every day, though I kept this from my mom because I knew that she didn’t like me talking to Veronica. Usually her texts were fairly short, and mostly only in response to more lengthy texts that I would send her. I tried calling her only once, I was sure she was screening her calls, but hoped I could hear her voice; she picked up but didn’t say anything – I could hear how labored her breathing was. About a week after she told me not to come see her anymore she sent me a text that simply read,
“I love you.”
I was filled with so many different emotions, but I responded by expressing the most prevalent one. I replied,
“I love you, too.”
She said that she wanted to be with me, and that she couldn’t wait until she could see me again. She told me that she had been released and was convalescing at her house. These exchanges carried on for several weeks, but every time I asked to come see her, she would say “soon.” I kept insisting and the following week she said that she thought she might be able to make it to the next midnight movie. I couldn’t believe it, but she insisted that she would try. I got a text from her the afternoon of the movie saying,
“See you tonight.”
I got Ryan to drive me since Chris’ parents had found out what had happened and said I wasn’t welcome at their house anymore. I explained to Ryan that she might be in bad shape, but that I really cared about her so to give us some space. He accepted that and we headed down there.
Veronica didn’t show.
I had saved a seat for her right next to me near the exit so she could get in and out easily, but 10 minutes into the movie a man slid into the chair. I whispered, “Excuse me, this seat is taken,” but he didn’t respond at all; he just stared ahead at the screen. I remember wanting to move because there was something wrong with the way he was breathing. I forfeited because I realized that she wasn’t coming.
I texted her the next day asking if she was alright and I enquired as to why she didn’t show the previous night. She responded with what would turn out to be the last message I’d receive from her. She simply said,
“See you again. Soon.”
She was delirious, and I was worried about her. I sent her several replies reminding her about the movie and saying it was no big deal but she just stopped replying. I grew increasingly upset over the next several days. I couldn’t reach her at her home because I didn’t know that number, and I wasn’t even sure where they lived. My mood became increasingly depressed, and my mother, who had been really nice as of late, asked me if I was OK. I told her that I hadn’t heard from Veronica in days, and I felt all the warmth leave her disposition.
“What do you mean?”
“She was supposed to meet me at the movies yesterday. I know it’s only been like 3 weeks since she got hit, but she said she would try to come, and after that she just stopped talking to me altogether. She must hate me.”
She looked confused, and I could read on her face that she was trying to tell if my mind had simply broken. When she saw that it hadn’t her eyes began to water and she pulled me toward her, embracing me. She was beginning to sob, but it seemed too intense a reaction to my problem, and I had no reason to think that she particularly cared for Veronica. She drew in a shuttering breath and then said something that still makes nauseous, even now. She said,
“Veronica’s dead, sweetheart. Oh God, I thought you knew. She died on the last day you visited her. Oh baby, she died weeks ago.”
She had completely broken down, but I knew it wasn’t because of Veronica. I broke the embrace and staggered backwards. My mind was swimming. This wasn’t possible. I had just exchanged messages with her yesterday. I could only think to ask one question, and it was probably the most trivial I could ask.
“Then why was her phone still on?”
She continued sobbing. She didn’t answer.
I exploded, “WHY DID IT TAKE THEM SO LONG TO SHUT OFF HER GODDAMNED PHONE?!”
Her crying broke enough to mutter, “The pictures . . .”
I would come to find out that her parents thought that her phone had been lost in the accident, despite the fact that I had put it in her purse the night she was brought to the hospital. When they retrieved her belongings the phone was not among them. They intended to contact the phone company at the end of the billing cycle to deactivate the line, but they received a call informing them of a massive impending charge for hundreds of pictures that had been sent from her phone. Pictures. Pictures that were all sent to my phone. Pictures that I never got because my phone couldn’t receive them. They learned that they were all sent after the night she died. They deactivated the phone immediately.
I tried not to think about the contents of those pictures. But I remember wondering for some reason whether I would have been in any of them.
My mouth went dry and I felt the painful sting of despair as I thought of the last message I received from her phone . . .
See you again. Soon.

Source : http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/krdm0/screens/
Credit : Dathan Auerbach
Posted by : admin-ST-Rex

Next : Friends