Second Story

Peter Beckwith

Period 2

Mr. Krebs

The Lottery

So there I was sitting in my house in the back alley. If you could call it a home, the truth is that I lived in a box.  I had lived there since I was 25 and it has been the worst ten years of my life.  To be fair the box life wasn’t that bad.  I mean I was a grown man about six feet tall, but I didn’t really need to take care of myself much.  I haven’t shaved in a couple years now and I am rocking this super long beard.  Life was pretty boring most of the time and I only really had problems when a rain storm would roll in.  Without any money I didn’t really need to worry about financial problem.  It was a simple modest life style.  I would wonder the streets looking for change and then buy some lottery tickets with it looking to make a few bucks so I could buy some food.  If I didn’t find any change it wasn’t a big deal.  I could just sit by my box and beg for a while, I wasn’t above begging.  

I was sitting by my box last week when a series of events unwound.  My back was and against the wall as I sat in a tight fetal position.  My head was resting on my knees and I had a cup in front of my feet.  I didn’t have a sign asking for change just my general appearance would be enough, and as it turns out it was enough.  I little kid holding her mom’s hand walked by me. She wasn’t very polite since she just stared at me with her little blue eyes.  Her mom wasn’t really watching her and she knew it.  She reached down into her pocket and grabbed out some money and put it in my cup as she walked by.  I knew her mom wouldn’t have let her do it if she had noticed but I wasn’t going to say no to some extra cash.  My funds were especially low that week and I was starving.  I grabbed the money out of the cup, it was a five dollar bill four more than I usually get. I picked up the money and put it into my pocket. Just as I was returning to my normal sitting position, another kid walked by.  He was with his dad but they weren’t holding hands like the girls were.  This boy was about the same age as the girl, and just like the girl he placed some money in my empty cup as he passed.  Yet again this act of kindness was unbeknown to his father who by the looks of him definitely wouldn’t have let him donate to me.  As the two boys walked down the street I picked up the money, it was another five!  Ten bucks in ten minutes, not too shabby.

I hadn’t made any other money so far that week and I had only eaten a piece of bread that day.  I knew I should go and buy more food so I went to the local grocery store.  The nearest store I could find was a Rainbow Foods, just down the street from my box.  I walked around carefully picking out what I should buy.  I got a loaf of bread and some apples, and then I made my way to the checkout line.  I would save a few bucks just in case.  When I got to the line it was right next to the pharmacy which also sold lottery tickets.  Having had such good luck today I put down my basket of food and walked over to the pharmacy counter.  I spent all ten dollars on lottery tickets, each were a dollar plus tax so I only had enough to buy nine.  Before the cashier took my money he looked at me one more time.

“Are you sure this is what you want to buy” He asked me

I didn’t say anything. I just nodded my head and avoided eye contact.  Who does this guy think he is! Trying to tell me what to spend my money on, who does he think he is my mom!?!  So I snatched the tickets off the counter and rushed out the door, down the street, and around the corner back to my box.  I needed something to scratch the tickets with so I wrestled one of the coins out of my pocket.  I read the tickets, it was a tic tack toe game, and all I had to do was find a ticket where O’s won and I won something.  If X’s won from top left to bottom right I would win 100 dollars.  If O’s won top left to bottom right I would win 50 dollars.  Finally, if O’s won in a vertical or horizontal pattern I would win 5 dollars. 

                With my coin I started to scratch off all the dust on the top row.  Immediately X’s won, three across the top.  I threw that card across the alley. 

“No problem I have nine more” I said to myself.

I scratched off three more, all of them X’s won across the top row.  Then my luck turned, from bad to worse…  I was so concentrated on my tickets that I didn’t watch the people around me. Just then a guy ran up from behind me and stole a handful of tickets off the ground.  Before I even had time to react he was gone, sprinted down the street and turned the corner. 

