Chapter One

Basically a prologue, but it's Chapter One.

The car hit him on a Sunday night. He was just walking down the sidewalk; he crossed the road without looking, thinking no one was there, because usually hardly any cars traveled that road�"and a car hit him. A street racer going 150 miles an hour. My best friend was killed on the spot.

When they told me the news, I couldn't believe it was true. It seemed too crazy, too far-fetched. And it seemed especially impossible that this would happen to my friend, out of all the people in the world. Such a freak accident couldn't kill Marcus. Nothing was supposed to be able to kill any of us yet. We were young.

Then I saw the scene where it had happened. I saw on the news pictures and videos of medics taking my friend's covered body away on a stretcher. I went to his funeral and watched as casket-bearers took Marcus, inside a closed box, to a hearse, and then the burial, where they put that box with Marcus in it into a hole in the ground. I believed it but I didn't believe it. I had already cried, I had already felt some of the pain that meant I knew he was dead; yet between those moments of realization I couldn't make myself consistently, really believe that Marcus was gone forever. It seemed like some kind of trick, some sick joke of Marcus', or maybe a dream that I would wake up from. Between those moments of realization, I couldn't shake the belief that I would see Marcus again, even though I knew in my head that I wouldn't.

But as the weeks went by, I slowly realized in my heart as well as my head that Marcus was gone, really gone. I didn't see him at school; he never called or texted me; his Facebook page filled with nothing but other people's messages saying that they missed him. The world heard nothing from Marcus. I heard nothing from Marcus. And it was this silence, this absence, that slowly made me realize that Marcus was truly dead.

Sometime around then was when I cracked.

I had been staying in my room whenever I wasn't at school since Marcus had died, but now I didn't even go to school. I stayed in my room or I walked around the city for the whole day, and I was hurt, and I was angry. I couldn't understand how the universe, or fate, or that stupid driver could take my friend away when he was so young and so alive, just getting ready to face the world on his own. He was one of the most alive people I knew, and he had been killed, by chance, in an instant. I walked and I was mad, or I sat in my room and hopelessly felt the pain�"most of the time I chose to walk. The anger and hopeless pain built up in me though, and slowly, I began to lose my mind.

I would get Marcus back, I decided. I would cheat Death itself and bring Marcus back to life. There had to be a way�"Marcus would have found a way, I thought. Nothing was impossible, he had taught me that. Marcus could find a way for anything. And now so would I.

The idea seemed impossible at first, even to my delusional mind. But slowly, slowly, I gained confidence in my ideas, and they became truth to me. I could bring Marcus back to life, and I would find way. I believed it in every cell of my body and the deepest parts of my soul. I would bring Marcus back if it killed me. So with the same pain and the same anger, but a new determination, I started looking for a way to cheat Death.

Author's Note

I know, no dialogue! There will be some after this though. Let me know what you think.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good opening chapter. You create storyline and goal. I like the thoughts of the main character. You left a wide open door for the next chapter. Thank you for sharing the excellent poetry.
Coyote