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Bežigrad Gymnasium, Ljubljana / 1Q / Short Story anthology, summer 2013
A collection of
short stories
Bežigrad Gymnasium,
Ljubljana,
summer 2013
1Q:
Tilen McQuarrie
Boris Jovanovic
Svitlana Ryabishchuk
Oleg Rogoza
Nouran Abdullah
Daniel Aziz
Emily Fox
Noah Voinov
Isabella Weber
Theresa Smith
Sara Radulovic
Anastasia Kotroni
Victor Mattelaer
Marin Belec
Anastasija Radovanović
Aram Vermishyan
Marc Anthony Berends
Eva Torkar
Spring Bahar
Jule Eisermann
Tilen McQuarrie
Never Ending Life
O
n a misty October evening, in the heart of Chicago, Joey and his friend Rob were walking to West Bay Stadium. Joey’s dream came true when Rob came to him with two tickets to a rock concert of his favorite band the day before; he had got them from some stranger on the street for a bargain price.
Joey had some doubts about the stranger selling the tickets. He had heard of a man that goes around and drugs teens who are good and healthy. He takes them home and cuts out their kidneys to sell on the black market. Rob had also heard about the man, but was skeptical about this urban legend. They discussed their thoughts about all the stories of this mysterious man on the way to the stadium.
When they arrived at the south gate of the stadium, a strange, short clown-like man approached them and offered them some candy. Rob went ahead and grabbed a handful, Joey refused. When they entered the stadium, the adrenalin was unbearable for Joey because it was the first real concert he had been to. The band started to play and the stadium went crazy. Halfway through the third song, Joey remembered something that sent a chill down his spine. He had not yet submitted a school project that was due at midnight. Rob saw that his friend was uneasy about something. He offered Joey a piece of candy which he still had in his pocket. Still thinking about his submission, he took it and ate it. He put the rapper in his pocket. Joey told Rob that he needs to submit a project and that if he doesn’t, he will fail the year. Rob was listening to the music and was ignoring his friend. Joey gave up and left the stadium in a panic.
Joey looked at the time: it was 22:47. He had just missed the bus to his house so he walked to the back of the bus station. He pulled his mobile phone out of his back pocket and dialled his mother’s phone number. Ring after ring. No answer. He tried his father. No luck either. His parents had gone to a reunion over at the Hoover disco in downtown. Joey saw a bus pull into the station. In a panic, he jumped on and the old bus rattled ahead. It had a flickering bluish light up front by the driver. The bus took a right. Joey’s bus continues straight! He asked the bus driver which bus he was on. The bus driver turned around: all Joey could see was a small silhouette with frizzy hair. Joey had seen a person just like him before. The driver asked him where he is going, Joey hesitated. The deep and crackly voice of the bus driver sounded again saying that wherever he is going, he can take him. The bus smelt of old leather. A toolbox beside the driver’s seat rattled like one big item was in it. The old bus made a weird screeching noise which was followed by a long hiss as the bus ground to a halt. The bus driver got out of his seat and grabbed the toolbox. He stepped out the front doors.
Joey saw that the back doors jammed and were not fully closed. He heard some rattling and the bus driver came back holding a shiny and sharp object presumably from the toolbox and hid it on the opposite side of his body. The flickering light in the front of the bus went out. Joey thought to himself: ‘Something is really wrong.’ He squeezed through the back door of the bus, ripping his pants and his shirt, cutting himself just above his right hip. He felt he was bleeding a bit but did not stop to look. He ran through several blocks through a rough Chicago neighborhood. Joey looked back at the distant bus; as he did, he tripped over a raised piece of concrete in the sidewalk. He got up and continued running. As he got tired, he started to walk and as he did the image of the kidney thief came to his mind. He called Rob, but he didn’t answer his phone either. An answering machine on Rob’s phone asked if he would like to leave a message. He didn’t.
Joey got to a bus stop where his bus normally stops. It wasn’t long before another bus came along. He peeked inside from a distance. It all seemed all right, and he entered. He sat down toward the back of the bus. A few stops later, a chubby old lady came and sat down next to him. Joey was really surprised and slightly freaked out, considering that the bus was almost empty except for a few drunken fellows in the back, and a weird man who was all dressed in dark clothes and had a rather freaky look on his face. The old lady had a giant purse with her. She pulled out a large bottle of hand sanitizer and coated her hands with it a few times. She saw that Joey’s hands were scratched up and dirty, she reached over and offered some to Joey. Joey was a nice guy and did not want to disappoint the old lady, so he accepted. He could feel the sting of the antiseptic on his cuts as soon as she squeezed a generous amount of it on his hands. A sharp scent filled the air. Joey spread some of the hand sanitizer on his hands but there was too much, he wiped the rest on his shirt to get rid of it. Not long after, the old lady got off the bus.
Joey was relieved that he could finally sit alone again. He looked at the time; it was already 23:38. The assignment was due in only twenty two minutes. He got off the bus a few stops after. To his surprise, the man wearing all dark clothes got off there as well, and started walking in the same direction. Joey walked a few blocks to his house. It was completely dark. He ran to the back yard and approached the back door. He lifted the floor mat and slipped his hand underneath. He expected to feel the cold hard metal of the house key. All he felt underneath was dust on the rough concrete porch.
Joey called his parents again but they still did not answer. He knew they weren’t home yet because their car still wasn’t in the driveway. Joey had forgotten why he actually needed to go home, and he had also forgotten he was at a concert earlier. In his panic, he tripped over the hose and fell into the garden. While he was getting up, his phone fell out of his pocket. The time showed 23:44. Joey picked it up and put it in his pocket. He proceeded around the house looking for a way in. He saw the man in dark clothes walk by his house slowly as if he was inspecting it. Joey stopped in his tracks and stood quietly in a shadow. Through his rapidly increasing paranoia, he went to the garden shed in the far corner of the back yard. He felt around until he grabbed what he was looking for. He came out of the shed holding a sledge hammer. He walked toward the side of the house again looked around, took a few deep breaths, and gave the bathroom window a big whack.
