The boy that believed

               For the beginning of time, the boy followed the wizard. The boy didnt speak but simply watched the wizard in his ways of magic and most certainly the wizard was magic. Everything the Wizard did it was done in complete perfection in the eyes of the boy. The boy believed in magic because of the wizard and wanted nothing more than to follow the wizard in his magical ways. The wizard and the boy would go on adventures and slay mythical monsters and save the day. Everything was wonderful and there was nothing that the boy and the wizard couldnt do. Even at night when the mosters would creep and lurk in the darkness, the wizard was able to protect the boy and teach him how to fight the monsters. The wizard told the boy that our power of magic came from our mind and imagination. There was no monster that the boy couldnt conquer and it was only because of the wizard that the boy became magic. The wizard wasnt just a man or a hero but his best friend. The boy couldnt think of any better way to live his days than learning from this wizard of unlimited power. There came a point when the wizard must leave and journey to a distant land and fight monsters only the wizard could fight. The boy would stay and protect the castle and waited for the wizard to come back to his rightful place as the master of the castle. And sure enough the wizard came back after a long travel and embraced his prized pupil. The boy and the wizard would then proceed to fight monsters in their land and have an adventure before a bountiful feast. After the feast the boy and the wizard then learned of adventures of other heroes from stories in the book of ancient texts. The land was full of magic and adventure for some time. Everyday was similar until one day the wizard began to lose his power. I dont know if was poison or old age but the wizard was slowly losing his magic. He would come home from fighting monsters and instead of embracing the boy the wizard would retire to his chambers instead of fighting the monsters. They would still fight monsters but not as often and the monsters would begin to grow in the land. The boys magic eventually surpassed the wizards magic and instead of being the boys hero the wizard became almost a hindrance in the fighting of monsters. The boy grew and learned and the wizard did the same. The wizard no longer was magic and was no longer the teacher. It was now up to the boy to fend the castle from monsters of all size. The boy fought monsters while pleading for the wizards assistance. The wizard lost his magic and no longer believed. The boy and the wizard grew apart but the boy still believed in his hero and knew that the wizard still believed in magic. One day there was a monster that the boy didnt see coming. This monster was unique and was invisible to the naked eye but you could see it if you had special goggles. The boy was bitten by this monster and neither the boy and the wizard knew of this monsters power. This monster was not only dangerous due to its invisibility but its venomous bite, One day while the boy was fighting and the venom hit the boy hard and he clasped on the battlefield. The wizard was onlooking the castle and noticed his once prized pupil of magic now fallen on the field in defeat. The wizard grabbed the boy and carried him to the medicine man. This medicine man had these special goggles and was able to see the bite of this venomous monster and sure enough the boy was bitten. The venom was in him and it was only a matter of time for the boy to perish to this monster of the land. The wizard embraced the boy and cried. The boy did the same. The wizard looked at this boy and saw his emanate doom before him. The boy was feeble yet asked the wizard something......... Do you still believe in magic? The wizard fought back tears and tried to find his words but couldnt. He could only nod while weeping. The boys eye lit up and was able to have one last battle before the boy died. It was the last time that the wizard and the boy were able to fight side by side before the chariot came to take him over the rainbow bridge. The boy hugged the wizard and whispered with his last breath... I always believed in you, I love you. The man held the boy and wept, holding the boys lifeless body. The wizard was sad because of the cancer that took his boy but his biggest regret was that he didnt believe in magic for the boy

. His biggest regret was that he wasnt able to take the time out of his day to play with his son.

