Moral Decisions

It was back last year when I had to make a decision like this that I can remember. In fifth period biology class we had a sub in the class and we were all doing busy work while our actual teacher was out for jury duty. There were two guys in our class who were just rude and obnoxious and were constantly being pulled out of class for the things they did. They were notorious for saying rude comments to people in the class who might not have been as 'popular' as they were. 

Either way, we were all sitting around doing the busy work our teacher had left us. Everyone was being really loud and obnoxious like eighth graders where when the actual teacher wasn't there. The one kid in our class started to instigate this one girl who got angry easily. She had a hot temper and would threaten people if she got too angry with them, which was something everyone knew. Quietly, I watched as this one kid started to tease her and tell her horrible things to get her worked up. The sub watched quietly too, her eyes darting back and forth between the faces of the girl and the classmate. She was a young substitute, but old enough to realize what was going on. Then the girl started to loudly threaten this other classmate who started to pretend that he was the victim in the whole case. 

And still, the sub said and did nothing. 

Finally, the arguing and threatening had gotten to be too much. I could have either sat back, still trying to do my work like so many other bystanders, or I could have stepped in and helped the poor girl who was getting to the point of being so flustered, she was almost crying. 

"Why don't you leave her alone?" I cried out and everyone turned to me.

"Hey, she's the one threatening me." the boy said, putting his most innocent look on and gazing back at me.

"Well, maybe if you weren't instigating her, maybe she wouldn't be threatening you." I contradicted, staring him right back. 

"Maybe you should mind your own business." he spat back. My cheeks flamed as everyone snickered and looked at me, but I didn't give up.

"I make it my business when your picking on someone. I understand it's not right that she's threatening you, but you don't have to keep doing what you're doing. The more you do it, the more she's going to threaten you." I answered. 

Thankfully just at that moment, the bell rang and I was saved of more trying to explain myself. The girl thanked me thoroughly as we walked out of a class and I told her not to worry about it.

The next day I was given a detention for being loud and unruly during class, but I think it was worth it to stick up for the girl.  

Sharp Eyes

Her thoughts strayed to many things as she descended the school's steps. To her home where she

resided, to her schoolwork, and to the ever approaching Halloween that loomed just around the corner. Her

shirt and sweatshirt stuck to each other with static cling as she bounded down the last step to the sidewalk.

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, the sky blue and cloudless above her.

"Phoenix!"

She turned her head at the sound of her name, stopping the addresser in their tracks.

He was a small kid with a shock of red hair and braces that looked too big for the rest of his mouth.

Her sharp eyes cut through him with the efficiency of a girl from a past that no normal kid could

understand. They were like diamonds. Beautiful on the outside, but then again, hard and unbreakable too.

The kid stood there and when he didn't say anything, Phoenix moved on.

The hot blush of embarrassment colored her cheeks. She was used to getting picked on on occasion,

but it always left her with the feeling that people shouldn't be afraid of her; like she was a monster waiting

for just the right push to explode.

Luckily, no one paid much attention to the little encounter and Phoenix walked on, like any other day.

Although it wasn't entirely honest of her, she smiled despite herself. After all, she had a reputation to

uphold. There was a reason people didn't pick on her a lot.

With a dark smile that no one but herself would understand, Phoenix loped across the sidewalk to 

home, her strides taking her faster than any normal human speed. Anyone who looked to the sidewalk 

near the woods would see nothing but a quick flash of darkness and the stir of the air before sunlight

resumed heating the rest of the Earth.

It was almost like she was never there.

Life in the Day

   It was as dark as ever in the small box, only accompanied by my sister who was always quiet. She hadn't spoken since we left the factory, where she were separated from her real mother and sister. We had become sisters by default, considering she was the end of the swatch of fabric, while I was the beginning of a new one. We had been distant friends before we were shipped off, never failing to accompany the one that was alone. I didn't expect it when I was set carefully in the same shoe box as she, and certainly wasn't expecting the vow of silence she had taken, like the fact that she was separated from her family was my fault. Didn't she realize that I too was feeling a loss for my own family?

   Either way, we had yet to speak to each other. The silence was dark and the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. But finally, when my claustrophobia had caught up with me, I turned to her, begging her to comfort me. She said a few words, coming around enough to keep my fear at ease. We exchanged quiet jokes that only our shoe counterparts would understand and by the time we were taken out of our box to be put on display, we were friends again. 

