Flashback (standard:drama, 3050 words)
Author: Seth	Added: Feb 09 2009	Views/Reads: 3545/2119	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I had to write a story for English class using flashback and foreshadowing, and this was the result. I realize that it's short, and pretty dry, but there was a page limit. message me on improvements

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

bleeding.  His arm was lacerated badly, and his other one was cracked.  
His nose was bleeding.  But he was still alive.  Alive! 

The pain sobered him, and he could think, but the only thing that his
mind processed was, I'm in pain, o the pain, over and over. 

He looked up the slope, and could see his quick cascade down it.  He
could also see the two little pools of light up there, up on the road, 
where he used to be.  Oh God, how did you let this happen!  The car 
turned around, and started its way back down again.  All the while, the 
rain poured down unmercifully.  There was already a small pool of water 
on the roof, and it would probably get bigger.  The pain waved again, 
causing him to scream again.  He started coughing, and blood sprayed 
out, turning the pool of water above him a morbid pink. Edgar started 
crying. 

He was going to die. 

He started thinking about when he was a kid. . . 

It was a Wednesday night, mid April, which meant that mother was away at
the laundry mat, and he was home with his older brother, Ryan, and Dad. 
Ryan was in his room, doing homework -- Edgar didn't have any, since he 
was only four; Ryan was eleven.  Daddy was in the living room, watching 
grown-ups play fight, like he and Daddy did when he was sober, and 
drinking grown-up juice, which made him act mean. Eddie himself was in 
the hallway racing his cars up and down the hardwood floor that was 
ruined by their dog, a German Shepard, Max, who scratched it up with 
his big nails.  The bathroom door was the starting point and Mom and 
Dad's door was the finish line.  He picked his two favorite cars, the 
red one, and the green one that looked exactly the same.  He got down 
on all fours, like Max did, he thought, and giggled.  "On yo' marks, 
get set. . . GO!"  He shouted, pushing the cars along the hardwood with 
his fingers, shuffling clumsily along on his knees.  He laughed, as the 
red one pulled ahead of the green one, but, as always, the green one 
reclaimed first just before they reached Mom and Dad's door.  He 
grabbed the green car in his small hands.  "You win, buddy!  Nice job!" 
He whispered to it, laughing. 

Dad walked into the hallway, radiating the smell of grown-up juice,
which made little Edgar crinkle his nose.  "Hey, Dad!"  He shouted, 
getting up.  Dad only grunted and walked into the bathroom, already 
beginning to drop his pants. 

He walked back out, seeming almost normal, except Edgar could still
smell the juice on him.  "Eddie, come here, bud."  His dad said, 
slurring his words a bit.  He hesitated, but only a little.  He walked 
over to the giant that was his dad.  "Helicopter!"  Dad said, picking 
Edgar up as he did so many times.  Edgar shrieked with surprise, but 
also with joy.  He was grinning, holding out his arms like an airplane, 
he always got the two mixed up.  Dad swung him around, left and right, 
then back left, accidentally hitting Edgar against the wall, he seemed 
not to notice, but Edgar did. 

"Dad, stop." He was starting to feel dizzy, and his head hurt, but Dad
kept swinging him around.  He did his big finale, which was throwing 
him up and catching him.  Edgar was tossed in the air, and waited to be 
caught, then to be let down, with a pat on the head.  Arms didn't reach 
out to catch him though.  He only fell down and crashed against the 
floor, hitting his head so hard that he herd a small whining sound, he 
also felt his arm crunch and fold the wrong way, he screamed. 

"Ed?  You alright?"  he didn't sound drunk anymore. 

Ryan came out of his room, "Dad!  What did you DO?" 

Edgar started screaming louder, holding his broken arm.  Ryan went into
the living room and called 911.  Meanwhile, Dad only looked down at his 
son, in a drunk daze. 

"Dad!  What did you DO?" 

Edgar came back to the present time, looking out the glassless window
out to the moonlit world that had been upturned, in a very literal 
sense.  He looked at the clock on the radio, which somehow still worked 
(the clock, not the radio), it was just 10:46, yet it seemed he had 
been in that memory for at least two hours, not ten minutes.  His leg 
was a rage of pain, and his ribs hurt horribly, he guessed he cracked a 
few (turns out, he shattered 3, it's a miracle they didn't kill him 
right first).  He couldn't remember feeling any pain during the memory, 
it was like he was back, playing with his toy cars. 

He figured it would do no harm to use this Memory Morphine. 

Edgar went back to when he when his dad died. . . 

Edgar was fifteen, Ryan, now 22, was long gone.  He was sitting on the
couch with a sobbing mother; Dad had been killed in a car accident that 
he caused after leaving the house drunk (quite like Edgar would do, 31 
years later).  He had to be the man of the house now, he presumed.  He 
couldn't just break down and cry like an old woman, like his mother.  
Even though he and his dad were really close. . .  His dad understood 
him when no one else did, even if he did get a little tipsy once in a 
while. . .  Oh, God.  The tears came, hot and harsh, they came.  He 
leaned into his mother, who took him in a big hug, sobbing loudly. 

They sat like that for about fifteen minutes, until the cries tapered
off, and the tears ran out.  His mom got up and went into the kitchen, 
and came back with wine and two glasses. 

They drank themselves happy. 

That day, he developed a relationship with alcohol.  One that would
stick with him off and on until he got in that car accident. 

Edgar was once again back in the car, the warm laughter morphed to the
droning of the rain, which showed no sign of ending anytime this 
century.  The pool had become a small river running  through the gap 
where the driver side door used to be, and ran out the glassless window 
of the passenger door.  The mini river was shallow. 

For now, at least. 

He took another dose of Memory Morphine, which was doing the trick
pretty well. 

