Category: Bad Memories

Have you ever thought about how powerful the words we speak are? As for me, I firmly believe that the words we speak have the power to make or break. Undoubtedly, they can fundamentally change the world in which we live, both at the level of society and at the level of an individual. And my experience, which I am going to share further, only confirms this truth.

In my elementary school, one of the things I wish I had not said to my friends were obscenities. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was in elementary school, so I was around seven years old when I joined the football team of the school. I was one of the nerdy kids at the school. That day, I was wearing a black shirt with the logo of Nike and blue pants with black shoes. Moreover, I wore glasses and braces too. It was one week before the big championship began. My team was going to match the pirates of Sinaloa, and I was excited to play against them.

The day before the championship, my friends and I had a conversation about who was the best. I told them, “I’m better than you guys”. They started laughing and told me that no one likes to see me play. At that moment, I felt pain and anger against them, so I started babbling obscenities. Pablo told me to shut up and to speak correctly because they could not even understand me. They pushed me away and left.

I started crying, but no tears came up. It was just a pain inside my body that I hated to be their friend. I didn’t want to talk with anyone when this happened. I just wanted to be alone. However, I cleaned up my tears with my right hand and continued my life without talking to them ever again.

My life became different from that moment, I was left alone, without friends, and I felt very lonely. Today, I regret having continued this discussion as I could have continued to be their friend and preserve their friendship if it hadn’t happened. Of course, I may find my colleagues one day and talk about what happened, but we must be aware of what we say. The world we live in depends on our words, so let’s begin to change our lives, taking care of the words we say and the way we speak.

If you were forced to leave behind all of your valuables, unsure if they would still be there when you returned, how would you react? Two years ago, I was finally able to answer this burning question. I had just moved from my house in Santa Clarita to a larger house that was also in Santa Clarita. I was teaming with excitement since it was almost double the size of my old house and in a nicer neighborhood. I could finally show off my status as a one-percenter to my friends. One of my favorite features of the new house was the mountains directly behind it. It felt like I had an entire mountain range as my backyard. However, all of my excitement went away when a brush fire started fairly close to my new house. This event was one of the first times in which I felt truly fearful and finally realized that my possessions are not as important as I had once thought.

It was a bright and sunny day in the glorious Santa Clarita Valley, I had just moved into my fancy new house, and an esteemed gentleman from Direct TV had come over to set up our cable and Wi-Fi, everything was going perfectly. Later that day, I noticed a plume of smoke billowing out from behind the dry, chaparral-covered mountains around my house. I was so enthralled by the smoke that I didn’t realize my house might be in danger. A few hours later my curiosity turned to worry when I realized how quickly the fire was encroaching on my beautiful neighborhood. Thick, black clouds of smoke hovered over my house, dropping ash and debris from the fire. The smell of smoke was so strong that it would bring even the most avid a pack-a-dayer to a violent cough. The light from the sun had turned an eerie shade of red after passing through a filter of smoke and ash, before reaching the ground. Fire trucks were beginning to pull into my street in droves, and at one point there were about ten of them. The firefighters had assured us that our houses were going to be fine. By nightfall, the situation was looking up. Most of the fire trucks had left, and the smell of smoke wasn’t as strong as it had been earlier. No less than a minute after making these observations, my doorbell rang about 20 times, it was the police, and they were evacuating us. Luckily, we still owned our old house, so we were able to spend the night there. The next morning we drove back to the new house and sure enough, my new house survived, along with all of the other houses in the neighborhood.

Being evacuated from the fire was one of the first times that I felt true fear and true helplessness. I had to leave my house and all my belongings, with the exception of a few items, not knowing it was going to be there tomorrow. However, while I was evacuated, I realized that none of those mattered and that the safety of me and my family was most important. When we came home to find our neighborhood still standing, I had a newfound appreciation for the firefighters and their hard work. They did save my beautiful house after all.

The reason I’m writing out this story is not for sympathy but rather a call for help, a call for a home, a call for a family. My life is like a dozen of beginnings but never an ending.

I’ve never been really attractive or pretty. I’ve always been just a typical tall girl with hazel eyes and brown hair with my tiny powered freckles. I’m not ugly, but I’m nothing special either. How many times was I called beautiful by my mum who eventually made me feel ugly on the inside? It is my tears that kept my soul alive in this pain. My life has been too complicated to even truly worry about my looks. Don’t get me wrong, I like to dress well and look all pretty, but I’ve never had the chance to curl my hair in the mornings like normal girls would. I only did that stuff on photo day, even then my mum struggled to help me, and the girls at school would gaze at my look, taunt me, and spit on me in the hallways it felt like the whole world abandoned me, I felt worthless, I felt like dirt underneath a farmers boot. I never learned to cry with style, silently, my pearl-shaped tears would roll down my cheeks. I wish I would have cried in front of people at school for sympathy, but instead, I cried in empty bathrooms and darkened valleys because it would please me.

