The following short story was written by my daughter, Trinity Landygo (age 12)
It is up to me to draw something worthy of this piece.
The Fall
By: Trinity Landygo
*beep, beep, beep*
I woke up to the sound of my arm clock.
*beep, beep, beep*
Ugh! I slam my hand down on the top of it making it fall to
the floor. Well, on the bright side at least the beeping stopped.
*beep, beep, beep*
I guess I spoke to soon. Well I guess I have to get up now. I
stand up from my bed and make my way over to my closet. "What should I
wear?" I ask myself out loud. "Hmmm maybe I should wear a dress
today?" "Hahaha, that's funny!" I talk to myself as I pick out
black jeans, a white shirt that says, "ok but first coffee" in gold
and my black converse. I then go to my desk to put on my makeup and straighten
my hair. Okay now time for breakfast! I make my way downstairs to make
breakfast, only to see that my mom is already making pancakes. I thank her and
then go and pour myself a cup of coffee with about seven-sugar cubes (my
parents always say that sugar is bad for you but whatever) then go ad sit
beside my dad at the kitchen table. I drink my coffee as he reads the paper and
drinks his green tea. This is what happens every morning. The same old routine.
Soon my brother, James, comes downstairs in his dinosaur onesie, even though he
is 15 he doesn't care, I have tried telling him that it's not cool to wear a
dinosaur onesie but he just won't listen to me. As soon as he comes downstairs
my dad compliments him on his outfit, saying that the green really suits his
skin tone, you might think that he is joking but he's not, and that's the worst
part about it. He sincerely means it! "Ash" My mom calls, "your
going to be late!" You may be thinking "is 'ash' short for
Ashley?" But no, 'ash' is not short
for Ashley, it's short for Ashton! Ashton, out of all names why did my parents
have to make my name a boys name? "I'm coming" I yell to my
mom. Every
Saturday I have my band practice. Yes, I am in a band and we are called After
The Sunset, my friend Brinley thought of the name. I play guitar in the band,
Brinley plays bass, my friend Cobain is the lead singer, Cobain's brother, Jack, plays the
drums. We are really good and have gotten a bunch of small gigs around our
town, but in two weeks we are playing at Brinley's mom's friend's cousins
wedding. Confusing, I know, but this is our first big gig and we really need to
practice so that other people can see how good we are and then we can get more
gigs. We always practice at Cobain's house because her parents are well-known
music producers so she has a huge soundproof music room and a recording booth.
It's really cool! "Your practice starts at 9:00am, you better get
going!" Mom shouts "I'm leaving now" I call back "bye have
fun I love you sweetheart" "love you too mom" I head out to Frank, which I call my blue
2002 Honda Civic. I know that it doesn't seem like a very nice car but, it's
honestly my dream car, I love it so much. I hop in, start the gas and start
pulling out of the driveway. Once I get on the highway I roll down the windows,
and turn the music up loud. The song Fly Away by 5Seconds Of Summer playing. I
start singing along like I usually do. Before I know it I am dancing while I
drive, I hear my phone ring and I reach down to get it. When I look up I see
the headlights of a semi coming straight at me and before I can swerve around
it, it crashes right into the front of me. I feel myself tumbling, flipping
over and over again soon, it stops but I can't move. I can feel the blood
coming from my head, my phone is still ringing, but I can't move to get it. I
can hear the faint sound of sirens in the distance, I am fighting to keep my
eyes open, but I just can't anymore. I can feel my eyes closing as I slip
further and further away into the darkness. You know how they say that when you
die, you see all of your most favourite memories flash before your eyes, well I
guess that's what's happening right now.
Monday July 13th, 2003
"Mommy! Mommy!" My brother shouted. He was
only 10 at the time. I however was 15 and had just gotten back from my friends
house where we were practicing for our band, although every single time I
played a song I would always mess up, I couldn't even play a single chord! I
was so upset when I got home. I guess my brother could tell that I was sad
because he came up to me and asked "hey Ash, what's wrong? You seem
sad" "nothing's wrong, I'm fine" I answered "Ash, I know
you and I know that your not okay" "okay fine I just, I couldn't play
anything right today, I just kept messing up and it was so embarrassing"
"hey, it's going to be fine Ash, your an amazing guitar player and
everyone knows that, I know that and you just had a bad day that's
all." "Thank you, you’re a really good brother" he
hugged me and said, "Well, I'm hoping to go eat some pizza and play some
video games, so bye"
Wednesday February 4th, 2006
We loaded up in my dads old station wagon, me, my mom,
my dad, and my brother hugged and kissed everybody goodbye. Auntie Roe, Uncle
Max, grandma, grandpa, cousins, and finally Gary, he was an old family friend.
