Just in Case - Journal entries

Tip, READ THIS IF YOU'VE READ JUST IN CASE BY MEG ROSOFF. If you havn't read that then you'll be wondering what is going on and why I wrote this. This was a creative writing assignment for english at school where we had to write diary entries for Justin.

Journal entry 1

Today was, well, what a day, and not in a good way. One little action, one insignificant little detail, has changed my life, my way of thinking, looking… seeing.

If Charlie hadn’t nearly fallen out of my bedroom window then my head wouldn’t be swirling and spinning like this.

If I had been two seconds slower, two mere seconds, then my brother would be dead. He’d have splattered onto the concrete below, flattened like a pancake, squashed like a bug.

Two seconds doesn’t feel anywhere near enough time to have a life or death moment, but it was. Any amount of time could hold such moments. That means that anything, anything, could happen at any given time of the day, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, anything.

I could fall down a manhole, collapse from a stroke. I could sever my spinal cord in a car crash or catch bird flu.

I could be a part of a plane crash.

Everywhere I look I can see catastrophe, bloodshed, pain, and suffering. Death.

This… force… has its claws sunk in deep, controlling me like a puppet, it pulls the strings and I move about. It is rooted there and it will never leave.

But what if Charlie had fallen out? What if something like that ever happens to me?

What if…?

Those two little words pick me up and toss me about. They play with me like a cat plays with a mouse. The weight of them wrap around my ankles, holding tight and dragging me down. Down under, under the blackness.

It’s like I’m drowning, coughing, spitting, spluttering, choking. Only it isn’t water that I’m drowning in, but something far worse, something much more sinister.

I’m drowning in what if, and fate, catastrophe and death itself.

What was Charlie thinking when he was about to fall? Was he scared? Or did he embrace the feeling? Was it just a fall? Or was he about to jump when I stopped him?

Maybe he was trying to fly.

But he does what he does and did what he did because he is just a dumb kid. Too dumb to realize that he can’t fly.

Journal entry 2

Today I feel different, like I’m more in control.

I’m changing. I’m changing my name, my look, maybe even my friends, acquaintances.

I’m no longer David Case, who is doomed and chased by fate. Let me introduce myself, my new self.

My name is Justin, Justin Case.

And I met someone today. Agnes Bee.

She looks to be about nineteen and she’s amazing, and I’ve only known her for a couple of minutes. She is different, exciting, with pink hair and she carries a camera with her.

I don’t know anyone like her.

She isn’t afraid to be seen and when she was helping me pick out clothes she said I was exactly the right person. I quite like being exactly the right person. It makes me feel special.

And her hands. They’re just divine, soft and warm with pale green fingernails. I held her hand, but I didn’t know when to let go as I have no experience touching older women.