A Light to the Dark

There is always a light to the dark, a good to a bad. When you miss out on seeing something, you have a better chance to be original. When you lose a pet, you save more money without having to pay for it. When you lose your mind, you don’t have to worry about anything. Y’know I sometimes take the time to think of different world’s and stories that use the “Light and Dark” plot. I’m certain a majority of the Earth knows of Star Wars. I recently started listening to that one musical Razia’s Shadow and it too has a Light and Dark plot. Can the real world really work as simply as that? Are you good, or are you bad? Where is the line drawn? Where would I be on the line? Two quarter note knocks on my door, followed with an ignorant barge of entrance into my room without my permission. I know I was speaking out loud but I could’ve been naked, too. “Hey how’s the speech you’re working on going? I can hear you from downstairs and it sounds fantastic so far!” it makes me shiver knowing people could hear me practice my speech from upstairs. I perform better knowing that I’m not being heard. She walks away from the doorframe and fixates herself onto my bed. I recently bought new sheets because I woke up with a nosebleed one morning. They were super expensive, but they’re so comfortable to wrap yourself in. “Ah, I still don’t know what action to use for the climax, I’m undecided on using the dramatic ‘NO’ pose or the equally effective ‘Fallen Hero’ stance.” if you watched Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, you’d understand what the “NO” pose is. The “Fallen Hero” stance is where I fall onto a wall and meticulously shrink down to the floor. But I prefer standing. “Well remember to keep experimenting and something will soon click!” I’ve been practicing all morning, I think it’s time to stop browsing the channels and pick one soon. I take the written speech in my hand and fold it nicely so it fits into my pocket. “Well let’s hope,” I think I need to calm it down with the practicing though, Darrel came up and yelled at me before he left, but that’s usual of him. I’ll be playing some Walk the Moon up in my room and he’ll stomp out from his room and bang on my door. Mom has her purse with her, I guess she’s heading out? “I’m gonna headout to the store,” pro detective skills, “do you want anything special while I’m out?” I couldn’t really think of anything “special”. “Nah I’m fine, I’m sure we have something in the freezer,” I’m not too confident with that statement. “Okay then, I’m gonna cook up some roast beef tonight,” ew, “so don’t fill up too much before I get home!” “I won’t,” I might just head out myself, I pretty sure Jacob wanted to hangout today. She stood back up, stepped over to me and kissed me on my forehead. She had to stand on her tippy-toes to reach and I had to bend a little. It’s honestly funny how Darrel and I turned out taller than our parents. She walked past me to the doorframe, turned back and said “I love you”, I repeated her statement. Then she walked downstairs, I could hear each mellow step. She opened the front door, and closed it behind her. I looked out my window and saw her Kia Soul drive away, her bumper sticker proudly reading: “I believe in second chances”. Before I head out, I should feed my fire ant colony. I’ve chosen to name them the Scorched Kingdom. I’ve had them for around a year now, the colony has grown considerably large since then, there’s no way I could ever find the queen again. I keep a cockroach farm by my ants, so I easily have a source of protein for them. I take one from the farm, and crush it. I’d rather it not feel the burning, agonizing bite of a fire ant before it is ultimately consumed. It’s not fair to the creature, but I have to feed my ants. So I try to make it as painless as possible. I tried to only give my ants cooked chicken, candy, and fruit, but they don’t give the same nutrients as a cockroach can. In our house, we unfortunately don’t have any fuzzy friends with us. My Dad never liked the idea of all the hair and dander in our house, or how much care they’d need. I offered birds before, but he said that they’d make too much noise. So I settled with a caged animal. Or rather, animals. Many tiny animals. Fire ants are native here so that was a plus, if they were to somehow escape, they wouldn’t completely risk the sanctity of the environment. As cool as an exotic ant colony would be, there would be a risk that they’d turn invasive if they escaped. Invasive animals are the kind that destroy natural habitats and throw the environments ecosystem into a mess. Sadly, we humans have to stop these invasives from spreading. But I want to try and make it as humane as possible. I drop the cockroach into the ant’s territory, it doesn’t take long for word to spread around the colony that a feast has been located. They swarmed it, their painful bites sedating the already dead insect, in the same time as they cut it up for consumption. Are they aware of my presence? That their survival is dependent on my company? They’ve been certainly aware of me