The Keeper of Time

A Story by CStansfield

This is just something I came up with. It's not that good.

“This just in, there has been a bombing in Missouri, at an old statue.”

“There are reports of an old statue being bombed.”

“I am standing here at the bombing of a statue, the only remnant is the head.”

“There have been many concerns tonight as a statue has been bombed.”

There are many ways to say it, but there is no undermining the fact. The statue was bombed. My precious statue. The only statue keeping my father’s memory alive.

My graduation day and my father’s award ceremony were completely simultaneous. Started at the same time, and ended at the same time. There was no chance for one of us to make it to the other’s event. It’s almost as if the world was being unusually cruel to us. I have a creeping suspicion that the universe was just making our destinies as brutal as possible, just to have a good laugh. We both arrived to our events, with no supporters. It was miserable for me. I don’t know what happened to Dad, because he never made it home.

Going on the highway, my dad was pushing the limits, trying to make it home in time to see me for our special planned dinner. He accelerated too fast, and there was suddenly a big truck right in front of him. He hit it, and a few weeks later, we were attending his funeral. I’m just thinking, the last words I ever said to him were, “Don’t go speeding on a highway now, you might get hit.” I might have predicted the future, I could make money off of it if I wanted. But that’s not what was important. What’s important is my father is gone, dead. I can’t say anything to him ever again.

Completely downtrodden by the bullies after the graduation, I trudged home in despair. I had gotten the phone call right after I had been announced valedictorian. It put a complete damper on my victory. I had no father, and my mother left when I was young, so I was an orphan, with no parents. I requested that my dad’s work would put up a statue for him, and I went to the park every day just to see it. It looked exactly like him, down to the very freckles on his nose. I missed him so much, but he was gone. I could never bring him back.

My one friend was Elianna. She was very supportive, and their family took me in after my father died.

I told her one day, “I love this statue. What if someone did something really bad to it, like a bomb?”

“I doubt that will ever happen. I mean, what are the chances?” she had replied.

Well, it happened. Something is going on though. Somehow, whenever I say something, it happens.

A few days later, after the bombing, I was sitting at the construction site where it had once been. My precious statue.

Altough, today, I wasn’t thinking about the statue. My mind was preoccupied with the way I had predicted the future twice in a row. I was very enticed to say something and see if it would happen.

“Hey, squirrel, you’re gonna fall out of that tree in 30 seconds,” all the squirrel did was stare at me. “Oh, I’m being stupid. It’s not gonna happen,” I said to myself.

I took my mind off of it, and started pulling grass out of the ground.

The squirrel scurried along the branch, grabbing nuts and putting them in his nest. Suddenly, he stopped moving and fell off the branch, hitting the ground with a thud.

I looked up at where the squirrel had once been on the branch, and then at him lying on the ground, completely still.

“I wonder what I can do with this…” I said deviously.

TO BE CONTINUED