I love writing, and this is a story that I’m doing for school. Now, you know those types of teachers with their whole cut-and-dry "Beginning, middle and end!" theories…but my short-story is supposed to leave readers in suspense. Do you think this is acceptable? And, what are some things that I can do to improve it? (Note: This story is totally fictional! Also, special typing effects like italization and such won’t show up on Y!A.)
It’s called "Lost", about a girl, Angela, whose car gets crashed by a drunk driver and she wakes up w/ amnesia. It’s due tomorrow, so thanks in advance!!
Mom wants to know if I want to go shopping with her. I must admit that trailing the endless racks at JC Penney’s is not my idea of a good time, but then I remember how I have homework and how I’d rather watch Mom put together hideous outfits then sit at home working with nouns and verbs and all that other confusing stuff for the rest of my Saturday afternoon. Besides, it’s Christmas break. Maybe Mom will let me wander away to the other parts of the mall while she shops, since it is a giving, joyful season.
So I say yes.
We all pile up into our beat-up car that is so old the color is indistinguishable. The seats’ cloth coverings are starting to rip away, proudly sporting their Kool-Aid stains and odor of moldy French fries and hamburgers from McDonald’s.
As I rush in to grab the front seat (for once) I pull on my seat belt (held together with duct tape, must I add), and we chatter about Christmas and what we’re going to get friends and cousins and grandparents.
“I’m going to make Great-Aunt Anne’s old homemade fudges,” says Renee, her chestnut curls, as usual, falling in her face. “Ever since she passed away last Christmas, Uncle Pete’s seemed pretty lonely and sad lately. I’ll make him the white chocolate raspberry ones, since those were his favorite.”
I roll my eyes. If it has to do with cooking, Renee loves it. Every year since she was ten, she’s given away homemade goodies—cookies, breads, cakes, whatever she sets her mind on.
“I have no clue what I’m getting anyone this year,” giggles Hattie, because that’s her, scatterbrained as usual. We all smile and start shooting her practically our whole wish lists. Her blue eyes sparkle at the thought of presents, though. She may be a huge procrastinator, but Hattie always manages to whip something amazing up in the end.
“I think I’m getting Grandma a pair of gloves,” I say, almost visualizing my detailed, organized list—because that’s me—everything orderly, all in its place; the exact opposite of good-natured Hattie, who also happens to basically be my best“est” friend, not just my sister. “And for Grandpa, a card deck.”
“Paul?” My mother inquires, tilting her head back to look at my eldest brother.
And then, it happens.
A car swerves right in front of us. I scream, and I hear Mom yelling every curse in the book. I see the vivid image of the bottle of beer smash on the ground, and a quick sight of the rowdy high-schoolers in the truck, before our car swerves into a ditch.
All of this happens in about two seconds, and then everything goes black.
* * *
I yawn, blinking up into a high ceiling.
Where am I? I wonder, my eyes nervously taking in it all—the thin cover on top of me, who is apparently laying on a bed, all the tubes and poles, one bandage across my eye, I think. A black-and-green beeping thing which seems to be some sort of monitor. And then, as the blurry room comes into focus, I see two people, about, maybe, forty years old, with greying hair, a man and a woman. The man has a little bald spot on the top of his head. They both peer down at me, worried.
“Oh, Angela!” the woman gasps. She collapses into a black plastic chair beside the bed. “Thank God. Angela…Can you hear me, baby?” I suddenly notice she is missing one of her arms, and I almost gasp out loud in gruesome shock.
Who is this mutilated woman, and why is she calling me “baby”? What am I doing here?
“Angela Freeman,” a man remarks, pushing open the door to my room. He is holding a clipboard and is wearing white. He is older than the couple in the room, but he wears glasses and the younger man doesn’t. He does a double take as he realizes I’m really awake. I know this because his eyes widen and then he exclaims, “You’re awake!”
A nurse follows him into the room, wearing an ugly top and white shoes. She pulls up another chair and sits next to me. I’m starting to feel scared.
“Angela? Can you hear me?” she asks calmly.
“Who’s Angela?” I say, confused. “You must have the wrong room.”