The loneliest moment in my life was when my mum left me and my dad two years ago. When I was 11, I watched my whole life fall apart and stare blankly wondering if I can ever just win the battle with the brittle voices in my head whispering, “I’m not worthy I’m not the like the rest”. Soon after my mum left, my dad got sick. Ever since then, I’ve come to familiarize myself with the hospital staff and now I’m great friends with them too. I watch people whisper and cry, and I’ve even gotten used to the sound of uneven distressed breathing, even sometimes my sleep is disturbed by a shattering siren of an ambulance from the rain-washed streets. Dad never had to stay in the hospital for more than a week before, but now it’s his place of residence and partially mine too. It is heartbreaking and depressing to witness my dad suffering like this, I feel as if my life will never go on without him. There is a void that can never be filled because there is no other love in this world like the love of a father. The thought left me with a huge gap within my heart that will never heal the rollercoaster of my emotions rips me up and tears me down. It brought an anger to my heart, an anger that I know my dad wouldn’t want me to feel, but I felt it anyway.

About a week ago, when we came here for a visit, we found out that the medication my dad was ingesting was affecting his liver, and a tumor had grown there. As much as I tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from my throat in a form of a silent scream. I have kept myself busy from worrying and overthinking too much because if I’m left alone with sickening thoughts flying in my strangely bleak head, the truth will consume me. The revolting thought of my dad’s death sickened me, butterflies flew in my stomach, and my heart sank. The thoughts are wounds in my body that never show, but are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds, he is my best friend and I can’t lose him. I am fed up with sleeping in the day and laying dead at night thinking in sadness about my dad. I can’t tolerate feeling like I’m constantly alone as an outsider, even when I’m surrounded by people. I don’t want to tell people that sometimes I wish I did not exist, but this was my harsh reality and I had to face it. It’s like sitting in a room in a dark place by yourself and feeling like this is an eternity. At school, it felt like being in a place with a thousand people but feeling invisible to every single one of them. It’s like walking on a path without any directions or any idea where it will end.

“Hey, Ayesha!”, Kai shouted from a distance in the park. I looked abruptly to the sight of my best friend, his blue eyes gazed at me and his eyebrows raised as he slowly made his way towards the squeaky bench I miserably sat on, alone, isolated from the cheerful and contended families and society whose laughter and faces filled with delight and wonder surrounded my low-spirit. “How is your dad going?”, Kai asked with a soft tone with what seemed feigned worry. I knew he meant well, but this was just all despairing and unbearable for any 13-year-old high schooler to understand and take in. If I responded honestly, he wouldn’t be able to cope with it. ”Are you okay?”, he asked concerned. ”Umm… yeah, I’m okay”, I responded weakly sighing Kai. ”I was just thinking about my dad”, I solemnly muttered. ”Oh… I’m so sorry about that”, Kai responded. “How is he doing?”, Kai asked gently. I could just say that well, sweetie, he’s going to die and I’m going to be an orphan, so yes, he’s doing great. No, he couldn’t bear that. Hell, I couldn’t handle it and I was living it.

Soon after I received an anonymous call and picked it up, the lady said it was from the hospital, after that call, I knew my life was gonna get worse and things were never gonna change again. My dad had passed away. I was in denial that my dad could be so cruel leaving me behind, I was in shock the world around me suffered and my body felt numb. I tried opening my eyes up to reality, but nothing came, I choked on my own dry tongue. There was no air in this menacing world, the lack of oxygen dropped in my mind in a panic in desperation, I tried breathing but it burnt my lungs with the savagery that consumed me. I swear, my dad was just standing behind me, gazing at the beautiful sky that surrounded him, breathing the fresh clean air, but then the next minute he was gone. Never to be found again.

You know when you think you know someone? More than anyone in the world? You know that you know them because they’re real and alive, but then when you reach out for them to protect them, there suddenly gone, you want to see them but you can’t, you want to hear their laugh for the last time but you can’t. I never experienced grief this bad before. It sneaked up on me quietly and took me under its arms in an instant. Every memory played like a piano in my head, repeating the same tune on what seemed like it would last forever. I was lost mostly because I had lost a big part of myself. I couldn’t get that part back, and I wanted it so bad as my life depended on it, but it was all gone and vanished in thin air.