   The store was huge with a high ceiling and slowly revolving fans. It did nothing more than push the hot air around, providing no relief to the people. I, myself, loved the heat and talked animatedly with the other shoes on display. There were colorful running shoes next to me that were always playing pranks on the store manager. The left one would hop off, knocked over on the floor, so that the manager had to come over and pick him up. Then, when the store manager even bumped the table slightly, the right would jump off, rolling halfway across the store. Their antics caused endless amusement for my sister and I and all the others that were on display. 

   After a week or so, the running shoes were bought, and we said sorrowful goodbyes, knowing we would miss their antics dearly. But they were soon replaced by bright red slip-ons. The left was very introverted and didn't speak much, but the right had enough personality for the both of them. Excitedly, she told all of us about her trip across seas, her voice slightly tinted with an accent. Their plane had almost crashed, and when they finally landed in the States, they were stolen by a pair of thieves. How they finally got to this store I never found out because at that moment my sister and I were picked up by a young girl with short blonde hair. She spoke fast, and I couldn't keep up with her English, considering us shoes have a language all of our own. But I finally got the gist of what she was trying to do. Her mother was down where the older shoes were, trying on a pair of brown leather high heels. I didn't much care for them considering they sounded snooty speaking with each other, and my sister avoided them as well. Either way, the girl was trying to convince her mother to let her buy us, my sister and I. Finally, her mother gave in with a tired nod of her head. 

   There was a squealing that I cringed to, and the girl set the us on the counter and we were boxed again, being surrounded by blackness yet again. I quietly dealt with my phobia on my own, considering my sister was too excited for me to put a damper on her happiness. Finally though, the lid opened to the light twilight of day. I wasn't sure how long we had been in that box, but I knew it to be too long enough. After a few moments, we were dropped on the floor and I felt the odd sensation of her foot inside me. She kept my sister and I on for a long time until the darkness descended on the day, making bright stars come out. I felt her walk on her tip-toes, climbing onto her bed and opening the window. At first I had the sensation of falling before we landed in wet grass. Our owner sprinted down the lawn until she climbed into a car, breaking out in excited giggles as the car drove away. 

   Soon, my sister and I started to converse. It was strange, and I had a feeling whatever this girl was doing was not to something of her parent's consent. My suspicions were confirmed when she walked into a place that stunk of dirty socks, body odor, and cheap perfume and cologne. We stumbled into many shoe counterparts until gum got stuck to my sole, and was uncomfortably removed to have the gum scraped off. 

   But soon, loud music screamed through the place, accompanied by a jumbled mess of words that made no sense. My sister and I were equally confused when our owner started jumping in time with the beat, screaming out the lyrics while pumping her fist in the air as a lot of people around her were doing. After a while, I started to enjoy it, more out of amusement of what silly rituals people had and was disappointed when the night ended soon after. 

   And as it was, despite all that happened, I wouldn't have my first day as a real shoe any other way. 

A Father's Agonizing Choice

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't, he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What would you do?

Unfortunately, either way someone is going to die. Whether it'd be your son or another innocent inmate, you have no choice over the matter of saving your sons life. Despite the fact that you want to save your son, it can't be done. If your son really loved you, he would understand the choice that you had to make and if he was understanding enough, he would know that he was going to die either way, so why not just let the guard take his life instead of another innocent victim. It is very hard to see your son die and know that you will be the cause of it, but the other inmate's family will be very thankfully to you for making the hard sacrifice that you had to make. Either way, concentration camps were known that never let out victims again. You were there until you died. Everyone in the concentration camp is going to die at some point during their stay there and by helping in killing your son, you are ending his suffering by not letting him live on to see others get sick and die excruciating deaths just as he would have. 

