To Trade a Life

What happened on November the third

It was a certain day of a certain month of a certain year. More particularly November the third, 2012 in the morning at 7:32 am. But the most important part was that it was autumn. Can you imagine the colors? Royal red blending with sunset orange mixing with the joy of yellow. Kids riding their bikes down the sidewalks, stirring the leaves. The air filled with a cool breeze that no one could help but love. So amazed of how seasons change and the beauty of it all. Well, it is human nature to adore change.

Now, imagine a girl with straight cinnamon colored brown hair with matching cinnamon eyes. In fact, the girl loved all things cinnamon. The sent sweeter than vanilla. The taste of something unique and perfectly blending with all things. She loved cinnamon gum, cinnamon apples, cinnamon candies, and the list continues on. She wears a honey yellow dress that cuts off right above her knees with a plain style. A navy blue ribbon tied in a bow at the midsection and a matching ribbon tied like a headband in her hair. A perpetual smile pays on her cherry red lips and a few bouncing freckles are stuck on her nose.

She heads off to Andrason Elementary like she does every school day, sucking on a peppermint she had gotten from trick or treating a few days ago. Of course she would have preferred cinnamon, but most of the houses gave out chocolates, which she, for some bizarre reason, absolutely loathed. But some few donaters of candy, if they were cheep, gave peppermint and suckers, but never the Red Hots or the cinnamon hard candies. Peppermint wasn't that bad. It was her favorite flavor, in fact, until one of her friends dared her to try one of the Red Hots that her older sister had bought, knowing that she would never refuse a dare as long as it didn't mean sudden death. But the her delicate tongue did not stand a chance and she quickly spit it out. That evening she bought a three pound bag of Red Hots from Dollar General and forced the candies into her mouth and made herself not spit them out like she desperately wanted to. After a few months of this pain, she could hold the candy in her mouth until it had completely dissolved and she grew fond to the flavor.

She attended 4th grade at Andrason Elementary and she would be ten years old in precisely 14 days. Can you belive it! It was so close! She was so old... but truly she was so young. Too young.

What the girl didn't see was a boy, 14 years old going to eighth grade at Jackson middle school crouched on the other side of the bushes that Mrs. Marlon had planted. Among the bushes were small fading flowers that looked absolutely gorgeous during the spring and summer, but now they looked dry and brown. The frost that was forcasted next Monday was shure to end them, but Mrs. Marlon was very proud of her flower bed and all her ugly little flowers and her bushes which had grown too big and was in need of a trim. This is why the boy chose these bushes instead of his usual hiding place near the small streem. The streem was a mere trickle of water most days but dried if there wasn't a heavy rainfall at least once a week. The neighborhood mowers would avoid this area because of the streem which would provide a lovely area to hide in. The boy would have loved to wait here, but a group of wasps also found the benefits of this location, and even though he had never been stung, he was deathly afraid of any type of bee though he would never admit it.

He had chocolate brown hair like his mother and eyes the same exact shade of cinnamon as his sister's. He always thought that his eyes were a bit lighter than hers but this was because of his slightly darker complection. He was patiently waiting for his sister to walk near the spot where he was hiding. His crouched legs were getting tired. She was so close. Almost there. He could hear the small patterning of her navy blue flats on the slightly damp sidewalk...

In a blue old Toyota there was a man around 42 years old. His dirty blonde hair was messy. His suit he wore was wrinkled. His soft green eyes were weary. And his life was tumbling down on him.