Elk Valley: A Short Story

As soon as my eyes woke up to the bitter cold of the night and stars covered by black blanket of clouds, I knew that this was it. I had tried to prepare myself that day, but I was at school when it happened. The moment the intercom came over the classroom, “Hailey Wooldridge needs to come the office, her mom is here to check her out,” my heart stopped. I was able to make it to the office without losing my composure, but as soon as my eyes met my mom standing there with tears in hers I lost it. Right there standing in the school office, the food gates of heaven opened up in my eyes and I could not stop the rivers from flowing. My best friend since kindergarten had died. All the planning of moving in together when we went to college was down the drain. The late nights of watching horribly filmed scary movies was done. My heart was broken, and the pieces are still not taped together properly. Two days later was her funeral. Her mother had asked me to say a couple of words about her during the service, but the thought of standing next to her lifeless body talking about her and not to her made everything seem surreal. By the power of prayer and numerous amounts of tears, I stood up from my seat and walked lifelessly to the podium that viewed hundreds of people waiting to see what I had to say. I do not know how I got through that speech without hysterically crying, but somehow, I talked like I was having a conversation with Serra once again. In front of me, I

I walked away feeling like I was a complete failure and that I didn’t deserve to go on. On the way home my mother tried to talk to me, but, I put on my headphones and cried silently. Once we were home my father asked how it went. The tears that were in my eyes and they became more evident as my shoulders and chest were shaking and trembling. The only sound in the room was the sound of me crying and wailing. I started crumbling and falling to the ground and my mother and father rushed to my side. They held me until the tears came to a stop and a little bit afterwards

again. She gave me the strength to get out of the situation and strive to give her

On April 4, 2017 at approximately 2:32 A.M. I, Deputy Hill was informed by dispatch of a possible over dose at the Trails Inn Motel.

As we were following a well traveled game trail, we came to a spot where we could see the rim of the canyon through the opening in the trees. As we looked up to the top of the canyon, we noticed there was a bull elk at the top of the canyon. It looked like a postcard. The elk was standing on the very top of the hill with nothing around it but the green grass and the tall trees in the background. He was looking straight down at as, and didn?t even care that we were there.

In 2015 my grandmother died. When I received the news I was on the couch and my mother told me “Miguel we have to talk” I was sweating because my mother was so serious and she told me that my grandmother was dead, and in that moment all I could think about was being back in the Dominican Republic, growing up with her, imagining the moments I spent in her house and the mornings that I sat in her living room, watching TV and smelling her amazing food wafting through the pass-through window from the kitchen. Then I snap back on reality and realize the future my grandmother would want for me.

My father finally spoke up and said abruptly, we are moving to California. I said what!. That answer moving to California, was almost equal to my uncle telling me "Your Sister Jackie is dead." I knew that my girlfriend, my anchor on earth was disappearing from my life. And now she was gone, 35 days after I lost my sister. My earth angle, I dreamed of being my wife was gone. I felt like I was having a nightmare and couldn't wake up, how could all this be happening to me. Despair sit like a stone in my stomach, like concrete boots dragging me toward what felt like my inevitable end. "I'm not going to make it. "I was in a state of melancholy depression.Laced with a fatal sense of my own wretchedness. I was fourteen years old and felt like I was

It had been a long tiring day ,my sister and i had gone to our mimi’s house for the day. She took us to see the movie in side out, my sister balling at the end. We also when out to eat at ihop, and shopping. My parents slept all day so they wouldn’t be tried to drive all night to Colorado and get there at about noon. We didn't leave until about 1 or 2 am, but I couldn't sleep I was to excited. Every time I closed my eyes eyes they just bursted open again. I was to excited to start driving, “can we go yet?” An hour of waiting, listening to the clock tick, we finally left! My sister watched frozen over, and over, and over again i think i heard let it go a milion times! I looked out the window, staring at the sea of green

Thirty minutes later, we found my sister on the edge of the pool. We asked her, “Where did you go we were looking for you everywhere”. She replied, “I do not know.” We got angry at her for getting lost but we were happy to find her. After that stressful moment, I was in the back of the pool, when another wave hit and everyone came forcefully pushing toward us as we all fell. After a very tiring day, we decided to go back to our cabin and get pizza for dinner. The next morning, we decided to go back to Chicago. Once we arrived, we were all tired and decided to go straight to bed.

