Live
the
Story
She was frustrated. She didn't have a clue of what to write.
Her pencil was still in hand. She had been sitting in that same spot, with that same pencil, and that same piece of blank paper.
She had arrived home at about two-forty-five that afternoon.
Harmony looked to her left. Sitting on her desk was a pink flower shaped clock. It read five-fourteen.
She jumped as soon as she looked at her flower with numbers. Its like someone had fast forward time.
For an English project in school she was to write a story, a scary story. The only thing that stumped Harmony was that she was the only one Mrs. Shall assigned that to.
When class has ended that Friday everyone was excited, of course, just to at least get out of school. Harmony was the last in the room. All of her books were scattered about her desk and the floor around it. She was trying to find her homework.
Harmony usually didn't do her homework. But this time she did. She knew she did. She spent the whole English class looking for her homework but never found it.
She placed her last book into her backpack and was heading out the door. Mrs. Shall called her name.
"Harmony. We need to speak." Harmony didn't hear her on account she was practically already out the door. So she kept walking.
Harmony didn't know if it had been a strong wind or if the door stop had gotten kicked but the door was suddenly closing in front of her.
Mrs. Shall thought Harmony had ignored her. Her eyes began to squint, like they were shrinking. She looked almost vacant. She was gone. Mrs. Shall was gone.
Her gaze was dim and musing. Her eyes held no reflection but the flat lights attached to the ceiling above.
Harmony jumped back. The door just missed her face. She would have looked like a freshly cooked pancake by now.
She turned towards Mrs. Shall. "Mrs. Shall are you okay?" She was staring at the empty and vacant Mrs. Shall.
"I'm fine." She said vaguely, looking off toward the window. There was a queer silence, and Harmony was frightened by what she saw on her teachers face, because what she saw was nothing; the black nothing of a crevasse folded into a alpine meadow, a blackness where no flowers grew and into which the drop might belong. It was the look of a woman who has come momentarily un-tethered from all the vital positions and landmarks of her life, a look of a woman who has forgotten not only the memory she was in the process of recounting but the memory itself.
The word which defined it was catatonia, but what frightened Harmony had no such precise work-it was, rather, a vague comparison: in that moment she thought that Mrs. Shall's thoughts had become much as Harmony imagined her teachers physical self: solid, fibrous, un-channeled, with no places of hiatus.
Then, slowly, her face cleared. Thoughts seemed to flow back into it. Then Harmony realized that flowing was just a tiny bit wrong. She wasn't filling up, like a pond or a tidal pool; she was warming up. Yes…she was warming up, like some small electrical gadget. A toaster, or maybe a heating pad.
"Didn't you hear me call your name?" She spoke slowly at first, almost groggily, but then her words began to catch up to normal cadence and to fill with normal conversational brightness.
"I said we need to talk."
"Oh no. I am sorry, I didn't hear you." Harmony slowly responded. "Well I am here now, talk away." Harmony smiled.
Mrs. Shall slowly smiled back. It wasn't a friendly smile, like those teachers give to their students. Harmony became frightened once again as the hairs on her neck stood like army men in a line, taking orders from their captain. She shivered.
"Well since you haven't had any of your homework done this week I am willing to make a deal. Lets say for Halloween you write a scary story. I will take away all the 0's from this week."
She cast an eye shrewdly on Harmony as she said those last words, and when Harmony didn't reply she tapped the pen in her hand on a pile of half graded vocabulary quizzes. She tapped it in a peremptory fashion.
"What do you say?"
"Oh yes. I like that idea. So all I have to do is write a story?"
Harmony was thinking: if so, count it already finished. This will be easy.
She was wrong.
"Yes all you have to do is write a story." Mrs. Shall said. "Under two conditions."
"Alright what are they?"
"You must have a main character. A girl, about your age. And make sure your story is some what gruesome. We want to make sure that its scary."
Harmony blinked with an empty face.
Mrs. Shall laughed. "You won't think I'm very nice, making you write about particular things. But remember I am taking away all your 0's. Very nice of me, if I should say so."
"Yeah, but why cant I write what I want to write?" Harmony stared wide eyed at her teacher.
"No particular reason." She said. Her smile suddenly collapsed into a narrow watchfulness, Harmony didn't like it much-it was like discovering a deep crevasse, again. Almost obscured by summer flowers in the midst of a smiling, jocund meadow. "Is there something wrong with what I want you to write about?"