So there I sat there sitting by my box, dumbfounded.  Going from the richest I had been in weeks back to the average was a horrible feeling.  I still had one more hope.  After losing those first three I had picked up one ticket and was about to scratch it when the guy had run up.  I STILL HAD ONE HOPE.  I read the directions again very carefully.  So if I could win this last ticket I could go back to the store and buy more tickets.  I grabbed my coin up off the ground.  I scratched the top row

O   X   O

So far so good, this was better than I was doing before. I blow the dust off the card and continue scratching.

X   O   O

                I was shaking uncontrollable at this point.  I was so close to winning.  If just one of the O’s in the next row were on the side I would win.  If I won that would mean I could go back to the store and buy food and more tickets but more importantly MORE TICKETS.  There was a reason I was living out of a box and this was why.  I needed the thrill of gambling I couldn’t help myself from taking the risk.

X   O   X

free writing about the class

I thought that the begining of the class was the best.  We had instuctions on how to write those poems and then we still had the freedom to write them about what ever we wanted them to be about.  It was fun to write those poems and know that we would get most of the points for just filling in the build of the poem and not so much about how deep or important the actual words were.  I didnt really like the short story unit since we didnt really have much direction and most of us didnt know what we were doing.  For most of us this was the first story we have to write in a long time and we didnt even know how to start.  You gave us that SciFi story writing web site but it wasnt that usefull to me cause i would rather have someone explain it in words so i can just listen than have to read like twenty pages about it.  I kinda liked the bloging idea for turning in poems and stuff since we could just do it from home too.  The blog also made it very easy to catch back up with the class since the assignments were available to us whenever we wanted them.  But on the other hand i didnt really like the blog since it seems like you dont actually read them.  We write all these poems and journals, and then share them with one other person in class and it seems like nobody actually cares that much about what you wrote about.  It would be better if when you read them you like comment of things we could improve on and actually grade what we say.  I know that contradicts what i said before about liking how we can say whatever we wanted but it seems like we should be graded atleast a little bit on content.  I student aided for Mr. Currie's creative writing class and i would hand back poems that he had hand graded.  He would like show how if you use one word instead of another or switch a couple words around it would really fix some blatant errors.  This class seemed to lack in that perspective.  I really liked the lyric thing because it was a time were we could just chill and think about what we were going to write about while listening to different music that people in the room liked. 

What was your worst experience ever at a restaurant (or eating in general)?

It was a dark and stormy afternoon and my mom and i were coming home from the gym. My mom worked out every morning and i would play at the daycare.  On the way home we would drive past a McDonald's and that day i asked if we could eat lunch there.  Like many other days my mom agreed to go and we pulled into the parking lot.  We sprinted out of the car and into the restaurant to avoid getting totally soaked from the rain.  We got in and my mom asked me what i wanted to eat.  I got my usual kids meal with a double cheese burger.  She told me i could go into the jungle gym and wait for her while i play.  Everything was going smoothly.  I got a sweet hot rod toy car and was playing with it in the slide.  That's when it all went wrong. Sliding slowly down the slide on my belly i could feel my hair start to stand up.  The slide was to slippery to stop my self as i brushed up against a bolt. ZZAAPP! It shocked me as i began to scream with pain.  I couldn't stop myself from sliding as more and more static built and i slide over bolts again and again.  It was torture.  By the time i reached the bottom i was in an emotional break down.  My mom lifted me out of the slide, grabbed up my uneaten fries, and carried me back out to the car.  It was surprisingly warm outside, the clouds had been brushed away by the sun and the day was starting to be beautiful again.  When we got to the car i wiped my nose on my shirt and dried my tears with the back of my hand.  My mom started to pull out of the parking lot and i finished my uneaten fries ready to go home.

Imagine you opened your own restaurant.

