The End

this is like a prologue of sorts.

The End:

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a very distinct memory that plays repeatedly in my head " it would haunt me for the rest of my life. It’s something that people probably put out of their minds the second it’s over. You know the big question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

At a young age, I was deemed a prodigy for getting simple answers correct and speaking better than the rest. So when I was five I was placed in the first grade where I would meet my first and only friend. They lined us up against the back wall on stage " putting each of us on display as if we were nothing but prizes our parents could coo over. They’d given us a week to ponder the question and come up with a presentation. It would be our first project by ourselves " a sign of trust.

Future? " my thought. I walled myself in my room mulling over the concept the entire week. When the time came and I found myself upon that stage I was looking out at my parents " my mother pregnant with the boy they’ve always wanted " and I knew what they wanted me to say, I knew what they all wanted me to say. Jenalee Albirnyth just finished bellowing her dream of being a doctor. Everyone was bright, anew; young again by a girl’s dream even if there’s never came true. I’d figured that this was the true purpose of such a show " to live a life, through their kids, that they had given up.

“Dawn McIntosh,” my teacher watched with diligence " hoping against hope that this would be the moment that I cared, this would be the moment that I changed… that this one tiny moment would make me a different person.

I slowly… lazily… contently move to center stage. The mic emits a staticy noise, “Hello,” my voice tonally dead and with it I could see their faces wither as well, showing the clear sign of their age " already disengaging, “I thought about this long and hard.” Furrowing my brows feeling an unexpected wave of urgency " I wanted them to know I had thought about this, “About the term future and what that would mean for me. And I decided that when I grow up I want to do what I’ve always been doing " existing and sleeping.”

There was a silence in the air, a chill… yet a glimmer of hope that I was playing. That I would giggle and say what I truly wanted. That I could not be serious. Because there was simply no way that I had taken a week to confirm what they all knew about me. The prodigal genius didn’t take this serious " our small town ritual was too small for her brain " if she weren’t a genius I’d think her daft… it’s what they thought about me, what they all said about me when they thought I was out of earshot.

“There just isn’t anything else that I want,” I wanted to clarify, to let them know that I had tried but I just didn’t have a grand plan, a grand existence, I just didn’t want to improve a world that was beyond repair " that was Jenalee’s job, her dream. I wouldn’t be using the knowledge, which they assume I have, to better humanity. I wasn’t a prodigy; I skipped two grades, big deal.

My life was as pathetic as my death.

I had just wanted to exist and even that was too much to ask for apparently.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

This was Before….

Author's Note

it's really short beginning but it's going to get longer and stranger.