O.K. folks. I'm really putting myself out there with this one. As most of you know, I've recently moved, which means I've recently had boxes to unpack and dig through. In all this digging I found a story that I wrote when I was a sophomore, maybe a junior, in high school. I know, it's a long time ago and a very old story. But, my English teacher, Mr. Oldfield (the best English teacher EVER), gave me an "A" on this story - even though it was late. I'm pretty proud of that.
Now that I'm older, and certainly wiser, I look over this story and find lots of mistakes and things I'd like to change. It's a little cheesy in parts, but I was a moody, emotional 15-year-old, what do you expect!? Considering I'm not a professional writer (just a professional writing teacher), I think it's an acceptable little story. By the way, I've always struggled with titles and often choose not to title my writings. I've written a poem all about that that I'll share sometime.
It should be noted here that I seem to remember writing something around this same time and was concerned that my ideas weren't original. My memory is foggy. It may have been this story, but I can't remember what I may have "borrowed" from. I know I was on a Paul Zindel (The Pigman, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, etc.) kick around then. So, in an effort to give credit to whoever may have inspired me, I would like to at least acknowledge that I'm not nearly as original as I like to think I am. Whenever I discover who or what it was that inspired this, I'll let you know.
So, here's the story. I don't know why I spelled Jeffery the way I did in the story, but it's how I originally wrote it. To my students (and really anyone else): How would you improve on this story? How about a title? Notice anything I did in this story that I've told you NOT to do?
David was the most off-center person I've ever had the pleasure of befriending. I have a lifetime goal of meeting every “eccentric” person there is. I put “eccentric” in quotes because I'm considered eccentric. Other “eccentric” people are perfectly centered to me.
Anyway, David was way out of society. He was eccentric even to Jeffery and me. This boy was weird. How weird? I'll let you decide for yourself.
Jeffery and I went to the same high school. That place was such a pit it deserves to be called no more than high school. We were juniors when we met David.
Jeffery and I were on our way home from school. Cutting through the old site of Mr. Hillman's Pub and Deli, as was our usual custom, we felt something was wrong. It started out as only a feeling of another presence. Then we heard it.
“Run!” yelled Jeffery, just before he actually saw the figure of the Doberman running straight at us.
About three feet in front of a ten-foot high fence we stopped. The barking had stopped. We turned around. There was a six-foot-three skinny boy holding the pincher's collar.
“Quiet, Lucy!” he said to the dog. Then to us he said, “I do apologize for Lucy's behavior. She doesn't like strangers.”
He grinned and flashed deep dimples. Then he turned and walked into the wind-blown shack.
Jeffery looked at me and shrugged. Usually, I would have blurted out something to the tall youth about tying up his dog, but with this boy it was different. Though no more than, at most, a year older than us, I had a feeling this boy knew so much more than we did. Like he had a deep secret and he knew no one else knew what it was.
Jeffery and I began walking toward home. The shed door slammed shut and tall youth walked out toward us.
“Hello,” he said, firmly taking my right hand in his left and Jeffery's left in his right. “I'm David. Lucy gets very protective of me and her things.”
“I'm Ambrosia and this is Jeffery. Don't call him Jeff or he'll get very upset.”
“I'm very pleased to meet you,” David said, kissing my hand.
“Hi,” Jeffery mumbled.
After that first day we saw David every day. No one knew anything about him. He had no last name.
We knew David two weeks exactly when he let us in. Before that day we had never entered the shed.
That day he opened the warped and rotted door of the shed. Without a word to us he creaked open the door. Because our eyes were not yet used to the darkness we did not think that what we saw before us was real. But real it was.
Lying across four wooden horses was the skeleton of a crude fifteen-foot sailing dinghy.
“What in the world is this for?” Jeffery whined.
“I trust you two,” David began. “So I shall tell now tell you all of my secrets. No one thinks I know where I'm from or who my parents are, but I do. About three and a half years ago I was living with my parents. One day I ventured outside my domed city and got caught up in a hurricane. i got washed up on shore about fifty miles south of here. I've been building this ever since. I will soon go back home.”
His entire being glowed as he said this. What was he talking about?
“Why don't you just get a job and buy a plane ticket home?” Jeffery asked sarcastically.
