The grey on the walls was interrupted by the relentless tapping on the table. Keeping the pen down, he steps up to the window and takes a look outside. Listening intently to all the sounds available, the cars sounding their horns and more, he slips into thought, his eyes focusing on a point in mid air, somewhere in the clouds. A few moments later, a loud annoying sound at the door shakes him out of his meditation.
She leans in through the half open door. “They’re waiting for you.” Anna has been his personal assistant for four years. He turns around to look at her, eyes fixed on hers, perhaps a little too fixed for comfort. “Thank you Anna, I need the Johnson & Millers report by ten thirty tomorrow,.” he says with the usual frosty politeness that he’s always wearing. She takes a moment to read his face; his eyes shift to his pen as he puts it back near the books where it’s supposed to be as soon as he utters his last syllable.
“Okay, I’ll get right to it then.”
An hour later, the door swings open and he walks out. The company has never suffered a loss, never lost a deal, never had any disappointed customers or stock holders. Curiously perfect, the man he was, except that he had no friends, no ‘lady’ friends and no messages from a worried mother or calls from a proud father. You would imagine everyone to be extremely proud of what he had achieved so soon, so young.
He was your typical loner, who took being alone to new levels, and he looked more like a Superman from some Ivy League College with the most convincing voice you would ever hear. The funny part is, the world was in love with him, and neither party fully understood why.
Something was different about today. This dry, dull day that deceived all of New York City into thinking it wa going to rain any minute. He got into his car and turned the key. He did a 145 somewhere on the way and stopped precisely at the door. His hands refused to move, like they had a mind of their own. He didn’t want to go home, not now.
So he starts off to somewhere only he knows. And he knows exactly where he’s going. The next thing he knows he’s kneeling in front of a statue, an image, a symbol that he believed would save him the way everyone said.
“Father, where have I gone wrong? Why are you putting me through this? Do you ever listen?”
A small droplet moved across his face and landed on the wooden platform he was kneeling up,on. Suddenly in a fit of rage, he got up and cried out “Why?!!”
Shortly afterwards, he was left standing in a pile of concrete and dust. The church had a new hole in its wall that went right through Jesus’ feet and Mother Mary’s dress. In no time, Bishop Ronson was at the door separating his quarters from the main church hall.
Something didn’t feel quite right about what was coming, he thought. As he entered the church, he noticed the mess on the floor and standing right in front of it was Christopher.
He stood there for what seemed like forever. His eyes were fixed on the pile of broken plaster and stone. He had a look of disbelief on his face and a glimpse of awareness of what he had just done. This wasn’t the first time. How else would you explain a perfectly happy little boy suddenly orphaned when he was 12 by an accident. It was a time he wished to forget. Someone had killed his parents. That someone had also died shortly after. His body was found sandwiched between the dishwasher and the couch.
Christopher was far from that. He was compulsively in control of his temper. Well, maybe not today.
The Bishop’s face now wore a strange expression, a little surprise, some curiosity, but mostly fear. As he approached Christopher’s mildly swaying figure he looked at his dazed expression and his fear grew with every step.
“Why are you here, son?”
The last word did not come out as easily as the rest. “I need counsel, Father, I need a friend. I don’t understand why I have to exist. I need answers. The voices in my head have haunted me since I can remember. I can’t take this anymore! “The church was all I had when they died. Why did you abandon me? The voices won’t let me go to Him.”
“You can’t go to him. Not if you kill yourself. It’s a mortal sin. You can’t go to him in any case, Christopher. Go away, far away where no one will find you. Hide yourself my son, in the deepest cave under the deepest sea. You must never return.”
The series of events that followed within the walls of that church would decide the fate of Christopher, Bishop Ronson and the rest of the human race.
Christopher is speeding again. Down that familiar road, past the houses he grew up around. He felt a change in him. He was smiling for the first time. He turned on the radio and started singing along to some old sixties rock music. He was a new person.
He was…cheery.
Next morning Christopher decides to take an “off”. The first one in seven years. The annoying freckled kid was doing his routine newspaper delivery job as he did every day. As he rode his bicycle up to Mr. Christopher McCain’s residence he noticed some unusual marks on the front door. The door was covered with something that looked, smelled and tasted like blood. He ran his fingers over the deep cuts and scratches all over the door. “Newspaper!” he said as he rode away from the house but he peddled harder, pushing further ahead, and let out a shrill scream at the end of the street.
Here at the kitchen window, with an apple smiling at the paper in his hand: Bishop dies under mysterious circumstances.
“Well done,” said the legion of voices in his head.
Smiling to himself he murmurs, “There’s no denying who I am and what I must do.”
AVY COMMENTS:
Interesting story. You have tried to develop a psychotic character and it works to some extent. However, the key question (apart from appreciating your effort and the ease with which you seem to be able to handle language and to transition situations in the plot) is: do you think the story itself is clichéd?
If so, how could you change some of it to make it quite different in the way it develops and ends?
Of course, now I have confidence that you can do a good sci-fi story. (By the way, where is your PRESENTATION? It is a graded assignment.)
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