Life Lesson

Wake up late on the weekends; never wake up parents when they are asleep, they'll end up scaring you just as much as you scare them; never call teenagers at 10 o'clock in the morning; watch out for falling anvils, they'll squish you into a pizza; let people give you compliments and don't be modest; make bird calls in the middle of the winter and see what you get; hold a toothpick lightly between your fingers and see how heavy it weighs; use said toothpick to make a sculpture; let yourself get soaked to death in the rain; don't wear white T-shirt's to gloomy Badminton tournaments; don't worry about getting cold on snowy days, there's always a warm place for you to return to with tasty hot chocolate; don't bring home marigolds, you never know who's allergic to them; blow all the puff plants you can; don't worry about who's watching; life's not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain; let yourself be crazy; don't threaten the faeries that life in your room, they don't respond well to anger; make sure you know where all your things are so that the faeries can't take it; leave a bowl of milk outside a cottage in the hot summer to see what comes to drink it; don't live life with regrets because at one point everything you did was what you wanted; hold tight to trees near a lake, or else you end up messing up your shoes; act crazy all day; say yes to anything someone asks of you for a day and see how optimistic you become; make up things to tell your sisters to see how gullible they are; don't mess up someones dreams because they could intercept yours; live, laugh, love; nobody said that your dreams would be easy to achieve, they just promised it would be worth it; if you love somebody let them go because if they return they were always yours, if they don't they never were; don't be afraid to let people talk behind your back because it simply means you are two steps ahead; tell stupid stories and make weird noises; never be afraid of something; don't let someone tell you you're stupid; hold life by the reins and take it for a ride; love the people who treat you right and ignore the people who don't, chances are, they're just jealous.

Hunter

There was the sound of laughter that echoed throughout the night. It pierced through his ears, made his face twitch with uncertainty. Was he ready for this?
He shook his head, running his long fingers through his hair and over his face. His already pale skin was accented with swirling tattoo's like runes that made his skin almost blend into the night.
There was the scent of lime and lavender, a strange smell to say the least, and he knew it was the signal.
With grace no one but himself and his line of blood could contain he sprung from the tree branches to the ground just from the patio where the loud party continued to go on. Oblivious to the danger lurking not five feet from them.
He took another breath and looked up at the coldly twinkling skies above him. The moon was full tonight, casting shadows and containing his collegues who looked on with sober and serious expression. None of them liked to do it, but for the sake of the world around them, some things had to be done.
He made signals with his hands to those who lurked in the shadows and they moved closer. Though it was rare, there was an occasion weakling that made an escape and those that did never reached help.
Something hissed through the air just an inch from his left ear and he jerked back and dropped, making sure that he wasn't hit.
This was his warning.
The party light still glinted in the air. They threw more light than shadows and he caught a glimpse of a new one cringe back from the light. He didn't have the protective gear that the elders did and therefore his skin burned with light and the happiness and obliviousness of the weakling humans.
He opened the front door, closing it quickly behind him and stalking through the shadows until he got to the main room. With more hand signals, the air crackled around him, causing some hair to stand on end.
Only then did the humans notice something was not quite right.
A few furgitive looks were cast around, searching for the cause of the disturbance. But they were blind to everything around them, and their gazes raked blindly over him.
A blue light, visable to only him, appeared in the static air. It grew and grew until it was so enlarged it encompassed the whole room.
With a single twitch of his fingers, the room imploded, not even leaving time for screams.
He cringed from the debris that flew and then let himself heave a sigh.
But, just as he was leaving, there was a tiny whimper from the top of the stairs.
His head shot to the staircase to see a tiny girl with a worn teddy bear clutched in her arms.
Her eyes were wide with fear and latched on him.
How could this girl see him? It was impossible and had not happened in 200 years.
"Take me with you." she said as he moved toward the door. He hesitated. Should he? The clan leaders would kill him if he did, but many others would be angry that he had let himself be seen and had not taken the child with him.
With another heavy sigh he turned and grabbed the girl from the stairs, bringing her with him. She stiffened, but relaxed and clutched to him with dear life when he saw the eyes that peered out of the night.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Laney. What's your name?" she asked.
He was startled. He hadn't had a name in forty years and he struggled to remember.
"Liam. Liam Contoct."

Wrap Around

The loud children's eyes had weakness like strength. The dying plants held summer rain with uncertainty. As the sting of pebbles in teh hazy, dying light rained down with nightly runes, the young watched nights like Romeo watched Juliet.
"Living. We win battles with rules harder than our enemies weaknesses."
Wars, games, rules, rides. Crazy things like loud voices and tawny-eyed boys. Towards the horizon, crazy and dying, one stand hazy like the livng were meaningless.