Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30402176-20170915192232

 THE DIARY OF NATHANIEL CRAY   ''“Eli? Eli! Get down here - we need your muscles!”''

16-year-old Eli Fogherty was lying lifelessly on his new bed, failing to settle into his new house. It was a depressing, void housing project, in an isolated place in the projects of Denver with such a grey, monochromatic vibe that he had forgotten its name several times, and could no longer be bothered to remember. His head was still stuck many years in the past – all he could only think of was his mother, and how he missed her. His window offered such a bland and pointless view of high rises, tacky food chains and indistinct buildings that looked like trash; it was essentially no different to there not being a window in the first place.

''“Eli! Get down here and help your old man!”''

“Hold on, I’ll be down in a moment” he lied. Eli let out a sigh of despair. This was his life now. Mom was gone. And now he didn’t have a family. Already, Sara and Martha were growing accustomed to their roles as older sisters, seeking approval from Dad to give him orders, and intrude upon his personal life like it was theirs too. This sudden flux; his slow coming to terms with this tumultuous change in the reality of his world made him feel both drained and exhausted. In a way, he felt like his life was already over, along with that of his mother. He had two older sisters, a father and a new mother. But no family.

''“Wait – I’ll help. What do you need?”'' was the expected response of Martha, the second eldest sibling. In a few minutes, his new dad would forget he even called his new son down in the first place. Such was exactly what he had been counting on. Goddamn her. He’d only known her for weeks and already he felt like he wanted to strangle her. After 3 full minutes, (which felt more like 10) of lying stationary on his bed, he eased upon his two legs, and his eyes scanned the wooden floor. It looked ancient. The bedroom light reflected brilliantly. He almost liked it. He slowly navigated his gaze towards the end of his new bedroom, and stopped at the vanilla closet door. He thought he might as well open it. See if there was anything inside.

The first thing he noticed was an array of coat hangers. He weakly tried to formulate a terrible joke about how his older sisters had tried dodging one, just to purely distract himself from the sheer mental and physical torpor which he was experiencing. But then, he gave up quickly, and noticed something above which caught his attention. Inside the closet, above the coat hanger rail was a shelf, and on that shelf he noticed something. It looked like a small bag. He reached effortlessly towards it, and retrieved its contents.

''“Eli! Are you going to help us as well, or what!?"''

Hmmm… he thought. Whoever lived here last must have forgotten to take their stuff with them. He realized that what he had was a Nintendo DS, which looked brand new, as if it had never been touched. There was no game inside, a cursory search of the completely bare bedroom revealed no games whatsoever, and in any case, no battery power either. Most interesting of all; there was also a book. It was a black Globetrotter; the kind of book that would be used for a diary or journal. It was densely packed; it looked as though there were as many as 400 pages in there.

This interested him. Eli himself had been trying to keep a diary for the past 3 months. His therapist had recommended it to him. But most of the time, he found himself too weak to write. He always had firm belief in his own weaknesses, especially when it came to commitment, ability, and creativity. In a life of constant flux and transience, it was one of the few certainties he had. His first written entry was two pages’ long. The next was one and a half… the next only half… and he could not immediately remember how long it had been since the last. Come to think to it, Eli mused privately, ''I always said that I should unpack and start writing as soon as we arrive, to record what I was feeling. But I never did for some stupid reason.''

He felt compelled to open the front page, and inspect its contents, not sure what he was hoping to find. The first thing he saw was an ornate drawing of a riverbank, with tall reed grass; a large, imposing beautiful oak tree in the distance, decorated with powerful and visual interstices of sunlight breaking through each twig and each branch. It was all drawn in a black pen. Was this the journal of an artist? Or an incredibly bored individual?

Then he flicked across, and saw in block capitals what bizarrely appeared to be some kind of legal jargon: “THE FOLLOWING CONTENT CONTAINED IN THIS PUBLICATION IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED, INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC PROPERTY OF ITS OWNER, AND ANY UNAUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTION, LENDING, DISPLAY OR PROMOTION OF THE MATERIALS CONTAINED WITHIN IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND COULD RESULT IN OFFENDERS BEING LIABLE TO PROSECUTION AND/OR LEGAL PROCEEDINGS...”