If i were to open a restaurant it would be called Good Burger.  I would have a two main employee's and their names would be Kenan, who is known as Dexter, and Kel, who is known as Ed.  They would be the two best employee's but not the managers.  When people came up to the register to order their food our welcoming statement would be "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, how may i take your order".  The main problem with my restaurant would be the burger joint just down the street known as Mondo Burger.  Luckily "Ed" will have invented a secret sauce we will put on our burgers to make them taste better than Mondo Burger's and people will still go to our restaurant instead.  When Mondo Burger's sales start to sky rocket we will send "Dexter" and "Ed" disguised as old women into Mondo Burger too see what is going on.  When they find out that Mondo Burger is enhancing their burgers using Triampathol the two boys will try to report it to the police.  But before they escape Mondo Burger Kurt, the Mondo Burger manager, will catch them and bring them to a mental hospital for making up such a insane lie.  Then in retaliation Kurt will break into Good Burger and poison our secret sauce with shark poison.  Without Ed there to notice the difference in the sauce Good Burger serves it too its customers and they will all get sick.  Otis, Ed and Dexter's friend, tries to stop Kurt from poisoning the sauce, he to is committed into the mental hospital.  Using the power of dance the three boys will escape from the hospital in an ice cream truck.  They will break into Mondo burger and fill the meat there with too much Triampathol making them enormous.  In the aftermath Kurt is arrested for poisoning Good Burger and Mondo Burger is destroyed making Ed and Dexter the hero's of the day!

The old man and the rat

There once was an old man with a rat problem, although this was no ordinary rat problem.  These were monsterous rats that would sneak around the house in the middle of the night and eat all of his furniture.  The old man did not know what to do, so he stayed up all night following the rats and taking away the furniture before they could eat them.  One day the rat was just too fast and he excaped from the old mans watchfull eye.  The rat rounded the corner and started to feast on an antique chair.  The old man caught up and pull the chair up out of the beasts mouth.  This was no problem for the rat he just moved onto the side table.  The old man was blind with rage as he swung the chair back down. SPLAT! The rat expoled under the white rug making a horrible ret stain.  His grandma had given him that white run right before she died.  It was his only remaining item from his grandma, and now it was ruined by this stupid rat.  I guess this is proof that might is not right.

final draft

December 12, 2012

So far so good, the world hasn’t just spontaneously exploded.  After those eight earthquakes in Japan last year we all thought it would be true but I guess not.  School wasn’t even cancelled which kind of sucked. We all could have used a day off for the coming of the apocalypse.  The war in Africa is about the same as it has been for a year now, dictators killing people and blaming the rebels but it has been like that for all of time hasn’t it?

December 13, 2012

Maybe I was wrong.  Another earthquake rocked the ocean last night.  The tidal wave flattened what was left of Japan which is now the modern Atlantis.  The entire country is now underwater.  Then Mount St. Helena blew her top unexpectedly last night, too.  There was no warning, so the people in the city down the mountain all died.  Scientists say that the earthquake over by Japan probably cause an opening for more magma to gush through making it impossible to warn people before it happened.  Throughout the last few months there have been a lot of people saying they saw alien space ships in the sky too.  I never gave much it thought because I figured it was just a lot of loons who believed in the world ending in 2012 crap.  But last night I think I saw one too.  I was trying to go to sleep and couldn’t, so I got up to get some water and that’s when I saw it.  It was about the size of a star in the sky but it moved really fast and it was green.  There were three lights in the figure of a triangle, one in front and two in the back.  It moved faster than any plane that I had ever seen but I had never seen any other planes that commercial ones so maybe it was just a military one.  I am not sure what I saw but I hope I am just making a big deal out of nothing.

December 17, 2012

The last few days have been too chaotic to write in this journal.  The aliens came on the 14th.  They destroyed everything. It looks like a comic book attacked the entire world.  They came in the middle of the day and before any military or diplomatic action could be taken against them, they slaughtered us.  They had some kind of heat beam that would just turn people into dust.  We few that have survived found refuge in the subway system.  There isn’t much hope, we have no weapons or way to communicate with people that do.  It is really only a matter of time before they find us and finish what they have started.

