Final Short Story (based on the song "First Love" by Murs)

Sam Higgins

Period 2

From the moment their eyes met, there was an immediate connection. He didn’t understand it. It was Luke’s first party during his first week of his freshman year in college. He had anxiously looked forward to this night for a long time and he wanted to take full advantage of his new sense of freedom. Sweltering hot air, alcohol, and raging adolescent hormones made up the atmosphere of the party. Luke looked through the hazy air of the packed dance floor and saw her. He didn’t know who she was but that didn’t surprise him because besides his roommate and the guys who lived in the rooms next to his, he didn’t know anyone. With a little help from the liquid confidence, he walked across the room and introduced himself. They talked for the rest of the night but it didn’t escalate into anything serious. They exchanged phone numbers and he went home that night feeling good about the party. His mind was racing.

Over the next few weekends, the two started to hang out a lot and would have long conversations. It was starting off just like any other relationship. Luke was really starting to like this girl but he wasn’t looking for anything too serious because after all, it was his freshman year and he was just looking for a good time.

One night at a party, the two were hanging out and talking like normal when Luke went in for the kiss. It was all downhill from there and things started to get hot and heavy. One thing lead to another and Luke found himself waking up next to her the next morning.

Luke rubbed his eyes and got out of the bed. She was still asleep for he figured that she needed her rest and Luke left the house to walk home. On the walk back to his room, Luke just shrugged off the night before like no big deal. “It was just the booze, nothing serious” he thought to himself. Later that day, Luke got a call from the girl asking him to go to lunch with her. He said yes without missing a beat because he really liked spending time with this girl. They got to the restaurant and it started off with just some normal conversation. Everything was going smoothly until she started asking questions about the two of them and where their relationship stood after the night before. These loaded questions frightened him so he tried not to answer them. He danced around every one of them and ate as fast as he could so he could just get out of there.

Over the next few weeks, Luke started hanging out with this girl much less frequently because of his fear of commitment to her. He was afraid to be tied down by just one girl and stopped answering her phone calls. He started casually going out with other girls and kept true to his motto “Nothing Serious”.

On the day before winter break, Luke was walking by the lake and his phone slipped out of his hand. The silver Blackberry Curve hit the concrete sidewalk and bounced into the lake. Luke was pretty upset about the loss of his phone but he figured he’d be able to go a few weeks without his numbers. He’d go home and get a new one over break and then come back and get everyone’s numbers again.

During his first night of being home, something happened that Luke never would have expected. He had a dream about his first college party and the girl he met that night was in it. He woke up the next morning and remembered the whole thing. From that point until the end of winter break, she consumed his thoughts every day. He couldn’t get her off of his mind. A feeling of regret kept coming over him because I couldn’t believe how badly he treated her. Luke finally decided on the last day of break that he loved her and he needed her in his life.

As Luke stepped out of his car and was finally back on campus, his heart was racing. He couldn’t wait to see her. On the walk back to his dorm, he walked by her best friend and stopped to talk to her. Luke explained his phone situation and asked her for the girl’s phone number so he could call her and talk to her. But as soon as the girl’s name left his lips, tears started flowing from the best friend’s eyes. What came next devastated Luke and changed his life forever. She started to tell Luke the story but the only words he could understand were “accident”, “drunk driver”, “no one survived”.

Class reflection Journal

There are a lot of positive things about this class. I really liked that we did all of our writing on a blog. This was a new experience for me and it was nice to not have to just write everything down in a notebook and turn it in. the lyrics assignment was a cool thing to do because it allowed us to look at poetry in songs that we listen to everyday. I was dreading this class when the quarter began but my mind quickly changed. Creative Writing actually became my favorite class this quarter and I looked forward to coming in and writing everyday.

I think it would've been cool if we could have done more with music and lyrics but I'm not sure what we would have done. I don't have too many criticisms about the class because I really enjoyed it. if I had to choose, I'd say I liked the poetry unit more than the short story unit. It seemed like we went more in depth into the poetry unit and then just kind of threw the short story unit in at the end because we covered all of the types of poetry.

