Father Please

• Chethaki Nanayakkara, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2012

Have you ever felt trapped or like somebody else was controlling your life? That’s exactly how I felt when it all happened.

It was a day like no other, the sky was cloudless and blue, the meadows were luscious and green – filled with bright wildflowers and everyone was joyous. Well except for me. Today was the day when my life stopped being mine.

I paced up and down my cluttered, unkempt room for the hundredth and first time.
“It’s no use,” I mumbled, “my own wisdom got me here how could it get me out? How?!”
I kicked my cumbersome bed in frustration. The clock tower rang twelve times – it was now or never.

“Knock knock knock." My heart pounded in my head. I opened the door. Two muscular men in their black uniforms stood there, they weren’t eager. They looked at each other like, “We have to drag him?”

I spun around, in one swift motion, and looked at the clock it was 12:01 and then everything started to slow down. The officers grabbed an arm each and pulled me out of my sanctuary, my home. As they shoved me out the door I caught a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror. Was that me? I couldn’t even recognise myself. I had these dark sunken circles under my normally sparkling, green eyes. My dark brown hair was now matted and reached my shoulders. This wasn’t me.
Down the main road I was pushed, secrecy wasn’t the Mayor’s style; I felt eyes of all ages drill into me and heard some murmurs of disappointment. I didn’t want this, it wasn’t my fault I was gifted, this wasn’t how it was meant to be.

I had to wait, I smirked at the Mayor. He couldn’t be on time for, even, an execution. The room I was in had mahogany tables lining the walls and a throne like seat in the centre of the back wall. An empty pin up board hung amongst the many portraits of all the previous mayors. The room to me looked very regal, not really like an office at all. When I had taken everything in a door opened and the Mayor came in.

I stood there looking up into the eyes of the Mayor and unexpectedly a pain so unbearable soared through my body. In the corner of my eye I saw a drop of blood fall – my blood. The mayor looked at me and said, “You shouldn’t have outsmarted me. I know what this town wants, you don’t and now you never will.”
I stared at him trying to resist the pain and the last two words I ever spoke were, “Father, please.”