The Night Everything Changed
By Wells Mundell-Wood
Grade Five, The Grammar School
Brillian Prontidus lived only in the lonely, forbidding past tense. He was always was or went, or simply just followed. He was merely just another nobody, yet much more of a dull sincerity than just another nobody. But that didn’t make him any less of a nobody. Just more of one. His life was a black hole, an utter black hole, I tell you. The only thing he ever wanted---or, to put it precisely, needed---was to. That’s it. Was to. He wanted to. Now, don’t get me wrong, dear reader. When I say “was to”, I’m not just making a dull reference as to something that points out that he just simply wanted nothing. What we wanted, buried deep in the very pit of his heart, his desire, so minor, so hidden, yet it was about to shatter with superiority, was something I cannot tell you. Not here, not now, not with all these people so close to your thoughts that they stand within less than mile’s distance away. . . I cannot tell you. How even I, the narrator, the God, the one who knows all, cannot understand the why I even possess the knowing that the only thing he ever so desired was to. But I do. And I cannot tell you. If I could, if I could tell you Brillian Prontidus’s deepest, hardest, most sincere desire, what then what, indeed, would be the mere purpose of this story? Obviously, you don’t know the answer. But think about it. Think about it hard. Hard, hard, hard.
That night, everything changed for Brillian Prontidus. He sat, peacefully, quietly, innocently on his very own apartment’s roof top. (He had climbed out the window, of course---the only somewhat safe way of transporting out) when---suddenly, gazing up at the fascinating stars pouring into his eyesight, he heard a voice. Rumbling. Rumbling like the thunder itself, on a dark, stormy night casting overhead of him. That was all the voice reminded Brillian Prontidus of. Rumbling thunder.
You have nothing, Brillian. You have nothing. You have nothing, you have no friends, no life, no sight to see the beautiful world as it really is. Even these amazing stars you peacefully, quietly, innocently gaze upon are nothing. They are nothing, because Brillian, you have nothing. But I give you an offer, Brillian Prontidus. Brillian, as any normal person might expect, did not sit up in amazement or fear or curiosity. For this voice, this thundering voice, was a familiarity. Not a friend, nor an enemy, but a familiarity. He had heard it every time he’d crept outside on his apartment’s roof top to peacefully, quietly, innocently gaze out at the stars rippling across the sky above him. Every time Brillian had refused its despicable offer. It was nothing, like Brillian’s life, his train of thoughts, himself. It wasn’t going to make his dull life any better, was it, now? So Brillian Prontidus said, “No.”
It will make your life so much easier, Brillian. It will. I swear it, I swear it on all of these stars you gaze upon, each individually a unique creation within itself. You may live for eternity, Brillian. You may have all. Or you can have this, you can have nothing, a useless void of utter worthlessness.
The voice is wrong, Brillian thought to himself. If the voice could hear his thoughts develop that way, it gave no notice. “I think I will go with nothing.”
Think about it, Brillian. You know, deeply, that what I offer is not a lie. I do not lie. Never have I, ever. And I do not intend to, Brillian. Your curiosity will get the best of you, one day. And you will make the successful choice. The right choice. And the voice added, with a tone in which Brillian could swear was thundered with a smile, Brillian Prontidus.
nd suddenly, Brillian’s lips were moving for him. His mind was functioning against his heart, and a sudden, unwelcome yet welcome yet unbearably willing urge told him. It told him, in which he immediately, without question, without answer, to respond to the voice’s desperate pleading with one word, three letters that would make that night the night that everything changed. Brillian said, “Yes.”
Audio File
Young Writers Project selection for December 30, 2013: "The The Night Everything Changed" by Wells Mundell-Wood
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