Journal Pages

I was skipping to school; my parents finally paid me my allowance. After all of the weeks I worked at my uncle’s shop, they finally came up with the money they owed me. My Uncle owns a pawn shop, I don’t actually work there; I just clean and organize. I love to organize, not that I’m obsessive over it; I wouldn’t just see something that is unorganized and fix it up. I never get bored of cleaning. I don’t actually work there because I’m twelve. I have cleaned up that place since I was seven. My Uncle is a nice person, when you don’t argue with him. He will just come up with the greatest arguments that no one will question, the greatest reasoning, he always seems to be on the right side.

 I have been saving my money for a journal. I need one to write out all of my disturbing thoughts, and to draw. I am not going to buy a sketch book. One: I don’t draw often, two: I like the lines, to adjust the drawing easier.

When I arrived at school I talked to, Penelope, a friend of mine, she was a great friend. She laughed that it took this long to get my allowance. I agreed and laughed even harder. We laughed so hard, we annoyed the other students, and we even missed the bell. Don’t worry, we weren’t late, it was just fifth grade.

At the playground, Weasel teased me for wanting a Journal. He has been doing this since he found out that I wanted one, last year. He used to be my friend, until he stole my dad’s medication. “At least I don’t have a Diary like you.” I usually say to him as a comeback, until he gets old with it sometimes. We both laugh at each other, never really insulting each other, just making the teachers mad. At least, I don’t think he is insulted. Penelope would just look at me ashamed for even trying.

During math, I talked to my neighbors. The story went along these lines. A boy, half my age who was accused of murdering his mother by ripping out her heart; After he was sent to counseling the heart was found in his stomach, not even digested; Some doctors surgically removed the heart from his body; The boy had always claimed that he didn’t kill his mother, yet no one else was around according to the boy; The Psychologists believed he might be lying to protect himself; His father was already dead by this point in his life, and the boy threw temper tantrums at his mother; Suddenly, weeks after the boy had stayed at the facility, a creepy man in a gas mask tore out his eyes. Before I could finish this story in my head and to my neighbors, who had faces that looked like a mix of confused and horror on, the teacher overheard and sent me to the office. I am used to this

After school, I walked to the pawn shop with Penelope, explaining the story to her, as well as what new punishment the office gave me. It was the usual suspension. Penelope was annoyed that I was suspended again for telling a story like that. I don’t even believe that these stories are that disturbing, just gross, though after I get my journal I won’t need to tell anyone about these stories anymore. Besides, people hate me anyway for my voice. It isn’t scratchy, just fast, but low pinched for my age.

When we got to the Pawn shop, my Uncle hugged us both. He expected me to put things away as usual. I didn’t have much to organize today, though I still hurried, while still doing my best. My Uncle congratulated me for getting it done before customers came in. He always did this, but I know he turns the closed/open sign around all the time. He expected us to leave until nine, but we stayed so I could buy a journal. He made a remark that my parents took so long to give the allowance, also questioning me why I wanted to buy a journal from here. I told him not to be wasteful, but I really did it to give him a higher profit.

