The Real World
Leora B. Kurtzer
Jeffrey Boone had just come home from a long day at work. As he walked into the house his children jumped into his arms. He read a note that his wife had left him on the table. “Hi honey, won’t be home till around twelve-ish, I left some money for pizza…” the usual note these days. Barbara Boone was a tax attorney and since it was tax season and she had to work long hours Jeffrey sort of took on being mom as well. All Jeffrey needed was 10, 15 minutes of relaxation. He ordered the pizza and left his children in the dining room to enjoy it while he escaped upstairs, his bedroom, his television. Finally he had some time to himself, no boss, no notes, no children. No one could stand between him and catching up on the day that had been so easily forgotten with the load of work he had done. Click. CNN was on. Jeff laid down on his bed and put his hands to his head as a sign to any intruder that he was relaxing. He transfixed his eyes on the television just in time to hear CNN’s theme song indicating that the main news was about to start.
“Today, Joe Bennet was arrested from his home in Malibu after authorities found a drug stash in his house,” the news reporter said, ” his daughter was the one who called the police after witnessing her father selling drugs to kids from her school and offered it to her as well…” she sat there in a room waiting to be questioned. Had she done the right thing? She didn’t even know what was right anymore. Ten hours ago she had called the police on her cell phone from her school. Nine hours and thirty minutes ago her father had been taken into custody…because of her. She longed to be like the other kids in her class, normal families, normal social lives, and normal lives. She however was alone. Her mother had died when she was eight because of an overdose, her father was now in jail, and no one had thought of her when they had made their life changing decisions…
“Further questioning is taking place and the trial is scheduled to take place in another two weeks. We would like to go to Tom June, with new updates on the situation in the Middle East.” “Thanks sally,” tom said after a short lag time, “there has been another attack in Sderot, two people were killed, five injured…” Aaron waited in the waiting room while they operated on his sister’s legs. It seemed like a century had passed since he had been playing in the living room with Sarah. He had gone to the bathroom and as he walked out there was a huge bang. He had ran… but he was too late, when he came into the room he saw his sister in a puddle of blood. And now he was in the hospital just sitting in the waiting room wishing he could do more than just wait, wishing it had been him. He opened up a psalms book. Why her she is only six, why her?
“We’ll be back with tonight’s news after this small commercial break.” Click. “…I’m Stacy Mendelson.” “And I’m Derek Windsor, fox news.” “Now it’s been three weeks and still no sign of poor little Jessica saunder. She was kidnapped while her family was vacationing in Florida. Her parents only realized she was missing when they were about to leave the beach. Experts are saying that she was taken probably in the water,” Stacy reported. “yes because of her small age and size it did not look odd to any of the people at the beach. There however has been no ransom asked or anything of that sort, not even a clue of where she could have been taken to after the beach.” Derek continued. “yes what’s interesting is that it wasn’t even the parents who called the police it was a lady of no connection to the family who called ‘I saw a man holding girl who was crying, he looked very aggressive and something did not seem right then I saw some other men join and they threw the poor little girl in the back seat that was when I decided it would be better to call the police rather than not so I did’…” Mary saunder sat down at her table. She hadn’t slept in weeks; all she could think of was her little darling angel not sleeping. Mary feared sleep because that was when the nightmares came, the nightmares of the worst possible scenario that Jesse could be in right now. She wanted her daughter back to hold and hug and kiss whenever she wanted to. She felt like life had stopped. Why did such an innocent girl have to have this pain. Her friends had been supportive and comforting but it seemed like they had stopped caring like they had gone on with life. She didn’t understand this how could they move on when she felt glued to that time at the beach?
Click. “And we’re back. I’m Tom June with more news from the Middle East. There was a car bombing in Baghdad today. The car was filled with bombs and was being operated from a nearby shop. Ten people were killed 7 injured, and three American soldiers who were guarding that area were killed as well. Back to you sally…” Tears dropped on to the baby Private John Whitaker would never see. It had been only a couple of hours sin
since Amy Whitaker had heard the news from the army. Her husband who had been fighting in Iraq for only half a year had been killed in a car bombing. Amy had talked to John a day ago, the last time she would ever speak to him. She wished she had said so many more things to him. She wished she could have talked for one more minute with him. She wished he could see their baby. But he was gone. Amy was left as the sole parent of her baby. She felt angry and sad and alone all at the same time. She couldn’t grieve for the loss of her husband because she still had a baby to take care of. He had gone off on his duty to his nation and had left her to do both parents’ duty for their family. Why had John felt that his duty to his nation was more important than his duty to his family?
“The President will be taking a second trip to Israel in another two weeks. The two countries plan on finalizing new peace treaties with their neighboring countries, discussing security measures and giving back lan
land to the Palestinians. In the meantime the United States will be playing host to the Syrian president who arrives in Washington DC on Friday…” The president sat down in the oval office as ten different people came in all at once, all discussing different topics… “Here is the welcoming speech for when the Syrian president comes…” “I’ve got Rice on line two, sir…” “Will you be able to visit the children’s hospital today…” “New York Times wants a quote on your upcoming trip to Israel…” he wanted to shout freeze! He needed a break but he only had around seven more months in office… make the most of it, he thought to himself. He was president this is what people expected of him. He had survived seven years of it so far… but the pressure was just building up… peace that would never be acquired between two nations who hated each other, a war that had no end, meetings with foreign countries that truly had nothing to do with the United States. All of these were holes that he had
that he had dug himself into, bottomless pits. And as President everyone expected a happy ending after eight years. If humans make mistakes why do they rule over other mistake-prone beings?
“Daddy, Sam is copying me,” “Jeanie took Paul’s bear!” Jeff’s children screamed from downstairs. Click. Back to the real world Jeff thought. He looked down at his watch as he left his bedroom and walked downstairs. It was already eight, time to put the kids to sleep. It was only after he tucked them all in that he realized truly how tired he was. He went back to the bedroom, got ready for bed and tucked himself in. And he dreamt as usual without being affected by the hardships of the real world.
7 Comments so far
What are the lyrics to i wrote a short story and would love feedback?
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Wow, I like it! Straight into action. There seems to be a lot of unhappy news! Really good story, keep writing!
i like the first part, after CNN was “clicked” on, i found it quite boring.
keep trying!:)
i’m sure something great will come out of this;it’s really quite a clever story!
Ah, I love it, but it’s cut off.
Post the rest please.
wtf is going on in the story i don’t get it
its just news stuff
idk
It’s a clever idea. The only problems I had were with the grammar and spelling- you made a lot of errors. You should probably use spell check.
But there were a ton of mistakes in this, and you really want to fix those.
WOW!
That is such a good story and it totally realates to what The Real World really is and nothing else. Its seems like you’ve takin alot of time into this story and it sounds REALLY good. My oppinion is that you should continue on with this story and maybe publish it. I give it a 5 star so far. Good Job!
If you come up with more to the story please email me at haleyjohnson727@yahoo.com
Thanks and Good job to you
Haley
yeah i like it its nice keep going with it