Shattered Peace

Markus’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

   Markus was in detention… again. He wasn’t a bad kid; he just couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. It wasn’t his fault. One moment he was watching Kelvin harass and belittle the 9th graders, and the next moment his fist had made contact with Kelvin’s stupid ugly face. It was an accident… really. 

   He couldn’t say that it wasn’t just a little satisfying to see the jerk face stumble back, a look of surprise replacing his usual smug expression. It was less satisfying when Kelvin shoved him against the lockers and socked him in the gut, knocking the wind out of both him and his sails. Fortunately, that was the extent of the beat down as Mrs. Gadsby was nearby and came to investigate the situation. 

   Even though Markus considered what he had done to be an act of public service, the principal didn’t see it the same way. She reprimanded them and sent them both to detention, in different rooms of course. Honestly, probably for the best. Now, he sat in Mr. Hardy’s classroom; the teacher, himself, was seated at his desk, grading papers. There were about half a dozen students in the room, all being punished for various infractions. 

   “Hey,” a girl behind Markus whispered to her friend several seats away, “Did ya hear about Jasmine?” Talking was strictly prohibited, but the rule only applied if you got caught, and Mr. Hardy was teetering on his seventies, so his hearing wasn’t what it used to be.

   “No, what?” The other girl replied.

   “She’s been out of school for a whole week.”

   “So? I heard she caught the flu.”

   “That’s not what I heard.” The first girl’s voice dipped into a conspiratorial whisper, gleefully that she knew something her friend didn’t. “I heard she turned into one of them. That the government locked her up somewhere to do experiments on her.”

   “No way.”

   “Yeah, I mean, it makes sense, she always was a weirdo. It’s only fitting that she’s turned into one of those freaks. It’s just a good thing they caught her before she came back to school. If they hadn’t, who knows what might have happened. Kinda scary if you think about it. One week you’re going to school like normal, and the next you turn into a monster.”

   “No talking,” Mr. Hardy reminded in his raspy voice. The girls instantly went quiet. It seemed Mr. Hardy’s hearing wasn’t quite as bad as they thought. 

   With the excitement over, Markus went back to not doing his homework. It probably would have been a good time to do it, but it was math. He hated math; he hated most subjects, but math was the worst, and he did have the whole weekend to get it done. So instead, he stared absently out the window till a little grey car pulled into the parking lot. Uh oh. It was his mom. She was definitely gonna let him have it for getting into another fight. 

   “Alright, students,” Mr. Hardy announced, “time to go; your parents are waiting outside.” 

   Great. Time to face the music. He slung his pack over his shoulder and followed the other students to the parking lot. His mom waited in the car. He took a deep breath and strode up and opened the door. The radio was playing on some sort of news station.

   “….have finally apprehended the Awakened known as the Singer. Government officials assure citizens that it will be placed in the new high-security prison, St. Harrison. The Singer is only the most recent Awakened that has-“ 

   His mom turned off the radio as he sat down in the passenger seat. She didn’t look at him, her expression inscrutable. Not good. She wasn’t mad; she was seething. She pulled out of the parking and onto the road.

   “Mom, I-“

   “What were you thinking?!” She snapped at him. “Getting in another fight? I taught you better than that, didn’t I?”

   “I don’t suppose it would help if I told you that Kelvin was being a complete jerk again,” Markus muttered.

   His mom sighed. “Him being a jerk does not give you the excuse to hit him. I want you to apologize.”

   “What? No!”

   “Yes!” His mom insisted. “And until you do you’re grounded.”

   “But, Mom-“

   “Don’t ‘but, Mom’ me. This is my final decision.”

   He sighed and turned away, looking out the window. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to apologize? He wasn’t going to do it even if his mom said he would be grounded until he did. He’d just have to outwait her. It’s not like he had any friends to hang out with anyway. He reconsidered that idea; his mom was just as stubborn as he was, probably even more. If she wanted him to apologize, he would have to apologize. 

   When they got home, he trudged up the stairs and shut the door to his room behind him, a little more forcefully than he meant to. He threw his backpack into an empty corner and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Life was so unfair. 

   There was an itching on his back; he felt around and found two little bumps about six inches apart, just below his shoulder blades. They hurt when he touched them, like something brushing up against a fresh bruise.

   He went to the bathroom and took off his shirt to try to get a better look. He craned his neck trying to get a good look at his back reflected in the mirror. Yep. Definitely two red little bumps, and around them what seemed to be a rash. Weird but not outright concerning. 

   “Markus,” his mom called from downstairs, “dinner.”

   He sighed, slipped his shirt back over his head, and made his way down to the dining room. His mom had set out two plates with portions of reheated meatloaf, leftovers from last night’s meal. 