I looked through the Journals, some had pages torn out, some were badly beaten, and a few were intact. I chose a decent one, with a few pages torn out. I had just the right amount of money. I left to a park bench with Penelope. I was deciding what to write in the journal. Penelope suggested the one I told in the middle of math. I laughed, but started writing that in anyway. Writing stories was much harder than I had imagined. I kept arguing with Penelope what to add, what to make clearer and what to change. I was halfway through the story when Penelope left to chase the Ding-Ding man. I thanked her for getting Ice cream for me.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">When I flipped the page, I notice the other side wasn’t blank. I hadn’t written it. I knew I had searched through the journal to find any pages like this. Confused, yet I still read it. At the top of the page was the very date and time it was now. I read through it. It was talking about my uncle at his pawn shop; It described that some criminals came in, searching through his shop for something; He demanded them to leave; The criminals seemed to get more and more aggressive with searching for whatever they were looking for; My Uncle tried to call the police, the men twisted both of his arms; He screamed, they shoved a sock down his throat; My Uncle had suffocated.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">When Penelope came back with the ice cream, she wondered why I was horrified. I showed her the page, she laughed and though I wrote it. I yelled at her for thinking I would ever write something that demented about my Uncle. She said she was sorry. I searched through the journal, for more pages like this. None. I ate my Cone, to calm down, confused by this coincidence. Penelope suggested that my Uncle could have planned this. He is smart enough to, just this morning my parents gave me my full allowance they owe me; my Uncle knew I wanted a Journal, he would probably be able to know the one I would pick, unless he wrote in all of them, which isn’t good if customers buy them; He knows how much I like disturbed stories, yet he wouldn’t ever write anything like this. I went back to writing.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">It was getting late, close to nine, Penelope went home, I headed to the Pawn Shop, to do my cleaning part, and to talk about the—too late the police were there blocking the entrance. I demanded to know what happened. I overheard them describing that my Uncle was found with a sock stuck up his throat and twisted arms, completely dead. This definitely frightened me that the page had foreseen this to happen. I was angry that they talked about this so naturally. Not enough to do anything, yet still angry. I ran home crying.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">At home, my parents already knew that my Uncle had died. They asked me where I was, and why I wasn’t at the pawn shop. I tried to explain, though we were all too upset, especially my dad, to understand each other. The next morning my dad yelled at me for not waking up for school, I told him I was suspended. He got very angry at me, blamed my stories. He was going to throw my journal away. I tried to explain that I need to write the stories so I won’t tell them in the middle of class. Instead of listening, he tore pages out, until the one about how my Uncle died. He criticized me for making fun of his brother’s death. I tried to explain that I didn’t write it, though he would hear none of it. My mother calmed him down enough to let me keep the journal.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">I ran to my room to write some more stories. I was really mad at my father for tearing out my pages, though I still got them out of the trash. My story I was writing now, wasn’t that great, it was a lot worse than the one about the psychotic kid. I wrote about a sensitive man, who traveled the mountains on hikes who fell down one once; He was badly injured, though not hurt; People teased him for his scars, so he took his revenge by giving them more scars, or just mental scars; Kids became fearful of his looks, so he decided to take his revenge through them; He took them to tops of mountains, blindfolded; If they slipped, he would try to help them, though give up quickly remembering his vengeance; If they made it to the top safely, he would take of their blindfolds to show them himself; They knew he had killed some of the adults before, and ran away, but he would just let them find their own way home, if they didn’t want his; Of coarse this mentally scarred the children for life knowing that a scarred murderer led them to the top of a mountain. You can see how stupid that was.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">The next page was another page with the time and date as now. As I read it I heard a conversation going on in the kitchen between my parents. They seemed to be doing just as the page described. Whenever I looked up to not read, they would pause. I heard my father getting very mad at my mother, beating her a few times. My father wasn’t this violent. My mother cried. She was defending me. My father yelled at her to be quiet. I wanted to go out there, fearing what was going to happen, but I couldn’t move. The page described my father shoving a sock down her throat, though all I heard out there was my mother screaming, mumbling, and moaning in pain.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">When the page ended, I ran to see what had happened. My father looked at me, scared, standing by the back door. He asked me what I had done. My mother had a sock shoved down her throat, to the point that it seemed it was her mouth. Her mouth was bleeding. Her eyes were vacant. She was lying on a chair, motionless. She was dead.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">My father called the police, and the ambulance. He explained to the police officers that I killed my mother, by shoving a sock down her throat. I told them he was lying, and I had ‘written’ what he did to her. Of course I lied that I wrote the page, though who would believe that I found it? My father was confused. He claimed that he just walked in from the back. The police read it through. My dad claimed that I could have fabricated it before coming out and attacking. I proved him wrong by showing the new pages I wrote since I went into my room. In the end, the cops believed my father more than me, since they found I had a page about my Uncle dying. I was arrested. I was surprised; you’d think cops would believe children more than adults.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif""> I was scared being trapped in the room for a while until they asked me the questions. They explained to me that they had my father in for questions as well. Most of their questions involved the pages. I explained that I write scary stories. I explained that I cleaned for my Uncle, and I like to clean. I explained that I loved my mother and my Uncle. Lastly, I explained how I got the journal. The way I had worded this all, I tried to sound as sane as possible, though the fact that the pages appeared when the murders were happening was hard to make sane. I was sure to be going to the nut-house.