Nothing To Live For | Teen Ink

Nothing To Live For

November 4, 2011
By KDH424 BRONZE, Glasgow, West Virginia
KDH424 BRONZE, Glasgow, West Virginia
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Sprinting down the street and shoving people out of the way just to get to the hospital. Thinking about it now, I should’ve stayed at my office. Who am I you may ask? Well my name is Damon Hall, or the guy you see dead right now. Yes I knew I was going to die. After the last couple of days I had when I was alive, I didn’t even try to survive. This is my journal to tell people about what happened and why you see my body right now. First of all, don’t feel sorry for me. I had nothing to live for and if there was something to keep me alive, it is kind of too late now. How did I die you may ask? Well right now I am making this journal as fast as I can before I get caught in the world ending catastrophe. Do you want to know my story? You should and even if you didn’t want to, I am going to explain it anyways. So first of all, it all started on the summer of 2025. That was the same year as the chaotic day that got me this way. So let me begin when this all started to go wrong for me.
It all started on June 24, 2025. Again, I sprinted down the busy street at lunch time. Shoving people out of the way with my briefcase was my way of thinking on how to get to the hospital faster. Cursing me out and shoving me back was peoples’ way on how to get revenge on me for hitting them with my brown, sturdy briefcase. I realized my plan wasn’t working out so well after a gang chased me down the street for shoving “their girl” out of the way. So I hurried up and got a taxi to get me to the hospital as quickly as possible. I finally got there and went to the Delivery Room where my fiancé was. That’s right, I was going to be a father. At least that’s what I thought at the time. A lot of people were having babies today. I walked in on this other woman having a baby. Her husband didn’t appreciate that. I finally got help from the nurse to find the right room. After two hours of screams and torture, my son was born. I even got to cut the umbilical cord, which was weird but cool at the same time. I was just proud that I didn’t end up fainting like fathers do in movies. Rosanne, my fiancé, wanted to name our newborn John. John was very popular name at that time. She gave me the puppy-dog eyes and with a little encouragement, we named our son John Allen Hall.
A month later, my boss, Mr. Hewitt came into my office. Mr. Hewitt never came into my office unless it was important. I hated him walking into my office. It looked like a tornado hit it. Papers were everywhere on my desk, chairs were spread out with papers on top of them as well. Filing cabinets were open and I was on the phone with an elderly lady telling me about her cat in a tree. I kept telling her that, this issue doesn’t belong in a newspaper, but of course, she was arguing with me about the topic. I guess you could say Mr. Hewitt saved me from the woman. When he walked in I put her on hold. “Now Damon I need to talk to you,” he said, “meet me in my office whenever you get the chance.” He turned around and retreated to his office. After hearing your boss say that to you, you have a million things going through your mind at once. You ask yourself what you did wrong, or why does he want to see me? You wonder if it is a good thing or a bad thing. Then you try to reverse time in your head and try to figure out if he was in a good mood or not. My little time traveling experience didn’t help me out one bit. Mr. Hewitt doesn’t know how to express his emotions very well. I finally got the courage to walk to his office. It felt like an eternity walking toward his office. I had to walk pass everyone in the lobby and everyone going up and down the hallway. I remember thinking it was my walk of shame. My head was facing the floor, my hands in my pockets and I was shuffling my feet all the way there. People whispered, but I never pay attention to them usually.
I finally got to the door, his door. I peeked my head through the halfway opened door. He was sitting down drinking his coffee. He finally saw me and asked me to come in and have a seat. As I did, I looked around in his office, it was quite opposite from mine. It was well-organized, chairs were in the right place and every single paper was either in a neat pile or put in the closed filing cabinet. I was embarrassed that my office didn’t look as good as his. He interrupted my thoughts. “I want you to pack your things as soon as you can. I want...”
“Mr. Hewitt I know I have been slacking, but I have a one month old baby!” I paused for a second, “out of everyone in the office, you should know how much work gets done when you have a child around.” He had two children, a daughter who was ten years old and a son who was twelve years old. After completing my reasoning, he gave me the death stare. Apparently he had more to say. I hadn’t realized it, but while I was talking, I somehow got up and was leaning over his desk. He and I were facing each other face to face, a couple feet apart. My face turned as red as a fire truck as I sat back down in my chair.
“You didn’t let my finish,” he finally said, “I want you to move across the hall to your V.P. office. Go ahead and celebrate, you have earned it Damon.” After translating what he said into my head, I realized I got a promotion. I didn’t think I worked very hard to be the new Vice President of New York Times. Apparently arguing with senior citizens had finally paid off.
“Thank you Mr. Hewitt! I am truly thankful for this promotion. You won’t regret this!” I yelled while I started to walk out. I heard him mumbling about how he hopes his move wasn’t going to be a huge mistake. “Trust me, it won’t be,” I answered him unexpectedly. I am having the best day of my life and it is only eleven o’clock in the morning. I transferred everything from one room into the other in about an hour. It took me two hours to organize everything so it looked like an office instead of something you would see in a horror movie. I called my fiancé and told her about my big accomplishment, then left to go home. After getting into a taxi and slowly pulling out into traffic was when I realized that the old lady with the cat in the tree was still on hold.
I finally got to my apartment. I don’t know what I would do without my fiancé. She kept everything nice and neat at Damon’s place. Even all the picture frames were evenly hung and all the books were put back into the shelf. There was not a spec of dust anywhere. As soon as I walked into the entrance, the aroma of food being made hit me in the face. It smelled like my favorite meal, stuffed shells and a side salad. I went into the kitchen and found the culprit for making this wonderful food. Rosanne was setting the table when I came up behind her and kissed her cheek. I bet she made my favorite meal because of my promotion. We rarely have what I want to eat for dinner. Since she is home she picks out the meals. I wonder if that is the reason I stay thin. After eating dinner, we decided to have family game night. We attempted to play Uno, but that didn’t work. John kept on trying to eat the cards. We finally decided to put the slobbery cards back into the box and went to bed.

