Short stories

Chapter One

Stunned faces.
Consternation.
Eyes filled with tears.

Already when Mr Collins enters the room, the class suddenly falls silent.
Which really is not normal at all, lots of teachers regularly despair of keeping the students quiet.
But today it is different.
Today the teenagers feel the seriousness of the situation.
Today nobody speaks a word when the head teacher takes a deep breathe and begins to talk in a raucous and abnormal trembling voice:
"Dear students.
I've come to announce bad news."
He pauses, then continues:
"Your classmate, Lenny, he ...
he has committed suicide."

The reactions are as different as you can imagine it:
A couple of girls burst out into tears immediately, and you even spot boys who although trying hardly can't avoid their eyes glittering equivocally.

Mrs Clark doesn't even try to go on with the lesson. She swollowes, then looks at the class with a tear running down her cheek.
"I ... am really sorry. It's impossible to understand what has happened."
Her voice breaks.
"And ... we will never forget Lenny.
You- you can go now."
Then she grabs her stuff and hurries behind her stunned students.

"Hey." A pale girl touches Oliver's shoulder.
"I ... I am so sorry."
The boy has been the neighbour of Lenny and also a good friend of him.
First he just stares at Kimberley. Then he hugs her, slowly and with an expressionless face.
Kimberley feels that he is shaking.
She never dealt a lot with Lenny, but Oliver goes to the same swimming club as her and they are good friends.
Ollie's mate has always been too quiet and inconspicuous for her and somehow also a bit boring.
But now that he ...

Oliver lets go, but he avoids looking into her eyes.
When Kimberley's friend Sarah has also apologized for something she didn't even had to do with, Oliver turns around and walks away, slowly, as if he had to carry a weight of several tons on his shoulders.
With a sorrow-stricken expression on their faces, the girls watch him, then they turn around too and go to their classroom.

She found the letter in the morning, when her brother didn't turn up for breakfast. Lenny has always been really puncual, so it was strange that he was late.
She went to his room, but when she knocked on the door, nobody reacted. So she entered.
Lenny didn't lie in his bed, there was only a letter written in his spidery handwriting.

Broken glasses broke me.

While reading she bursts into tears.

Do not cry too much. It will be alright.
Sunny, I love you. And I will always love you. I want you to know that even though I have already made my desicion.

This is the end of the letter.
Her parents arrive.

Stunned faces.
Consternation.
Eyes filled with tears.

From the diary of Oliver:

Nothing is alright.
Nothing.
You can even realize this at the fact that I am writing into a diary.

He took all the joy and laughter with him.
Even our dog who hated him and always barked at him when he ran to catch the school bus lies quietly in our garden and whines sometimes.

His familiy is totally horrified. They didn't expect anything like this happening.
But Lenny sometimes told me sadly about his parents argueing again when he came to me only to escape this horror.
He didn't want his parents to fight and it really hurt him.
This and the sum of some other problems may have led him to his desicion.
Ann and James say I don't have to blame myself. But I reflected a lot the last days.
Should I have said something?
Would it have been my duty to alert somebody, my parents or even his parents?
I know that now, I cannot change a thing.
He's gone. For ever.
I miss you, mate.
Hoping you are fine wherever you are.

The graveyard has always been such a peaceful place for Sunny.
Now it has turned out to be a nightmare.
The girl walks slowly behind her mother who is sobbing quietly.
Sunny has already used up all her tears.
She bites her lips not to scream out loud because of the injustice and the pain she goes though the whole week.

Everybody has come, her family, the neighbours, some friends of her brother and even some teachers.

The pastor begins his funeral speech.
But the words can't reach Sunny.
The only thing that attracts her attention is the photo standing on top of the coffin.
"Oh Lenny. How could you leave me alone?"
A tear runs down her cheek now, but she doesn't whipe it away.

Her flower, a red rose, falls into the grave.
His grave.
The stone is quite beautiful, marvel with golden letters on it.
Lennox Pherrell.
You will always be in our hearts.

The photo has been placed in front of it. She looks at it and at the same time she realizes something breaking in her heart. And she knows that no doctor and no medecine will fix that wound ever.

When the grave is closed with soil she looks around at the people who have come. And considering the expressions on their faces she knows they felt the same thing.

Stunned faces.
Consternation.
Eyes filled with tears.

[ Published on 4 August 2018 ]