Original Short Stories

The Pool's Reflection

 The speaker in the corner of Mr. Larkin’s room crackles to life, quieting the students of homeroom 316; they all want to know the results of the big swim meet that had taken place the day before. A scratchy male voice, the trademark of principal Corey blasts through the small box out at the students, all of them with bated breath.

            “Good morning Lincoln, today is the third of November and we have some very exciting news… yesterday our swim team beat our largest competitors at the state championships, qualifying our swimming otters for nationals!”

            Cheers erupt from the room, everyone ecstatic that they have a team going to a national competition.

“Leading our otters to victory was Celia Marcel, who placed first in all three of her races.”

A girl in the front row of the class pumps her fist in the air in celebration. She had been holding her breath, waiting to hear if she had actually done as well as she had thought. Many people come up to the front, congratulate her with pats on the back and “Great job Celia”s. Still listening to the announcements for her time, She notices a sudden, very long pause in the broadcast.

Celia stares at the speaker, willing it to project the scratchy voice again, and it does, putting her to ease. But then she hears someone sobbing in the background. Sobbing loudly… sobbing a lot. She starts to worry, not knowing what is happening as she tries to shush everyone so she can hear.

“We have one more announcement for today,” Mr. Corey says mournfully, “I have just received a terrible bit of news.”

Everyone in room 316 starts to look around at each other, wondering what could be so awful to make the principal sound the way he does.

“We have lost one of our own students today. Someone very near and dear to many of us, Mr. Eric McKissil has just died in a car accident.”

The whole room freezes as the principal’s voice breaks. All the students gasp and start to look at Celia Marcel with distressed faces.

Celia’s eyes are tearing up, her face frozen in sorrow. One lonely tear tracks down her face. She stands up and sprints put of the room, crying. She doesn’t stop until she gets to the little alcove near the main doors of the school. She crouches down, and bursts into tears, contorting her face, and wetting her hands. Her sobs echo through the halls, haunting her. Eric had been Celia’s best friend since the age of four. She had never thought it possible that he could leave her.

She stands and starts to walk toward her classroom. But she’s not going back there. She’s going to the only place that she can relax and feel free. The Lincoln High School swimming pool. She wipes her tears as she goes and starts to pull her sweatshirt off her body even though it’s freezing in the hallway. She rubs her arms as the goose bumps appear all over them.

Suddenly, she stops, as she has just arrived at the large double doors that open into her paradise. Eric had been on the swim team too. His graceful butterfly and breaststrokes had always captured everyone’s attention. He never placed at meets, as she wasn’t fast, but he still loved being on the team.

Overcoming her emotions, she pushes the large glass doors open and walks into the smell of chlorine, filling her nostril with the familiar aroma. She throws her sweatshirt down on a bench and dives right into the water. Her hair surrounds her and her shirt starts to float, she pulls it down and swims closer to the bottom. Her ears start to hurt and her lungs burn, but she doesn’t care, she’s remembering all the summer afternoons and Saturday mornings she and Eric had spent together, whether as toddlers or teenagers.

She was snapped back into reality when she realized that she hadn’t been breathing. Celia gasps for air as she leaps out of the pool, shaking in the numbing water drenching her clothes. But she doesn’t care about any of it.

She starts to jog. Then run. Then sprint. She’s suddenly outside the school, her tears burning her face as she runs. She should have ridden with Eric. This had been the one day that she had decided to take the bus, to see Charles. She should have gone with Eric; she had ridden with him every day since he had gotten his license, two whole years. But today she hadn’t, she could have saved his life, told him not to turn left, to turn right. This whole accident is her fault. How could she have let this happen, her best friend die all-alone in a car, or lying in the middle of a random street? She’s despicable. She’s awful. And she doesn’t even deserve to be alive.

She reaches her house and fusses for her keys and then remembers that her schoolbag is still in Mr. Larkin’s classroom, room 316, where she had learned the fate of her unfortunate best friend. She curses as she kicks the thin screen door in and dashes up the carpeted stairs to her room.

She slams her body down on her beds, sobs wracking her. Suddenly, she hears a soft voice coming out of her radio in the corner of her room.

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend.

How to Save a Life, her crying gets louder.

Somewhere along in the bitterness.

She looks up, her face stained with tears, and spots her favorite picture, the one of her and Eric at Disney Land, both wearing Mickey Mouse hats and beaming like the sun will never stop shining.

Had I known how to save a life.

She stares at it and then notices a little book next to the frame. She drags her body over to it and opens to the first page. There’s a note:

To Celia.

I hope you have the best year of your life. I’ll always be right next-door. So whenever you need a shoulder to cry on, or a friend to laugh with, I’ll be here for you.        -Eric.

Celia smiles as she reads the note, tears falling and blurring the writing. He had given her this book for her eighteenth birthday.

She closes the album and travels downstairs to the kitchen, tears running down her pale cheeks. She goes into the fridge and grabs an apple, Eric’s favorite snack, and a cutting knife from the drawer. Celia cries as she cuts the piece of fruit, remembering her best friend. Calmly, she leaves the apple and walks up to her room; knife in hand, but then sets it down and cries into her pillow.

Suddenly, Celia hears the front door open and her mother’s loud high heels on the hard wood floor. She gets up, runs down to her mother and buries herself in her arms, crying all over her.

“I know Celia, I know, this must be so hard for you, I just found out too.”

They stand holding each other in the middle of the kitchen, Celia’s mother rubbing her daughters back as they cry.

 “Would you like to walk next door and talk with Eric’s parents? I’m sure they need comforting too. Do you want to help them Celia?”

Celia looks into her mother’s gentle eyes and nods yes, drying her tears.

“I’ll help them mother, I’ll be strong.”