The glass shattered and the alarm went off. Joey realized he would have to silence the alarm quickly or the police might show up. He went back to the shed and almost tripped over the hose again. He came back with a ladder, leaned it on the wall and used it to climb through the window with ease. Once he was in the bathroom, he paused and just stood there for a while. Joey looked in the mirror and barely recognized the boy of which the reflection belonged to. He was beginning to lose his mind. All of a sudden, he remembered the alarm was triggered when he broke through the window. He turned toward the door as his wet shoes squeaked on the tiles. He slipped and hit his head just by the toilet. He squinted and screamed as the sharp pain ran through his body. Only when he got up did he realize that he had fallen in the broken glass from the window. He got up and brushed the glass off of his back.
Up to that moment, his goal was to upload his paper. Joey was paranoid, stressed, injured, yet had a sudden and strong lust for destruction. A side of him appeared that no one would imagine he had. He started limping around the house finding things to break and destroy. He went to his room and lay down in his bed. He started to doze off and eventually fell into a deep slumber.
Joey had nightmares of the man in the dark clothes being the ‘kidney thief’. He woke up to the sound of the burglar alarm. He had forgotten to disarm it. He went down to the basement and grabbed some pliers. He turned on the light and went over to the electrical panel. Joey opened it and started to snip the wires one by one until both the light in the basement and the alarm were silenced. He threw the pliers somewhere and walked upstairs again. As he passed the window in the stairwell, he saw a black van park outside.
Boris Jovanovic
A Rather Special Idea
I
t was a sunny morning of June 17th. It was the last week of school and students were looking forward to holidays. The last week of school wasn't as demanding as usual, so students had a lot of free time they could spend for doing things they like. The 1Q class was one of them. There were 22 students in the class and they were all special, but in different ways. Perhaps they could be called the most special class I`ve ever heard about.
On that sunny Monday morning the 1Q class came to school as usual and waited for the History teacher to come. Her name was Bertha Smith. She was a very boring teacher who complained about her life all the time. Her teaching was like reading a dictionary, therefore was hard to understand. She never joked, and didn’t like fun. She was old and skinny but wasn’t married. She was trying to keep her style modern looking at all times, though she failed. She was dying her hair red all the time which never suited her, and the older she got, the shorter skirts she was wearing. She was a disaster!
Finally she came with ten minutes of lateness but we didn't mind. They moment she stepped into the classroom, we noticed that she was different than usual, but in a good way. She sat in her chair and said in a happy voice, “Today I have something rather interesting to tell you! History is not as boring as it seems to you. It is full of interesting stories and today I will tell you one so let’s begin!” We all made ourselves comfortable and waited for her to start. “It was a tradition long ago about a thousand years ago. It was used as an entertainment for people when cruel death still wasn’t considered as a wrong thing to do. It was performed once per year. It was the time when people gathered together in a village and stoned a person to death. It was a tradition and was never excused not to be performed. Everybody was allowed to participate, even children of the age of two. It was always a question of luckiness. It always was the decision of that little paper. Papers were put in a black wooden box. In that box, there were as many papers as people who participated. On one of the papers a big black dot was drawn, and you dared not to get it, because if you did, the cruellest death was waiting in front of the door. It was called stoning. The event was performed in the morning so children had time for the noon dinner. School on that day was canceled, so instead of going to school in the morning, children had time to find the smoothest and finest rocks, to be ready for the event. Around ten o’clock, everybody gathered together and were ready to start the event with the unlucky already chosen. The unlucky was pushed inside the circle of the excited people and was got stoned. Everybody was screaming and shouting, some because of the excitement, some because of sadness. People got sprayed with blood! It looked terrible. The event lasted about an hour, before the person was dead. After, the people left without even concerning that the person died, not saying that they didn’t care at all. This is how it happened. Nowadays things like this are not allowed any more, they are considered too cruel.” The classroom was completely quiet, not even commenting on what they just heard. I got a feeling that some found this cool.
Throughout the day, we discussed what the teacher told us. We found it quiet fascinating, especially Aram, which was a student who didn’t care about morality at all. In fact he got an idea, which I guess nobody would have thought of, apart from our class and him. He was a very good organizer, so it seemed no problem for us to perform it. He said that we could also have a stoning event. It wasn’t been donefor a long time now, so it would be a great reunion!
We agreed, even though nobody thought of the consequences.
We kept this idea inside the surrounding of our class and never let anybody else know about it. The event was planned to happen on Tuesday night at ten, when nobody would be around in the darkest place of the town, the woods behind the petrol station about two kilometers from my house. The only thing we were required to bring were rocks, small sharp rocks so death would be more painful and cruel for us to enjoy.
This is how it really went. The next day in school everybody was very enthusiastic. You could see their eyes sparkling of excitement but still not aware of all the consequences that would follow. I didn’t say anything, since I wasn’t popular in class, and maybe even too serious for them to understand my point.
That afternoon everybody was there at exactly 10 o’clock waiting for Aram to come around and give you a turn to pick a paper from the box. I was a bit concerned about participating, but at last I decided I would. I was the last in the row. I waited for the box to come. I was terrified. Finally it did. I put the hand in and grabbed a paper, and just hoped that it wouldn’t be the wrong one. I pulled it out and opened it up. My heart was beating at its maximum rate! The paper was empty, and this time I was lucky… until I realized it was turned on the wrong side.