"No. of course not. Its just that-" Harmony began to think completely to her self: Its just that the whole idea of what you want me to write, doesn't seem to make since. Any my time is stretching, being wasted by you. Stretching out like bubble gum, a kid pulls out of his mouth when he's bored.
"Just what, Missy?" Mrs. Shall persisted, and Harmony saw with alarm that the narrow look was growing blacker and blacker. The crevasse was spreading, as if an earthquake was going on behind her brow. Harmony could hear the steady, keen whine of the wind outside, and Harmony had a sudden image of Mrs. Shall chopping her head off with a knife. She shuddered at this image in her mind.
"Its just that I had a good idea of what to write." Harmony said, astonished at how easily that lie had come out.
She continued. "I will still write about the girl if you would like.." Harmony smiled. Or at least she thought she had.
Mrs. Shall relaxed. Smiled. The crevasse closed. Summer flowers nodded cheerfully once again. Harmony thought of pushing her hand threw Mrs. Shall's smile and encountering nothing but flexible darkness.
Harmony took another look down at her white-blue lined blank sheet of paper.
"What do I write!?!" She didn't even know she had said it aloud.
It was only that say in Mrs. Shall's classroom, for the first time, clearly, the thought surfaced in Harmony Sheldon's mind.: There isn't something right going on. This teacher isn't right.
Harmony stared at her black piece of paper again. She lost count of how many times she had done that. She moved her hand with the pencil toward the margin of the paper.
They connected at last. Harmony could feel the happiness running threw her. I think I am going to actually get done. She moved the pencil up, down, right, and left until it read:
The Bloody Teacher
She underlined it. And continued to write:
It was a Monday morning and Many couldn't wait to go to school to see her friends, It seemed odd…
~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~
Harmony leaned back into her chair and stretched her arms over and behind her head and she took a glimpse of the flower clock. It read seven-zero-eight.
"Yay." Harmony said sarcastically to her self. "I'm done!"
Harmony pushed her chair back and stood up. She slowly entered the hallway that was connected to her room. She began to walk down the stairs, skipping one every time. Six steps altogether.
She entered the kitchen and pulled open the cabinet over the sink. It showed at least twenty sparkling clear, see threw, glass cups. It mattered for some reason which one she picked.
She picked one farther back and in the right corner.
She lowered the glass just beneath the faucet and twisted the right, silver, star shaped dial.
it was like a gorge filling up like a torrent. She stared. It was like she was asleep. But with her eyes open. Nothing awoke her. It seemed like an hour had gone by but after thirty seconds the cold water poured down her bare skin.
She blinked fiercely. Once, twice, three times, four, five times. She looked down at the water rushing over her hand.
She used her left hand to turn the dial to off. She swapped the cup from her right hand to her left hand.
It was cold and beaded with small droplets of water.
Harmony's mother was coming out of the bathroom with a yellow plastic floor-bucket. Harmony moved out from in front of the sink when she realized her mom was coming towards that way. The bucket filled her view like a close up of the moon. Her mom tipped the bucket so that the grayish water slopped over the rim, into the sink, and was sucked down the drain.
It was like a hungry monster. It sucked up anything it could muster. It was like a vacuum.
Harmony could see the rag twisting slowly in its depths like a drowned…something; she could see a thin scrum of soap on top. It slowly melted with the water that spilled over the rim and into the vacuum.
"Something wrong Harm?" Her mom was taking off her yellow elastic gloves. They made a sucking noise. Almost like…the vacuum, again. They matched the bucket.
"Oh what?" Harmony looked at her mother in alarm. The glass full of water was raised to her lips. "Oh yes. I am fine." She had not been paying attention.
Holly Sheldon eyes her daughter who looked lost and empty. She knew something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what it was that was bothering Harmony.
Harmony finished her water and set the glass cup down on the floor of the sink. Wondering if the vacuum would suck her hand or the glass up first. It clinked.
When Harmony returned to her bedroom she had laid down upon her bed. It was so comfortable. Her bed was like a sea or river of blankets. She feel asleep three minutes later.
~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~
Saturday and Sunday went by slowly. Nothing happened. Most of the time she had helped her mom clean the house. She slept a lot and wrote in her poem journal for English. She also talked to her two best friends Jason and Summer over the phone a lot.
It was Sunday night and Harmony had just helped her mom clean her little brothers room. And before that it was the kitchen and the old bathroom. They never used it. But her mother insisted that it always stay clean.
