Duct Tape

[minviendha]

I wrote a spiffin short story for English. Well, I like it. It's a bit...different. And probably not the best I've ever done, but I thought I'd put it out here anyways. Enjoy, perhaps?

“How was I to know that duct tape would save my life?”

I paused, tapping my fingers absently on the keyboard and frowning blankly at the glowing screen. It was nearly midnight, and I really should have been in bed, but right now I was far too busy trying to get this one last assignment done, and when your brain is as fried as mine was, it makes simple tasks like writing some BS for an English assignment about as hard as reaching the moon in a Model-T.

The thing is, what do you say about duct tape? There’s a bit too much that could be said. Duct tape is kind of like Wikipedia: you sit there going from page to page for hours, reading about shrimp and howler monkeys and Apple, and before you know it, it’s 2 o’ clock in the morning and you have a heap of Bio homework to get through. Okay, so maybe duct tape isn’t much like Wikipedia, I decided as I clicked the Mozilla icon at the bottom of my screen and went over to the search engine, typed in ‘wasting time wikiHow’ and clicked on the first article that came up. There was a lot of crap about being talentless, which obviously didn’t apply to me; and a bit more about one of those Mmporg things that only the truly geeky will ever understand. I clicked out of the screen and played 3D pinball for a while, but that couldn’t hold my attention and I ended up staring at the empty white page on Microsoft Word, and at that one sentence, canned, cut and dried straight from the page.

I erased it and tried typing it again to see if that made me feel more inspired. It didn’t, though I spent another fifteen minutes playing around with typefaces to make it look just right. I tried changing the text colour, but neon green really didn’t show up too well on white paper.

I spun absently in a circle in my swivel chair and tried typing whatever came to mind, like, you know people always tell you to do? When you can’t think of anything, just write, right?

That didn’t go so well. I ended up with something like ‘god I’m so bored I can’t believe I have to do this Jesus why is school such a big deal anyway?’ which had nothing whatsoever to do with duct tape, life, or saving it.

I tried the old standby, “once upon a time,” but even that wasn’t going so well.

“Once upon a time,” I droned, “There was – oh, crap. First Person. I was a princess – oh, what the hell.” I gave up and got out of the chair, the black line blinking on and off repeatedly on the screen.

I ran my fingers through my hair and opened the door out of the study, creeping out into the hallway. My feet stuck to the wooden floor. The refrigerator rumbled nervously and I strolled into the kitchen, peering in the open pantry for something delicious, and decided that marshmallows were plenty of sustenance. A white piece of paper fluttered on the counter as I closed the door and I walked over, carefully avoiding the splatters of unidentifiable yellow stuff on it to pull it closer to read, tearing a marshmallow in half. The handwriting was crisp and clear, neat and meticulous in its perfection.

 

Darling,

Please make sure you get all your work done. I checked your grades. You have an A- in Social Studies! How did that happen? Also, I saw that you’re missing assignments in Bio. I hope you’re not starting to slack off! Remember what I told you about your GPA. If you want to get into an Ivy League you’re going to have to do better. I’ll talk to you tomorrow about seeing your counselor about getting transferred out of Morrison. I don’t think you’re being challenged.

                Love,

                Your mother.

 

I grimaced. Morrison was the only halfway decent class I had left: one that wasn’t hard and didn’t give homework. Looked like I was about to lose that, too. Sometimes I wonder if it’s my mother getting the grades rather than me.

I fished around in the drawers and found a roll of duct tape. Picking it up, I went over to the glass sliding door, tugged it open, and stepped out. It was nearly freezing and goosebumps rose on my arms right away, but I couldn’t find the energy to care, really. I went down the stairs and over to the railing, clambered up, and sat on the edge, the duct tape in one hand, the other clenched on the railing of the deck. The water was glittering in the half moon as it did every night. It didn’t remind me of burnished silver or fish scales or anything like that. It was just water and a moon in late winter. It didn’t make my GPA any better and didn’t turn in my missing Bio assignments. Wouldn’t mother like to know where those were?

“Burned in a fit of temper,” I muttered at the grass, glittering with frost. Maybe duct tape saved my life because it could tape those fragments back together. I’d be dead if I didn’t have a 4.0 GPA by semester. Absolutely dead.

I looked at the roll of silver tape in my hand. “Once upon a time, there was a kid who didn’t want to write about duct tape. The end.” I laughed, bleakly. Yeah right. Like I had the guts to turn that in. Someone else, maybe, but not me.

I hauled back with my right arm and flung forward. The duct tape spun through the air, flying, airborne for a few long moments, shining like an extension of the bay, silver and gleaming in the moonlight. It crashed to earth in the grass, not twenty feet away, with a soft crunch of frost. I stared at it, imagining if I left it there. Mother asking what I’d done with the duct tape…or worse, finding it. I flinched and jumped off the deck forward, landing heavily in the grass, frost icy on my feet. I trudged over to the duct tape, looked down, and picked it up, turning it over in my hands.

I looked out at the water again, back up at the deck, at the black, empty house, whitewashed, perfect, immaculate. It looked like something on the real estate market, somewhere where no one lived.

I went up the stairs, my feet stinging with numbness, and opened the sliding door. I left it open, cool air rushing in, and put the duct tape on top of the note. Finally, I strolled back to the study, opened the door, and sat down in front of the computer. I highlighted the two lines of text on the screen and pressed backspace on the keyboard. They vanished, leaving clean white paper. I pressed Print and took the paper off, set it on my backpack for the morning. I shut down the computer, leaving the door to the study wide open, and went upstairs to sleep.

I was exhausted, and tomorrow was another long day.