By: OwlEditor173
AN: Please do not take any of these ideas for your own purposes! Just from writer to writer. :)
THE TRUTH ABOUT BUSES
Prologue
"He was a great young man with a kind heart and gentle hands. He made this world a better place. We will never let him be forgotten. Rest in peace Archer."
A balding priest with a severe double chin solemnly closed the Bible on the podium and swiped at the corners of his eyes. What an old codger. He didn't even know me! And the whole part about the 'gentle hands'! What is this, daycare? I have VERY manly hands. So what if they're small? You happen to have a very big nose! Yeah, that's right. I know you're there. You keep distracting me. So stop. I have a story to tell and I can't bloody well do it with your mind moaning on about the bowl of cheezits on your nightstand that you are too lazy to reach for. I don't care. So tell your head to shut it. Thank you. Can I go on now? That's thirty seconds of my life I can't get back because of you. ANYWAY.
Long story short, I'm in front of a bench. I don't really know where this bench and I are at presently. All I can make out is this dense fog. And the park bench. With, now that I notice it, a plaque. The Bench. Sit. That's what it's here for. Jeez. Sassy bench. I oblige anyway. A seeping wetness suddenly slides through my veins as my vision fizzes out like static on a television. And that's how I met lovely Pastor Nicodemus. The curator of my funeral. I'M DEAD. Have you honestly not realized that! I mean even I knew from the bench plaque. Okay. Off topic. Back to Pastor Double Chin. I seemed to be hovering over the inside of the church almost as if we were separated by a glass screen. Behind Pastor DC, there was a picture of me from my eighth grade graduation standing like an island amidst an ocean of carnation bouquets. I seriously had a glo-up in freshman year. Just putting that out there. I lost all the annoying baby fat which made me look like a pre-botoxed whale. I also gained a good couple of pounds-ALL MUSCLE-and shot up about five inches. And I found out I had ADHD. With that came the pills and multiple doctor visits. Despite that revelation, I had a good life. Almost a life that didn't seem like my own. We lived in a house with a white picket fence and a two car garage. Mum and Dad both worked. Mum brought in all the income as a defense attorney, while Dad got by as a construction foreman. I had a pesky little sister called Queenie. (She was five and adored tales of King Arthur.) We were the Hughes. Your basic nuclear family. We thought we were invincible. Nothing could ever shake the foundation of the Hughes family. Right? WRONG.
CHAPTER ONE: A BLAND SPAGHETTI DINNER
"So, honey, how was your day?" Mum gushed at Dad. I rolled my eyes while Queenie pretended to barf into her spaghetti. Which was actually quite delicious now that I think about it.