December 18, 2012

The stench down here is almost worse than just being killed by the aliens.  The reek of human waste fills the entire subway line.  We woke up early this morning with quite the scare, a subway red with fire whipped uncontrollable by running over some people sleeping on the track.  Someone down the line must've tried to escape using it and was shot by an alien.  They screech throughout the night we can hear them.  Some of them must be hundreds of pounds because we can see the earth shake when they walk over our heads.

December 19, 2012

            We are out of supplies down here.  No more food or water. People are dying all the time.  Some of the people have resorted to cannibalism but I refuse to sink that low.  I figure even if I do eat another human, eventually I will still starve because there are only so many of us down here in this hole.  We will have to do some kind of recon mission into the top to get water so I nominated myself.  I head up tomorrow during the day since we don’t hear as much noise during the day we think they might sleep then.  Tomorrow we will draw straws to see has to go up and look around.  Whoever has to go will have no way to defend themselves up there they can only run, and they can’t run back down here cause they’ll lead them right to the others.  It is a suicide mission really. We don’t have much of a choice. We can either die trying, or just die.

December 20, 2012

            I drew the second shortest stick.  The guy who drew the shortest has a wife and three kids with him.  I would have never forgiven myself if I didn’t trade with him so I did.  The people I am with respect what I did and they’re very supportive of my decision. I am not sure what to make of this though.  It is like they realize that I don’t actually have much to contribute to life in the subway system so they don’t really mind that I am the one going up.  I have the rest of the day to organize what I am bringing up with me and I will leave tomorrow.  The plan of opening the doors is to have one person wait and listen to what is going on outside, once an hour has passed of no noise they will open the doors and I will slip outside.  I am bringing a backpack with my last bottle of water, and a few bags of chips that I took out of the vending machine.  None of us paid for that stuff we just broke into it and take what we need when we need it.  The kid of the guy who actually drew the short straw gave me his baseball bat.  I don’t understand why he brought it to start, when aliens invade, a baseball bat wouldn’t be what I would think of.  I found a big nail that had fallen out off of the track and drove it threw the bat so it would be more useful.  I wasn’t bringing much so I could run fast when I needed to and hide in small spots too.  The lights for the station will turn off automatically soon and all our flashlight batteries have died so I guess this is all I am leaving behind.

This is probably Good Bye.

This is all we have left of Michael Lore’s journal from that tragic time in earth’s history. He drew the short straw and had to go up back into the world to find food and water for the other survivors.  The next day after he left the military struck hard against the alien invaders and exterminated them from our planet. 

Michael’s body was never recovered…

"Behind her the noise escalated..."

"Behind her the noise escalated..."

As she passed by a bunch of construction workers on lunch break.  If the applause and the whistling wasnt enought to put her over the edge, the day she had at work would. 

She got to work in the morning on time as usual, but her boss didnt show up for an hour so she couldnt get any work done.  Then she went out back to have a smoke by her car to find a pile of shattered glass and no car.  This had happened to her in the past, so she just called up the insurence people who had placed a GPS in her car.  They contacted the police and had her car back to her within the hour.  By that time it was time for her to eat lunch which she left in the car...  It was still there, well atleast half of it. What kind of car theif eats a lunch they found in the car while they steal it?

So back to real time. 

As she got closer to the workers you could see them nudging eachother and nodding in her direction.  It was juvinel but it happened 3 days out of 5.  Normally they kept to their games of whistling and jeering at her but today was worse.  One of them reached out with his muddy hand and slapped her in the butt.  She was wearing a blindingly white skirt, so the hand print stuck out like a sore thumb.  She turned around and stared him right in the eye.  He smiled at her and giggled like a girl with a crush.  Then she decked him right in the eye.  This stain would wash out when she got home but that black eye would give him endless crap from his buddies.