The next morning, I turned over to find Rosanne’s face, only to find an empty half of the bed. She wouldn’t want me turning to kiss her with my morning breathe anyways. She refuses to kiss me until I brush my nasty, smelly mouth. Like a good, future husband, I went to find the missing person, after I brushed my teeth of course. I finally found her sitting on the sofa in the living room. She was fiddling with her coffee mug, which meant something was wrong. She would barely even look at me. I have never seen her like this. It must be a woman thing and I need to figure out what was wrong before I get nagged at. I sat onto my favorite chair and just stared at her. “We need to talk,” she exclaimed. Then she asked if I remembered when I went off to Chicago for two weeks to interview people for the newspaper. That was just last year so I remembered it perfectly. I remember the uncomfortable bed I had to sleep on in the cheap hotel. I was paranoid that the giant cockroaches would get revenge on me for killing one of their own. It was disgusting that even after a week of it; I used my own money to get a better hotel. That hotel didn’t have any evil, giant insects in it. Finally coming back to present time, I heard her talking about how she lost her key to my apartment and stayed at a friend’s house. Next thing you know, she starts to tear up. This must be bad; I have never seen her cry in the past.

“When you came back from Chicago is whenever I began to feel sick. I went to the doctor and as I figured, I was pregnant. Damon,” she paused, “John isn’t your son. It is my friend’s baby. If you want to know who he is, he is the priest of the Catholic Church downtown. When I was in need, he gave me food, shelter and…”

“And a freaking baby!” I yelled interrupting her and her poor reasoning. I was furious, depressed and confused all mixed up into one. All of this knowledge that I now know has came tumbling down on me. I felt like I was going to drown in all that is known. She tried to comfort me by touching my hand, but I refused to let her touch me at all. “Get out,” I slowly whispered. “Get out and go find your father’s baby. He should be taking care of the baby, not me! I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not anymore. Get the things you need and get out. You can get your other things later, but for now, I want you gone. After you get everything out of here, I don’t want to see your face ever again. You got that?”

She nodded with tears going down her cheeks and falling onto her pajama pants. She slowly took off her engagement ring and put it on the coffee table. “I am truly sorry for putting you through all of this,” she whispered. “I hope someday you can forgive me and be a part of John’s life” It took her about fifteen minutes to get everything she needed. When she did, she grabbed John and left me by myself. My heart was racing and my head was thumping. I couldn’t think straight. The woman I once loved has now cheated on me with someone else. I stood up and started reacting the wrong way. I threw everything onto the floor. Books, pictures of my so-called family and even the engagement ring ended up on the floor after I had finished my destruction. I even punched a hole in my wall. I now regret everything I done after she left, because now I have to find someone to fix the hole and I now need to clean up all of this mess I have made.

To get myself to think about something else, I poured myself some coffee, sat into my comfy recliner and turned on the television. On every single channel was Breaking News. Apparently there was a meteor shower hitting New York City. In my opinion, I thought the reporters have gotten drunk or something. I had to find out for myself. I opened the curtains and saw that instead of the sky being a bright blue, it was a bright colored red. The clouds had turned a dark gray like it was about to storm or something bad was about to happen. Everything the anchors said were legit. Before the meteors hit earth, I thought I would make this journal. So now you are reading about my last minutes of my awesome life right now. It was only seven o’clock on July 25, 2025 and it was already the worst day of my life. I only have lived on this earth for twenty-five years. I figured I have nothing to live for, so I am dying today. I have no hope, no fiancé, probably no job soon after the meteors destroy the building and no life. I could evacuate like everyone else and start a new life. That sounds like a good plan, but the only thing on my mind would be my old life. It would just be torture. So I might as well end it here and now. I guess you could call this journal entry a suicide note. If you had a life like mine, you would probably want to end your life too. I turned my chair around to face the window and watch the meteors hit. I watched the world of New York City end. This is it, I thought. I grabbed the engagement ring and held it in my hand as I viewed my life about to end. I will see whoever reads this on the other side. Hopefully the other side will be better than this tragedy. By the way whoever is reading this, can your call someone to clean up the books and the hole in the wall? It would be greatly appreciated.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 2 comments.


ehhitsme said...
on Nov. 19 2011 at 12:58 pm
This is a very good story keep up the good work :)

cjwills said...
on Nov. 14 2011 at 6:18 am
Love it! Very descriptive.