1/4/05

"A God-Awful, Small Affair"

It truely had been a god-awful, small affair, thrown by a prominant, local fisherman for his spoiled, sixteen-year-old daughter, at the cramped community dance hall. Henry hadn't even wanted to attend, really, but he and all the other young people in the community had been invited, and it meant an evening away from the hovel he lived in and his shrill, demanding, imobile, half-ton mother, who spent every day in bed, watching television in-between sessions of screaming at her children.

He showed up not expecting much. He had no friends, so there really wouldn't be anyone there he was looking forward to seeing. Therefore, he remained a wallflower all evening, standing off to the side, drinking his punch, not bold enough to partake in the alcohol every one else was consuming. He wasn't the only one: scattered all around the dance hall stood those awkward few who, like himself, really didn't belong there.

In fact, later that evening, he would find one of his fellow outcasts standing over him, as he lay broken on the blood-soaked floor. She was unfamiliar to him: a girl in a cheap, blue dress, with stringy, ashy hair. She wasn't necessarily an ugly girl, though nor was she beautiful by any means; just painfully plain.

"This one's still movin', boss!" Said one of the mysterious, black-clad men who had, moments before, burst through the door of the dance hall and mowed down the crowd with their shotguns.

"Leave him!" The plain girl in the blue dress barked. "We've got our guy anyway."

Two of the assassins in black suits were in the very back of the room, collecting the body of the portly fisherman, who had organized this now-ruined shindig. Two more were circling around the room with the plain girl; like hawks, making sure none of the survivors would try to get up and run away to inform the authorities.

"Alright boys, let's move out!" The plain girl--obviously the ringleader of this operation--called to the four men, motioning towards the door. And just like that, they were gone, piling into a large, black vehicle outside, throwing the fisherman's corpse into the trunk.

Henry laid on the floor for a long time afterward. He was far from fatally wounded (he had been shot only once, and in the arm, no less). When finally he did decide to get up, he traversed his way around and over the other dead and injured and made his way towards the door. Then, instead of going to the hospital, or the police station, or even back to his miserable home with his wretched, behemoth mother, he went to the bus station, purchased a ticket to the nearest metropolitan area (which was the region's capital: Maelstrom), and never came back. He would later attribute this strange behavior to delirium, brought on by massive blood-loss. Being that he probably was indeed not in his right state of mind, one can assume that his subconcious and a greater chance of stepping forward. Therefore his actions could have sprung up from repressed thoughts of wanting to leave his stifling, little village and tyranical mother. Whatever the reason, it was too late to turn back; he had his ticket and his seat at the back of the nearly vacant bus, taking off for the city, late that night.