Redeemer
By: Isaac Wiersma
Everyone deserves a second chance, in any shape or form. It may come about in a day or two or with in 20 years, but eventually the opportunity will come about to undo what you have done wrong, to heal the wounds you have inflicted upon yourself and others. Eventually there will come a time where you will have a choice to commit a selfless act for the betterment of another.
My name is John Therensford; I grew up as an only child with my mother Cherice and my father William in a small hut on the outskirts of Tanare. Tanare is a little town located in the middle of the woods miles from any neighboring towns. Everybody new about everything, there were no secrets left hidden in Tanare, and I was the thorn in her side. Everybody new my name and who I was but not in a good way. My Mom called me the tiny terror when I was a boy, but my father had a unique name for me. He called me the little " Fatherless Boy," Which I found a little ironic since he was my father or was he... Imagine the worst thing a kid of 5 could do then think of something 3x worse and you have me, the little fatherless boy. I remember once I had found a piece of steel and a knife in the cabinets over the sink. I examined the shinny piece of metal and the five-inch knife then my curiosity overtook me. A smile appeared upon my face and an evil look could be found in my eyes. I ran to the fields surrounding my home and fiddled with the items in my hands. I scraped the knife against the steel and sparks began to fly everywhere. Well you know what happens when sparks connect with parched grass, hell is created. This flame began to spread very quickly; the wind was blowing south towards Tanare. I got to my feet and frantically ran to the barn for a bucket.
Mother happened to be washing the dishes at the time so she sees me scurrying from the barn to the stream carrying buckets of water.
" Johnny!" Yells my mom. " What are you doing?"
"Um I ah...um, I am watering the cows yeah that's what I'm doing" Of course she didn't believe me so she opened the door to go outside and the smell of burning wheat and the warmth of fire took hold of her.
"William!!" she screamed. "Come quick!"
"Now what has the little..." his answer came to him in a plume of smoke and blast of heat as he walked out the front door.
It took an hour for the whole town to put out the fire and in that time the wall of flame had consumed almost half of Tanare. When it was all over, and the village people were taking a breather they all turned my way with faces as red as a beat, but the reddest face belonged to my father and as he dragged me into the woods by the color of my shirt it kept getting even redder. You could hear the high-pitched screams of a five-year-old boy from miles around.
At least the town was tragedy free for three weeks and at the end of the third week feeling had returned to my legs. People say, as you grow older you start to mature, but that wasn't the case for me. The older I became the worse I behaved. Whenever travelers came to Tanare they always thought it was a place of old people due to all the gray hairs I put on the towns people, even the young Adults looked like senior citizens. Many houses, stores, and barns had to be rebuilt because of me. Even when I didn't do anything-wrong people blamed me. I had broken many hearts in that broken town there wasn't a beautiful girl that never had laid their eyes upon me. I knew I was irresistible and girls couldn't keep their hands off me, in the end I always ended up breaking their hearts usually not intentionally but broke them all the same. Eventually I was rejected by all the brads in Tanare. When I was eighteen the most beautiful girl moved in right next door to me, she was as sweet as lemonade, and was very innocent. When I first laid eyes on her my heart longed for her. I found out later she had taken a liking to me as well. Her name was Cathleen, but everyone called her Kate. It wasn't long till we were sitting on a cliff watching the sun set into the horizon, I was much in love with here and she was much in love with me, or so That is what I thought.