“No plane flies to my home,” David said.
“Where exactly is home?” I seriously asked.
“Atlantis,” he answered dreamily.
“You mean Atlanta, as in Georgia,” corrected Jeffery. “Lots of planes fly there!”
“No. Atlantis, as in the ocean.”
Jeffery's mouth dropped open.
“Bye!” Jeffery spun around, grabbed my arm and began to drag me out.
“Where are you going? Don't leave!” David pleaded.
Jeffery stopped and turned. “Look, man. You are nuts! I don't want to have anything to do with you. I don't want her near you, either. Man, you're weirder than we are!”
His words sounded more like something I would have said.
“Please believe me,” David's deep-sea green eyes pleaded. “I am from Atlantis. I want to go home. Your world is too cruel, too ugly. I cannot bear to live here anymore. But, I need your help. I'm not sure whether I should leave quietly or let people in on my secret. I trust you to keep quiet until I give the signal.
“We do believe you , David. It's just hard for us to accept,” I explained. Jeffery opened his mouth, but I kicked him so he would shut up. “We really do have to go know, though. Well be back tomorrow. O.K?”
We got about twenty feet away from the shack.
“You are as crazy as he is!” Jeffrey screamed.
“No, I'm not. you said he was nuts and we have no proof, that's all.”
“No proof! That dude thinks he's from Atlantis and you want proof!”
“Maybe he is from Atlantis.”
“There is no such place.”
“Maybe there is.”
“Maybe there isn't.”
“So.”
“You want me to accept something I don't believe?”
“I want you to open your horizons. Imagine. Fantasize.”
“The guy's a fruitcake.”
“So are we according to a lot of people.” I had him there. A lot of people thought we were nuts.
We looked it if nothing else. He has blazing orange hair. It was thick and long. he had no bangs.
His hair was down just past his shoulders and all one length. It sounds bad, but it looked all right on him. Any guy that can look O.K. with hair like that has to be nuts. That's what some people said. He had chocolate eyes and freckles all over. He was an easy six feet and very lanky.
I, on the other hand, was, and am, barely five feet and scrawny. I had a mass of wild black hair that curled all the way down my back. My bangs almost always hid my clear blue eyes. My hair is a little more under control now.
We walked the rest of the way home with only the sound of silence.
After a week of debating we did determine that David was a little loony but not insane. We were going to try and do everything we could to help him. How we could help him we did not know.
The next Saturday I went to the mailbox. Inside was a green envelope with my name on it. Quickly, I opened it. I rarely get any mail. I read the letter and screamed. I ran the whole two blocks to Jeffery's house. In front of the T.V. is where I found him.
“Hey, what's up?” he said drowsily.
“It's David! He's going to do something. I don't know what, but I don't think this is good! We
have to go to the bay! I got this letter and he wants us to meet him there!” I was, by then, hysterical.
Jeffery jumped up and we ran down to the bay. The Atlantic Ocean is about two miles away. How I survived running those two miles, I'll never know.
We were not the only ones there. A small riot of people were gathering on the pier. It was not surprising that David would draw a crowd. It wasn't the fact that he was sailing out to sea that was unusual. It was how he looked.
David and Lucy were readying the boat. David was wearing nothing except a sea-green tunic-like thing around his middle and assorted varieties of seaweed. He has woven crowns of seaweed and shells which were cocked on his own head and on Lucy's head.
David looked up and and saw our confusion. “My friends!” He said, as he stepped off his unfinished-looking dinghy. “Today I leave you. I am going home. Do not tell anyone where I am going until you receive the signal.”
He stopped, looked at the crowd, and then back at us. Almost begging he said, “Your world is a very violent and terrible place. In one year, read this and do what it says. It will help.” He handed me another envelope.
He turned and walked casually toward his boat. He turned, grinned, and set sail.
For days Jeffery and I waited to hear if anyone saw him or heard from him. Was he dead? Was he alive in Atlantis?
Whisperings went on around town as to what happened to David. We knew, but couldn't say anything until today.
Today we opened the letter. David asked us to tell his story in the best way we knew how. He tells us that our world is falling apart. Atlantis can help. We can help. You can help. Change our dying world.
