Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25170312-20141224181745

''I can't stop writing for some reason, lol. So here's something else. This was written pretty hastily, as was the other one I posted yesterday, so of course I will refine it later. ''

Timmy's parents never listened to him. Whenever he had a problem, they would downplay it. If he complained of being bullied, his mother would say, "That's impossible. He's such a nice boy. Why would he do that?" If he had a nightmare, his father would say, "That's what you get for watching scary movies." They seemed to care, but weren't there for Timmy emotionally.

One day after school, Timmy burst through the front door in a heated panic. He stopped short of the kitchen when he saw his mother, and stood there breathing heavy with his hands on his knees.

"Are you okay, honey?" his mother asked casually.

Timmy forced an answer in between his desperate breaths, "Someone was chasing me!"

"What? Who was it? Was it Nathan?"

"No! It was some guy with a mask! And a knife! He was huge!" Timmy started crying, his eyes longing for the safety of his mother's love.

"Timmy! That is not funny! Don't say things like that!" she said, dismissing her son's obviously distraught appearance in favor of her own cold logic.

"But it's true! He chased me all the way home!"

"I'm tired of you exaggerating all the time. Go to your room and do your homework -- in silence, please."

Timmy was furious. What kind of a mother doesn't even give her child the benefit of the doubt? She didn't even think for a moment that there might be any truth to Timmy's story at all. When his father came home, she didn't even mention it to him.

That weekend, Timmy and his father went to the park. They were throwing a football back and forth when Timmy's father threw it a little too hard and it landed in the bushes near the trees.

"I'll get it!" Timmy shouted, and eagerly ran to retrieve the ball. He got on his hands and knees and looked under the bushes. A little ways in the distance, among the trees, he saw two feet. A man knelt down, revealing a knife. Timmy ran back to his father, screaming of a man in the woods, but his father said no one was there.

Over the next few weeks, Timmy was repeatedly scolded by his parents for making up stories about the apparant stalker. He was sent to bed without supper, denied any television privelages, and unable to see his friends. Whenever he did leave the house, he would return in tears with a new story.

One night, Timmy was sound asleep after passing out from exhaustion. His parents had become absolutely fed up with his stories, so they took away all his favorite toys and games. Both his mother and father had trouble sleeping after Timmy's epic tirade, and were sitting in the kitchen drinking some hot cocoa.

"Do you think we're being too hard on him?" asked Timmy's mother to his father.

"Maybe, but why won't he stop telling those stories? A man chasing a little boy with a knife in broad daylight? Multiple times? And no one else sees him? And he never catches the boy? I'll give him points for imagination, but it's... well, it's got to stop. And we need to find out what's causing him to make this stuff up. It's sick."

"I know, but-"

A crash was heard upstairs. Timmy's parents looked at each other with the exact same expression, as they were both thinking their son must have broken something in anger.

"Timmy!" they both shouted, and stomped up the stairs. Timmy's father swung open the door to his son's room, but Timmy was sound asleep, and nothing was broken. A bump came from their bedroom.

"Oh my god," whispered Timmy's mother. His father put his arm out in front of her, and stepped ahead towards their bedroom door. He motioned her to stay put and reached into the room to turn on the light. No one was there.

Timmy's father turned back to look at his wife. She had a knife to her neck, held by a large, masked man. She trembled, trying to keep still, in fear of the blade so close to her skin. Timmy's father couldn't speak.

"You should have listened to your son," the man said in a deep, garbly voice.

The stranger's words pierced Timmy's father's heart to it's center. His mother was too fearful of her own life to share her husband's guilt.

"Will you listen to him now?" the man asked.

Timmy's father looked down in shame, then raised his head with a solemn look.

"Yes," he said with great sincerity, "I will listen to my son. And so will my wife. We will listen to him from now on. I swear on our lives."

Timmy's mother's face changed as well, showing her own epiphany. The knife wielding stranger accepted their answers, then released his grip and disappeared downstairs. A door opened, then closed.

The next morning, Timmy's parents said nothing of what transpired. They made their son a gorgeous breakfast, and sent him off to school. When Timmy came home that afternoon, he ran straight to his mother; pulling on her dress with endearing impatience.

"Mom! Mom! Guess what?! Guess what?!"

"Go ahead, honey. I'm listening." 