Worst restaraunt experience Journal

The worst experience I have ever had at a restaraunt occurred at Perkins when I was younger. I was out to eat with my mom and my older brother. It was dinner time but since we were at Perkins, I ordered pancakes. I've never been a fan of Perkins because the service is usually pretty slow and the restaraunt is usually filled with smelly old people. But on this night, the workers were taking forever to make our food. When the food finally arrived, I was starving. I cut into the pile of steaming pancakes to find an unpleasant surprise. There was a white string at the edge of the pancake. I curiously pulled the string and it just seemed to keep going. It was spiraled all the way through my pancake and by the time I pulled the whole thing out, the whole pancake was torn apart. I looked at the string and realized it wasn't a string. It was dental floss. I immeadiately became disgusted and refused to eat the pancakes. I lost my appetite and Perkins will never be the same to me. Now every time I go into Perkins, the haunting image of dental floss winding throughout my pancakes comes back to me.

Restaraunt Journal

If I were to open a restaraunt, it would be on the beach in either California or or Hawaii. We would serve burgers along with many seafood items since it would be so close to the ocean. The floor plan would be very open and most of the seating would be outside. There would be live music every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. On nights where there isn't live music, background music would be playing over the speakers. This music would consist of a lot of old-school hip hop and "summer music", such as Sublime or The Beach Boys.  It would be a local hangout with a laid-back, relaxed vibe. The seating would be very comfortable and the restaraunt would be very beach inspired due to the location. Colored lights would be strung across the ceiling to give the restaraunt a fun feel.

Chair Picture Journal

The scrawny old man grabbed for the chair as his overweight wife sprinted into the kitchen, running faster than she has ever moved in the past 20 years. The old man lifted the chair high above his head; he was determined to catch this mouse. The room was dimmly lit by one lamp but he could still see the mouse scattering underneath the rug. This has been a weekly occurence ever since the mouse moved into the house half a year ago. The man and his wife would be watching the evening news and the mouse would appear out of nowhere. You could swear that the wife was part elephant. Partially because of the way she looked, but also because of her reaction. She would become extremely skiddish and would run away as if Michael Meyers were chasing her. The chair was still held above the man's head, ready to strike, but the man knew this wouldn't do anything. Next thing he knew, the rug laid flat on the floor again and the mouse had disappeared into the wall. This battle would happen again, and the man secretly looked forward to it. It was the one piece of excitement in his otherwise boring and monotonous life.

Science Fiction Short Story

Sam Higgins

Period 2

2150

The sun rises over the never-ending skyline on a warm summer morning. The booming metropolis is already bustling in the early hours of the morning as a new day begins. On the roads, cars drive themselves and no longer need to be control by the driver. Sidewalks move in order to speed up pedestrians’ travel. Business men and women use these methods of travel to get from their homes to work. For most people, it was just another normal day. But for one man, it was a new beginning.

            “Welcome back James”, said an old man in a white lab coat with a smile on his face. He was standing in front of James who had just woken up from being frozen for 100 years. James, standing at 6’2” with brown hair and a muscular build, looked extremely confused.

            “Where am I?” asked James, lying back in the capsule he was frozen in. “What year is it?”

            The old man replied, “The year is 2150, James. The world is a different place from when you left it. New technologies, new leaders; everything had changed. I know you have a lot of questions but I need to run some tests before I can answer them. Please stand up James.”

            James stood up and faced the old man. The old man had James walk around the room to make sure that he was healthy and could move around safely. The old man started walking and gestured for James to follow him. The two men walked through the building and out the front doors where they stood on a street corner, surrounded by towering skyscrapers.

            “Everything’s a lot bigger than it used to be,” said James as he stared upwards towards the sky. “Geez, and I thought New York City was big back in the day! That feels tiny compared to this.”

            “Like I said, the world is a different place now,” said the old man. “The whole Earth is like this.”

            “Wow. Everything seems so fast paced now,” James said as he gazed at the self-driving cars racing down the street and the moving sidewalks.

            “Yep, the government thought that the world needed to be more streamlined and efficient. Because of that, there are no longer separate countries and governments. Now, there is one government for everyone. They figured that the world would be a more efficient place this way because they wouldn’t have to waste energy, resources, and people on fighting wars with each other.

            “Well, I guess that idea makes sense. But one government for the whole world?” questioned James. “Isn’t there unrest amongst the citizens?

            The old man replied, “Not really. The government has complete control so the citizens are kind of trapped into doing what the government orders. And anyways, most of them are too caught up in their non-stop work to even notice. Most of them live quite peaceful lives.” The two men started walking down the sidewalk.

