"Red Ground"- 81 days of Nothingness

Intro          

         Hi. If you’re reading this it’s good to know we’ve probably never met before and probably never will. Best part about it is that even if we do meet, you’ll never know its me. And because you will never know who I am you will never know the identities of the people I mention. But believe me, by the end of all this, you’re going to wish you had.
         Eighty-one days of  complete and under nothingness. No school, no alarm clock, no summer job, no relationship. Eighty-one days of possible boredom, pleasure, and definite heat. And with all this free time you would think I’d have something better to do than write about the lives of the people around me. The awkward situations they put themselves in. But no matter how much I may criticize and mock my eccentric amigos, secretly I wish I could experience just half of what they do. And though you may never meet me or the folks I choose to focus my energy on, I’ll still change their names to satisfy my  deteriorating conscience.


         
“Red Ground”
         A splash from the shallow pool of blood was just enough to stain his air force ones, but it wouldn’t be until 24 hours had passed until he’d notice and allow it to drive him crazy for weeks. But at that moment the sound of the bullets being released from their shells, taunted his mind as he ran block to block without stopping or looking back. At first he wasn’t sure if it was Dashawn who had been hit. But now as he ran for his survival and looked around, he didn’t see him in the pack.  At that moment he had a startling realization of the possibility that his cousin might have been the reason why the blue and red lights were heading in the opposite direction from which they were running.

I read the news article about him that Monday.  I couldn’t believe it. Dashawn was killed? Out of all the wannabe “gangstas” running around the neighborhood, it had to be the one wannabe “gangsta” that I knew; that I actually liked.  The last time I saw the boy was at a basketball game on the Saturday two weeks prior to the shooting. Isn’t it weird how you can see somebody one day and think nothing of them. In our ordinary lives we say things like “See you tomorrow” and “oh we can talk about it later”. But I always wonder if other people recognize that there might not be a later or a tomorrow. And that maybe the things you need to say to a person aren’t guaranteed a later or a tomorrow. I know many people don’t walk around thinking about death all the time, and neither did I, until his death. Until that Saturday when I pushed what I had to say to him aside and settled for “oh I can tell him later”. Little did I know there would be no later, at least not for him. And as normal humans it is typical to expect things to proceed as the regular. No sudden changes. To be optimistic and expect no sudden deaths.  But see I’m not normal. I’m a pessimistic person, so I guess thinking atypically has led me to these conclusions. 

Either way, being pessimistic or optimistic, sudden and unexpected things still occur. Most of the time beyond your control. The difference between the pessimist and the optimist is the reaction. Knowing that some kid being shot for trying to rob a store is common knowledge. I was an optimist in that I never thought that HE could be the kid being shot. Now I expect anything to happen.
It wasn’t until 24 hours had passed until he noticed the blood stain on his air force ones. That’s when it hit him for real. His cousin, Dashawn, was gone forever. And he didn’t remember the last words he said to him, but he couldn’t forget the things he never got to say.



P.S: Just so you know this is story one in a ten story series.