You’re still resting peacefully ten feet under me, but I am not. I run to your resting place and cry my tears upon the ground, hoping they will water the beautiful roses that surrounded your grave, but instead, my tears kill it with their pain. I miss him probably more than anyone in this world. One minute I was at peace with his death, but the next I felt the heart-wrenching feeling that he is never going to come back. Hearing his name pulled at me and left me unsettled, it was miserable and upsetting to feel a loss that can never ever be replaced. All the memories we shared together flooded my mind and there are only four words that have a response to this feeling: “I love you, Dad”.

My grandfather died in 2016. I was at school at lunch period. It was a normal day, like any other. Since it was Friday, my tray carried a piece of square, cardboard-tasting pizza. As I walked through the half-empty cafeteria, I looked for my table of friends. I knew, unlike most other students, none of my friends would have cut, so I found them quickly. We laughed and joked for a while. Little did I know that as I was shoveling bland pizza into my mouth, my grandfather passed away during his afternoon nap.

My dad was going to pick me up from school that day, which rarely happened because I take the train home most days. I walked up to his car, a 2011 silver Toyota Tacoma, and sat in the seat beside him. After a while, I realized that he wasn’t saying anything to me like “How was school”, that’s when I realized that something happened.

Then he started talking about how life goes on if something tragic happens, that you can always overcome it by just coping with others that have the same feelings as you. I started to think about what happened and who died. I was wondering who could it be, someone very close or someone in our family that I really don’t know, but I will still be feeling the same emotions if it was anybody in my family. When I and my dad came home, we open the door and I saw my mom in her bedroom, her eyes were as watery as a flooded river during a storm. I saw her and she saw me, she gave me the biggest hug of her life, we both started crying, we both were talking about the good times we had with our grandpa Mario. We both remembered the best moments that we had with him and started talking about him all night long.

My grandpa had a huge impact on my life because he was always there for me when I was at the ranch playing around, if I got scuffed up, he always helped me get back up. I really liked that my grandfather was a hard-working man and always helped me around the clock when I still lived in the Dominican Republic.

I overcame his death by coping with my mom and my dad of the good times that we had and taking his death off my mind but not forgotten. I think that’s why I overcame his death so well because of these actions that I did that affect me so well onto the future of my life and my family too. God forbid if someone dies in your family, you can always overcome it by doing other things that you love.

As Elias waited in the hallway, the light above his head was blinking, he was deeply thinking. The decision to send out the men was announced and Elias knew that trouble was knocking on the door. 70 men from the We Are Right (WAR) military group were sent to stop the enemy forces of about 500 men, the goal was to push the enemy back from a civilian school with children and teachers inside and keep the civilians safe, then escort them alive. For several days, the 70 held their ground. However, the enemy outnumbered the WAR men 7 to 1 and were better equipped. The 70 was cut down to 20, and both the enemy and the WAR team knew they could not last another night of fighting, so they began evacuating the school in the dark, sending one of the first WARs to lead the way. The remaining men would hide under the bodies of their dead brothers who fell executing the mission.

The sound of bullets in their ears and blood from their fallen brothers cover them and in another way change them to beasts. As the enemy marched near the remaining 20 rose from the sand and by the time the enemy approached, they were like hunters that were invisible. Because of extreme stealth and desperate times, these men took down enemies like it was a practice round. The enemy could not defend against their power. When the men ran out of ammunition for their guns, they used their bayonet blades at the end of their guns, and when the blades turned dull, the men used their hands to make sure the enemy did not advance in their land. When the war sound had settled, only one of the enemy soldiers had survived wandering aimlessly and traumatized from what he had seen in the battle against the last 20 of the WAR squad. He warned others of a force so powerful it can only be described as supernatural or out of this world. Among the last 20 standing men, Whitley Strieber stood tall with the remaining men adrenaline rushing through his veins. The enemy, or the federation had been standing on the doors of America waiting for the kill and at that time they thought America was weak, but the men fought hard against the federation, and they fought well in many bloody battles. just beyond the craters of no man’s land, the men found themselves fighting a defensive war against a larger and more powerful enemy. No man’s land is where the vicious battles took place, the federation pushed for control, and the Americans pushed to keep their control. During battles in no man’s land, the WAR squad had a reputation that frightened the enemy and was feared by the enemy.

