Zeke

A light sparks for a moment, then simply goes out. A familiar smell starts to float in the air. It’s the smell that we all know especially well since we started hanging out together. It’s the smell of a joint that is about to be passed this way. We’re already trashed, but we want to get even more fucked. It’s the only way to be.

There’s jerry, the loud obnoxious one. Who can’t seem to handle his weed. Yet, we continue getting high with him. He never shuts up and he says some pretty fucked up shit. I guess we keep him around because he lets us think of him as fucking stupid. It keeps us from thinking about our problems. There’s Brooke, the quiet one with the sullen expression. She’s pretty much a depressant around us. Hell, she’s like that with everyone. She usually has the bud, which is why we keep her around. She doesn’t mind sharing. She can be pretty cool most of the time, but she gets moody easily. There’s Joey, the jock. He only hangs out with us when he’s sure that no one will find out about it. I guess we keep him around cause once in a while he scores some pretty good shit. Lately though, he’s been kicking it with us more and more often. Weird. There’s Jordan. Yeah, she’s a chick. Ditz of the world. She gets fucked up easily, she’s a newbie. The rest of us have been doing this for longer than two years. Her, only 2 months. There’s Zeke, the only one of us that is darkness. He lives for the dark side of things. He doesn’t care about anything. He comes up with all the ideas. He scares me sometimes, talking about the shit he does. He always seems to have new cuts somewhere within view of our eyes. When we ask about them, he just shrugs. Then there’s me. The wallflower. I kinda tend to fade into the background at these times. Everyone once in a while zeke and I get into an argument that makes everyone stop and listen. I don’t usually speak up until I know that I have a point and it will be hard to lose. Now you’ve met us all, and this is what we’re doing. Sitting around, doing nothing but blazing. That’s about the only thing that the lot of us have in common. I think it’s kinda weird. This night something was about to happen. You could feel it in the air. You could feel it in the restlessness of all of us. You could smell it and taste it. The taste of anticipation. Zeke broke the waiting silence. “This is pretty pathetic.” What? What in the world was he talking about? “This is all we do all the time, don’t you guys get tired of it?” Why would we get tired of it? This seems like what we were born to do. We didn’t like change. Things were how they were supposed to be. Us, doing nothing, not bothering anyone else. Why should we tire of this? “Why can’t anything exciting ever happen?” “Dude, nothing exciting ever happens around here, you should know that.” there was Joey, speaking his mind as usual. Little did he know what zeke had planned. “So why don’t we make something exciting happen? Like start a fire or something. It’s too damn quiet in this town.” “YEAH, ok, let’s go burn something.” Jerry. Of course he had pulled out his lighter and lighting it. He pretended to light Jordan and laughed as she screamed out in fake fright. We all laughed at this. They were so fucking stupid. But yet zeke didn’t laugh. He just looked at them and rolled his eyes. He looked at me. His eyes lighting up. He had something special in mind for me. that was zeke. He already had something planned. He knew that we wouldn’t say no to him. We couldn’t. I don’t know why, but we wouldn’t. He knew that and he took advantage of it. “Annabelle? Pass me the pipe please.” He said my name and it sounded like a note of music. I loved it when he said my name. Without a word I handed it to him. His fingers brushed mine slightly. I looked up at him and I saw his eyes staring at me. As if reading my thoughts. The thoughts of me wanting him. Blushing deeply I turned away. Taking a hit he held it as he started talking. He talked of how we could be legendary. How we could cause some chaos that no one would ever forget. Exhale. How to do it and not get caught. We listened to him carefully, going over all the details. There was no way that we’d be caught. I had a bad feeling. Not for me. I don’t know why, but I knew that I was safe. I felt it. I was afraid for everyone else. Whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to be good. I knew that I wouldn’t be affected and somehow I knew that zeke wouldn’t either. As we stood up, zeke came and stood beside me. He took my hand, surprising me……and everyone else too. “wha……..?” Brooke stuttered as if she had been shocked. We all knew that Brooke was totally in love with zeke. It surprised her that he had chosen me over her. It blew all of us away. Especially since Brooke and Zeke had been fucking around more and more. He just gave her a look that clearly said ‘stupid bitch. We had nothing.’ She almost cried. “let’s get outta here. Cause some trouble or something.” Zeke led us all out into the night. “I dare you Jerry, in fact I double dare you.” “To what?” Jerry asked in a nervous voice. A smile played at zeke’s lips. “Light the tree by the courthouse on fire.” “Do you know how much trouble we can get into if we get caught?” “I have a plan Fucker. We go inside and do it from there. They’ll never now the difference. Plus people will see us inside and know that we didn’t do it.” A reassuring look came over Jerry’s face. “Fine, he said, I’ll do it.” We walked slowly to the courthouse. We realized it was almost time for it to close. That’s ok. It would only take a minute. Not long at all. “Annabelle and I will wait out here. We need to talk anyways.” Zeke said as he let everyone go before him. “We’ll be at the park across the street watching you.” The others mumbled words of agreement. They proceeded inside. Zeke ran over and locked the door. He had gotten the key from a friend. “Zeke, what are you doing?” I knew what he was doing, I just didn’t want to believe it. “You know what I’m doing.” He took my hand and watched the door. He slipped away and poured gasoline around the base of the tree. The match from one of the windows lit a part of the tree. It was just a little flicker in the vastness of the night. It burned and fell. It fell right into the gasoline. The tree went up. The courthouse, which was made of logs, went up too. I saw them there at the doors, knowing that they were lost and confused. They didn’t understand. I don’t think I did at the time either. I watched all my friends burn to death in that fire. Burning helplessly as the firefighters could do nothing to save them. I should have been in the fire too. Zeke saved me. The air no longer smelled of anticipation. It smelled of burning wood. I don’t know if there was a trace of burning flesh in it, or maybe it was just my imagination. “Why did you do it?” I asked listlessly. “I did it for you. For me. For us. I wanted to be with you, and I couldn’t get to know you with all of them around. They wouldn’t let me. Especially Joey, he took interest in you. That’s why he was hanging around more and more. But now we have all the time in the world.” He took my hands in his. “don’t you see? I care for you.” So this tragic fire that was happening before my very eyes was a result of me. The guilt washed over me as I heard the last of Brooke’s screams. I wasn’t surprised she was the last to go. She was always a fighter. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But if zeke did this all for me, I better show him that it does matter to me. He better be satisfied with me. Since it was me who caused all this trouble…… I guess at least they died as a legend. You know that people will talk about this “Tragic accident” for years to come. No one other than zeke and I knowing the real truth. I have to live with this. I won’t die for it. I’ll live with it and hope zeke doesn’t turn on me like he did the others………….

9 comments

  1. Hey i must this one real good thing that i have read out here for quite some while. I would like to read some off your other stuff if u have any. can you please email them too me at bozonatas@rediffmail.com , i believe i have some stuff that you might like too, so we can exchange.

    anyways keep up the good work i really liked your stuff. well done.

  2. A brilliant way to depict how most of our society is. Jealous, two-faced, deceitful and stupid.

    -cRiMsOn

  3. Next time I like someone, I’m gonna kill everyone they know and say it was for them…its less expensive and more entertaining.

  4. that was a really good story. i loved the kinda plot twist at the end. and i liked how you could tell what was gonna happen from the beginning, but you still didnt really know. nice.

  5. hey i like the name zeke sorry i didn’t read the story just wanted to say i liked the name

  6. yeah, I like the name too. That’s why I used it. You should really read the story and let me know what you think of it, all right?

  7. That’s a real good piece…unexpected twist at end too.
    I have a character called Zeke too. He’s a bit different from that one though…

    DC

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