Eli was unsure what to think. Ok...Was this for real? Why the need for a disclaimer in the opening page, written in pen ink with overambitious precision and dramatic style? But then, he was unexpectedly thrown off by what had been added at the bottom of the page: “…LOOK, JUST DON’T STEAL THIS BOOK OR SHARE IT WITH OTHER PEOPLE, YOU CUNT.”

Eli chuckled, perhaps louder than he should have. Obviously, he smirked, this was somebody’s private diary. He was just about to read it, when… the door creaked open.

“Are you actually going to get down and help us?” Asked Martha, folding her hands in her chest. Eli slowly turned around, not wanting to look directly at her. “…Do you need help with something?” Eli puffed. Martha uncrossed her hands, and responded, condescendingly: ''“Umm… yeah. Actually, yeah we do. I’ve been working my ass off for the past hour. Maybe you should get off your ass as well, and actually help?”''

Eli yawned. His loathsome stepsister had a grating habit of using the word "actually" quite a lot. It was if they’d chosen to forget how he’d voluntarily moved the silverware, plates and various cooking utensils and took care to arrange each of them; purely by his own volition. In any case, there was no way in hell he would ever warm to this uppity, rude woman giving him orders. He certainly wanted to argue back, but he’d since learned from experience that that was a bad idea. His new parents never took his side when it came to arguments. Not like Mom used to, he reflected, sorrowfully.

He waited for Martha to squeeze her enormous, fat ass out of his bedroom, then heaved out to do whatever his non-parents and non-family expected of him. Then, as soon as he was finished, he would read the rest of that book…

* Eli lay curiously on his bed, this time, not engaged in a dreary mood of wistful and pathetic introspection, but this time, reading the contents of the personal diary of the previous house’s occupant. From what he gathered as he went along, the writer was a 17-year-old boy at the time itself, the diary itself dating back 2-3 years. Each entry was luckily written with a precise date and time reference; the earliest one written in July 12th, 2014. The series of entries started at Entry 405. Precision was included to a very satisfying degree. Eli was consumed by a desire to learn as much as he could about the book’s owner. If he was still around, he’d probably be… 20 or 21 years old, he figured.

Now, Eli was not an expert literary critic per se, nor was he overenthusiastic about the concept of maintaining a written account of his own life either. But something about this person’s writing style was addictive, powerful and very entertaining and imaginative. Many times, Eli found himself puzzling over the meaning of some of the words used, but since he was smart enough to understand the overall gist of what was going on, he carried on, and steadily became more and more absorbed by it. 5-6 entries in, at long last, Eli had an answer for the author’s name, which he had mentioned in passing, when describing some of the things which annoyed him.

''“…And I know I must have complained about this about 6 times by now, but I always get so annoyed whenever people address me as “Nate” or “Nat”. Do they mean as in “gnat”, like the bug? Or as in short for “Natalie”? For God’s sake – my name is, and always has been, Nathaniel Cray. I always introduce myself as Nathaniel Cray. Because that is the name I was born with. It’s right there on my birth certificate. I couldn’t be more proud of it. It’s one of the best names out there; proof that what my parents lacked in genetics, they made up for in nomenclature. “Nathaniel” is derived from the Greek form of the Hebrew “Netan’el”, which literally means “God has given”. The name is God-given. And “Cray” just so happens to be the last name of two notorious gangsters who ruled over London’s East End all throughout the 60s. I can get used to that, you know. So it’s not “Nate Cray”, it’s not fucking “Nat Cray”… it’s NATHANIEL CRAY. There has never been any point in time where my name was changed to “Nat” or “Nate”.”''

Hold the phone… Eli pondered. “Nathaniel Cray?” Nathaniel Cray… That name sounded awfully familiar. Where on earth did he hear that name before? Not feeling motivated enough to retrieve his laptop and do a quick Google Search, he first tried to run a mental check and see if it was somebody he knew from childhood. But quickly, he soon realized that was clearly not possible. Eli had always resided in California, and his move to Denver, Colorado was a recent one; he literally only moved in with his new family yesterday evening. So the only other option was some kind of little-known D-list celebrity… an artist, or singer, perhaps? …Why did that strange name sound so familiar? Did he hear it on the news?

