Endless Inspiration 14
Write about the one who refuses to fit in
M. Hello, my name is M. and I’m a private investigator. *holds up badge*
S. Hi. Can I help you?
M. You went to high school with a man named Darius Kineco.
S. Uhm… yeah… so what?
M. I’ve been hired to track him down. Do you remember him?
S. I see.. is he in trouble?
M. Actually, he’s missing. Do you remember him?
S. Oh, man…. Remember him? How could anyone forget that kid?
M. He was worthy of distinction?
S. Well, in a way. He wasn’t the valedictorian or the captain of the football team. He wasn’t even really that good looking. But everyone knew who he was. He just stood out somehow.
M. What made him different?
S. Well one time he came into school with Henna tattoos all over his arms chanting mystic voodoo charms. He was always comfortable in front of a crowd, and everyone came to watch him do his thing, if not because they thought he was being serious, then to see the freakshow. Do you know how long those fake Henna tattoos last? Weeks, man.
M. The other kids didn’t ostracize him for it?
S. No way. He was so charismatic even when he was doing strange things… The whole school was talking about it before homeroom was out. Then the principal heard about it. Can you imagine he reacted? Heh.
M. The administrators didn’t like the tattoos?
S. Of course not! This was a small high school in the midwestern United States. They didn’t like anyone to be different. I suppose most schools are like that, they try to flatten out the kids and push them towards the middle instead of encouraging them to be who they are, or who they want to be.
M. So what did they do to him?
S. They pulled him out of our Calculus class and sent him home. Told him he had to wear long sleeves to cover the tattoos until they washed off.
M. He didn’t listen, did he?
S. Ha ha… nope. He came back in the next day without a shirt on. They sent him home again. On the third day he came in wearing a t-shirt, short-sleeved – but now he had the tattoos all over his face too.
M. Interesting.
S. Yea, they let him stay at school after that, and then he stopped painting himself. The tattoos were there for weeks, though, and he acted like he never noticed them.
M. Did he ever tell you why he did it?
S. He told me he was interested in their culture and in order to understand it he had to live it. But he probably told someone else a different reason. He would tell people whatever reason he thought they would react to best. A reason for each person. I don’t know how he kept track of it all. Probably, though, he just did it to see what would happen. He was delighted whenever anyone looked at him sideways.
M. You seem to know him well. Were you friends with him?
S. Not really…. I mean, during our senior year we had Calculus together. We sat next to each other because our last names both start with K. That’s when we talked the most, and it was that year that he did the Henna tattoo thing… He did a lot of other strange things that year, too. Like just before he disappeared, he stuck a thousand plastic forks into the grass at the fifty yard line of the football field in the shape of a duck.
M. A duck? … As a prank?
S. Yea. But they never caught him. He was good at not getting caught, he knew just how to act…. but I know he did it, cause I asked him about it in Math class the next day. I remember this very clearly. I didn’t ask him directly because I knew he’d deny it, so instead I asked him, “What do you think it means, the duck prank on the football field?” He laughed, at first, and didn’t answer. He just pretended I hadn’t asked and went back to staring out the window. But then just after the final bell rang, while everyone was making noise leaving, he leaned in close to me and said “It’s because they’re all quacks.”
M. Heh. That’s pretty funny. What else did he do?
S. Oh just little things, things that are harder to explain… the way he walked, the way he talked, that he never had any close friends even though he seemed comfortable enough around people. He kept his distance so well… And he never did anything because it was the cool thing to do, or because other people were doing it.
M. You said he disappeared?
S. Yeah, a couple weeks before we graduated he just skipped town. Never told anyone where he was going. Never heard from him again.
M. Yes, well, actually that’s why I’m here. He sent you a postcard.
S. What? He never sent me a postcard.
M. Yes he did, but you never got it. See? *Pulls a postcard out of his pocket* It’s right here. “Dear S.”, and it has the address of your parent’s house in Ohio. You just didn’t receive it.
S. Right… my parents sold their house and moved to South Carolina after I graduated high school. Wow. You sure did your research. What’s it say?
M. Nothing. The only thing on there besides Dear S. is the return address, which is the adddress of a public post office in Casablanca, Morocco.
S. And now he’s missing…. why are you looking for him?
M. I’m not at liberty to discuss that. You may keep the postcard. I have copies of it and the only prints on it belong to Mr. Kineco. Have a nice day.
Related posts:
- Endless Inspiration 45 Write about a friendship that you failed. (short story. fiction. 1,060 words.) Bernie We’ve all...
- Endless inspiration 162 Write about the first one to quit. Quitting is never an end. There are exceptions...
- Endless Inspiration 7 Write about something on the verge of collapse: building, bridge, marriage, contest, institution, alliance, certainty...
- Endless Inspiration 23 Remember the first book that ever thrilled you? How it smelled, what it weighed in...
- Endless Inspiration 11 Write about the inexplicable menace in a seemingly neutral object. To anyone else it looks...
