Scratch

So I was meaning to post this a long time ago, but forgot until now.  Here's the story I wrote as my final for my literature class...I think I got a 98% on it so I'm happy  .  Anyway, tell me what you think:

The Untold Stories
Don looked back down at the half-used napkin with an address scrawled in the upper left corner just to make sure he had come to the right place. He had. Maybe he should check again. Certainly this was not the house of a middle-aged man who desired to become a writer. Maybe he was royalty and had inherited this castle of a house. Yes that was it: Allan was some prince from an obscure European country who had inherited this land that was settled by his ancestors.

Putting these thoughts aside, Don decided he’d been gaping at the house long enough for people to question his mental state and started up the forty steps to the front door. After reaching the top step, he made the decision to join a gym and waited to catch his breath before knocking on the massive oak double doors. Nothing. He shuffled his feet for another thirty seconds before trying again. The door swung open mid-knock, revealing a tiny old man in a blacker-than-black suit with what hair he had left (which wasn’t much) smoothed back.

“Ah, Monsieur Farefont. Good, good, he has been expecting you,” drawled the old man in an accent Don couldn’t accept as being real. “Right this way.” The miniature man turned and started down a hallway that only made him appear smaller. Indeed, Don began to wonder if the fortress he had seen outside was even big enough for what was inside as they passed rooms, staircases, windows, and other hallways. As hard as he tried to remember the path they took, he only ended up getting dizzy enough to stumble and nearly knock over his guide. Catching himself and panting to keep up, he decided he would definitely sign up for the gym tomorrow.

Finally Don saw the familiar face of Allan, though his attire had changed quite dramatically since the party last Thursday. The rather impressive solid white tuxedo had been replaced with train-splattered pajamas.

“Ah, Donavon! I hope the house wasn’t too hard to find,” greeted Allan while Don wondered how he could miss a house that was visible from space. Noticing Don’s bewilderment at his dress, Allan apologized and explained that he found he wrote better when he was comfortable and these pajamas in particular kept his train of thought on the tracks. Don replied that it didn’t bother him in the least even though he was put off at the lack of professional attitude Allan seemed to possess. Allan dismissed the old man (Mr. Fletcher, a retired actor as Don later found out) and invited Don into the other room for supper.

As they ate, Allan proposed that Don shed some light on what he would like his biography to contain. Don, who had been going through this in his head on the ride over, began by talking about his parents: his mother had dabbled in the arts for a spell before being swept away by his father, a respected physicist. They got married in the summer of 1972, and Donavon Farefont entered the world on December 16 the same year. He had gotten the best from both parents, possessing his mother’s creative genius and his father’s mathematical mind. Growing up in Indianapolis, his family had always been the upper crust of the middle class. He had excelled at school, impressing even his most tough teachers. He graduated from public high school in 1991 and was accepted into RIT where he double majored in math and art.

The pair’s movement into Allan’s office interrupted Don’s story at this point. Here, Donavon marveled at the bookshelf behind the desk containing three, perhaps four, dozen black leather notebooks, each with a name and date inscribed on the side in a deep shade of red.

“I haven’t tried to get them published yet,” Allan responded to the unspoken question as he reached into the top-right drawer of the desk and revealed an identical notebook. “Your story will be the last I add to the series before I add my own. Then, hopefully, the stories will be published. These people, just like you, lead great but unappreciated lives and so I hope to make them known to the world. Now, if you wouldn’t mind signing the cover of your book…yes, right about there. Excellent, now let’s begin.”

And they did. Don started back from the beginning, this time delving into more detail: the time he went to his father’s work, the time he recited the Pythagorean Theorem to his 2nd grade teacher, and even the first time he painted a picture for a girl he had a crush on. Needless to say, Don’s childhood was a very touching story with no divorcing of the parents, no extended family crises, and not even being bullied as a child. His life just had none of the things that make you an underdog and get the world rooting for you. After graduating college, Don decided to pursue graphic design and other areas of art. His mathematical mind gave him an edge over others in the area of graphic design and so he tried to apply mathematics to his other art. He started with paintings, focusing mainly on painting animals, mainly to show their amazing symmetry. His work was popular among biologists for time because of this, and he decided to pursue other areas. In particular, he engaged in sculptures of physics, or more appropriately physics-defying sculptures. His most famous piece had been of a metal ball made of several rings that literally floated with a magnet at its center. A paper had even done a story on the piece, calling Don “the da Vinci of the modern world.” Alas, though his early career had appeared to flourish, in later years he found that his form of art lacked the force needed to fling him into the spot light. Years went by and Don, though frustrated by the leveling off of his popularity, still felt as though he had succeeded.

His story was now reaching present day, but Don was fading. In fact, constantly, throughout his recounting, he had begun to feel light-headed and dizzy. He had first dismissed this as a passing daze or something insignificant. Around the recalling of his graduation he asked for a glass of water and decided it was a minor headache. Now, as he was trying to recall his latest sculpture, he was finding it hard to stay conscious. He felt numb all over his body. It was rather similar to that feeling when one’s foot falls asleep except it covered his entire body. He tried to pick up his glass again and found his arm immobile. What a shame. Ah well, maybe he’d just rest it along with his eyes for a bit. His head did feel quite funny; maybe it was just the light. Yes, closing his eyes would help, maybe even a little rest. And Donavon closed his eyes for the last time.