He shrugged it off. It was meaningless. It might be a somewhat unusual name, but in this overcrowded world of 7 billion people, there were probably over 10 or 20 Nathaniel Crays alive in the world right now on Facebook; so it was in all likelihood just a random namesake anyway. Eli made a mental note to remember, if he got the chance, to contact Nathaniel Cray if possible, and let him know about his missing diary…

* “Eli, pass the salt, please.”

Eli slowly prepared to move his hand to pass the salt, when Martha abruptly stole the salt shaker and handed it briefly to Dad. This gesture aroused in Eli both anger and self-pity. It was not that he was reluctant to pass the salt or anything, or that he even wanted to… but there were so many things about the way Martha acted really made him feel enraged. He had always held reservations about his two sisters; and this was, to him, another sure sign that they felt the same way. They never looked directly at him when they spoke. They never initiated conversation with him either. Every day they always talked, and acted like they had more important things in their lives. Eli scoffed at this stupid idea – why was he even pretending that they were family? They would always stay aliens to him.

Maybe Eli just felt incredibly bitter. But at times, he just didn’t know how to rationalize it. All he felt was rage, sometimes he couldn’t understand the reason why. The reason came later. Or sometimes, it never came at all. But the anger never dissipated. All he could do was hide it and contain it; and be as civil and sycophantic around his new family as possible. But there was a limit to how long he could keep this up. In the days of his early childhood, whenever he was surrounded by people he hated, or by people who made his life miserable, at least he had a home to go back to. He had a Mom who would always listen and sympathize. He had a Mom who would always treat him; even when he knew he didn’t deserve it. But he didn’t have that anymore. His home was gone. It was gone months before the move. And the mere thought brought tears to his eyes.

''“Eli? Is something wrong?”'' Dad cut in. Eli refused to look back. If he did, the tears in his eyes would be painfully obvious to everyone. “Just ignore him” puffed Sarah, busily eating her food. “He’s being a brat.” Eli tried to choke down his feelings. He tried ignoring them. Then, he tried to drown out their shrill noises with his own thoughts. He desperately tried to not pay attention to what they were saying. But it was no use. He overheard too clearly, just as he was meant to:

''“He’s always like this. All he does is lie on his bed… He’s lazy. He’s immature. He’s supposed to be 16 years old, and he acts like a baby.”''

Short of plunging his knife into her hand, Eli cringed, forcefully got up and left the table, violently slamming the door. They always did this. They talked about him as if he was never in the room. He couldn’t stand it. And of course, his Dad said nothing. He expressed mild annoyance and surprise at how his son stormed out of the kitchen without finishing his meal, but just as Eli predicted, he did not appear shocked or outraged in the slightest what his new daughters were saying about his only son. But then again, he was never his real father.

Eli decided he might as well do something, now that he was on his own two legs. He resolved to unpack his laptop, and find out who the mysterious “Nathaniel Cray” was. With an exciting, sensational new fervor, almost like he was unwrapping a birthday present, he ran his search on Google. What he got in response was more than a little shocking. He hovered his cursor over the top two results – the first one being from CNN, headlined:  “Tearful Residents Honor Victims In School Shooting’s 2 Year Anniversary.”'''

School shooting!? Eli did a double take. Was this going where he thought this was going? The second result was from Wikipedia:

 “Ewe Vale High School Shooting – Wikipedia

The Ewe Vale High School Shooting occurred on June 17th, 2015, in Ewe Vale, Denver, CO, when 18-year-old Nathaniel Cray fatally shot and killed 10 students, including himself, two members of staff, and injured 23 more.”

Holy shit. Eli blinked twice, and massaged his chin with both hands, as if to verify if he was dreaming or not. He kicked away from his desk and spun around in his deskchair; his bedroom chair spinning all around him. So that’s where he heard the name from...

To be continued...  