in the past, left some pretty painful marks, too. I still love them, you can’t kick the child just because it screams. I find my drawstring bag, it’s found a pretty good purpose for me, I do carry it around seventy percent of the time. I pack a pair of yellow shorts into the bag, I’ve learned my lesson to never leave home without a pair. I find my house keys on my nightstand, into the bag it goes. Where’s my wallet? I keep losing it, I know it’s somewhere around here. I check the pockets of my dirty jeans laying on the floor. Nothing. Where did I put it? I take my bag and its contents downstairs, the stairs are still loud as ever. I look over the railing as I go down, the TV is on and Darrel is sitting on the couch in front of it. His face looks poorly shaven, he must’ve been clumsy this morning. “Dude did you take my wallet?” I ask this because he’s been known to do it before. “Hell no, I didn’t fucking touch it,” I’ve learned that Darrel swears more when he’s lying. “Well then have you seen it around?” “Yeah it’s sitting right here,” he points to the side table where, low and behold, my leather wallet sits next to the lit lamp. I walk over to the table, I turn the lamp off because it’s annoying to have a light when you could instead open the shutters to save electricity. I pick up my wallet and inspect its contents. It’s missing five dollars. I’m not oblivious to who took it. I stuff the wallet into my bag and head into the kitchen, open the fridge, and pull out a bottle of Smartwater. It’s too hot to bike around California without water. I lastly put it in the bag, I can feel the cold aura of it as it hits my back from inside the bag. Before I leave, I go to talk to Darrel. He’s still watching TV, it’s another uninteresting “Insane” show, where the actors do dangerous things to be “funny”. “Hey is Dad still in the basement?” he’s being unusually quiet. “Mhm, he’s been in there all morning, doing his weird shit still,” maybe he’s sleeping, or maybe he’s dead? No, he’s too paranoid to die. Our Dad believes that the world will end, that California will be destroyed by missiles. He’s built himself a nuclear fallout shelter in the basement. He proceeds to tell us to only drink bottled water because sink water is bad? I don’t know some weird conspiracy theory. In any case he’s being insane and freaking out in the basement, and Mom just lets him. She loves him too much to stop him. Now isn’t that sweet? “Okay well, I’m gonna head out,” I still don’t know where I’m gonna head out to. “Don’t care,” of course you don’t. I check my digital watch for the time, it’s around noon. Mom gave me this watch when I was twelve, I’ve worn it everyday since then. It’s so handy, it can not only tell time, but also tell the day of the week, the day of the month, it works as a timer, stopwatch, and I like the design. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve been given. I walk over to the front door, light pierces from the top window and into my face. I probably should buy some sunglasses for biking. I unlock, and pull open the door and walk out, locking it behind me. Dad always complains about leaving the door unlocked, even when people are at the house. He’s too paranoid about burglars, or muggers breaking into the house. The camera’s at our doorstep scare enough people off, so there’s not too much to worry about. I open the garage from the outside, a car is gone, Mom really did leave. My bike is in the corner, sitting pristine and clean. I make sure to wash it properly. I don’t wear helmets when riding bikes anymore, not because I’m edgy, but because it messes up my hair. To accomodate not having a helmet, I’m extremely cautious with going down hills. I’m not afraid of heights, but I am afraid to fall off a bike while going down a steep hill. It’s happened before to me. It was a few years ago, I recently learned how to pedal and balance on a bike, but I still didn’t have the hill experience. I was racing my cousin and she already knew all the alleys to win. She chose the up the slope way, and I chose the down the slope way. You’d think I would’ve won since going downhill is faster than up, but no. I reached the hill and strided down. I panicked and gripped the brake. Fell down onto my left side and scraped my knee on my ripped pants leg. Now I have a scar on my left knee. I messaged Jacob on my phone, I still don’t know where he wants to meet. I don’t want to wait for his response, so I’m just gonna go. I lead the bike out of the garage, the sun reflects onto its surface. I close the garage, then speed off. The wind in my face, my hair, my being. Do you know that feeling? I feel the vibration of my phone in my pocket, it’s probably Jacob. I pull out my phone. Psychic powers dude. “Hello?” I always feel like I’m the first to say hi. “Cass? Where are you? You wanna hangout?” I wonder what we should do today. “Yeah sure man, you wanna meet somewhere?” we can meet at the gas station nearby, “Wanna meet at ARCO?” It takes him a second to reply, “Yeah okay, I’m gonna get a ride there.” “Alright I’ll be waiting, don’t take too long,” I