   Jenny Thatcher was a nurse at the only hospital in town, and as such, she was at work more often than not. She was usually home far after the bus dropped Markus off at their house. She was asked to come in early and stay late all in an effort to keep their little hospital from getting overwhelmed. Being a nurse was a hard exhausting job that paid very little for all the effort to was worth. It paid even less when she had to take off early to pick Markus up from detention. That was maybe his biggest regret about getting in fights; it was more stress on his already overworked mother.  She couldn’t afford to lose her job; they were barely making ends meet as it was.

   That night Markus tossed and turned in his bed, unable to fall asleep. The itching on his back had turned into an aching pain that worsened if any pressure was placed upon it. Eventually, he settled on his side and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

   He woke in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but that was the least of his worries. The pain in his back had intensified till it was a stabbing sensation, like stakes and knives. He felt his back for the two little lumps, except instead of lumps he found something soft and feathery. When he touched it, whatever it was spasmed. He flung the covers off and jumped out of bed. When he reached for the door handle, he noticed that his fingers were blackened and tipped with razor-like claws. No, not claws, talons. They scraped against the metal of the doorknob as he turned it and rushed down the hall into the bathroom. 

   He flicked on the light and frantically pulled off his shirt, accidentally shredding it in the process with his new talons. It was only then that he caught a glimpse of his back. He turned to get a better look. Instead of those bumps, there were… wings? Tiny little wings maybe an inch across each. They flapped and fluttered uncontrollably, like a panicking bird. 

   His mind went blank. What was happening? This was impossible. It had to be a dream, right?

   “No, no, no, no, no!” He panicked, but as he did, the wings seemed to panic as well, flapping more frantically. 

   To his horror, they began to grow. Two inches. Six inches. A foot. Three. Four. Five! They expanded till they finally stopped, flapping about madly. He tried to control them, grabbing one with both hands, but it only flailed more. Suddenly the small bathroom felt very cramped as his wings beat the walls.  

   In the process of him frantically trying to tame his new appendages, one of them knocked over the hand soap; the glass dispenser shattered as it hit the tiled floor, but he hardly noticed. He lost his balance as he stumbled backward into the bathtub, tripping over the shin-high lip. 

   With all the grace of a newborn giraffe, Markus fell backwards into the tub with a hard thunk, bringing the curtain and its rod down on his head. As he was trying to extricate himself from the curtain, he heard his mom’s voice.

   “Markus?” She called from behind the closed bathroom door.

   Markus froze. For once so did his wings.

   “Is everything okay in there?” His mom asked. “I heard something shatter.”

   “Uh… everything’s fine,” Markus replied in a panic. His wings began to spasm again, knocking over the shampoo sending it loudly tumbling into the tub.

   “I’m coming in,” his mother said.

   “Wait! Don’t do that!” Markus called, but the door was already opening. 

   His mother stood in the doorway for a long moment and just stared at him in disbelief. 

   “I…” Markus started as he continued to try to stop the frantic flapping of his new wings.

   “What happened?!” She asked, dumbfounded. 

   “I-I don’t know. I woke up like this!” 

   His mom just stared at him for a moment, watching him try to untangle himself from the shower curtain, too shocked to move. After a few seconds, she seemed to regain her composure and helped him out of the tub. She pulled him into the hallway, trying not to be hit by his flailing wings that quickly managed to knock a hanging picture off the wall. For the second time that night, glass shattered on the ground, and they both did their best to avoid the broken shards. 

   “Stop! Just stop!” Markus yelled at the out-of-control feathery appendages, and finally they did stop, instead drooping, their tips dragging on the floor. The occasional spasm would shudder through them, but for the most part they were still.

   Both Markus and his mom let out a sigh of relief. 

   “Okay,” his mother said after a moment of heavy silence, “start from the beginning. What exactly happened?”

   

    

   

Reviews

[JayG]

Like so many hopeful writers, you’re thinking in terms of telling the reader a story, and doing that by transcribing yourself as the storyteller. That would work if, like you, the reader knew the emotion to place into the storyteller’s voice; if, like you, the reader knew the gestures, the facial expressions, and other visuals to use.

But they don’t, and can’t. So while it works perfectly when you read it…

The thing we all forget is that the pros aren’t people with a magical talent that makes them write brilliantly. If that was true you’d already be famous. Those people worked hard to learn the skills that have been under refinement for centuries—the skills of the Fiction Writing profession. So…why not you?

Why not take advantage of all those years of learning how to please the reader and avoid the traps? Given that most hopeful writers never realize that they have to learn those skills, or that they exist, it puts you ahead of over 90% of the others.

Jump over to Amazon and try a read of the excerpt from Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict, to see what she can do for you. You’ll be surprised at how much of it is obvious once pointed out.

So...this wasn't what you hoped to hear, I know. But since we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being a problem, I thought you might want to know.

For an overview of the traps and gotchas that can catch you, you might check a few of my articles and YouTube videos.

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

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“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

[InkPen]

Thank you for your honest review. It is something I need to work on. I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I’m mainly posting here to get critiques, so I can get better at writing. So thank you.