OK, this is a story that I've actually been meaning to post for quite a while. I wrote this in 8th grade. It was actually my final assignment in that English class, and my teacher loved it. The only problem was that it was supposed to be an essay, and I turned it into a story. Oops.

Before you read this, there are a couple things I would like to say. First, this is not the exact same paper I turned in to my 8th grade teacher. Over the summer I slightly edited it and showed it to my high school teacher. The title was originally The Prophecy, but I changed it to this, which isn't that good either. (if I were to name it now, I would probably call it something like The Future Will come. Still not great, but better)
Secondly, I lost the file a while back, and this here was copied from the printed paper I handed in. I changed two words to make them actually make sense, and added five in total to make two sentences a little clearer. I also left much of the grammar as it was when I first wrote it, because I wanted to show it to you guys as it originally was. Some of the mistakes I fixed simply because I know that they were typos, but some I left.
Thirdly, I'm not looking to rewrite it. I know it ends quickly. I know some of the timing is off. No, I have no idea what the heck bridge really is. Fell free to give me suggestions, and I'll actually think about them, but the odds that I will post an updated version are very slim, so don't get your hopes up. Sorry.

And now, please enjoy my story.


The Future Always Comes



This is a story about Frank, a successful lawyer, who hears his future and tries to prevent it from happening.


