2 comments

Science Fiction

Getting up that morning was the hardest thing for me. And my mom. The previous night we both heard my name being called in this years draft. We did nothing. Said nothing. When I went to bed she even said nothing then. The next morning all she did was grab my hand and drag me to the car. The whole way we sat in silence. I wanted to say something but I felt as if it would make it worse. The trees I saw felt like it might be my last time. The autum leaves swaying in the humid wind. I would usually be riding my bike or getting in a early morning jog. But not today. Maybe not tomorrow, or the day after that. We came to this white, plain looking building. The car stopped right in front of the main entrance and my mom stared at me, tears in her eyes. She's about to say something....but doesn't. I wish she would. The silence is hurting me. So would her saying something about it. But I don't blame her. Most of the time, people don't make it back. By saying nothing, she thinks I'll make it back. Then she'll say what she needed to say. I get out of the car and say,"I love you, Mom." Silence. Silence is what I get. I go into the main entrance and there is a singular door in front of me. I walk into a bare room with white walls and a wooden maple desk with a young receptionist behind it. I walk up to the lady and she smiles widely at me. If she does this all the time, I feel bad for her. Her jaw must be extremely tired. But then again it might be just once a year. She looks at me for a while before saying something. "Kai Kamaji?" I nod. She nods back, still smiling, and then types something very quickly on her laptop. I feel my body stiffen up, just waiting there. The bareness of this place makes it super uncomfortable. The white walls, a single lamp, and the desk. Even the desk has barely anything on it. A phone, a laptop, and a stapler that seems completely useless. She finally looks up at me and says,"You'll step through that door over there, Mr. Kamaji." She gestures to a door on the other side of the room. I look towards the door. Of course it's a gray steel door. Why wouldn't it be? Nothing else would fit perfectly with how this room is. I give my thanks to the receptionist and start walking to the door. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "Let's do this,"I whisper to myself. I place my hand on the cold door handle and push it open. I don't open my eyes until I feel the door all the way open. "Maybe this is a dream. Maybe....maybe I'm just dreaming,"I mutter to myself. I open my eyes and and see a room exactly like the one I was in but this one had my mom sitting in front of a desk. My mom, who was just in the car. On the other side of the desk, a slim guy in a bright orange suit smiles as he sees me. "Ah, Kai Kamaji. Welcome! We've just started! Take a seat, please." He gestures towards another chair. I just stare at him and say,"What?" He chuckles,"Take a seat, and I'll explain it to you." I go and take my seat. My mom looks at me with confusion. We both shrug. The guy introduces himself as,"Charlie Andrews. But please, just call me Charlie." Still confused I just stare at Charlie, and then he stares right back. When he breaks eye contact he starts to speak. "You both are probably very confused, I'm sure. First, let me educate you on why we send someone to the moon every year. Note, this is confidential information. When the first American person landed on the moon, they left a certain item there. It was very important to the president at the time, and he secretly paid a great amount of money to us so we could look for it and find it again. But after a few years, we kept losing our greatly trained people, whom we spent a great deal of money on. So the president made the law that one person every year will go to the moon. Yes, it's pretty selfish. But efficient. The people who came back always came back with clues and hints. But never the actual object. The one person who found the object was Kai's dad, Lucifer Kamaji." My mom and I looked at each other. He left us when I ws 4, and went to see the world. They were still technically married, but only by law. He always kept secrects from us. I never heard that he was picked. They usually broadast who was drafted on T.V. "Mr. Kamaji came back with posession of the object, but he refused to give it to us. Then, he went and hid the item himself. This happened just last year. We had to wait to do anything about it so we had to give him what he wanted when he started demanding things from us. Like money. He recently demanded something that we thought we couldn't get. It took us forever to find you. Little did we know all we had to do was....say your name on live television." Charlie smirked at us as I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulders, holding me in place. I froze as my mom got up and slammed her hands on the desk screaming,"Tell that bastard he can't take him! I have sole custody! He's mine! He's my son!" Charlie simply smiled and calmy said,"Yes Mrs. Kamaji, but you see. That's not exactly true anymore." He took out some papers and handed them to mom. She read them and looked them over. She sat on her chair with a thump, dropping the papers and whispering,"He can't do this. He can't...." Tears flooded her eyes as the man who had hold of my shoulders lifted me up, and started to walk me out of the room. Squirming around, but unable to get out of his hold, I scream,"Wait! No! Let me go! Mom please! Mom!" I started crying with my mom getting smaller and smaller. She up and looked at me, smiling. Then said them. Three words. Those three words I wanted her to say earlier. The three words I didn't want her to say now because she didn't believe I wasn't coming back. I couldn't hear her say it. But I knew that's exactly what she said. Those. Three. Words. "I love you."

July 28, 2020 02:26

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2 comments

Mustang Patty
13:11 Aug 01, 2020

Hi there, A very enjoyable read. You did a good job of portraying the scenes and allowing us to learn about the characters. As I read through the piece, there were a lot of missing commas and other grammatical conventions. In this case, what I usually suggest to my creative writing students, is to invest in a good study guide. There are several, and while the Chicago Manual of Style is the most referred to, a good source for writers is 'Elements of Style 2017.' It is organized well and helps with basic grammar and sentence structure. ...

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Kiyoko Kamaji
21:06 Aug 01, 2020

Ah, I really appreciate your feedback. I'll make sure to look those study guides up. Thank you for your support! - KK

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