Blog # 3 IP

                It was dark, and oddly chilled for a summer night in July. As we loaded into the van, we all made sure our seatbelts were tight aroubnd our waists. Logically and legally it was superfluous to have so many of us squished into just one vehicle, but none of the other children minded either, we were all shaking with fear, though we said it was just because we were excited. Our strong leaders, Mary and Patty, the moms, were sitting in the front of the car quietly as we drove down the dirt road out of the campsite and into the night. Driving slowly through the dirt roads, quietly passing houses few and far in between, the gravel rumbling beneath the tires, we waited. We were going to visit the glowing gravestones. Some people say there’s something special in the stones that make them glow brightly at night, others say that the childrens ghosts come out at night to play, and they are visible from the road beyond the fence. But some people say that the gravestones glow only on the nights when the children who lay underneath them were murdered.

                The car came to an even darker road, further off the path of dim lights, and we turned on to it, driving even slower now. The children were silent, waiting for the voice of authority, the screech of the wheels to tell us we were there. And it came. A dead stop in the middle on the night, pitch black. The lights in the car had turned off along with the engine. We had to wait for our eyes to adjust, but that didn’t keep us from searching. Out of the dark, I saw them first. The ardent  stones, as if they were floating above the ground. The graveyard far enough away that we couldn’t read the names of the children burried beneath, but close enough to make our hair rise on the back of our necks.

                Just as we were getting used to the stones and recovering from the first wave of fear, it happened. Out of the dank ditches on either side of the car came bodies. Screaming terrible noises of death and pain, cringing in the fresh air outside of their graves, there was a flash of light and their skeltons shown through their flesh. The car started shaking, one had climbed on top of the car. We could hear them as if they were dieing again, a horrible painful death. And we drove away into silence once more.

IP Prompt #1

"That was quite the adventure, huh?"

     Looking down at the last words he wrote made me think of the time we tried to run away. I was five years old, quiet and shy, and he was my best friend, the six-year-old neighbor boy who could talk to anybody about anything. He was easy to be with because he talked, I listened, and we always laughed together. Mom was angry because one afternoon when he came over to play, we thought it would be a good idea to give the cat a haircut, so mom wouldn't have to buy lint rollers for her clothes anymore, since we always used up all of the sticky papers anyways. He waited for me in the backyard as the sun was setting, with his walking stick and bandana filled with potato chips and apple juice for the both of us, smiling up at me with that mischievous grin of his. I nervously returned the smile, perhaps a little more hesitant on my end. I hadn't ever snuck out before, especially when I had been in trouble. I grabbed my favorite red rain boots from the closet, kissed my now less furry cat on the head, and quietly slipped out my first floor window, landing on both feet right next to him. My smile grew as he took my hand and we ran out the gate and down the block. We didn't make it very far, but by the time my parents found us down by the lake, it was dark out and I had fallen asleep in his arms underneath an oak tree. They tried to carry me home, but he wouldn't let go. Finally, they pulled me out of his arms, but he had clung to me so tightly that when I woke up in my own bed the next morning, I had bruises on my arms. That was the night he promised me he would always take care of me, and I believed him.

     Mom said I wasn't allowed to have play dates with him anymore. We still found ways to be together. We grew older, and our secret way of communication was through our old oak tree by the lake. We left letters, pictures, and occasionally little gifts for the other to find. When I was ten, I got off the bus after school, ran to our tree, and found one little piece of paper that said, "That was quite the adventure, huh?" I thought maybe he had forgot the rest of the letter at home, so I waited patiently for three hours, to see if he would come to the tree. He never came. It was my mom who found me there, waiting. 

     I felt a shiver go through my body as I stood; I hadn't realized how chilly it was as the sun was setting. But as mom's face grew clearer, a second shiver went through my body, and not because I was cold. She had been crying. I thought maybe something had happened with dad, but her sadness had to do with me, I could feel it. She waited until we were home to tell me. I knew he was different, but it was a difference I loved. He was special, sweet, and loved me. But the kids at his school didn't understand, they didn't like his being different. So they tortured him. They teased him, because he was sweet and kind. They called him "faggot" and threw things at him, over and over and over. Until finally, he couldn't take it anymore, and I wasn't enough to save him. His parents found him hanging in their garage after school. He was eleven years old.

     Eight years later, and I find that piece of paper hiding in the back of my bookshelf as I clear out my stuff to pack up for college. I miss him.