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">They interrogated my father as well, I had no idea what the questions were. I waited in the room for hours. Eventually they explained that I am guilty. No court case. Though, they also inform that they believe that I am insane, so I will be taken to a psychiatrist every weekend. Great, I heard my dad arguing with my mother, yet I am the guilty one.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">For the next day, I was afraid of my father, and he seemed to hate me. We dared not to talk to each other. I did go outside, to explore, to get ideas, and to explain my situation with Penelope. She was more than surprised. She had read in the news about my Uncle, though didn’t fully understand what happened until now. She even became fearful of my father. Whenever her parents saw me with her, they would criticize and call me a psycho-murderer.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">As for the Psychiatrist, they seemed calm, much like I expected. They asked me about my stories. I said they were stupid and messed-up. They would just keep asking. I explained how I have a disturbing mind, and get suspended for mentioning these stories in the middle of class. They mostly asked questioned, until the end where they gave a verdict of the day and waved goodbye.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">I still had my Journal, but stopped writing in it, for fear of another case like these. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dark thoughts, though I told the stories to the Psychiatrist. I calmed down for the most part over a month. Penelope still enjoyed laughing at my tales, though I only mentioned them after school. I tried to get a better reputation in school, but the teachers still despised me, although I had one an entire day, and the students nagged at me tell another story. At lunch, when the students begged me the most, the teachers would glare at me, and shake their head.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">I don’t remember exactly what the Psychiatrist was saying to get us to this topic, though they suggested I should try writing the stories again to get over the fear of the journal. I always brought the journal to the meetings, though never used it. I was fearful, though had them look through it to make sure there were no new pages written, I had ripped the other ones out as well. They checked the journal for me, and handed it back. I positioned myself so they could read as I write.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">What I wrote was about a painter who’s painting came to life and attacked him; There was a lady who adored his art, although it featured dark creatures; Many people criticized his art for being violent, and psychotic; Because of his bad publicity, he was blamed for murders in his area; The girl rooted for him in court, trying to deny this. Before I finished the Psychiatrist proclaimed that this story was undeniably about me. After looking through, I agreed. I had not realized how much my stories resemble my life. I finished the page, but when I turned the page, even the psychiatrist was in shock.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">The Psychiatrist read the page aloud, just as baffled as I was. The top showed the same time and date as what it was at that moment. The page described how when Penelope was left at her house alone; She read a comedic book, drinking coffee; She heard a knock on the door; When she answered, two men wearing gasmasks barged in; They strangled her, forced her into the chair. The Psychiatrist told me to stop reading, and closed the Journal. They asked if I knew who Penelope was, I answered yes. They called 911 saying that there was an emergency at Penelope’s address. The Psychiatrist hid the Journal from me. I asked if I could go, they wouldn’t let me.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif""> I waited, unsure of what was going to happen to my friend, I wanted to read to find out. Though, when the police called back, she was perfectly safe, alone reading her book, though were still on patrol. I couldn’t resist, I searched for the Journal, to finish reading the page. The Psychiatrist wasn’t there to command me, so why not? I found the Journal under a lamp, seized it and read. Penelope was strangled and beaten by these men in gasmasks; They asked her where the Journal was; Since she was too out of breath to speak, she took a while to tell them I had it; They slapped her; Out of nowhere, they found a sock to shove down her throat; If that wasn’t enough, they squeezed her head; The police tried to come in at this point; They through her out the window; The page ended.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">The Psychiatrist returned to find that I read the Journal page. He took it from me. All he said was, “I’m sorry, it is true. You know what happened.” After that day I wandered back home, still carrying the book.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">At my house, I went to bed and fell asleep. I was in the middle of darkness, cold darkness; although it seemed freezing, I was sweating; although it seemed endless, I was cramped; my biggest fear. I awoke, frightened by this. I took out my Journal to write what happened in my dream, but there was another page, I had to read.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">The top was the same time and date as what it was currently. The page read that I was alone at my house. I checked, and surely it was correct. It said that I was reading my Journal. That is obvious. It said I was going to be attacked. That hadn’t happened yet. I heard a knock on the door. I looked out my window, though I couldn’t see who it was. I held the Journal in my hands, expecting all they wanted was the Journal. I opened the door, and no one was there. I read on. The page stated that men in gasmasks were at the door ready to attack me. They appeared, before I looked up. I read on. They told me they wanted the Journal. I gave it to them. I believed I could just go on after this, but wouldn’t leave. They stabbed me, and pulled me away, saying the clichéd line  that I know too much. I fell unconscious, crying.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-family:"Century","serif"">I woke up, noticing that the men in gasmasks were interrogating me. Asking me what I wrote, what I saw, and what I read. I explained, nervous. I just wondered where I was the whole time. After all of the explaining, they dunked my head in boiling water, scorching my skin. They shoved a sock down my throat, as usual. I almost lost breath, but they took the sock out just in time to dunk my head in melted Pewter, and then back into the boiling water. They sprayed my throat. My throat got clogged. They recommended a gasmask, but I refused, giving up on life. They pulled out my eyes. I didn't care.