MY SILENT KILLER

CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Life. It’s an interesting concept isn’t it? I mean we wake up every morning ready to tackle whatever the day has stored for us, try (and most of the time fail) to run over several stubborn challenges then go to sleep reflecting on what might have been. The next day is the same. And the next. And the next. Come to think of it we spend round about 70 years doing this. And then we die, leaving behind everything we thought was worth waking up for. It seems pretty pointless. I haven’t always seen life like this. In fact I’ve never seen life in this light. Not until a few days ago....

“Now Val I want you to consider this carefully, it isn’t just some choice you make in the spur of the moment. Your future depends on this!”

“Mom I’ve already told you, I want to be a social worker. I want to help these people”

“Why don’t you understand? These people don’t want your help, or anyone else’s for that matter!”

“Whether they take it is up to them, I just know that I did what I could, and the rest is on their conscience.”

“And you expect your bills to be paid in that fashion? Do you expect them to feel sympathy towards you?”

“All I expect is humanity to prevail”

....That little episode occurred two days ago. You see I’ve always been crazy enough to think I could one day make the world a better place. I was actually quite stunned to find that that was not everyone’s objective in life. I found it quite selfish that people only lived for themselves and their dreams. It was as if they were completely and utterly oblivious to the mass suffering around them while they drove their BMWs to their penthouse apartments after dinner consisting of caviar, oysters and Champagne on ice. I had no idea our race could be that complacent.

 One of the “complacent commoners” happens to be my mother. Being in my senior year, college is usually side-dish of the meal at our dinner table. It isn’t easy you know. My dad’s a super genius; he works for NASA as a rocket scientist. My mom isn’t that bad herself; an obstetrician.

 So wanting to change the world by becoming a social worker is not what freaky-intelligent Mr and Mrs Parker wanted for their only child. They had other things in mind; aerospace engineering and psychiatry. To be honest I didn’t think it would be that big a deal. I thought my parents would respect my decision of becoming a good working-class citizen.

 I felt there was far more to life than the number of zeros on my pay-cheque. Clearly my parents didn’t. We have never had a good relationship in any case. I don’t tell them what happens at school because they don’t ask. They don’t know how well or badly I do in my tests and exams until they see my report card to which the response is, “You can do much better than this.”

But it isn’t only my dream of my occupation being crushed and realising the poor relationship I have with my parents that has started me questioning life and its meaning. No. This runs far deeper.

People say that love hurts. I really don’t think that these people have ever been rejected. And it’s not just Harvard and Yale or even Stanford, I mean by the people you hold in really high esteem; your best friend.

So today wasn’t a great day at school. Not that school is ever a great place for me, I just go because 1) my parents and 2) to see my friends. Well I thought that was a valid second reason until today.

 I’m pretty sure everyone has that one friend they do anything for, no matter how stupid of futile, like running through the sprinklers on the sports field just because it makes your hair look great. Well I have (or possibly had) a friend like that, Mackenzie Taylor. We have been friends for 12 years and done nearly everything together. Everything except speaking to the enemy.

That’s exactly what happened today, she spent the entire day with the person I hate most in the universe, and I’m quite a tolerant and caring person. Maya Smith is about the worst person ever to be born, or hatched. She is admittedly very pretty the problem is that she knows it and she can’t stop talking about it. She is one of the many people who you take one good look at while walking into high school on the first day and make up your mind that they are just not your type and you’ll never speak to them. That’s exactly what happened here.

Mackenzie also didn’t like her, or so I thought. We’d talk about how pretentious and full of herself she is, not to mention her dating half the town. Well they spent the entire day together, from registration in the morning to PE in the afternoon, while I sat there dejected on the bleachers waiting for at least a belated greeting which never came.

Well that just added fuel to the fire really. Being shut down on what I want to do with my life, then being ignored by my best friend for no apparent reason really got me questioning what I am meant to do with my life, and more importantly the purpose of it as a whole.

 If the people you try to please and help the most don’t really care about you then I really don’t know what to do. Being low on confidence and having an abysmal self-esteem doesn’t help either. The truth is, no matter how much you try and convince yourself otherwise, you want people to care too. You want people to think of you as highly as you think of them. Above everything, all you want is to be wanted.   

I leave the science homework on my desk, open but not completed. Out of all my subjects it’s the one I enjoy the most; facts and no fuss. As I jump into bed I remember Newton’s First Law, which states that an object will continue moving at a constant velocity until acted upon by an unbalanced force.

 Come to think of it it’s a lot like me right now. Going about my life with no worries, in an almost carefree manner, eyes completely fixed on the ultimate prize of a better world. Then, in a matter of days, you find yourself in no-man’s land, grappling for a way back to the path which you knew so well, it was as if you paved it. Unfortunately, you are further away than you could have ever imagined.

I place my head on my cool pillow and look at the ceiling painted with stars, each containing a name of someone I’ve held dear, from names of pets to my late grandparents. Most of them painted with the names of my friends. The one closest says “Mackenzie” written in her beautiful handwriting.

I lie on my back wondering how many of them would actually care about what’s running through my head. I think that all of them would laugh it off. That’s what we always do to our problems; laugh at them knowing that the solution would pop up in front of us quicker than the problem itself arose.

 But this time it seems different, a solution to my life and what’s going to unfold next is not right around the corner. To be frank, I don’t think it’s going to come. I had never told any of my friends what I really want to do, even Mackenzie. They all know about the social work, but no one knows about the charity organisations I’d one day like to run. They’d think I’m pulling their leg, no one would take it seriously at all.

As I slowly begin to dose off I remember a quote I read years ago on the internet while researching for a project,” We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” I think about it now and wonder what will happen if I’m remembered by something that I never wanted to be....

well this is my first piece of work. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to comment what you think below. a masiive thank you to Mona Mae and Jezzebel