Little Snippets

STORY : 1

 " THE LADY "

Hey there, I'm Brenda Everstone. Aiko Zhou, my best friend, is one of the funniest people I've ever met, we grew up together. We've gone to the same school. Now we are employees of the same company. It's always a relief to have her around me as my soul sister. Today I want to share something. About an incident when me and Aiko were two ten year old kids. It's remarkable because I happen to remember every single thing about that day. It was about the time when according to me, we were the most iconic best friends you'll ever see in California, I think we still are. Life was pretty much the same for us. Monday to Friday school and then Saturday and Sunday spending some time in the rose park. It's been in tradition in both of our families before our birth. There's this weekly picnic that we do on weekends. I kinda liked picnics, it helped us to know our cultures more as I'm an American and Aiko's from Japan. There was another reason why I liked the picnics, it was eating the japanese food made by Mrs.Zhou, yum! That day was a Saturday.  Aiko and I came early to the park on our cycles, it was just a 5 minutes ride from our consecutively same houses. Our parents said that they were coming in a minute or two but we can start playing. It seemed like a perfect Saturday to me. Me, Aiko, food and the sun. Ever thought what could ruin such a beautiful day. Let me give you some hints, maybe rain, or bad food or us falling down from our cycles and getting hurt, ouch. Many things could happen to ruin that day, but the thing that actually happened was the worst of all. Me and Aiko decided to race to the one and only Willow tree in the rose park. As we raced we saw a lady lying down under the cold shadow of the tree in front of us.

"Hey, let's talk with that lady," Aiko said.

"But mum has forbidden us to talk to strangers, remember?" I reminded her.

"But they are not here, come on what can possibly go wrong?" she assured me.

"Okay," I replied, unsure.

As we proceeded towards the lady, I started to realize that the lady wasn't moving.

"Aiko, the lady isn't moving," I said.

"Maybe she's sleeping."

"She is not moving at all!" I screamed and ran towards the lady.

Even though I heard my bike falling down I didn't turn, I sat beside the woman and checked her pulse. Our health teacher Ms.Ramirez taught us how to check our pulse.

"Is...is she dead Brenda?" Aiko asked me after sitting on the opposite side of the lady.

"She has no pulse, maybe...she's dead."

We sat down silently as if the sun stopped shining, as if the wind stopped blowing, as if the rose park transformed into a graveyard and then it suddenly started to feel cold.

"It's terrifying isn't it?" Aiko first spoke after a moment of silence.

"What is terrifying?"

"That everything just ends when you die. All the fun, happiness, sorrows just end in one second," she said, still looking at the body.

Even I started to realize that really everything changes once you die. Just a few seconds back I called her a lady and now I'm referring to her as a body, a dead one for sure. Things do change after our death. People forget us, we just remain as a mere photograph.

"That's life I suppose Aiko, if there is a beginning, there is an end. If there is birth, there is death. If we are breathing today, doesn't mean that we'll never stop. It's just that we'll never know when it'll be our last breath," I let out a long sigh.

And then we rode our bikes back to our usual playing spot and waited for our parents. As soon as they came, we told them about the dead body and they called the police. We continued to play cause the definition of life for us then was just being carefree and having fun 24/7. Little did we know that the future was holding a lot of stuff for us.

*****

The first short story is completed! Hope you liked it. Don't forget to vote and comment!

P.S. Love you all  <3