don’t want to wait as long as last time. “Yeah yeah, alright I’ll see you later.” maybe he could bring me that money I lent him. I should tell him to bring it. “Oh could you bring-,” he hangs up. I have a feeling I’ll be waiting there for a while. I make it to the ARCO, no surprise that Jacob isn’t there yet. I walk my bike over to one of the outdoor tables outside and lean it down. We’ve been here in the past, and got yelled at for loitering because we didn’t buy anything from the store. To avoid being kicked off the premises, I went into the store and bought gummy fruit snacks. The height of privilege, eating fruit snacks at gas station tables. I forgot how good they tasted, wish I told my Mom to buy some as my “special” request. I can hear the sirens of police cars in the distance, the sound is no stranger to my ears. It’s normal to hear sirens around here. The shrieks of the sirens grow louder and louder to the point where the police cruiser speeds by past the gas station. It’s nothing, probably chasing some thief. It takes about twenty minutes for Jacob to finally arrive, he’s sporting his pathetic three hundred dollar shoes. Honestly, people who pay for shoes such as Yeezys, are pathetic. Their whole philosophy of how shoes will make you cooler and look nicer. To me, it takes dedication, knowledge, and hard work to be cool. But I guess sometimes everyone has a different way of expressing dedication. Some dedicate their lives to studies, others dedicate their lives to looks. But there’s also those who dedicate their lives to make other people suffer. He walks over to me, awkwardly raising his feet high off the ground to avoid creasing his shoes. “About time man,” of course I’m the first to say hi. “Shoot yeah, sorry,” I doubt he’s sorry, “I was just running a little behind in traffic.” He’s not lying about the traffic part, there has been a lot of build up around the station recently. A lot of people, cars packed to the roof, have been driving in and out of the gas station in the twenty minutes I’ve been waiting. “There’s been a lot of cops around lately,” yeah there’s been about four cruisers passing by while I’ve been sitting here waiting, “you didn’t do anything to upset them did you?” “No man, I figured they were looking for you,” obviously they weren’t looking for Jacob, but he has had police “interaction” in the past. “Funny,” he did his sarcasm smirk, to give a better picture: imagine Maui from Moana smirking at Moana before he starts singing You’re Welcome, but y’know, without Jacob being as big as Maui. I offer him a fruit snack from package. “Nah dude, those things ain’t good for you,” that’s funny coming from him. “You’re one to talk,” it’s funny because Jacob has been caught with something worse than fruit snacks. “Hush dude, there’s cops everywhere,” we both laugh at his little plea. As much as a deadbeat he his, I can’t hate him. We’ve been best friends ever since first grade, and that’s how it’ll be for a long time. We were sitting there for at least an hour. Chatting, he asked about the Scorched Kingdom, and like a mom talking about her honor student, I persisted to praise the colony. I don’t think Jacob cared enough about ants, he probably remembers the time he stuck his hand into their nest. Twas not the brightest choice my young star. Now this is a bit, worrisome? As Jacob and I remain in our spots, a handful of police cars stop at the Gas Station. The officers get out of their vehicles and start unpacking traffic cones and those, fence post thingies. I don’t really know how to explain what they are. Anyway, the officers place the fence thingies along the entrance to the station, and start telling everyone in the vicinity to evacuate the area. I turn around to look at the Gas Station window, and I see the cashier I bought the fruit snacks from place a hastened looking sign that says “Please leave now”. Hey at least they said please! An officer stretches his view towards the two of us and points his shaking hand right at us. Another officer then stumbles over to us, his black framed glasses appear to be chipped. His voice is deep, but I can hear a choir of fear coming out of him, “You two, what are you doing out here?” just being normal citizens, I think, “You need to evacuate to your respected homes immediately.” Jacob and I do not speak at first, he looks over to me as if to telepathically communicate to me: “This guy is joking right?”