Dear Mom,

I realize that I was too late in helping you, and now I can’t physically have a conversation with you. So, I have decided to tell you the story of how I tried to help you. Hopefully, you can read this yourself in the state you’re in.

It all starts on August 23rd, two days before your birthday. This morning I was still sleeping in my new home that I call, The Portable-potty, because I lost my home in a financial crisis of paying for your hospital services.
I woke up late in the morning to Mr. Sirdude’s loud entry to our camp. He always comes back drunk after a late night of drinking. He never means to wake anyone up, but he walks into the camp with the same bottle and throws it at a trash can, knocking it down. All of the half used air fresheners crash to the ground with the one crack of his bottle. Everyone in our little homeless town opens their doors covering their ears.

I walk out of my portable-potty, plugging my ears because they are still ringing with pain. I grab my backpack and fill it with as many air fresheners as I can.
I walk down Patoileper Rd. to a small stand that is placed just on the edge of an alley. I trade my air fresheners for a protein bar and some almond milk. The vender immediately uses the air fresheners to make his area smell better, you know how picky people can be about the smell of Badcrapsmell. It can’t be that bad because it is more than thirty miles away, but apparently that still makes people grossed out. We don’t care though; both of us used to live there.
Anyway, I walk down the same road and finally reach our old family restaurant, The Midnight Snack Shack, and sneak in the bathroom. I do this because they threw out all of the other recipes that we used to use when we owned it and now they sell crappy food, like corndogs and applesauce.
When I finally find a good comfortable stall, I sit down and crack open my protein bar and take small sips of my almond milk. It tastes so much better than the store bought applesauce that the restaurant sells.
I see people start to line up by my stall; I quickly wrap up my leftovers in my jacket and casually walk out. The customers stare at me because they are either really pissed off at me for taking so long, or they are laughing at my afro.
My afro is colorfully checkered with purple and grey squares, and I have just recently added the yellowish dots to the grey squares, and the green dots to the purple ones.
I sneak out of The Midnight Snack Shack, acting like a ninja so if people do notice me they just laugh. I walk across Reshairfeener St., and reach the hospital that you are healing at.
I nodded to the same workers and doctors that I normally see and they return it quickly remembering my hair, but nurses and janitors aren’t as charmed. Normally I can just walk by them without being bothered because they normally laugh at my hair. Interestingly, today was different.
Some janitors would look at me, and then stare at the ground with their heads shaking disapprovingly. I find a nurse and she simply ignores me until I find a small line of them outside your door. I get a small ache in my stomach, like the feeling I used to get when I would get in trouble when I was little.
“Ummmm. Yo dawg! What’s going on?” I asked trying to seem ghetto. My shot at intimidation doesn’t work because she just blankly stares at me.
“Are you dah offspring o’ dah lady in dah room right dere?” she asks mocking me in a way that really makes me want to go all gangsta on her, but I restrain myself because I know that I am not capable of even killing a fly.
“Um yeah. My mama’s name is Kellen Ellen Johnson, and I am her son Shawn John Johnson. Can I see my mama? O’ do ya wan’ me to go all gangsta on you?” I respond trying to seem threatening. She still has her robot stare which is more threatening to me and she opens the door.
“Yeah here she is, but if you hurt my bruh den we gonna get in a fight,” she threatens but I slide in with a small smirk because she has a good impression of a gangsta. However, I think otherwise when I finally close the door and hear her squeak in a New Jersey accent along with some background screams, “HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Did you see his hair LOL! Am I right?”