We dont go to the barn anymore

"We dont go to the barn anymore...." I told my friend as we walked home from school. "Something happened and I dont know how to explain it. We just dont go." Why not? What happened? We always go to the barn! My friends and I would go to my grandpas abandon barn and have fires out back and practically made the loft our club house. It was actually really cool, my friends and I actually put some solid work into it and actually got the power going there. We had a cool rope latter and a small TV hooked up. We were even working on making a zip line that ran from the loft to the lake. Our summers up at the barn were awesome. We would hardly go up during the fall or winter but since we just got power going and we wanted to get a heater hooked up and have some sweet sleep overs. The barn was basically a better substitute to the typical tree house, we just changed the empty shell of the barn to a guy pad. The barn still was littered with random tools and my grandpa still used them so we had to leave the tools in there place but most of them were in the loft of the barn and we hardly went up there anyway. In fact, we never went up there. It was really old and unsafe so we just worked on the lower levels and eventually we were able to get a few couches in the barn. We had just had Halloween and we were anticipating Thanksgiving and we wanted to have a quick hangout before we had to leave for the break. Instead of all our friends, we were only able to have me, my brother and my neighbor Gabe. which was not even half of the friends we would normally hang with. So just us three but we were still able to have a good time. We went to a late movie and afterwards we went back to my house. We had our stuff already packed so we werent at home long. It was neat since we could barely see the barn from my house which was nice but it was still out in a field and took a solid five minutes to get there. We normally would take an ATV or my brothers supped up golf cart but for some reason we didnt. Before we left we noticed that the barn illuminated a very dull yellow glow from the barn. I showed my brother and we both were uneasy. This hadnt been the first time we accidentally left a light on and our dad got pissed and made us turn it of at 2 in the morning on a school night. Needless to say we were pretty good with turning off the light after that. So to see this light on was more concerning since our dad would be on our asses if he saw we left the light on. But he was out of town so we didnt freak out too much. This is where it gets weird. As we were walking to the barn we noticed that the warm glow to the barn then faded and blended in with the late night sky. The light was off. My brother was pissed considering we had just got a heater to work there and he figured that the power went out. We finished our walk and went in to our barn and my brother immediately checked the power. Like clock work, the while barn lit up and we got the heater cranked since it was freezing out. The heater normally takes awhile to get warm but this puppy was already warm. I told Gabe since he and I were good friends and that my older brother was busy working on getting the old TV to work. We were uneasy but things didnt click til we were about to go to sleep. Once my brother fell asleep Gabe and I began to talk about what had happened earlier. The barn was very open and we could see pretty much everything except the loft up stairs. We both were thinking the same thing but we werent sure if anyone was in the barn since it was dark out and if someone ran out we wouldnt have been able to see them anyway.  As we walked to the top we noticed that there was tool room with a lock on the door. We both laughed since we knew that no one would be able to get in the room and put the lock on the outside. But our laughter didnt last for long. We looked around and there were wrappers all over the floor. Not just wrappers but cans and bags full of random clothes. Our hearts sank as we looked at each other and then at the door. We then got closer to the lock and noticed the lock was not only unlocked but broken. We were so curious yet so scared at the same time. I reached for the door and Gabe grabbed my arm. "Wait, what if someone is in there?" .... "Umm I dont know?! Ask them to leave?!" .... "You're an idiot, they arent just going to leave..." I looked around and noticed that the door handle had a huge key hole. Lets just take a photo through the keyhole and see if we can see anything. Reluctantly I agreed and Gabe took a photo through the keyhole.. He looked at it for a minute and laughed.. Hahaha Might help if I put the flash on... Nice.. I said half sarcasticly half terrified .. He took 3 photos and we looked at them simultaneously. Our blood ran cold. The unthinkable was waiting on the other side, not only waiting but watching the door as if it was anticipating us to open the door. It wasnt really a person it was this strange doll woman. Was it a life size doll? I went to open the door and Gabe grabbed me again. We looked at the other photos and the person moved to a different position behind a box. We didnt look at the other photo. We just booked it down the stairs and woke up my brother while screaming. He was irritated at first but our fear seemed to freak him out and he began to grab our stuff while I hit all the lights I could on the way out. We showed my brother once we got home and he began to cry. We all did. Our mom was the only one home and she was dead asleep since it was almost 3 in the morning. We locked all our doors and grabbed our .22s and locked our door. We slept with the lights on that night. We never really got over that night. Who was that person? Why was she dressed like that? How long had she been there? What would have happened if we opened the door? I tried explaining this to my friends but it didnt really hit them til I showed them the photos from that night. Thats why we dont go to the barn anymore.