Frank is a successful lawyer and a happy man. He has a wife, three children, and makes an average of $11 million each year. He is 34 years old, and has a beautiful mansion, 7 cars, and three vacation houses in the tropics. He is also a very kind and generous man. He donates two million dollars each year to various medical research centers, goodwill charities, and shelters throughout the country. This is to change, however. And much sooner than Frank knows.
One day Frank and his wife, Loren, took their kids to the carnival. While they were there, Frank saw a sign for a fortune teller and thought, well, why not. So he left the kids and Loren and went over to the tent.
When he got inside, it was dim and it took a little while for his eyes to adjust to the light. When he was able to see, he was disappointed. The inside of the tent was nothing like he had imagined it to be. He had pictured grand, exotic decorations, bright colors; a floating crystal ball... in actuality, the tent was as bare as an elephant's back. It smelled heavily of lilac perfume, and was empty with the exception of two chairs and, on one of the chairs, a large pile of cloth.
“Hello.”
The voice surprised him. As Frank looked around trying to find the source of the voice, what he had taken to be a pile of cloths moved. With a start, he realized that it was a woman, and it was she who had spoken to him.
As he moved closer, he saw that she was a short old woman. She was wrapped in many shawls, which was why Frank had not seen her when he first came in. She had thick glasses and beady little eyes. Her arms were barely visible, poking out from under her scarves.
“My name is Martha,” she said. Her voice was the most surprising thing about her. It was a deep, powerful voice, the kind of voice that you would be able to hear through a hurricane.
“You have come to hear your future?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Frank, who was beginning to feel slightly anxious. “My name is Frank.”
“Sit down Frank,” Martha said, pointing to the two chairs. “Are you sure that you would like to hear your future? Many have regretted it afterward.”
“I am sure,” Frank said, his nerve returning.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
Frank held out his hand and she began tracing the lines on his palm. This went on for a few minutes, and Frank was beginning to think that he was wasting his time, when Martha stopped and became very solemn. She looked up slowly, and her eyes frightened him. They were sad and pitying.
“What is it?” Frank asked nervously.
“I am sorry,” Martha said in a sad voice.
Frank felt as though his heart had stopped. “Why are you sorry?”
“Your future,” she said softly, “speaks of pain and misfortune. You shall suffer a series of unlucky occurrences and-” she paused.
Not sure if he wanted to know, but needing to ask anyway, Frank asked “And then what?”
“You shall find death.”
Frank was truly scared now. “Are you sure about what you saw?” he asked. “Are you sure that you saw it correctly?”
“Yes,” Martha said sadly. “I am certain.”
Suddenly Frank just needed to get away. He jumped up and bolted from the tent. He found Loren and the kids outside of the fun house. “What's wrong?” Loren asked when she saw him. “You look frightened.”
“I guess I am,” he said. Then he told her what had transpired at the fortune teller's tent. He was surprised that, when he finished, Loren was laughing. “How can you be laughing after I just told you I was about to die?” Frank exclaimed.
“Don't you get it?” she asked. “It was a joke! She just said you were going to die to spook you.”
“Well it sure worked,” he muttered under his breath.
Later, as they drove home, Frank thought about what had happened in Martha's tent. Could it just have been a joke? It might have been, he thought, but Martha had seemed truly concerned. It would have been very hard to fake anything with such realism. He had to know for sure! He decided to go back the next day to talk to Martha about it without Loren knowing. He would say that he was going to the grocery store, and then go to the carnival.
The next day Frank put his plan into action. “Bye Loren!” he called out. “I'm going to the store!”
“Bye Frank!” she replied. “Make sure that you get some orange juice.”
“Okay. I will,” said Frank as he walked out the door. Whew, he thought. He had half expected Loren to stop him and say “Don't go back to that carnival again Frank!” He slipped into the car and started the engine. As he drove, he thought about what would happen at the carnival. Will Martha admit that it was a joke up front, or will she maintain that she had been telling the truth? Frank wondered. He had the feeling that the answer would not be the one that he wanted to hear. As he drove closer to the carnival, his misgivings grew worse.
Frank soon pulled into the carnival parking lot. He was determined to talk to Martha and get the truth. He walked straight through to the fortune teller's tent. When Frank got inside he called out “Martha! Are you here?”
She stepped out of the shadows and said “I didn't expect to see you again Frank. What do you want?”
“I want some answers,” he said. After they sat down Frank asked, “Where you serious when you were telling my future? Am I really going to die after a series of unlucky occurrences, or were you just making that up to scare me?”
“I was telling the truth Frank. I never lie about people's futures,” Martha said.
“Maybe you misread it,” Frank said desperately. “Will you look again?”
“I am sure that I was not mistaken, but if it will ease your mind to make sure, I will try again,” said Martha.
“It will, thank you,” said Frank. He held out his hand, and again Martha traced the lines on his palm. It seemed to take forever, but after a few minutes she had finished.
Hoping fervently that her silence was a good thing, Frank let out the breath that he hadn't known he was holding and said “Well?”
“It is as before,” Martha said. “I was not incorrect about my prediction. I am sorry.”
Sadly, Frank realized that it was no joke. Martha was dead serious. He felt suddenly overcome with the desire to live. “When will this happen?” he asked. “Were you able to see that?”
“Not exactly,” she replied, “but it will be soon.”
Not if I can help it thought Frank. “Thank you Martha,” said Frank. “I need to go tell my wife,” he said, then left before she could reply.
As he was driving home, he thought about what was happening. I've never been superstitious before, and not look at me! Since when do I believe in psychics? Still, it seemed so real. I'll just have to do everything in my power to prevent these events from happening. However, as he was thinking these thoughts, he couldn't concentrate on the road in front of him. With a jerk, he came back into reality as he swerved off the road and crashed into a telephone pole. The pole then fell over and crushed the roof of the car. Luckily for Frank, when he saw that the pole was falling he kept the presence of mind to duck down in the seat, so he was mostly unharmed.
After he reached his cell phone and called for help, Frank was stuck in the car for nearly 20 minuted until emergency services got to him. After a brief trip to the hospital to make sure he was okay, he was in a cab and on his way home. I really need to be more careful, he thought.
When he got home, Loren ran out and said, “What happened? You've been gone for four and a half hours! Where's the car?”
“The car got totaled,” he said sadly. “Let's go inside and I will explain.”
Frank told Loren what had happened. Starting with his desire to know if the fortune was true and ending with his being in the cab. Loren was so happy that he wasn't hurt that she didn't even care that he lied to her about going to the carnival.
Suddenly Frank was exhausted. “I'm going to take a nap,” he told Loren.
“Okay,” she said. “Just try to relax.”
When Frank got into the bedroom, he decided that he wanted to read before he went to sleep. He pulled a book from his bookcase, but it was stuck. He pulled harder, and with a creaking noise the big bookcase started to tip over. Surprised, he couldn't move out of the way fast enough, and it fell on his left arm. The noise brought Loren running.
“I think I've broken my arm,” Frank said. “We need to go to the hospital.”
Loren called a friend to watch the kids, and then drove Frank to the hospital. On the way, Frank decided to be extra careful. It turned out that he had broken his arm in three places, fractured his wrist, broken two fingers and dislocated his shoulder. They doctors decided to keep him overnight, just to make sure that nothing was wrong with the setting of the arm.
The next day, Loren drove him home. “Just take it easy,” she said. “It's Wednesday, so I'm going over to Charlene's house to play bridge. The kids are at school until 4 today because of the assembly, and if you need anything just call me.” She gave him the TV remote and left him on the couch.
Frank was resting comfortably, almost dozing, when suddenly the power went out. Thinking that it was just a blown fuse, he went down to the basement to check the fuses. He grabbed a flashlight and opened up the fuse box. He was surprised to see that none of them were blown, and then he realized that it was a power outage, not a fuse.
Oh well, he thought. This is the perfect opportunity to reattach that wire, and we won't need to call the electrician. Frank grabbed the ends of the wires to reconnect them, and at that moment, the power came back on. As the electricity flowed through its newly reconnected circuit - which was, of course, him – Frank felt himself start to lose consciousness. His last thought before his brain shut down was Martha was right! Then he was gone.



That's it, and I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I know some of it was a little off, like the short time Frank was gone after crashing the car, but oh well. I was thirteen, and I just picked a number out of my rear. The fact remains, however, that this is one of the few pieces of writing I have ever created of which I am actually proud. You know, excluding some of the pure BS ones that are amazingly good and written four minutes before they are due.

Please feel free to comment, and if you have any questions, fire away.

haitamchouiekh : I actually didn't share it with the class. Looking back, I wish I had, but I was a lot quieter in middle school. I didn't really talk to people unless it was to ask a question.

Good job I love the story. Keep writing and some day you will be the most famous author ever in life.

Hi. I would just like to say that I have a lot of respect for your writing style. If you can write that well when you are thirteen, then imagine how much better the quality of your stories will be now. I really do hope you choose to continue writing because I generally felt drawn into your story. Your writing style reminds me quite a bit of my own, which is why I was excited to let you know that I think you should keep writing. I feel that you have a lot of potential regarding your ability to write creatively and I do hope you stick with it, whether it is as a hobby or taken very seriously.

https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=46117

That is a small example of my writing style if you are interested in reading it.