Neon Ice Cream

Chapter One; Bitter Sweet

Progressively as time went by, the ice cream man still has not arrived back in our town. Argyle street and the rest of the residency grew darker than usual, temperature rose drastically and snow stopped falling down on the neighborhood. Knocks on my bedroom door were heard in the lonesome room as the door opened slowly after. My mom walked in to throw my sheets off of my cold body. "Angel, it's time to wake up. Go shower if you are quickly, so you don't run late to school," my mom quietly said into my ear. "What would you like for breakfast?" There was no response besides depressed mumbles out of my mouth. She sighed and walked out. "I guess i'll just throw something on a plate.." I turned over to check my phone to check the temperature. 85 degrees in the middle of winter, I thought. What the hell has happened to this town? It's the middle of the winter and the temperature is what you'd expect in the summertime. I stretched a bit inside my bed and got up and looked around my room. I opened up my blinds to find no ice cream man outside my window, who drops packages of 6 Neon Ice Cream Bars outside my front door, and every other door on my street. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my phone and went out the door, even before I could eat any of the food that my mom prepared, which was only a piece of toast covered in butter. As I walked down the sidewalk, I admired the houses, and examined their doormats to check for any boxes of ice cream. I repeated the message in my head- "I need it. I need the ice cream." I tried my best not to think about the ice cream for one day, and relax. I pulled out my earphones that I kept comfortably inside of the my jacket and put them in my ears. I checked my phone and switched through songs in my playlist, and stopped at Ong Ong, a very memorable song by the band Blur, from their album, The Magic Whip. Usually, i'd meet my friends down at the bus stop, but they didn't seem to show up, along with the rest of the students on bus 3022. It was earlier than the bus would show up, and students should be here already, I thought to myself. Did the bus leave already? As my thoughts kept me occupied, a force was pushed upon me that threw me to the ground abruptly. Covered in the wet grass from the storms last night, I quickly shot up to see Cortez Taylor, one of the students from the school, who if commonly referred to as the bully. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and punched me in the side of my face, stinging my entire face, almost making me cry. "What makes you think you can be here, fat ass? You think you own the bus stop, don't ya?" Fear kept me from answering his questioned. Something about his muscular appearance made me tremble in my shoes. My instinct was the run, but people suddenly surrounded us, assuming we were about to fight. People slowly pumped their fists high in the air chanting fighting slang and attempted to push us into each other inside in the ring the students created. Anger started to grow inside of me, and it didn't feel healthy. Everything around me was boosting my anger, and I let it out in one big blow. I threw my fist up and smashed the nose of Cortez Taylor, dropping him to the ground. Everybody around me gasped as they stared at the bloody nosed bully on the ground. People began to whisper behind my backs and slowly back away. Nothing like this has never happened before. I looked around to see people I knew and people who cared about me slowly walk the other way while talking about what just occurred between me and Cortez. Before anybody could see my cry, I lifted myself up and ran back home, leaving the broken headphones behind.