Short stories.

The ugly looking broom.

This is a really old essay I wrote for school like 3 years ago, it's childish but I still think it's cute so :P

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It was almost two a.m. in the morning. I could hear the sound made by the cricket. Except for that it was completely silent. Eventually the cricket's sound became creepy. Sleep should be easy to accomplish in silence but the case was opposite for me. The silence felt like it was hurting my eardrums. I had been lying on the bed since the past two hours trying to fall asleep; I had tried everything - counting sheep, thinking about a very pleasant open garden and now I was counting the florescent stars on the ceiling. But none of it helped. I decided to go down to the living room and watch television.

I was curled up inside my blanket lying on the couch surfing through channels. It seemed like 4 degrees outside. There was nothing much on television. Since it was Friday the thirteenth, the only things on were horror movies. I stopped at one channel, it was an old movie, and some witch was trying to kill a woman who was crying out loud for help. Something was missing, and then I realized, what's a movie without popcorn? I quickly ran towards the kitchen and removed a packet of popcorn and put it in the microwave. It would take two minutes and the movie had a break, so I stayed there waiting for the popcorn to be ready. The only source of light was the light coming from the microwave. Suddenly the lights went off outside. There was no electricity and I was standing in the kitchen all alone which was pitch dark. My parents were out of town for some marriage and weren't going to come back till the very next day. I thought "Empty house, scared lonely kid who was deprived of sleep, no electricity and it was Friday the thirteenth! Could it get any more frightening? What's next a serial killer?" And then what I thought happened! There was some light entering the kitchen from outside the window. It was extremely windy outside. There was a shadow on the wall which looked like a woman. She had a hood on her head and her hair was sticking out of the cloak. The shadow kept coming closer and it seemed like it grew vast every time I looked at it. I was terrified. I could feel the adrenaline flowing through my blood. I pinched myself to check whether I was dreaming and hoped that I was. But I wasn't. I sat down on the ground clutching my legs with my arms and closed my eyes. Suddenly instead of black everything looked red. It was because the electricity was back which I didn't realize till I heard the woman in the movie scream again. I opened my eyes and the shadow was gone. I got up, and after collecting all the courage I had, I turned to see who was outside the window. There was no one. Just a small tree with an ugly broom resting in a slanted way with a piece of cloth on the top of its brushes. It had red paint marks on it which made it look like a murder weapon. It looked like a century old and was the ugliest broom I had ever seen. I was somewhat relived to know it was no witch or serial killer but just a broom.

After that experience I was too terrified to watch a horror movie while being alone in the house. I went upstairs and fell on my bed. I hoped that I would fall asleep soon so I could avoid all the scary thoughts which now had begun to enter my mind. The next thing I remember was smelling my mom's special honey topped pancakes. I had slept like a baby last night. Probably the extreme fear had turned on the sleep switch. It was ten a.m. and I ran towards the kitchen and hugged my mother tightly. I told her everything about last night. My mom laughed for ten minutes straight without even pausing once. I did get a little irritated now that even my dad had heard my story and both of them made fun of me throughout the day. Now the broom has been shifted to the garage and I see it every day when my dad gets the car out to drop me to school. Now that I think about it, it was pretty funny and a smile comes on my face every time I see the ugly broom.