KarMel
Scholarship 2008
|
Fictional
Story “A
Peculiar Escape” By Christopher
Sheffield |
Desciption of Submission: “A group of
homosexual boys longing to be free of society's oppression of their lifstyle
commit risky and violent acts in an effort to find an outside solace for their
woes.” – Christopher
|
The night air
was strangled with dust that swirled around the vehicle in a choking cloud,
masking every small hill and every tree until it was only seconds away. Pure
adrenaline and instinct took over reason as the steering wheel was jerked
side to side, compelling the wheels to compel the body, narrowly avoiding
each obstacle. The Vehicle held four passengers and the driver, none of which
detained any ounce of fear as the plastic and metal walls sped and spun dangerously
close to foreboding tree trunks and jutting rocks. Their voices within were
raised in song, defiant to fear in its nature, calming to the soul. Not a
single note was missed as the roaring truck sped into a large dip and, with
much bouncing and crashing, sped out, only to swerve around, with another
wall of dust raised, rushed once more into the ditch and out the other side.
Within the vehicle, a ritual as unchallenged as breathing was beginning, as
each individual slowly pressed down on the safety belt lock, releasing their
seat belts back to their defaulted position, taking only each other’s hands,
never stopping their song. The driver, one hand on the wheel, another holding
tightly to his passenger’s, spun the vehicle several times past an onslaught
of mesquite trees and back onto a rocky dirt path. The weak headlights shone
foreword into a wall of dust not three feet in front of the truck, masking
any indication or foreshadow of the path they now roared down. Throughout the
increasingly violent jolts and shocks of the path, the group continued its
song, knowing full well what lay at the end of the pathway. The log was
frequently referred to by local students as "Gator" due to
its resemblance in shape to a massive alligator. It lay three quarters of the
way across the path, and was the result of a desert lightning storm that had
occurred many years ago. It was toward this prehistoric monument that the
vehicle sped. Remorse, second thought, rationale, logic, all left behind in
the continuous clouds erupting after the wheels of the truck. It wasn’t until
Gator finally came into view of the headlights that the driver took his
hand off the wheel and placed it firmly in the grip of the passenger behind
him. The song reached its crescendo, all voices raised to the heavens as they
continued into the jaws of the unforgiving death roll promised by the ancient
creature laying belly down before them. Screaming
metal, rushing skies and dirt, deafening thunder, howling foliage: all this
and yet not a sound ushered within. The vehicle
rolled for what seemed like a millennium of shrieking explosions. It was over
a hundred feet away from Gator by the time it eventually stopped. Finally, when
all the noise had echoed away into the desert night, silence descended on the
grotesque scene. Metal and glass lay strewn about, gasoline and other liquids
bled in abundance across the sand and rock. Tires spun uselessly on the
exposed underside of the truck, all but one, which had broken free from its
bonds and rolled excitedly off into the night air. Jacob crawled
from out of the wreckage, ignoring the stream of blood that ran from his
forehead to his chin. He watched the tire go with intensity, envious of the
freedom it now had. No longer would it be held down and told to live as its
brothers lived, no longer would it be made to spin, but rather it would twirl
of its own will, barreling off into distant revelries, unchecked by a society
built to oppose its free resolve. It took only
moments for the three other passengers to emerge from the jumble of metal,
each sporting their own broken and bloody badges. Kaylib kneeled down by the
driver’s window, looking with calm eyes at Mason’s body. Slowly he stood and
met Jacob’s gaze, his voice a whisper following an apocalypse. "He’s free."
Jacob was
silent for a moment, turning once again to stare out in the direction the
tire’s flight. "I
know." Painfully Jacob turned back and limped to Kaylib’s side, gripping
his hand and placing a small kiss on Kaylib’s bloody lips, just as he had so
many times before. "We will be too, one day." With that the
four begrudgingly began their slow but deliberate trek back down the dirt
path they had came, over the rocky hills and past the crooked trees, back
towards the lights glowing in the distance, back towards the world they would
never see as |