The middle-aged couple look shocked. So does the other man and woman, but their expressions slide out to “natural” in half a second. “Oh, lord…” says the woman in the purple shoes, not the white ones of the young blonde lady who’s talking to me.
“Hun, do you know where you are?” the White Shoes one asks, and I don’t know about the others, but I
Oh, CRAP!! It cut off my ending! GRRRR…..
pick up a thread of nervousness in it.
“Yeah,” I say, “in a hospital.”
The faces do their dance again, only this time, they’re skeptical, and confused.
“And who do you think that man in the white coat is?”
“A…a doctor,” I say, piecing it all together. “And are you a nurse?”
She nods, surprised. The doctor scribbles something onto his clipboard.
“Very good, hun. Now, do you know who that couple over there is?” She’s pointing to Balding Man and Purple Shoes Lady.
I squinch my eyes at her. “Um, no. Who?”
“Oh, my God,” Purple Shoes yelps, tears brimming in her eyes. “Oh God, Henry, oh dear God…She doesn’t recognize us! Lord, Henry, she doesn’t even know we’re her parents! ANGELA…?!”
“There, there,” the man who must be Henry says, patting Purple Shoes’s back. “Petunia, darling, it’s all right; it’s all going to be OK.” She is sobbing now.
So Purple Shoes is Petunia.
“My parents?” I say numbly.
I’ve never seen these people before in my life. And why does everybody keep talking about an Angela?
Another girl comes in the door. She has dark circles under her eyes. She looks, maybe, fifteen and is using one crutch, her leg in a bright pink cast. She has some bruises and scrapes on her arm.
“Yes, Hattie?” Petunia says, still sniffling.
Hattie almost drops the cardboard cup she’s balancing, which smells of coffee. She has blonde hair like the nurse, only hers is short, straight, and shiny, and she has blue eyes while the nurse has green. “Oh, wow,” she says immediately brightening. “Hi, Angela! You’re awake!”
“I told you, I’m not Angela,” I repeat. “And I don’t know a Hattie or Henry or a Petunia. Just leave me alone!”
“Listen,” the nurse says to me. She’s still using the soft, comfortable voice, except it’s sterner then before. “Your name is Angela. Do you got that, hun? Angela. You are Angela Freeman, and you were in a car accident two weeks ago and got hit in the head. A splinter of glass shattered into one of your eyes, but it’s going to be OK. You also broke your left pinky and an ankle, but they’re all going to be fine, too. And those people over there, Petunia and Henry, are your mom and dad. Petunia was driving when your car crashed. Hattie was in the car too, the girl with the fractured leg over there. Do you remember anything now?”
“No,” I answer 100% honestly. “I swear, I have never seen any of you before.”
Petunia is bawling and Hattie looks pale and stunned. Henry is trying to calm both of them down. I can see stress on his face.
The nurse says, “Do you understand that your name is Angela?”
I shake my head.
“What is it, then?”
I didn’t expect that one.
“I—I, I don’t know…” I struggle.
“Counseling,” I see the words the doctor’s lips make as he writes. “Amnesia. Tough case.”
The nurse nods, thin-lipped.
Suddenly it feels like I’ve stopped breathing. I’ve lost something, only I don’t know what. And I’m searching for it, I’m searching…I can’t find anything, it’s like I’m trapped, I can’t see anything, who am I…? The thoughts tumble around in my head like a hurricane, and I’m sweating and smothering under the not-knowing. They’re all trying to tell me something, supposedly my life, but I’ve never heard it before and I want it to be fiction. They sound like they’re underwater. I had a brother, Paul, who died…I don’t remember any of it.
I yell that I don’t want to be here, in the hospital, where they say they’re going to take tests and check my brain and convince me who I am.
Because I don’t know. Who I am, I mean.
I jerk my arm up, but it’s taped to a needle with a bag filled with liquid and pain shoots through me. Another bag is filled with yellow…oh my lord. Is that my urine?
I’m going crazy. Something slipped from my mind, my memory, but I don’t know what it is.
I want something, I need something, but it’s gone. I’m desperate.
I’m lost.
In a moment of unconditional and irrevocable rage, I scream:
“NOOO!”
–
THE END!!! LOL, hope you enjoyed!—soooo sorry about the mix-up!!!! :/
