A Crawl To Help

• Ashlynn Wauchope, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

The sounds of gun shots, screaming people, shouting. Clyde lay there helpless, helpless to the children wounded. Blood everywhere, ear-piercing vocals. Young Clyde, paralysed by fear, longing to answer their terrifying cries.

Bombs crashing, whip lashing, windows smashing. Without using his legs, Clyde attempted to move his body.

The truth is, Clyde doesn’t have any legs due to the Vietnam war, in 1955. Clyde wasn’t alive at this stage, his mother was only just pregnant with him, during the war. Clyde’s mother, Cecilia, died tragically, she was threatened by Vietnamese pirates, it was her, or her family. Of course, she chose herself to protect her little family, and got a gun to the head. As Cecilia was still pregnant, she was rushed to hospital and the obstetricians had to remove Clyde from her womb. He had been in the womb for seven months and was now two months early. Cecilia had passed on, and Clyde was put up for adoption.

Clyde had finally been adopted after years on end and was in the hands of a loving family. Clyde is now forty-three years old and is witnessing world war three in two thousand and eighteen.

Of course, he has to fight as he is under the age limit and is a man. He has no choice; but how, he doesn’t have legs?

He crawled to the city, to see people rushing around trying to escape. He longed to help humanity, which, he did. He saw a child with nails deep in his skin, almost tearing right through his feeble muscle. He pulled himself over to the child, and gently started to slide them out.

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” Yelped the child.

“I know, better out than in.” Clyde tried to smile.

The child looked up at him, and smirked.

“All done.”

“Thank you, sir.”

This child began to help the other children, as Clyde crawled to every adult.

They hoped to stop this crucial fight, and they sure did! The bombs stopped crashing, aircrafts were on their way home, and humanity stop shouting. Everyone was still in lockdown, but after a few days, they had realised, that nothing was standing in their way.

Clyde was a hero, to thousands of people, he helped to discover brand new technology, for medicines, cures, and much more.

Guess what?
Clyde can walk now, he has probiotic legs!

Well, there is our happy ending.