My Hero: A Short Story

We get back into the car. I breathe deeply. Through puffs of smoke, Thomas says, “That guy sounds like a dick.” We merge onto a different highway. The sun is rising. I think only of the Pacific Ocean, of the light on the water, of the sound of waves crashing over my feet. I remember kayaking on the ocean with my father and his friend. I was young, nine or ten. On top of the waves, my father told me that we were going to roll the kayak. He said that while we were under the water, I couldn’t let go of him. He said that I had to make him proud, that I would be in trouble if I embarrassed him in front of his friend. He said that my sister was too afraid to roll the kayak, but I was different, I was brave. Once we got under the water, dad kept flailing around. He tried to push me off of him, but my legs were locked around his chest. He was testing me, but I wouldn’t let go. My lungs burned. I told myself that I just needed to hang on ten more seconds, ten more seconds. I thought I could hear my dad’s voice under the waves. Someone was under the waves with us. Arms pulled me away from dad, but I fought them. The arms were too strong, they pulled me into the air and held me above the waves. I thought that dad would be furious that I had let go, but once he rolled the kayak back up, dad looked afraid. His friend asked him what had happened. Dad said he wasn’t strong enough to roll us back up, that he couldn’t breathe, that he

“Run!” the little boy cried. The roman soldiers came attacking at village and killing 2 dozen men and women. The little boy was named Damon. His father is a god, his name was Mercury, the god of speed. Damon was just a demigod.

As I looked up, the sky was dark the sidewalk illuminated by the streetlights. The sound of crickets and cars echoing through my ears. I walked home that night, tears in my eyes. I was leaving, I couldn’t handle it anymore. The meds, doctors, psychiatrists nothing was working, our lives were in constant danger. By the time I got home the car was gone. By the time, I finished packing it was dawn. The sun creeping in through the shutters. For the next couple of days, I crashed at Jason’s before I headed South. I heard my cell ringing, it was mom… I let it go to voicemail.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Puerto Rico where my family and I were taking a vacation that spring. As I lay on my dad’s colorful bed in the small pink villa on the water, I find it hard to enjoy the view that comes from the balcony and the salty smell of the light blue ocean. The villa resides on a rocky cliff where the rippling ocean waves smash onto the rocks below. The waves, which usually relax me, are insignificant. I see colorful houses that run along the water for miles just like ours. In the corner of my eye I see the infinity pool that looks out onto the crystal clear water. Something else is on my mind. Something not even the alluring scenery could take my mind off of-death. One month earlier, I lost my mom to a vicious disease called cancer. Its evilness left my family and I broken and sick at heart. When I look back now to that vacation, I think nothing other than sadness and mourning. Maybe it was too soon to take a vacation, I thought. My dad walks into his room and sits next to me on his bed.

“Then you must take up your well-shaped oar and go on a journey until you come where there are men living who know nothing of the sea,” said Teiresias, a famous blind prophet.

I vividly remember that chilly night in March as I walked out of Fifer, the building my father now calls home, for the first time. I had goosebumps, but they were not from the cold I felt hit my skin. Instead, they were from the sickness in my stomach. As I got in the car, I began to cry and had to stop myself from running back inside. My entire world had turned upside-down. How could I go home without my father? How could I leave him in a nursing home, a place where he was too young and mentally fit to be confined? I had to fight the feeling that he didn’t belong. I had to remind myself of why he chose to be there, and I hated it.

I heard a feminine voice call out to me as I blazed out the front door. "Good morning Amber! Oh, where are you--" I cut her off with a sharp slam. I couldn't look back. With each step towards my car, I inhale painful sobs of air. I feel as if I don't know who I am, as if I was that 18 year old girl hearing the news of his death for the first time. I couldn't think of the name that belongs to me, or any one else but my father. Any face my subconscious offers had the resonance of a total stranger, then was replaced with the haunting image of

for Vince, we bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to occupy our free time. Riding a motorcycle is a more cost-saving sport. It was also much easier to jump on a bike for a few hours of riding than it was to prepare the boat for a few hours of sailing. Not quite the same, but even so, a great way to have fun.

There was once a time where Americans traveled into a great wilderness known as the West to discover their destiny. They packed up their whole lives and left the familiar behind, all for a chance to discover something new. It is natural as humans to want to discover something fresh and exhilarating, and for me I wanted to unravel the mystery that the West held. The West called to me like a siren of the ocean, and I knew I would not rest until I fulfilled my urge to travel to the West. Like the settlers before me I uprooted my whole life. I boarded a 7 AM flight to a small town just outside of Billings, Montana, known as Huntley. This small ranching community would be the set where I would learn things about myself that I never thought

He was like my second dad to me. I have been alive 9 years and nothing so tragic had happened to me. Even if i would not see him perfectly fine the next day I will never forget that moment. I wondered if i will ever see him again alive. That moment my mom told me my papa was having surgery was one of the worst

I am stranded in a land of wind and sea. I have been stranded for almost a decade and sailed through thunderstorms and high winds. The rain was pouring on my back shivering me with coldness. These high winds have been blowing away the sweat off my head. I have been very seasick and hunting down enormous sea animals. I lost a ton of weight and my skin is completely bloated with so much water. My eyes are so heavy from catching whales, I can barely stay awake. Our food supply has been scarce, I only ate small pieces of food a day. I was in so much famine, I would eat anything. I am being pushed to my limits and I fear that I might not come back alive from this terrifying adventure. This adventure has been loading me with pain I want to immediately sail back home. This letter might be the only thing you will ever hear from me.

“Rabia wake up now; we have to go. She’s gone,” my mother said without another word. Within moments, I was standing in my best friend’s apartment at seven in the morning on Memorial Day. I stood there in the living room, unable to stop the tears from flowing as I watched the most terrifying moment of my life take place in front of my eyes. My muscles were tense; I clenched my jaw as my teeth began grinding uncontrollably. I tried so hard to mute the cries of others. Confusion had taken over my body so much so that I entered a state of numbness and could no longer feel any emotion. I have never had to use so much willpower to digest what was happening around me.

I must have been through all the stages of grief before I accepted my lifelong friend could die. It was hard to understand and it puzzled me; Why, out of the seven billion who inhabit this planet, would this happen to him? My life had been torn apart and turned upside down in the matter of an hour, from when I was awoken by the unexpected sharp thuds of knocking on the door, to me in the ambulance, praying like I had never before.

Dad and I grew apart after that. We just drowned in our sorrows, too far away to help each other up. And just two months after Mom’s death, Dad went. “Suicide” they called it. It was murder. No matter how desperate or depressed he was, Dad would never kill himself. He wouldn’t leave his only child behind, letting them slowly die by themselves from the pain. Dad would never.

I realized there was nothing else to be done, he was not my father and I was sure I’d see him someday, he wouldn’t stop loving me, and we would always have the memories of the brief time we shared our lives. He made the best out of my childhood.