. The officer snaps back our attention when he says, “Hey listen, do you understand me?” Jacob probably wasn’t going to say anything, so I responded, “Sir uh, why do we need to evacuate?” is this a drill? He stumbled back in surprise, “Have you not heard what’s happened?” We both shake our heads, we didn’t get any notifications about anything on our phones. He leans in towards us, his face inches away from both of our faces, “Boys,” upon further inspection, his face looks drained of life, “California is under attack.” There’s no words exchanged between any of us for a good fifteen seconds. Only the ringing of sirens, the orders of police officers, cars speeding by, and the panicked spray of people running can be heard. What does that mean ‘California is under attack’? By who? Is the situation under control? This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. I ask him, “Where are we supposed to go?” my family doesn’t own any weapons, “How dangerous are the people attacking?” “The North Koreans are attacking, and they’re planning on nuking the state of California.” Nukes? This is a mistake, a dream. This can’t be happening. Our country has grown out of it’s older shell of threatening the North Koreans, ever since he was voted out of presidency. We’ve grown more civil as a country, at least, that’s what I’ve thought. He pulls a folded map from his pocket. The thing is circled, scribbled, and written on. Arrows pointing towards destinations, all titled ‘Shelter’, “You must find immediate shelter at the Highschool, it’s only a couple blocks away,” yes I know we go there, “I can escort you to ensure your safety.” Wait I can’t go there, I need to get back home. “Yeah okay I could use a ride,” Jacob agrees to the officers offer, but I can’t accept. “Sorry but I can get home myself, my family has a shelter,” Dad’s efforts proved useful after all. “Nonsense it is far too dangerous to drive without police aid.” “Well good thing I’m not driving,” I point over to my silver bike laying on the side of the table. His voice starts to sound as if he’s scolding me, “Out of the question, you are not driving nor biking in this mess.” I stand up pick my bike from the table, “Jacob I’ll see you later man,” if we survive this. I walk along the sidewalk surrounding the gas station as Jacob and the officer accompany me. They’re both telling me to stop. “Cass you can’t bike, do you see that car pile up over there?” “There have been more than a dozen casualties, and people are turning to crime from the fear.” “Cass the High School is just a few blocks away.” “Enough of this,” the officer grabs me by the arm. I pull myself away from his grip, but he’s gripping hard. I see his hands reach around the back of his belt, as he slowly pulls out handcuffs. “What are you trying to do? Arrest me?” “It is necessary, it’s for your safety.” “I don’t care about safety, I need to see my family.” “I’m worrying about my family too kid, but I also need to do my duty as a police officer and help the citizens of San Bernardino.” “Let go of me!” I promised Mom I’d get home, I need to get home. I’m not the biggest kid, but I used all my strength to kick the officer in his leg. He lets go to grab his leg from the pain. “Holy fuck dude!” Jacob jumps back from the officer’s side. I’m sorry I have to leave like this Jacob. I turned back around and balance myself on the bike, and pedal across the tire smeared road. The officer chases after me, gun in hand, and yells at me to stop or he will shoot. He probably would’ve fired if it wasn’t for the green convertible that plowed through him. Again, I’m sorry for leaving like this Jacob. A beaming light couldn’t pass through our darkest hour. We’d only be given gray. Screeching tires, pleas for help, and gunfire. I’m no stranger to the sound of gunfire, but it’s unsettling to hear the partnership of cries following the piercing fire. People panicking throughout the town, I couldn’t help but feel pity for them, a strong sense of sorrow. I broke down in the middle of the chaos. I couldn’t resist, my eyes represented my emotions. A brown haired girl with a striped shirt and black skirt ran out into the street. She didn’t see the silver SUV barrelling down the road. THUD. I screamed, seeing her swatted across the road made me. The SUV didn’t even stop to see if she was okay, it just continued its panicked driving. I stumbled off of my bike, falling onto my back. I could see the girl moving still, but she wasn’t getting up. I stumbled over to her with tears in my eyes, kneeling down beside her. “Can you stand?” her reaction is oblivious, as if she’s busy listening to the morning calls of doves, “Miss? Please, are you gonna be okay?” She narrowly turns her head to look at me. Her face has been bashed in by the SUV. She attempts to open her mouth to muster an answer, but she can’t say anymore than a surprised stuttered. In that moment, all I could think about was who this woman was. Because that’s what I wanted to let her share to me. I don’t want her to become a dead body on the side of the road labeled as a casualty. I want her story to be told, everyone deserves that. With my hands, I raise her head gently upward. I position my legs so that they cushion her. Her body is contorted, but she isn’t screaming, she’s in a daze. She squints her eyes and tightens her body as I settle her. She opens her eyes to me looking directly down at her with tears in my eyes. I try to position my head so I don’t cry on her. Her eyes are hazel, a calm color that reminds me of my camping trips I used to take with my Mom and Brother. Her hand grips tightly around itself. I move my right hand to grip it, to offer my hand instead. She tightly grips my hand, it’s a terrible reminder that this isn’t a dream.