I walk over to the bed where you are, and grab your clipboard. At the top it reads Kellen Ellen Johnson… suffering from the Gueshlik Plague. I put the clipboard down and I see your face. The shedding of your pupils has begun and I can see what looks to be dandruff all over your pillow.
The door opens and the nurse who was laughing out loud with the New Jersey accent walks in. Her eyes are watery and she seems to be crying, probably from laughing at my afro. “I am sorry about telling you late, but your mother is in need of surgery to replace her eyes. The Gueshlik Plague has taken over the main connection from her eyes to her brain, disintegrated more than half of her eyes, and now her brain has left bits of tiny toxic particles into her body. However the surgery is very expensive; we will need approximately 9,876,543,210 air fresheners to pay for the expenses that the surgery requires,” she explains. She seems really sincere and sad about her statement, but that opinion rushes away quickly.
“But I can’t make all of that money up. You see I’m broke, homeless, and all of my money had originally been used so she had enough service to either survive or last the next ten years,” I say, trying to make the bill that she’s handing me just fly away, but they flew away just as much as penguins do, and she tells me that you may die in the next week unless I am able to pay off this bill. She gives me an unnecessary smile of reassurance that of course didn’t make sense because she knows I won’t be able to make this amount of money.
I hold your hand and then leave the building as fast as I can because I know that you know that I know that I can’t save you even if I tried. It was impossible for me to get that much money.
I run home to my portable-potty, which takes forever because I don’t take the usual way. I finally get home, and I just break down on my toilet. The smell reminds me of you, and I begin to cry. The feeling of me getting in trouble rouses me when I hear my neighbor Mr. Sirdude knocking on the door. “Thawn, the kidth is her fo’ dah story,” he says in a drunken voice. “You can’t keep running away from dith. You’re the town’th thtory teller, remember?”
“Yeah, I know,” I am still crying at this point but I do my best to hide it.
Mr. Sirdude leans down to tell me, “Maybe you can thuprise them with dah uthual.”
It doesn’t make sense to surprise them with the usual story, but I wipe my tears and I quickly come up with a story I know. “Once upon a time…” I begin to say continuing with the Piece of Golden Crap story that you always told when I was little. I remember you’d always point to the shiny mounted mountain where it was located, but every time I said crap or poop to them they’d crack up. I can’t lie and say that I never have. However, they laughed every time, which wasn’t a bad thing until I got to the part where the story tells you that the piece of crap was worth more than 10,000,000,000 air fresheners. They all stared at me gaspingly when I stopped because I just stared at them like there was more. Of course, there was, but I simply wrapped the story up by saying, “And that’s the end.”
That very moment I run to my home and I grab a few things that someone would need on a camping trip or a hunt. Along with that I gather some rusty air fresheners and scribble some half legible words that are a smelly, but pretty, coppery color. It read, “Shawn has left the house and may not return.”
As I walk down the road I see everyone staring at me in a disapproving way. One of my neighbors even shouts out to me, “Yo Stupid! Where are you gonna go? Badcrapsmell?”
I know he is kidding but I simply nod. “What fo’?” Mr. Sirdude says as he is trying to catch up with me.
“I am going to get The Golden Piece of Crap from Badcrapsmell to save my ill mother,” I respond, like I am from a fantasy story, but he asks if he could come along.
“I got an extra bottle to thare,” he says trying to influence me.

