Exhbit A (Had to write a story that involved matches and included the line of "And that's how I ended up in the middle of nowhere---naked)
My mother always told me not to play with fire. The thought entered my mind as I struck a match against the heel of my boot and lit the cigarette that set loosely between my lips. I took a long drag and then tossed it absent mindedly on the sidewalk next to me. As I walked purposefully towards the trailer park, smoke curled in the air from where the cigarette lay. Walking up the steps, I could hear the sounds of love making from inside.
I squinted as I imagined him on top of my wife sweating and panting. With a heavy sigh, I pushed open the door and walked through my living room. I strolled down the hallway calmly, too calmly. I looked at the pictures of our life together. The fishing trip three years ago, the day we bought the trailer, and finally, our wedding day. No children yet, but we always talked about it. Then, this happened. About a year ago, I had suspected she was sleeping around, but I pushed it to the back of my mind, surely it was just nonsense. Then, two weeks ago, I overheard her on the phone with him.
“Baby, I just need time. You know Jim's mother died just a few months ago, I can’t leave him yet.”
At that that moment, I knew what I had to do. I dug around in the shop behind our trailer until I found the old .22 my dad had given me when I turned 16. I loaded two bullets into the clip and then I waited for the moment that I could build up enough nerve to do what needed to be done.
Fortunately, that didn’t take very long. This morning, I called into work and then told Jenny that I was going in and would be back around 5. I parked down the street and then walked up the sidewalk near our trailer park, he was already there. I hadn’t been gone fifteen minutes. Now, here I was waiting for the right moment to blow them to pieces.
“Oh God! Yes!”
That was all it took. With one swift movement I kicked the door open and fired off two shots. When the smoke cleared there were pieces of blood on the walls, on the bed, on me. I threw the gun down and ran to my car. I drove until I could hear nothing but the loud beating of my own heart. I was on a long stretch of dessert highway when I stumbled out of the car. I wiped my blood stained hands down my shirt and began to scream at the realization of what I had just done.
Suddenly, I felt this urge to get their blood as far away from me as possible. I ripped my shirt from my chest and tugged my jeans off. Finally, relief.
And that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere—naked.
---death, blood,right?
Exhibit B--- (Had to write about getting stopped by the cops)
I was reaching for my last cigarette when I caught a glimpse of the flashing blue lights in my rearview mirror.
Shit.
With a heavy sigh, I let the unlit cigarette fall to the ashtray where remnants of my habit still remained.
A few moments later the rim of a state trooper hat was blocking the sunlight from my face.
“License and registration, ma’am.” The trooper barked. I definitely wasn’t getting out of this one.
“You got any idea how fast you were going back there?” \Luckily, he didn’t care what I had to say because immediately he answered that question for me.
“98! You know how many times I have had to scrape kids off of this very freeway for doing what you were doing back there?”
As I reached for the glove compartment to retrieve the documentation, the trooper continued on.
“…..God damned near 100 miles per hour.”
When I opened the compartment, my entire life came crashing out of it. Old receipts, empty pack of Marlboro Lights, and a half eaten carton of McDonald’s fries scatted all over my floorboard. As I fumbled through the disaster of papers, a piece of yellow notebook paper made me catch my breath.
I knew exactly what it was before I opened the crumpled letter. I had meant to mail it months ago, but never seemed to find the time, now it was too late.
The letter read:
Julie,
Look, I’m sorry for all the shit that happened during Thanksgiving. I know that coming home for you is a really big deal, and I was a total ass for what I did. I have been thinking a lot about what you said and you are right. I really do need to grow up and get my shit together. I really do love you and I know I never say it, but I am really proud of you for what you are doing. We’ll get into fights and we’ll say things we don’t mean, but no matter what we’ll always be sisters. I love you Jules, always have and always will.
Your kid sis,
Kristen
Seeing those words, my eyes filled up with tears and my mind raced back eight months ago to Thanksgiving Day. I had just turned 21 three weeks earlier and I had spent every single night getting totally hammered. My mother called me that afternoon, and of course I was still sleeping off the night before.
“Kristen, you know that Julie is coming home today. Who knows when we’ll see her again. You know how those tours overseas are. Please be here. Please do not make a scene.”
I knew what she meant by “making a scene.” Four days ago I had showed up hung over and smelling like take out and vodka to my cousin’s baby shower. Nobody was impressed.
I slung the covers back and got out of bed. I rummaged around for some jeans I was sure were dirty and threw on an old sweater. I took a quick shot before leaving my apartment. I felt like shit and I needed something to take the edge off.
As I pulled into my mother’s driveway, Julie’s car was already there. I pulled up quickly, too quickly. With a jerk and a loud crash, I came to a halt. When I looked up I realized I had totally smashed in Julie’s bumper
Julie came running out of the house. My mother followed behind her.