             

                           
       








                                                   

My friend brought balloons

I take care of my mother who has dementia which is practically a full time job. She is a wonderful woman but it can be difficult for us to know if she is actually there or not mentally. She has good days and bad days but she has bad days she forgets who I am. I have to remind her that I am her son and that I am taking care of her. Very rarely does this happen. For the most part I just clean up after her and feed her while giving her her medication from day to day. Up til recently she lived with us but with my wife expecting another baby we decided that it would be for the best to put my mother in a home with staff while giving us the chance to focus more on our child. My mother was upset but understanding as she agreed that this would be for the best. As a gift to make her feel more comfortable I bought her a pre paid cell phone which was a big deal to her since she never had one before. She absolutely loved it! It had her favorite game on it and she loved taking photos with the cheap phone. She would often send me a photo each day of the neighborhood cat or some flowers that were at her breakfast, silly things like that. My wife thought it was adorable and I did to. We would often get excited and laugh at the cute things she would send us. Her photos would come with a text about what my mom thought about the picture she sent us. My favorite was of "Nutty" the squirrel with my moms text saying "Here is Nutty again! He is a naughty squirrel!" Things were going great for her there at the retirement center. We could often tell when she was having one of those bad days when she wouldnt text us or that she would but it would be of her feet or of the wall. Something along those lines. It had been awhile since she had a bad day but out of the blue she stopped sending pictures but simply texts. These text were really bland, just mainly about her new friend that she made and how much fun they are having. I visited her like I always do every week and asked about her much anticipated photos. She told me that her friend didnt like photos since they bothered her. Most of these people here were pretty old and I could see how taking a picture would be rather troublesome for most. It made sense so I just came to terms with the fact that her photos were most likely over. The text continued and we were able to know how she was doing. After some time we began to be concerned about her texts. They were long and irrational which was very unlike her. They were about her friend who wanted to come into her room but since patients were not aloud in each other room this made my mom upset since she really liked her new friend. One text was about a plan that they talked about on how they should leave the home together and join a circus. This was really weird and made my wife uneasy. My wife told me that maybe I should tell someone about this but I didnt since my mom was probably having a bad day. One day while I was visiting I asked her about her friend and she changed her mood and didnt want to talk about it. She and her friend were arguing about how the room rule was dumb and that the friend said that it didnt apply for friends. I then became uneasy and asked her which room did her friend stay at and maybe they can meet somewhere that was close. Her responce didnt make any sense at first to me and I was really confused. She told me that her friend didnt stay there at the center. Was she having a bad day or is my mom being serious? I asked that since her friend wasnt a patient who was the friend and where would they talk? My friend lives in the woods and we talk at my window. My mom had to be having a bad day for sure and I dismissed it. Her room was on the end of the hall and there were woods near her window so this could have some possible chance of being true but it most likely wasnt. I tried to tell her that her friend is imaginary and that she doesnt need to worry. But my mother found this to be very difficult to understand. She was very certain that her friend was real and this made me sad to think that she was this lonely to be imagining friends. I told her that the next time she sees her friend that she should send me a picture to prove it. If she was right I would buy her an ice cream if not then she would have to stop talking about this "friend" of hers and promise to try to make a real friend. Days passed and I didnt receive her texts/photos. The day before I was to come visit I received a text from my mother and I saw that this was accompanied with a picture file titled "My friend brought balloons". I opened my texted from my mom and my blood ran cold. I immediately drove down to the center and checked her out of the facility. I called my wife and told her that mom would be living with us again and to get the guest room ready for her. As I left I alerted the manager that someone had been talking to my mother for weeks at her back window and that he had tried to get in her room. Had I not made that bet with my mother who knows what could have happened. Who was this person? What did this person want with my mother? Why was this person dressed as a clown?  All I know is, that it is worth losing an ice cream to my mother.