It was his honeymoon, and Edger was sick. 

Shirley Hawthorne and Edger Freemantle were married on June sixth, 1989.
 For their honeymoon, the decided it would be romantic to go on a 
cruise through the Caribbean.  They weren't rich, yet, anyways, so they 
only went for three days. 

The first day was great, they left Galveston, Texas and spent a day on
the Gulf.  The next day, Edgar got the stomach flu, and spent the next 
week throwing up anything and everything.  It might not have been the 
honeymoon that he or Shirley was expecting, but it was sure one that 
he'd never forget. 

This time, he didn't even come back to the present, he just skipped to
the next memory, which was the birth of Aly, their only child. 

Aly was stubborn, even before she was officially born, she was stubborn.


She was to be born breech on February sixth, 1991.  The doctor tried to
set her straight, but she was stubborn, oh so stubborn. 

Shirley had a C section, while she was awake, so she had a blue curtain
separating her upper half from her lower.  The thought of her being 
asleep while her baby girl was being born was almost horrifying, so 
awake it was.  There were no complications, and Alyson Freemantle was 
born at noon, sharp.  Edgar, other than the doctor, and of course, her 
mother, was the first to hold her.  He took her in his arms, as he had 
been wanting to do ever since he found out Shirley was pregnant.  She 
had big blue eyes, and a smile that melted your vocabulary to "Awwh!" 
and nothing else.  She was a healthy baby, and would be a healthy girl. 
That was the happiest day of Edgar's life. 

The seat belt was starting to hurt his shoulder, and his waist, and his
head was throbbing painfully, and he wished that he could at least die 
up right, which brought more tears.  He was going to die upside down.  
He looked at the tiny river above him (dreams, oh what nice dreams).  
It had at least doubled in size, and he could see pine needles and 
other debris run through his roof, and still it rained.  Edgar looked 
at the time:  11:12.  This was going to be a slow death, he thought 
helplessly. 

He thought about it, and Aly's birth was the last happy memory he could
recall.  Because, after that, he made his money in the stocks, which 
let him quit his job, and that led to boredom.  He began to drink more, 
mainly out of boredom, but it steadily grew worse.  He kept it under 
control, for the most part.  Aly and Shirley told him to stop, and he 
promised hollow promises "Okay, hon, I will  *Takes gulp of Genesis* I 
will".  He took another dose of his Memory Morphine. 

He had gone through four bottles of Budweiser, and he had a nice buzz
going on.  Even then, his beer gut was in the works.  Edgar was sitting 
in the den, watching football.  Shirley was off at her little job 
again.  He told her over and over to quit, that they had enough money, 
but she always came back with "This is important to me, Eddie, why 
can't you see that?"  It got on his nerves pretty heavily.  Aly came in 
wearing her PJ's already.  She was nine at the time. 

"Hey Daddy!"  She said in her high, childish voice that worked its way
through the buzz he had going. 

"Yeah, whatcha want, hon?"  He tried to sound normal, but it came out
sounding agitated and annoyed.  Aly looked hurt. 

"I just wanted to see what you were watching, 'cause I did all my
homework and --" 

"It's football, and it's an important game tonight.  Why don't you go on
to bed?"  Edgar interrupted.  Aly just walked off, shoulders slumped 
exaggeratedly as children always did.  He thought about going after 
her, but then the Broncos fumbled the ball over to Dallas, and his 
attention was fully on the game again. 

That basically summed up all his problems until now.  He became an
alcoholic, and that terminated his marriage.  Why couldn't he see this 
coming?  How could he have been so stupid?  He always liked rushing 
through life, the feeling of speed gave him power, and power was 
something every man can become addicted to, and that addiction is worse 
than any drug.  Alcohol made him feel like he was going a million and 
one miles an hour, but all he was doing was running in place, he now 
realized.  When you run through life, as Edgar did, you just get to the 
finish line faster, and we all know what that is, right? 

How couldn't he have realized? 

Edgar looked down, and the river, that's what it was now, was nearly by
his head.  His race was run, and he was done.  He closed his eyes, 
living in the happy memories while he waited for the cold water to 
drown him. 

He herd sirens. 

No, no that was just his imagination, he told himself.  But it wasn't,
he could see the blue and red lights up on the cliff.  The moonlight 
also showed two people coming down the side of the cliff, walking 
zig-zagged so the didn't fall down the slope. 

They got to the car, and produced a knife.  "Kay buddy, hold still. 
This wont hurt.  Any others riding?" 

"Nope, just me." 

Then, the paramedic holding the knife and talking, standing away from
the river that happened to funnel right through his door, cut his seat 
belt, and he tumbled down into the cold river, hitting his head.  He 
passed out. . . 

Edgar woke up in a hospital bed, and it was warm, wonderfully warm. 
They had to take out his left eye, because it was so damaged, but he 
opened his right eye, and saw Shirley sitting on the loveseat, reading 
one of her romance novels that she was so addicted to. 

She looked up.  "This doesn't change anything, Eddie.  Know that."  She
dipped back into her book. 

The old Edgar would have probably cried, but this one, the new Edgar,
understood, and didn't fuss. 

The pain medication was doing its job, but he still felt the pain seep
through a little.  His Memory Morphine didn't let pain seep through, 
and it was FREE.  He smiled, before going back to sleep. 

Other than his eye, Edgar made a full recovery, he only had to use a
cane because of his leg.  He is still alive to this day, up and 
walking, and he hasn't even touched any alcohol since.  He thinks that 
if he didn't realize that he had to slow down, he would have died.  
Edgar Freemantle lives in Anchorage, Alaska.  He sold what was left of 
his stocks after the divorce to move up there, and he works as a 
fisherman, which requires no speed what so ever. 

The End. 

Seth Horn 

February 8th, 2009


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