Julie took one disgusted look at me and threw open my car door.
“What the hell Kristen? You smell like a bar. Do you have any idea how much this is going to cost me? At least 500 bucks!”
I sat in a drunken stupor, but she continued on.
“Really Kristen, you need to grow up. You’re going to pay for this one way or another. That is a promise.”
She stomped back into the house and I drove home. Who was she to tell me how to live my life?
Two weeks later I wrote her this letter. I knew she was right. I knew I was out of control. I needed to tell her I was sorry. A few days later, we got the call that Julie had died in a bombing just outside of Afghanistan.
“Ma’am!”
The booming sound of the trooper’s voice jolted me back to the present.
“Here is your ticket. Have a great day.”
I looked down at the ticket. $500.00
Touché big sister, Touché.
--more death...really?
Exhibit C
---overdose? Gah.
Exhibit whatever
The smell of sweet honeysuckle and fresh cut grass told the secret that summer had arrived. I was fifteen and beautiful but too young and dumb to realize it. The world was my oyster, but I didn’t care. The plan was to learn to smoke and grow boobs within the next three short months. Boredom was surely to be my cause of death and I desired independence, something I knew existed but never explored. Then, like a sign or an answer or a warning, there he was.
He was ordinary, like me. He smelled like weed and cheap cologne, screaming that he was trouble. His smile was crooked and strained, suggesting it was a rare occurrence. God, how I was thrilled to be the cause for that smile. He was from the wrong side of the tracks and I was the innocent, bright eyed girl ready to take on the world. Typical and disastrous.
The first night we talked for hours about nothing and everything. At eighteen his voice was low and husky, telling the lie that he knew his place in this world. He lived a life decorated with a broken home, failing grades, and partying. As he told me his story, I listened with perfect naive splendor. Then, as a single tear fell from his complicated hazel eyes as he spoke about his drug addicted mother, I wiped it away, knowing I could save him from whatever it was that had broken him. The way he looked at me startled and uneasy, made me want to cry with him. Instead, he kissed me softly. He tasted faintly of cigarettes and a hint of sweet whiskey. He tasted dangerous and I craved more. I kissed him back long and hard, allowing my first kiss to be as passionate as I had always imagined. He smiled into my mouth and told me to breathe.
For the entire summer we were inseparable. He taught me about sex, and drugs and how to drive. I was completely infatuated by his rough exterior and the contrast of our sensitive talks. Then, the moment came where his hormones desired more. We sat in the backseat of his beat-up Mercury Cougar for two hours while he confessed his never dying love for me. I knew that he loved me and we would be together forever. So in the matter of moments I gave him all of me, praying the entire time that he felt the same.
Then, as the leaves began to change so did the way that he felt about me. He told me that true love comes easy and I was too hard to figure out. I knew it was a lie. I had fallen hard and he wasn’t ready. Two weeks later he moved somewhere that didn’t have telephones or mail service and he took with him my broken heart and a pair of panties that were stuffed in the backseat of his car the night I gave him all of my innocence.
Finally, I learned how to smoke.
---drugs, disappointment...why could I not make them have a happily-ever..whatever?
So basically folks, I am obviously writing myself into a depressed hole which is filled with drugs, death, and more drugs and death. I need to watch more Spongebob (totally not going to happen) and maybe more sunrises as well (um, no, sleep) Hmm. I'll just make some cookies or something. That totally balances out whatever my brain is working through right now. I need to go to sleep.
As I walked toward the back of the trailer, uneven boards squeaked beneath the weight of my feet. Once I made it to the bathroom door I cringed at the sight I was sure that awaited me.
I lived in this sunken trailer since it first started to slump which if I had to guess would be from about the time I was six years old. I remember sitting out on the front step of the condemned mobile home wishing I could be anywhere but right where I was.
As a kid, I was embarrassed to be seen sitting on that cracked step that matched the chipped paint of the trailer that stood behind me. The June air was always hot and heavy, so for no other reason other than pride; I would pull the hood of my jacket over my knotted hair and jerk the drawstrings tight. So tight, I could barely see the world and I was sure that the world couldn’t see me. The self-made furnace was hotter than hell; the price of saving face.
I grimaced as I slowly turned the doorknob and walked into the bathroom.
There she was, exactly where I thought she would be. As her half-nude body slumped against the mildewed motel bathtub, a needle fell from her right hand. Her drugged smile spread across her entire face before teardrops began to fall and create rivers in the crevices that formed around her mouth. She looked like an empty shell of the woman I once knew. Still, I loved her.
“Mamma, let’s get you to bed.” I pulled her frail body off of the bathroom floor as a cockroach crawled over the toe of my barefoot.
“Jessie, you came back.” She stammered in a drug induced daze.
“Yeah mamma, I came back.”
I had never left.
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