By Coco Jane
Booted from home for flunking and drinking. A blot on the family. Nobody understood the pain, bullying, exclusion.
Now, unwelcome everywhere, a blot on the city. Huddled in a buttonless wool coat, jackpot of a dumpster dive, I warm myself by trashcan fires. I’m accepted here. It’s enough.
Until today.
A garbage truck struck Roland, our firekeeper. We hollered, but got a lungful of diesel fumes.
Roland was dead. Hauled away, like refuse.
I’m done.
Moonless night, quiet bridge, river cold and swift. Whatever’s below has to be better. Hell, I’m already at the bottom.
No one will know I’m gone.
Very moving; and too true of so many in this country at this time, the throw-away people.
Thanks, Lisa. I payed this down from a longer story; glad I was able to maintain the effect.
This story defines ‘despair’. Given the present situation world-wide, it is very thought-provoking.
Thank you, James.
Good story! The detail “flunking” as one of the causes of family rejection strikes me as true—the rejection stems from a kind of family shame. Sad story!
Thank you Siobhan. Yes, I have seen kids shamed for poor grades.
Can empathise with this story How will those out in the cold cope now? Sad, despairing.
Thank you, Irenne. I wrote this for a prompt: a person living on the streets who wants to end it all. I suppose I could have the narrator try to go back home, but I took “end it all” literally.
So sad. Our desire to belong is so strong. Yes, I agree, nothing was lost in your short snippet of your larger story. Well done.
Thanks, Karisa. Although this is a depressing story, writing it made me thankful for what I have.
Well written narrative covering the ever darkening points of depression and the final “comforting” thought by a soul that has “slipped through the cracks”.
Thank you, b.
This is very well-written and conveys despair only too well.
Thank you, Derek.
You sum up, in a few words, the desperation and despair of every teenager ‘thrown out’ of their home, because parents and step-parents can’t cope with them.