Driving away, I just had to look back, auntie Roe was smiling, grandma and
grandpa stood there with tears in their eyes, uncle Max, and my cousins just
stood there, burning in the sun. Dad and my brother argued the whole 5-hour
drive back home, yelling at each other, it felt as if there almost wasn't
enough air to breath. Everyone was quiet for the rest of the day, sullen, mom
heated up TV dinners, dad went to the store, and James, my brother sat at the
end of the couch, just staring blankly at the wall In front of him, something
he always did when he was sad. When dad came home, he sat in his old leather
recliner, eating pistachios and watching The Wild West. While mom sat in her
purple and green chair, she would sew tablecloths while listening to her E-books,
but me, I just sat there watching everybody do their thing but not really
knowing what to do. It doesn't seem like much, but we would always do the same
thing, sitting there together all doing different things, but somehow knowing
that we were all connected in some way was comforting to me.
Friday September 11th, 2009
I have always loved the feeling of my bare feet on the
cool sand, underneath a full moon. Me and him, Danny, walking together
underneath the shining moon, holding hands. It was 1:00am. We had been walking
for a long time. We were having another one of our deep conversations; these
conversations were always my favourite. We would always talk about anything and
everything. We would lay down on the sand, still holding hands
and just talk while we looked out at the ocean.
Sunday December
19th, 2013
I bent over to look
at the rows of cupcakes in front of me. All of them look so good, I can't pick
one. "Here let me help you" I looked up and saw a boy with curly
brown hair and green eyes. He was holding out a chocolate cupcake with
beautiful frosting. "Okay. Thanks, it's beautiful. Did you make it?"
I asked him. "Yes, I did and thanks" he replied. I paid for the
cupcake and went to go and sit down by the window. As soon as I sat down I
tried the cupcake. Let me tell you, it was amazing. "Is it any good?"
I averted my attention from the cupcake to the boy from before who was now
sitting in front of me. "It's amazing" I smiled. "Do you mind if
I sit down?" He asked. "No, not at all" he seemed like a nice
guy. We sat and talked for the next hour. He was sweet, a little immature, but
it's not like I cared. I looked for that I a guy. He talked to me like he had
known me for years. He wasn't afraid to be himself.
Tuesday March 2nd,
2014
I didn't know where
I was going, sometimes I would just walk. I loved walking, I would walk
anywhere at anytime. It gave me time to clear my head, to realize what's
important and to forget about the things that aren't important. Sometimes I
would have somewhere that I was going, but this time I didn't know where I was
going, suddenly I found myself walking in the direction of her house. I don't
know why, but something inside me just told me to go there. I stop walking. I
shouldn't be going there, after everything that she did to me, I shouldn't
forgive her. She was such a horrible person, so mean. 'No keep walking, you
have to go there. Just trust me' the little voice said. So I keep walking. 3250
Impala Ave. There it is. I walk up the driveway and ring the doorbell.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 if nobody answers in 15 seconds I'm leaving. 8,9,10. The door
opens and there she stands, the girl who hurt me so much, bullied me. "Oh
my god! Ashton! I thought I would never see you again! I am so sorry, for
everything that I ever did to hurt you, I was just so jealous, I was going
through a bad time I never wanted to hurt you as much as I did. You are an
amazing person. I hope that you can forgive-" I cut her off. "Its
okay, I forgive you"
Thursday November
23rd, 2015
I furiously typed on
my laptop, desperately trying to finish my English paper. I still have no clue
why I decided to take AP English. My phone started ringing, Brinley, my best
friend since kindergarten was calling me. "Hello" "oh my gosh,
Ashton, you won't ever believe who is staying across the street from me"
"who" I asked "Michael Clifford" she answered "what!
Are you serious!" Michael Clifford is in my favourite band, and I have
always wanted to meet him. "I'm coming over right now" I hung up, got
my shoes and made my way over to her house, let's just say that day was one of
the best days ever.
Memories are what we
are made of, well technically we are all made of cells, but memories make up
our soul. The things that we remember will influence us in life some are good,
and some are bad. But they are still memories. Memories are things that we will
never forget, things that we will talk about, things that will follow us for
the rest of our lives, but what we need to learn how to do is to leave the bad
memories behind us. To learn to leave the bad pieces behind. I want to kick and
scream but I am trapped. Floating.
It feels like I am floating. It's like there is no way I'm able to put my feet
on anything solid. Darkness. All I can see is darkness. I don't know where I
am, but it is always dark, and frankly, it's terrifying. I have no feeling. I cannot feel
my body. I am having trouble figuring out where I am, I mean I don't think that
I'm dead because it feels like I have been here for a few weeks, maybe months
but also when you die aren't you supposed to see some bright light? I want to move, I want to run but I can't, suddenly I can hear a
long beep and I finally feel like this is the end. They were wrong, there's no
bright light when you die, no miracle, just darkness. Never ending darkness.