I realize that he is trying to persuade me to come along, but I know if I tell him no he’ll just follow me anyway. “Fine you can come with me, but as I said we are going to Badcrapsmell. You know where most of the people in Airtoilefresh got the Gueshlik Plague,” I tell him trying to persuade him, but it doesn’t work and he marches forward in the wrong direction.
I have a thought of letting him go the way he was, but I know that if I can’t save you, I’d have no one else to call either a friend or a family.
I catch up to him and tell him that we are going the other way. “Ppff… I knew that,” he says making himself look even more stupid.
We stroll down a long road that seems to lead to the smelly border that separates the boundaries of Badcrapsmell and Airtoilefresh. It isn’t how either of us had expected. It was a large area of security and it had groups of rogue flies being shipped back to Badcrapsmell. The guards spotted us, and more than half of the crates of flies fell to the ground.
“Is there a problem sir?” I ask, staying as calm as possible.
“We need to see your forearm,” one of the guards command. I see no reason for them to inspect my arm because I don’t really think there is anything on there, but I can’t object and I hold out my arm. Mr. Sirdude does the same, but when I finally see what they are about to do I rip my arm from the security’s grasp. Mr. Sirdude isn’t so fortunate. Instead the man that I spotted with the knife stabs him in the forearm. Mr. Sirdude screams in pain and he drops to the ground crying.
I don’t notice anything beside the fact that I am next. The man that seems to have a nametag, that reads Bro Bruhsome, liberates the knife from Sirdude’s arm. I scream and try to run towards him, but I’m stopped by even more security and they pin me down.
Mr. Sirdude is just in my vision and I can see him gripping his arm. Bro Bruhsome has cleaned his knife and is right on top of me. His knife is rising up and gravity takes over. I stop screaming, knowing that the end is coming.
“I’m sorry mom,” I whisper, feeling the contact of my skin and Bro’s knife, but it doesn’t go through. Instead I hear a giant clang and the knife’s blade falls off. I am stunned and interestingly so are the guards. They all back off and I immediately flash right back into reality.
Mr. Sirdude is on the ground bleeding, but he’s still breathing. I scream at him to wake up, but the only way he can answer me is by a small moan. He tries to move, but he’s quickly shoved by the guards and he falls to the ground.
I start to wonder about how I wasn’t injured and he was. Bro Bruhsome’s knife even flew into the air with a loud klink; similar to the air fresheners that roll out of the garbage cans in the mornings when Mr. Sirdudes comes home.
“You were branded by both sides, and you might have a chance off surviving,” one of the guards tells me, and I stare at my forearm. There is a tiny dent where Bro Bruhsome tried to stab me. A small circle glows in a dramatic way and ripples back to invisibility. “He would never survive because he was branded in Airtoilefresh only.”
“So, will he just die?” I manage to say without choking up. “Or can I take him?”
One of the guards say, “You can, but then you’ll both probably die.”
I nod and then try to haul him over to Badcrapsmell. I get about ten inches across the border and he starts to smack his lips, and moan for his empty bottle. I figure since he is almost out of blood in his arm I can spare him his own alcohol.
However, when the bottle is half empty I realize that I can use it for medical purposes. I strangle it from his hand which is hard at first, but becomes easy when I poke his injury.
I pour the rest of the contents on his arm and then I wrap with one of his socks. He squeals slightly but doesn’t seem to care after I’m done. I get to a street that has a sign that is all scratched up. About an hour later Mr.Sirdude wakes up, and he immediately points to a mountain with a glowing peak, “Purrtttyyy.”
I giggle and then I realize that he is pointing to the exact mountain we are going to. “Yeah. It is purty. That’s where we’re going,” I say.
“To get dah crap. HeeHee,” he laughs, but then passes out right away.

