A Collection of Short Stories

Across Town

"Breathe!" He screamed. "Come on you selfish bastard, BREATHE!!!"

He stopped, "This can't be real..."

--------------------------------------

He watched him eat, it was his favorite pastime. Just watching him, doing whatever it was he loved to do. He couldn't get enough of those eyes and that smile that came over his mouth when he told a joke!

"I've never been this far south before," he said. "What's around here?"

"Oh, nothing much," the one replied, "just a couple of shops, and an ice cream parlor down the street."

"Ice cream?" He asked.

"Yes, ice cream! That's where I planned our next stop!"

To get to the parlor that he grew up at, they had to cross a brand new bridge. Built not two weeks earlier, sturdy, with pure concrete columns and steel reinforcements. Looked stable and met all of the regulations, built to withstand mighty winds of the Southwest, but not the trembles of the Earth.

They left the burger joint and both got into the small car, they drove up to the stoplight just before the bridge.

"What type of ice cream is there?" The one asked, anticipation filled his face.

"All kinds, 31 different flavors in fact!"

"Sweet! I can't wait!"

The light turned green and they started across the bridge; traffic at the next light was backed up halfway up the bridge.

"Oh come on!" The passenger exclaimed.

The driver looked outside the driver's side window, tapping the wheel to the beat of the song. He noticed the poles, the lights, they weren't on.

*How odd* he thought.

A line of cars formed behind him, honking their horns impatiently. Now stuck in the middle, the driver relaxed, it was going to be a while.

All of a sudden, there was a sudden jerk.

"What was that?" The passenger asked.

"I don't know." The driver looked in the rear view mirror and got out of the car, looked at the rear, and noticed that there hadn't been a collision.

*Something doesn't feel right*

Just then, he knew, when he saw the wires snapping, and the beams breaking, that they hadn't been hit by a car, but an earthquake. He bolted to the driver's side and threw the car in reverse. But there were too many vehicles.

"Shit!" He yelled, and cracks started forming under the car.

"What are we gonna do?" The passenger asked, scared to death.

The driver clutched the passenger's hand, "We are gonna-" and the bridge collapsed.

*splash*

The car dove nose first into the water, the driver was dazed from the impact, and watched as the vehicle was submerged. He looked to his partner, knocked out, and leaning against the door. In a daze, the driver hit the automatic window button on the door, and opened the passenger side window, the cabin began to fill with water.

"Damnit!" He exclaimed. Cutting himself free and cutting his partner free as well. He couldn't get out of the door, the water pressure was too much and it was getting greater with the flooding water. He pushed at the windshield, banged at it, shoved it, kicked it, but it wouldn't budge. He looked to his right. The water had covered his friend's face now. Panicked, he reached over and grabbed his friend, and got up and used his own body as a battering ram against the glass, breaking it free.

He pulled his friend out of the car and swam to the surface, down to the rocky bank of the water.

He drug him onto the rocks, and laid there. He looked over, expecting his friend to be there with the comic relief, but there was nothing coming out of him.

There was no comic relief, no humor, no enthusiasm, and no oxygen.

"Hey!" He yelled. Smacking his friend in the face. "That's very funny, now wake up. This isn't a game, wake up!"

He laid his head on his chest, nothing.

The noise he lived for, the beating, nowhere to be found.

"Come on," he started CPR. His heart, beating enough for two people. "Come on, come on!"

He put his lips to his friend's, forcing air into his lungs. Demanding that they receive his oxygen.

"Stop it!" He cried. "No, you can't leave me! Not now, not ever! No! This can't be happening!"

He started compressions again, mouth to mouth, compressions, mouth to mouth again; an endless cycle that, to him, went on for hours but it couldn't have been but a couple of minutes.

"Breathe!" He screamed. "Come on you selfish bastard! BREATHE!!!"

He stopped, "This can't be happening..."

He laid on the body, the lifeless body of his best friend.

"You can't leave me! Not like this! We were supposed to go have fun, get ice cream, share stories, no not like this!"

He grabbed his partner's shirt, Arkansas Razorbacks, they're dream college.

A college that his partner would never walk into as a student.

He buried his face in his partner's shirt, soaking it that much more with his tears.

Every thought, every memory, every moment, played out right there in front of him. Talks on the grass, pouring water on each other, sneaking out together, and him being there through his most recent medical trauma. All of it, played out in film on the backs of his eyelids.

"I... I care about you!" He sobbed repeatedly into his friend's neck as the emergency lights surrounded him, drowning his sobs in their wails and sirens.