She was sitting at her desk. Her poem journal opened to a blank sheet.
She wrote:
Dream-Dust
All my life
I have been a dreamer.
In the daylight I have listened to the talking of the trees
And watched hopefully, catching at times glimpses
Of unicorns in the wood.
At night my heart has wandered through meadows
In bloom with stars
Along with a star-filled river
And listened to them sing.
And, listening to the silence
I have heard voices
That no one else can hear.
I have heard the language of the flowers
And the poems of the brook
That sings to itself all day.
I have caught shreds of understanding
And moments in the place.
Where the life of an ancient olive tree
And a mayfly
Are equally long.
In a away that had nothing to do with time.
I have seen glimpses
Of the song that makes the sunset
And the hand that draws the rainbow in the sky.
She wants to become a writer when she gets older.
Harmony went to bed early that night.
~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~
School that day had gone by fast. Including English class. Mrs. Shall called her before she left class when the bell rang,
"Do you mind staying for a bit and reading your story to me?" She smiled showing her teeth.
Harmony was smiling back but was thinking about how creepy her teacher was.
"Sure." Harmony went to a desk and set her backpack on the chair. She un-zipped her front pocket and pulled out a paper covered in words from front to back.
She began to read…it seemed like forever but it didn't take long at all. The story wasn't that long after all.
"Very scary Harmony." The teacher had announced when Harmony had finished. "Lets act it out now."
"What do you mean act it out?" Harmony was beginning to fell groggily and almost tired but she knew she wasn't. She had gotten enough sleep over the weekend.
"Shhh…don't speak." the crevasse was opening this time and wasn't stopping. Getting closer and closer. Reaching for Harmony. When she tried to move she couldn't, it was to hard.
The crevasse sucked her in , like the drain or vacuum.
Harmony was being sucked into a painful haze. The sounds-like the pain-faded, and then there was only the haze. Solid darkness, she could only see the haze but it felt like she was falling into a never ending hole. A hole of haze. She felt like everything around her was increasing in size and becoming larger. She was feeling wane. Slowly but gradually becoming smaller. Was it her, or her imagination?
It felt like she hit hard ground. She thought she was dreaming but the pain was so real. So very real.
She still saw darkness.
When she opened her eyes she saw Mrs. Shall standing above her in a cloak with a cleaver knife in her right hand. She put her left hand out to Harmony.
Harmony took it. Mrs. Shall pulled her up. "we will act out your story. It has death. I love death." Mrs. Shall smiled.
"Your crazy." Harmony was drenched in sweat. She looked around to see at least twenty other people. The floor was white, the ceiling was what, and the floor was white.
Harmony thought to her self: Very white.
Most of the people she didn't recognize. When she looked father in a corner she saw Summer pushed up against the wall also drenched in sweat. And not to far from her was Jason.
"Jason! Summer!" Harmony yelled across the white room.
No one or nothing was touching Harmony. She seemed to be held in a sort of lock. Tightly. And painfully.
The pain went and gone at the same time. Harmony didn't even know what had happened to her.
She couldn't see anything until she realized her eyes were closed. She opened them to see her body above her, standing…without a head. Blood was bubbling out of the bare neck like water being boiled on a stove.
Harmony's head got a scream out. She was dead.
Mrs. Shall was standing with her mouth open, teeth showing and she was breathing like a bull ready to charge.
There was blood all over Mrs. Shall's face. She licked her lips. As the blood was there and as it disappeared.
The had switched the cleaver from her right hand to her left. Her arm was sticking strait out and side ways covered in Harmony Sheldon's blood. Red like tropical punch.
It took most people awhile to realize what had happened. They all began to scream. Few were running around in panic. Others were groping for some door or secret passage to get out of here.
Harmony's friend Jason was one of the few running around and screaming. She didn't even notice where he was going that he ran right into the cleaver that was outstretched in Mrs. Shall's hand. He stopped dead in his tracks.
He was standing there. Most of the time. Like a normal person. The blood began to drip down his neck. It feel backwards with a thud.
It awoke Mrs. Shall who was in a vacant emptiness again. She looked down at the blinking and bleeding head of Jason.
"Oppsie." She sighed.
~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~
One month after Harmony Sheldon's murder he mother walked into the "old" bathroom that they never used. She walked in to see her daughters dead and headless body. Wrote in blood very messy were the words:
Live The Story and find my head
~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~•~*~
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The
End
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