Strieber and Neil, were the two men many people spoke of, the ghosts. In one of the stories told about the men, they were headed to San Diego to rescue their man Alex who was one of their finest men from the federation territory, and someone dared to challenge the ghosts. As they went deeper into federation territory they had a theory of where they could be hiding Alex who needed a lot of effort to be held back, they needed to break him out. When the theory was confirmed and the men knew where the federation army locked up Alex the men came up with a plan. Both Strieber and Neil start off in a losing position to distract the enemy since there are so many more of the enemy. Although everyone on the team knew this might end up bad for the two men and potentially for the whole squad, but they also know that leaving a comrade behind makes them not worthy of calling themselves WAR men. “Weapons free,” said Strieber to Neil before both opened fire on more than 200 armed men from the federation. The situation was clear since the first bullet fired, the element of surprise had caught the Federation men off guard, but as soon as the armed men got to cover and reloaded, they started to fire back. Both Neil and Strieber run to a car and Neil takes the wheel. The goal is to break Alex free from the federation and he can help the men escape out of there with no casualties and a successful rescue mission. But after the federation men had taken cover and were able to get a grip on the situation their cars started up and boxed Neil and Strieber to try to stop the madmen. Strieber starts shooting out of the window and throws out a grenade as Neil turns inside the stadium. The men take cover as the federation army tries to get back to position and recover from the fire taken by Neil and Strieber as they continue pushing through to keep the momentum going and stay in control. Meanwhile, the other WAR men rush in from different points of the stadium with grenade launchers to aid Neil and Strieber before they get steamed by the federation who outnumber them by a great amount. The men advanced and were able to get the federation army in a spot where they had more advantage through height advantage. The men were able to push the enemy into a smaller circle as smoke grenades went off and army men advanced to take more control of the stadium. Wiping out as many federation men as possible, the men saw a lot of success in the invasion to get their squad member Alex back from the federation but still were unable to successfully retrieve him.

Strieber and Neil knew there was not enough time until the federation army sent more men to the stadium to fight them off and the mission would be a failure. Neil busts into one of the locker rooms at the stadium where they encounter a large group of the federation army holding Alex captive. Neil and Strieber know not to throw a grenade or make any risky moves as to keep Alex safe. The men deploy their guard dog Cannon who creates distress and is an unexpectedly strong enemy to the group Federation Army Neil and Strieber pick them off one by one as Cannon is attacking giving the Federation Army one more surprise attack to deal with. Cannon then rushes to Alex who had trained him most of his army tricks through familiar scent. When Cannon, Neil, and Strieber find Alex, he is tied down to a chair with his clothes torn off and shows clear signs of torture as there is blood all over his body and he is unconscious. As soon as the ghosts find Alex they inform the rest of the squad members to move out. Unfortunately for Strieber, as they were escaping back from San Diego into a safe zone, a Federation Army vehicle was driving around for a routine patrol around the area where Federation men spotted him on his own and were able to capture him due to being alone and outnumbered. Even as strong as Strieber is he knows the odds are not in his favor so he turns himself in with no fight so they don’t kill him.

When the Federation men brought him back to their commander, Strieber was put through torture and inhumane conditions for several days until the Federation men thought he was dead. In reality, he escaped, barely. His body was thrown out but a woman found his body while with her husband and decided to check on him, he was very lightly breathing. The woman and her husband helped Strieber and brought him to their home where he recovered for the next few days. When he woke up he suddenly rose out of bed and from that moment on, his life was changed. He can hardly recall anything that happened to him but still remembers before getting captured. Strieber went through stages after getting captured of extreme and strange effects that could only be described as a near-death experience. As he described it first starts off with peace and a sense of being well. He then recalls a distinct separation from the body feeling and entering a dark place with a light that appeared in a very far distance as far as his eyes can see. Strieber then describes it as entering the world of light where you get really close to the light at the end of the darkness to come back to life. A few months later he starts to recall some of the events and the memories start to haunt him.

