• Destiny

    Are humans so blind and oblivious that they can’t see the path that lay in front of them? Or do we just not care about where the tides of the ocean we call, “destiny” take us? I took me mere months to come up with the answer to my own destiny. For the average mortal it would take years, from the point of realization that there is in fact, such a thing as destiny. I realized this fact at the age of thirteen. I was not cast with ignorance or indifference with this matter. I knew all too soon where my tides would take me. My destiny was to become an avenger. I’m far heroism but I needed to avenge the death of someone close to me and I wasn’t going to die until that happened. Of course, destiny can change. But, only if you want it to…
    ***

    I watched fireworks blast through the air like millions of shooting stars and starbursts. Watching the glow of the fireworks paint the sky in many beautiful colors. I was growing impatient while waiting for my mother to put on her coat and get ready to go outside. I was ready for a closer look at the sky.
    “Mom!” I called, “hurry it up!”
    “Clarisse, calm down. Let me just put on my shoes,” she responded.
    I groaned. Why’d she always have to lollygag when it was my turn to do something important to me? Sometimes she really annoyed me.
    “Mooom!” I yelled, stretching out the ‘o’ for exaggeration.
    “If you don’t quit it I won’t take you or your friend Jennifer anywhere!”
    I groaned again.
    Just then, I heard a, bang! I ran to the window to see what was going on. I turned to face Mom to ask what had happened when I saw the look on her face. Shock.
    “Mom? What’s—”
    Aghhhh!!
    Mom dashed outside. Then I remembered…Scott. I ran outside too, praying it wasn’t Scott. Crowds of people stood outside where the bang had taken place. I pushed my way through and stood next to my mom. Jennifer’s mom was there.
    “My baby! Jennifer!! Someone call the hospital!! Jennifer!”
    I stood there in disbelief. Jennifer…she was shot. Her mother blurted out words which I didn’t recognize. They weren’t English. She patted her daughter’s cold hand and swayed back and forth singing a song in a low saddening voice:
    Wade in the water
    Wade in the water children
    Wade in the water
    God’s gonna trouble the water.
    God’s gonna—G
    She cried harder.
    I felt tears fall from my eyes down to my cheeks. This celebration was no longer a celebration…it was a grieving.
    I heard sirens from a distance. I didn’t react I just stood there, crying. The last words I said that night were, “Jen, don’t—don’t you die.”
    The ambulance took her to the hospital just eight minutes before she dies.
    The last words she said to me were, “See you later Claire!” This was before the shooting even occurred. I never got to say goodbye.
    See you later Jen.
    I watched as they buried her the morning of the funeral. Her mother wasn’t there. She couldn’t bare it.
    At that very moment, I decided my destiny. I was to take the life of the person who took life from an innocent girl! I was going to watch that person suffer just as Jen had.
    Little did I know, I was going to have to take the life of the person dearest to me. Scott. Scott was going to have to die. Scott wasn’t in the house at the time of the murder and was ID’d as the man with the gun. Scott did it. My only brother.
    We were home alone. Now was my chance.
    “How could you?” I asked, about to cry. My voice cracked.
    He glanced at me, “I told you, I didn’t do anything. Why would I kill your friend?”
    “I don’t know, but multiple people saw you with the gun. The evidence proves—”
    “It don’t prove anything!” he insisted angrily.
    I clutched the butcher knife behind my back. I released it from it’s hiding spot.
    “Cla—”
    “Bye, bye. This is for Jen!!” I ran towards him and impaled hime through the heart.
    Aghuh, was all he could manage to say.
    The deed is done. Blood splatter was all over me. Scott’s eyes were still open, frightened, I placed my hand over them and I closed them shut. I waited in my room for Mother to come home and for the police to arrest me. Not bothering to do away with my clothes or move Scott's body.
    Destiny aligns itself, after all. This was my fate from beginning to end. All I have to do is wait for those tides to pull me in.

    Wade in the water
    Wade in the water, children
    Wade in the water
    God’s gonna trouble the water…