                                                              * * * * *

Allan sighed. So close. Another one that didn’t quite make it. It was probably for the better; the last time his subject had made it all the way through her story, he’d had to improvise and ask her about her plans for the future. Allan finished his last sentence and added two more as he always did. He flipped the notebook shut and checked the date. He then proceeded to write above where Donavon had signed “The Untold Story of” and below, “1972-2012.” Picking up the notebook, he turned around to the bookshelf and pushed it in between Isaac Darvey (the awarded patrol officer) and Carol Fitzgerald (a profound botanist). The books now numbered forty-nine in total, signaling to Allan it was time for his own story to takes its place on the shelves.

Sitting down again, he took in hand the pen he had used only on others. It had taken him quite a while to find this magnificent device, but it had proved to be quite an effective approach to his goal. And now it was time for his story. Reaching once again into the top-right desk drawer, he produced his final black leather notebook. Carefully he inscribed his name in red onto the book, just like the dozens of others he had watched before him. He decided to inscribe his dates and remainder of the title as well: no point in putting off the inevitable. He already started to feel the effects of the pen and his lips broke into a half smile as he flipped open the cover.

********************************************************************************************************************

The office was packed and moving fast when police captain, Patrick Darvey, walked in at 7:30 AM. There had been a major break in over a dozen cases and even more recently opened. The Captain could’ve sworn he’d just heard his brother’s name as well. Could it be that they’d finally gotten some news about Isaac’s disappearance five years ago? He called over the nearest deputy to figure out why this commotion had ensued. He said he didn’t know much but that something big had happened when a black and white was sent to the Lovecraft mansion in search of a Donavon Something. Apparently a friend of his had been concerned about his whereabouts, only able to relay that he had last seen Don talking to someone by the name Allan. About a week after, an old man had come forward to say that his employer, Allan Lovecraft, had invited Don over for supper and an interview. When the cop got to the house, he found Don’s car and something big. The only other thing the deputy knew was that a large box of evidence had come in involving the case or cases.

Patrick thanked the deputy and headed to the back rooms, stopping anyone he could to see if he could get more information, especially concerning the issue of whether his brother was involved. It seemed as though whoever he asked didn’t have a clue or was too ashamed to tell him. Finally, he found the box of evidence the deputy earlier had been talking about. It was filled with black leather notebooks, each with a name and dates inscribed on it. All the dates for deaths were within the last ten years, but the dates of birth ranged anywhere from thirty to sixty years ago. And then he saw it: the notebook with the title “The Untold Story of Isaac Darvey—1976-2007.”

When Patrick realized what it meant, the implications caused him to stagger and almost fall. Dead. All this time, Isaac was dead. Patrick sat down on a nearby bench, taking deep breathes. After a few minutes he began to flip through the notebook, half-smiling through tears at the story of when they had found an old bicycle and fought over whom was going to ride it first and how they ended up soaking wet in the rain with Isaac sitting between the handlebars. He flipped to the end of the book and read about the case they had cracked; on that case, he and Isaac had strung two and two together all on their lonesome, stopping one of the city’s worst drug dealers.
And then came the part he hadn’t heard. How Isaac had told the then-captain the credit should go all to Patrick, and how Patrick should be promoted and honored with a special ceremony. Tears were now flowing quite freely from Patrick’s eyes. There were only two sentences left: “And so ended the life of Isaac Darvey, a story untold. You did this to him.” Patrick blinked away tears of sorrow in confusion and then in anger. Who had written this? Who knew why Isaac died? Who dared blame his death on others?

It must have been that Lovecraft fellow Patrick decided. He stood up, angrily searching the station as though the man he was seeking was present. He found the deputy who had brought the evidence in and demanded to know where this Alec Lovecraft or whoever was. The officer blinked.

“Lovecraft’s dead. Good thing too, if you ask me. That man was a creepy bloke. We still haven’t even figured out how he killed all his victims though,” the officer replied. “They all died of blood loss, but there’s no sign of a puncture wound on any of them. What’s even stranger is Lovecraft himself died the same way! Creepy bloke…we’ll be hearing stories about this one for a long time. Actually, I’ve got one more piece of evidence for that box over there, would you drop it off?” Patrick took the black leather notebook from the officer’s hand. As he turned and walked over to the box, he examined the book. It was Allan Lovecraft’s story. Patrick skimmed through the first couple of stories of Allan’s depressing childhood and abusive parents. He stopped to read about how he got his wealth through some activities that didn’t sound legal or even possible and then skipped on to the final sections. He read about this interview with his brother, which caused him to start tearing again. Page after page of stories about how Lovecraft was going to make these dozens of people all now dead famous for decades to come filled the final pages as the penmanship became more erratic and sloppy. Finally the story ended with two sentences: “And so ends the life of Allan Lovecraft, the Bearer of the Pen and Keeper of the Untold Stories. You did this to me.”

Last edited by AtomicBawm3 (2012-07-15 13:35:29)