The Light at the end of the Tunnel

lilmissprincess

I wrote this for the Junior Cert Mocks, got a B for it. Want to know what ye think.


It lay there, white and crisp, the ink purple-black spelling out my name. I only noticed it now, two days later, after the damage was done. I grasped it in my hand, his handwriting scrawled on the filled pages, untidily scribbled, like always. I began to read, paper in one hand, the glinting silver scissors in the other.
“Dearest Amy,
I am sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you, I really truly don’t I just have to do this, I can’t keep going on like this. I never wished to hate life, it just kept turning on me in the coldest, cruellest ways.”
I stopped reading. Rory’s words stung my heart like a thousand wasps. The scissors found its way to my left wrist, scraped along the skin, cold and merciless. I continued reading.
“You’re my best friend in the world and I will never forgive myself for this. I know it will hurt you. But Amy, Snowflake, I have to. I told you about Christian, the accident and all that. I just keep finding that I can’t live without my brother Amy. I’ve tried and tried so many times, but life keeps coming back and biting me, biting the bitter bones of any remaining happiness away.”
The use of the childhood nickname stood out blatantly, memories of us at seven years old, playing in the tree-house in his garden. Again the scissors scrapes across my wrist, deeper this time, and it breaks the skin into the vein. Blood spatters out, falls on the rug, some remains on the scissors.
“Don’t cry for me, please. I beg of you, don’t. I’ll see you someday again. Remember me as I am now, writing this letter, not as you see me while you are reading it.”
Two days, and I could still see it before me. Rory, a pendulum, swinging from the tree-house. The same tree-house where we had mingled blood to show that we’d be best friends forever. The same tree-house we had kissed in last summer, before the accident, all this. And now, it was the tree-house, where he had attached a rope around his neck, pulled it tight and jumped. The tree-house where I had found him dangling, breathless, staring at me with his cold glassy unseeing eyes. The scissors sank in deeper, blood, red and passionate, flowing in a steady stream, down my arm, dripping off the excess. The pain was excruciating, and my eyes fell on the paper again, begging for relief.
“They will be happier without me. My mother is always screaming at me anyway, my father too silent, as if they wished that I was the one in that accident, they can’t even look me in the eye anymore.”
Rory. Could he not see how much he looked like his older brother used to? That he was an ultimate replica, that his mother just wanted her son back, his father didn’t speak because he was still grieving in his own way? Christian had died in a car crash months earlier, and like a small child, Rory had blamed him for leaving him here alone in the world.
Blood continued to pump, painlessly now, I was numb. The scissors started the other wrist, and cold salty tears released down my cheeks and down the brink of my nose.
“Amy, chickpea, know that I care for you, a hell of a lot more than you ever possibly could have known. I’ll miss you, my b

---

”
The paper was gone. I must have blacked out, it was dark here and I was standing there, cold and alone. A shining light glistened from an end of this emptiness. I started to head towards it. A shadow stood at the end f it, still and silent. Moving closer and closer to the luminous white blinding light, I put my hand on my forehead toshade my weary eyes. My mind was wondering where I was, was I asleep, did I faint, was I dead??? The shadow remained unmoving as I walked nearer to the white light. Looking closer, I could see a pair of deep crystal blue eyes glancing at me. A tuft of brown stringy hair fell over one of them. I was sure I recognised it. Then it hit me. It was Rory. I began to run, my two arms outstretched to embrace him, eyes blinded by the light but I didn’t care.
He stood there, a dark purple graze and bruise on hi neck where the rope had left its mark, but otherwise, still the same Rory, my Rory.
His silence was broken seconds later, quoting the last paragraph of his letter.
“Amy, chickpea, know that I care for you, a hell of a lot more than you ever possibly could have known.”
He put his arm on my shoulder and continued.
“I’ll miss you, my best friend forever. Love you always. Rory.”
He pulled me closer to him and we walked together into the light at the end of the tunnel. Friends in life, friends in death, friendship like this lasts forever.

Idgeitman

one small thing that stood out to me was the punctuation. You're doing what i did for years and took me a long time to get out of the mind set of doing it.

Look closely at the amount of fullstops and commas its always better to have sligtly longer sentences instead of breaking them up into 5 word lines, unless thats what your gong for


- Idgeit

lilmissprincess

I do long sentences mostly, but the teacher turns them into short little ones and changes it.