Why I am no longer a landlord

                     





         So I just became a landlord of this apartment complex I inherited from my Aunt who just recently passed away. She died of lung cancer and didnt have any children and being her favorite niece I got her complex. I debated with my mom whether or not if I should just sell it and continue with college but my mom wanted me to try my hand at keeping her sisters business running in memory of my Aunt. I agreed since all the hard stuff of being a landlord was already done for the most part, all I had to do was collect rent and send in repairmen when needed. It was easy enough, in fact, I made more money in the 4 months I ran the place than I did a year working full time. It was great! Of course I had to pester people to pay their rent from time to time but many of the people staying there were fairly old and I hardly had an issue. One of my best tenants, however, started complaining about the floor above him. Just the usual stuff like loud noises at late hours but he claimed it sounded as if he had a workshop up there. I found the room and approached the door as I usually did. To my surprise an old couple answered the door in the cutest fashion. They were both wearing nice older clothes and both very sweet. I told them about the complaint and they apologized and invited me in. Sure enough they had a workshop but interestingly enough they made furniture. Really cute furniture actually. They had a room with saws and sanders and drills and other typical tools. To my surprise the apartment was impeccable shape despite all the tools. They offered me some tea to which I graciously accepted. I looked around their living room and they had an odd amount of furniture for just two people. But the furniture was so beautiful. I sat down on the couch and the couch was so soft and warm. It was unlike anything I have ever experience, it was as if the couch embraced me like when you hug someone. Once I sat down I realized that I had a pen in my back pocket. I got up to see if I caused any damage to the couch but sure enough there was blood on the couch and on my pants. I felt so bad having stained their beautiful couch! Blood is super hard to get out and I just bled all over this nice couch. I started apologizing and the couple just snapped at me. It was as if a switch just flipped and this cute couple just turned into these wrinkly demons.  I told them that I will pay them for the couch and left to get some money out of the office. Once I was in the office I took off my pants and checked where the pen stabbed me. I was so confused. I checked all over my legs and butt and yet there was not a scratch. I checked my jeans and the only hole was the hole from the pen going out, not in. What is going on here? I called my mom and told her what happened. She told me to call my repair guy and have him take a look at the couch. I called Steve and we went back to the apartment to see if we could assess the damage. I didnt tell Steve that I wasnt stab, I just told him that I ruined a couch. We got to the door and the cute couple was back again. They invited us in and offered us tea once again. I told them that I brought my repair man to check to see what happened. Once we did the couple faces went blank. They looked petrified. I was confused and Steve was in a hurry and I dont think he noticed. He went over to the couch and started working on it. Less than a minute Steve seemed oddly alert and told me he had just the cleaner for this and told me to come with him to get it. I agreed reluctantly and followed him out. The couple just stared at us til we left. Once we were have way to my office he called the police. I asked him what was wrong and he didnt say anything to me but motioned me to be quiet while he was on the phone. Less than 10 minutes about 5 cop cars pulled up kicked the door down and arrested the couple. They taped off the area and I couldnt really see what was going on. The place was now buzzing with police and firetrucks and a few ambulances. I was never so confused in my life. No one would give me a straight answer to what was going on. I watched as they brought out a distorted looking person on a stretcher. My heart sank to my feet as they continued to bring out these mangled looking people out. Almost 20 of them came out of the apartment with their arms and legs distorted and in weird shapes. I got a bit closer and notice that their eyes were gouged and their mouths were sown shut. I couldnt believe it! What was going on here?! I was just in that apartment and I would have noticed these people! Were they stored in a hidden room or in a closet or something?! What did they want with these people? I looked inside the apartment and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized wear they had been keeping these people when I noticed their furniture.  Their furniture .... was .. gone.