When I arrived back at the hotel, I opened Skype on my netbook. After a few minutes of loading, my sister’s face appeared. She was so bright and cheery, and I loved her so much. She told me she missed me, and I told her that I wished I could have brought her along. When our conversation ended, I cried. Here I was at an amusement park while my little sister, who had never gone on a ride in her life, was at home. I felt like a spoiled brat. I spent $150 on the trip that could have gone to rent or to my other sister’s college tuition, so I punished myself by eating canned soup for the rest of the week.

In the main weeks of summer get-away, my neighborhood companions and I would arrange a considerable measure of bike journeys around the town we lived in. We would attempt to see as quite a bit of southern California as we could before the sweltering days of July and August were upon us. On one of our initial outings we chose to travel west on Valley Blvd., which was one of the fundamental streets through town (and the street that I lived on). We advanced toward the tremendous Valley Strip mall, which was home to an expansive grocery store, a few littler retail establishments, a medication store, two shoe stores and my untouched most loved toy store.

I woke up at eight in the morning, being that it was May and spring was in the air I knew that my day would be perfect. As I leaped out of my warm and comfortable bed to put on my Bullwinkle slippers, my stomach nerves began to tighten. I figured it was just a small bellyache and I would get over it soon. I walked slowly to the bathroom not really realizing that the house was not filled with sunshine as it usually is during these beautiful spring days. As I began to brush my teeth my eyes caught a glimpse of the window that I now noticed was so close to the mirror. I could have died when I noticed that the rain was coming down like a storm. It was at that moment that I ran to mother’s room to tell her that I couldn’t go driving today. My

It was a warm summer night we were parked up by Lake Taupo. It was horrible, while I was sleeping this guy came out of the forest where we spent laying looking at the stars moments before. He came out sawed off shotgun in hands, took one shot right at her. I bolted upright and dragged her into her ute and drove to the hospital begging her not to die, police on the phone as he was shooting as I drove off.Sitting in the hospital waiting room was the hardest thing ever not being allowed to just go in and sit with her, having to wait for her to stabilize. I finally decided to go get something to eat. I walked past her room as I did I glanced in to check on her. It was the worst thing to see. Heart monitor flatlining, doctors injecting and doing CPR nurses rushing past with carts. It felt like I was frozen, I broke down right there. Tears gushing, begging her not to die.

It was a hot summer day. You could see the heat rise up from the road. The sun scorched the the sidewalk so intensely I could have fried an egg on it. We had just gotten done loading our luggage in the van. I grabbed my phone and headed for the door. We were ready to go to the airport. We had been planning on our trip to California for days. Everyone would not shut up about seeing our relatives. I just couldn't wait to leave this dreadful, miserable, boring place called Sedalia. We went to get some gas because it was like a 3 hour drive. When we stopped my mom was the only one who got out because she didn't want to deal with annoying brats, my sisters. So I was stuck with them, alone, by myself, in a car. It sounded like there was a zoo behind me and the monkeys just got loose. Other people were looking at our car and in their face there was horror. My mom finally gets back and we start to drive. Sense we're going out of state on an airplane, we couldn't take our car with us. So we went to go pick up my mom's husband from work. He wasn't going to california with us so he could take the car. We pick him up, he chucks his lunch box to the middle, and he takes the wheel. We start driving, again. I've never really liked my mom's husband, he's always hated me and one of my sisters because we aren't his.

He stopped the drill and the setter who set me ran over to my side. She kneeled over me and I saw unshed tears in her eyes. She kept muttering the same words over and over again, “I’m so sorry Kendall I’m so sorry.” That made me lose it. I just laid there with her holding my hand crying softly.