In my world, I placed Strieber in the war between the american army and the Federation Army which has a plan to take over the continent and ruin it. Striber is in a squad where they carry out missions that end with killing or getting killed. In the story Strieber and his squad start off on a mission to save children and teachers from a school where they were trapped by the Federation Army who outnumbered them 7 to 1. I chose to be specific because that helps create an image to the reader of the kind of missions the WAR squad had to carry out as well as gain the readers’ trust by being specific with numbers. I also found theories to be an interesting topic for me reading the Schick chapters and wanted to include a theory in the story where one of Strieber’s squad members gets captured and they come up with a theory of where their man is. In Schick’s chapter 8, he talks about how just because a group of people believe something to be true doesn’t make it true and that is also one of the reasons I implemented an abduction theory. In Chapter 5 Schick explains confirmation bias and by not including a theory I felt like I would be giving that off to the readers or creating a fallacy because of not having a theory or stating that the men knew where Alex was. I felt like without changing the nature of the character I need to show more of the original character and why he does things a certain way or as to why his nature is the way it is. Later in the story, Stieber gets captured as well where he gets tortured which adds to the emphasis of why Striber has the nature he has. Near-death experiences as talked about by Schick is a topic that I felt goes hand in hand with the world I chose to place Strieber as well as the story. Since the story mostly has to do with fighting I chose to put Strieber in a situation where he gets captured by the Federation Army where they torture him to the point where they think he is dead. When he woke up “He can hardly recall anything that happened to him but still remembers before getting captured. Strieber went through stages after getting captured of extreme and strange effects that could only be described as a near-death experience.” In the story, Striper finds himself alone in a federation-controlled territory and they are looking for him. He gets recognized and turns himself in without a fight, hoping they will not kill him and it worked in his way. Although he came very close to death he ended up surviving. Schick describes near-death experiences as happening in 5 different stages where the person is first at peace and goes through the tunnel vision phase. I also included the 5 stages and described them from Striber’s perspective being the victim of a near-death experience. I also included that the memories of the torture and what he had been through with the WAR squad as he was recovering to give the reader the idea that Striber was going through PTSD after his near-death experience as mentioned by Schick. I also wanted to add emphasis on why the men cared so much to do all that and go through with all the intense missions so I talked about “When the men ran out of ammunition for their guns, they used their bayonet blade at the end of their guns, and when the blades turned dull, the men used their hands”. The main use for quotes that are moving and motivational is to show the readers the men were devoted to what they did and cared about it more than to ever give up. This was to give the reader the understanding that seeing their mates who were on the team with them go down turned them into monsters who did not care how or when but had a goal of killing every last one of the enemy forces adding emphasis that events turned the men vicious and bloodthirsty.

I hate the sea; I hate the way the water harmlessly encircles and attacks your ankles, the way the waves roar as they crash and throw themselves at the shore, and then steal parts of it as they creep and crackly back to the sea. I hate it when you’re standing in their way and as they roll back, they silently trickle sand over your feet; when you’ve lost yourself in the sound of nature swirling and crashing and you don’t realize until it’s too late. When your foot is stuck under the deme sand, that feeling of vulnerability, even though you know that you can easily unlock your foot and walk away, but sometimes you can’t, you can’t help her, you can’t change what you did.

It seems rather oneiric now, and although I’ve tried to forget, the memory still comes bleeding back. Mother thought it would be nice – she never got to spend much time with ‘her girls’ as she called us. I thought it would be nice. I’d never been to the seaside before, yet now I never want to go back.

We took the train to Brighton. I can’t remember ever having smiled as much as I did when the train rolled into the station. The excitement that was radiating off my face must’ve been contagious because all three of us were beaming. The corners of our lips grew further apart as the train chugged away, leaving smoky clouds behind it.

The journey went on slowly, but when we arrived, I remember stumbling down to the beach, tripping over myself as I danced down the past. I remember her launching herself into the icy English Channel and me following her whilst ignoring the pain of the shells and pebbles piercing my feet. She threw herself on the sand, her hands behind her supporting her, and her legs extending into the pool of waves. I sat next to her and we gazed in admiration at the aquamarine water. The diffused reflection of sunlight sparkled and twinkled magically as it shattered into thousands of shards of golden rays. Our feet sliced the cerulean waves, and they pierced through our toes. My jaw hurt from smiling, but I was happy. I wanted to freeze time and keep this moment forever. Until she told me to cover her legs in sand.

I thought it would be fun, after all, it was only sand, I guess she wanted to feel a part of it – connected to the beauty of the tranquil ripples on the water. So, I did what she said. I brought out armfuls of sand and let it crumble onto her legs, grain by grain. It didn’t take long for her lower body to be fully immersed in the terracotta sand. She laughed, I laughed. We sat for what felt like hours, the sun radiating our backs, and the gentle breeze blowing it away. Perhaps it was hours. The gloaming began to emerge from the horizon and started to battle the daylight. Mother called us and waved us over to her. I reluctantly dragged myself across the beach to her.

I’ll never forget the scream; the shriek flooded me with fear and anxiety. The tide had buried her deeper and deeper into the sand, pushing her down and pulling her in with every malicious glide. She couldn’t move. I couldn’t help her. I fought against the natural force, but the water – the water which had seemed so fragile, yet now was a ruthless force – clutched and held onto her. Her screams pierced my dreams – they pierce them now – and I know they’ll follow me for a long time to come.

The thing I once loved, I now despised. I hate the way the water harmlessly encircled our ankles. I hate the feeling of it rolling through our toes, the way it captures you with the swirling and crashing, and the way it steals you… never freeing you.