            “So there’s got to be a park or something around here. With all of these skyscrapers, the people must need somewhere to get away to.”

            “Nope. No parks,” said the old man. “All nature was destroyed because it was deemed as a ‘distraction’ to the citizens.”

            “But doesn’t nature provide people with things they need to live such water and oxygen?

            “Everyone still needs those things but anything can be made in a factory now so they didn’t need nature anymore.

            “So the entire Earth is like this? Just endless cities with people working for the government?” James asked curiously.

            “Yes. The Moon and Mars are the exact same way” replied the old man.

            “Wait, did you say the Moon and Mars?”

            “Yes I did, James. With all of the new technology that has been invented, the average life span is much higher than it used to be and the population soared. Even occupying the whole Earth, there still wasn’t enough room for everyone. So we started sending people to live in space.”

            “I want to see this. Can we go there?”

            “Yes we can leave this afternoon.”

            By the time the afternoon had came around, James couldn’t wait any longer. He still couldn’t get over the fact that the human race was living in outer space. He couldn’t wait to see it. The old man said that it was just another infinite metropolis like the Earth but James refused to believe this. As a child, he grew up always dreaming of one day going to the Moon or going to Mars. The mystery and wonder that lied beyond the Earth’s atmosphere always astonished him. Now, after being frozen at the age of 25 for 100 years, James was feeling like a child again. The old man and James climbed inside the small shuttle and prepared for takeoff. Butterflies consumed James’ insides and he could barely sit still. The shuttle flew through the stars with blinding speed and James zoned out into a daydream. While reminiscing about all of his childhood fantasies about outer space, he had completely forgotten what the old man had said.

This was apparent when the shuttle landed on the Moon and James asked, “Are we already back from the Moon?”

“No, James. This is the Moon. Like I said, its just like Earth. Nothing but skyscrapers and streets all at perfect 90 degree angles to the one next to it.” The two men walked for awhile without conversation. James had a look of disgust on his face. He had finally achieved his childhood dream of exploring space and it had been ruined. All of the mystery and wonder about the Moon that had consumed James’ childhood fantasies had vanished. The whole planet was covered with cookie-cutter skyscrapers and streets. No parks, no trees, no lakes, no beauty.

The two men stopped at a street corner nearly identical to the street corner that they had been standing on just hours before on Earth when James muttered, “I can’t believe this.”

“I completely agree,” said the old man. “I had similar childhood fantasies to yours. I always had dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Outer space astonished me as a child. I hate seeing the universe like this. It breaks my heart.”

“You had dreams of becoming an astronaut? But weren’t there already colonies set up on the Moon when you were a child. A city like this couldn’t have just popped up over night and you’re not exactly young. No offense.”

“Oh none taken,” replied the old man. “But yes, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I actually achieved my dream too. I was working at NASA when they decided to freeze me just like they froze you.”

“Really? Why were you frozen?”

“They said that they would need to save some of the great minds for the future because they would be needed when people started to live on the Moon. I didn’t believe them when they said that people would one day be living on the moon but I trusted that they had the technology to freeze me for 100 years so I figured why not. I thought it’d be cool to live in the future but when they unfroze me and I saw this, I discovered I was wrong. I miss the nature of the Old World and all of the personal freedoms we had. None of that exists now and nobody even stops to realize it. They are too caught up in relentlessly working to even notice.”

“What are they even working so hard for anyways? It’s not like the companies are competing against each other since they’re all owned by the government now.  Why doesn’t anyone stop to relax and ‘smell the roses’?” asked James.

“Did anyone before? We were blessed with a life on a beautiful planet and many people took it for granted. Even back in our time, many people were too focused and concerned about working that they too forgot to stop and ‘smell the roses’. That’s how we ended up where we are today.

"Behind him the noise escalated" Journal

Behind him the noise escalated. The announcer exclaimed his name and the crowd jumped to their feet and roared. He gave a slight acknowledgement to the stadium full of adoring fans as he started the walk from the on-deck circle to the the batter's box. The stadium lights were very bright and the spring air was crisp. He held his hand up to the umpire signaling that he wasn't ready for the at-bat to start yet. With his hand in the air, he shifted the dirt around in the batter's box and set his feet. He was taking deep breaths as he attempted to calm his nerves. His mind was racing with excitement. It was the first at-bat of the 2011 MLB season. He dug in his feet and looked to the pitcher. And here comes the pitch... The season has begun.