I smile and then pull him to the closest corner. I fall asleep and no dreams come to me.

When I wake I find that Mr. Sirdude has begun to bleed again. I try to just press down on his wound but that just wakes him up to notice that he should start to panic. Blood gushes out even more, and he starts screaming. It gets worse for both of us then, and I realize that we are attracting attention.
Not that we weren’t already, but now that he’s started every thief, bandit, or gangster will notice two hobos. One who is bleeding to his death, and crying, and one who is trying to stop the blood. Someone in the apartments that hang other our heads shouts, “HEY! SHUT-UP! I’M TRYING TO SLEEP OVER HERE!”

I see Mr. Sirdude bite his lips to stop screaming, and it works for about two seconds. His lip begins to bleed, and he starts his rampage again. I slap him so hard he seems to just die. “Uh-Oh,” I whisper. He doesn’t seem to be breathing either so feel for a pulse. I find one while my hand is on his neck, and then I blow into his mouth for breathing. He slaps me hard on the face.

“That’s just plain gross,” I don’t focus on how he’s breathing again but on how he is using correct grammar. “I was holding my breath to get back at you. But when you kissed me I had to act.”

“Sorry, just trying to help,” I respond.

“By kissing me?” he yells.

“What? No, I was trying to do CPR because you weren’t breathing,” I say, but he doesn’t seem impressed. I pull him up, and we started to walk down a street. We have to look down, because a herd of thieves are starring at us.

“Sirdude, don’t look at them,” I whisper.

“Why not? They might be nice,” he whispers back. “Howdy! How are you?”

I look at him, and he’s waving at the gang. I quickly throw his head down to avoid contact with the gang. That didn’t work, because by the time I did that they were already advancing toward our direction. I walk faster, but they act as dogs and they follow even faster than I can run.

Out of the thought of death, I panicked, and broke an air freshener in half letting the insides leak out. I throw one in their direction, and I save one until they get too close. They evidently do, and I splash as much of the scented liquid on them. Half of them scatter, and the ones who don’t, fall to the ground.

I still walk with Mr. Sirdude, and he seems to be getting paler by the second. I glance at his arm, and I realize that it is actually leaking with blood. “How is it bleeding again?” I ask myself. I tell him to stop, and I take his bandages off of his arm. I notice that it has widened with an outline of a gross, purplish, bluish color. I poke it slightly. I see that it has been poisoned.
I tell him that maybe he should go back to Airtoilefresh to get some medical help. Of course, he rejects the idea and he marches forward, in the wrong direction. He walks actually toward the nearest hospital, in Airtoilefresh.

I start to walk back toward the mountain, but I stop. Instead, I run to Mr. Sirdude, and shout, “Wait! The mountain’s this way.”

“I knew that,” he says.

He catches up the best he can, and then we continue on our journey. We pass small alleys, and walk across wide streets with cracks that probably sink all the way down to the equator. We reach the lower mountain in a course of twelve hours. About five were for Mr. Sirdude to drink liquor we found on the ground, or because he passed out.
When we start to ascend the mountain we are slowed by Mr. Sirdude’s slow and useless arm. I tell him to wait for me to return, but he pushes forward. I find it odd that he is finally doing something nice for a change. If he ever does something for me it would be to ask a question. “Got any air fresheners?” he would ask on a regular day.

We finally reached the peak. I grip the edge of the mountain so hard, and I ask, “Are you ready to see the legendary Piece of Golden Crap?” I hear no response, “Mr. Sirdude?” I look down to see him gone. I can’t wait any longer though, so I pull myself up to witness a stupid car with its headlights on. “No,” I say. I’ve lost Mr. Sirdude, and there isn’t a piece of crap made of gold.

I begin to descend the mountain in search of Mr. Sirdude. But I find him at the bottom of the mountain, dead. His head isn’t even in pieces; it’s in bits of drops. There is a fan of blood surrounding the place his head should be. His arm is half gone, and he seems as though he was squished into a piece of paper. His shirt is gone and I can see the person who took it. It’s blue with blood all over it, so you’d never be able to tell. I begin to tear up. I walk away, and turn into sprinting. I began to cross the border, and the eyes me. I slow down to look casual, and they just ignore me.

I walk to the hospital, and enter. The staff acknowledges my afro, as they normally do, and I pass by on the way to your room. I walk in to say my last goodbye, but you aren’t there. Your bed is gone, and all I see is a janitor sweeping the dust. It makes the shape of your bed that is now gone.

“Where’s my mom?” I ask. He takes a big breath, and slightly turns to a stance that may look as though I am going to strike him.

“She died today. She was shipped to the graveyard yesterday,” he says, taking a more protective stance. However I don’t him. I simply run out, like a little boy.
On the way home I begin to cry, and I finally collapse in my portable-potty. I pull a sheet of plastic out of my house, and I begin to write this story for you.

When I finish, I assume I will walk to your grave, and tell you, “Happy Birthday, mom.”

Then I read the story aloud, and I leave as soon as came.
In Your Loving Memory,
Shawn John Johnson
P.S. I love you…