Love's Open Door

Revised:
Grandfather Stranger
I was sixteen when my mom kicked me out of the house.  Actually, she threw me out of the house and called me a sinner and an abomination.  I thought that being pregnant would be something we could overcome after the baby was born and adopted out.  I thought because I did the right thing, giving the baby up to a couple who would better care for her, she would forgive me of my wrong-doing and things would get back to normal.
                It was only in a matter of days before she made arrangements for me to go live with my grandfather. 
                “I don’t want to hear of her getting pregnant again or else I’m shipping her off to an all-girls school and getting her legs sewn shut,” my mom says to my grandfather.
 “How are her grades?”
 He asks abruptly.
 My mom sits there, stoned faced as she searches for an answer.
 “Terrible,” she lies. “She failed all her classes last semester.”
 “That’s not true!” I retort.
 “That’s not hard to believe,” My grandfather states.  “How can anyone expect a pregnant teenager to keep up with her studies?”
 I am outraged.
 “Mom, I kept up with my school work just fine, and given the fact that the baby didn’t come until after school was out, it was quite easy for me to keep up with my school work.”
 “Quiet!” She shouts. “Grown-ups are talking.”
 My mom hardly pays attention to the good student that I am.  I made a mistake, sure.  I lost my virginity to my boyfriend which turned out to be the first time I get knocked up.  How was I supposed to know the proper way to put on a condom?  Using a puppet to help us explain how to put a condom on a banana isn’t very resourceful if you’re laughing at it the whole time.  Especially when Bobby Jenkins, the class clown, stands up and asks how the hell a banana can get someone pregnant in the first place.  It completely threw the entire lesson out the window. 
 “I will check on her studies and see to it that she stays on top of it.”
 My grandfather is from my dad’s side.  I had never met him before and I knew very little of my dad before he died.  For days now my mom has been telling me how strict he is.  My mom gets a thrill out of sensationalizing everything.  I didn’t know how much of it is true, but by looking at my grandfather, I feel a little intimidated.  His stone-silence as he sits there at the kitchen table was enough to set the entire house on edge.
                He’s dressed in his thousand dollar, tailored suit, expensive watch, and standing near him is a middle aged woman with red hair in a suit who looks like she might be his assistant.  He doesn’t fit into the family at all.  He is way out of our league.  It makes me curious about my dad, about what kind of family he came from, and why I never met my grandfather or anyone from his side of the family. 
               
            “It’s about time I did something right by that child.”  I hear mom mutter to herself.
                “With all due respect, madam, but if you had done right by her a long time ago, she would not have gotten in this mess in the first place.”
                My mom looks at him appalled.  Her dagger eyes shoot at him.  For the first time in a long while I’m feeling a bit relieved.  Maybe going with my grandfather won’t be such a bad idea after all.
                A jingle of a cell phone comes from his assistant.  She’s on the phone for a moment, nodding and saying yes and no, then all of a sudden she whispers in my grandfather’s ear about something.
              “Are we done here?” He says.  “I need to get back to New York.”
 My mother nods quickly, nervous and looking extremely uncomfortable.
                He gestures towards me.
                “Say your good byes, young lady.”
                The way he speaks to me makes my heart drop to my stomach.  Although I am used to the coldness of my mother’s tone, yelling and screaming at me, calling me horrid names and even slapping me a few times, I never felt more terrified than I did when my grandfather gives his orders.  I think he hates me already.
                I push back a strand of my chocolate colored hair behind my ear and pick up my suitcase.  All I was bringing with me was my clothes and a few books.  My mom threw away all my music, all my posters, and any photo I had of my boyfriend.  She said anything influencing me to have sex again is nothing but sin trying to call me to hell.
                I am having mixed feelings about going with my grandfather.  I feel liberated from my mother at last, but at the same time I’m scared of being stuck with Mr. Scrooge.
              

                Grandfather had a nice, fancy car waiting for us in the drive way, and a chauffeur opening the door and waiting for us to get in.  He takes my bags and puts them in the trunk.  I look around my old neighborhood to see neighbors coming out to see what all the excitement is about.  There haven’t been very many sleek black cars driving around in Milton Freewater, Missouri.
                The car pulls away and in my yard I see my little brother and sister standing near a kiddie pool and waving good bye to me.  My mom didn’t even come out with me to hug me, she just stands behind the screen door, arms crossed and her lips scrunched up as I pull away.  The pain struck at my heart.  Does she even care that she may not see me again? 
 The car drives through my neighborhood and as we pass by Eric’s house, my boyfriend, I spot him sitting on the porch, hunched over.  His gaze catches the car as it drives past and he springs to his feet, running after the car is it drives on.  I wave at him.  I’m not sure if he can see me through the dark tinted windows, but my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach the moment we turn the corner and he fades into a small figure on the corner of my street.
 Three Days Ago…
 I hear a soft tapping on the window as I lay on my bed, listening to Billy Joel.  I crawl over to the window and see Eric standing there.  I brace the window open.  He’s wearing our high school letterman’s sweater he earned from swimming.  He always looks so cute with his blonde locks and blue eyes.  I still can’t believe he is even interested in me.  I thought for sure having sex with him would be all he wanted out of me, but he stuck by me through the pregnancy and the adoption process.  My heart swells with love for him as I beam at him in the moonlight.
 “What are you doing here?” I say. “You know my mom will kill you if she sees you here.”
 “I heard rumors that you were leaving.”
 “Who told you that?”
 “Jessica told me.  Is it true?”
 I nod.
 “I leave on Friday.”
 “Why didn’t you tell me?”
 “I thought it would be easier.”
 “Easier?  Easier to ditch me.”
 “Eric don’t start, okay?  I’m not ditching you.  My mom is sending me away.  I have no choice.”
 “Run away with me.  We can go to St. Louis, get jobs and our own place.”
 “Yeah, and my mom would send the cops out after us.”
 There’s a moment of silence.  Billy Joel still plays muffled over my ear buds.  Eric stops to hear the song.  “Just the Way You Are” is playing and he smiles at the lyrics he strains to hear.
 “I remember that song,” he says. 
 It’s the song we “did it” to.  It wasn’t on purpose or planned.  It just started playing on my laptop when things started heating up.
 There’s a somber look on Eric’s face as he listens.  My stomach and my heart are swelling up and I can’t feel the lump in my throat.
 “Will you call me?”  He says.
 “Every day,” I force a smile.
 He stands and gazes at me for a moment.  He reaches for the side of my cheek and lures me in close, kissing me gently on the lips. 
 Present…
He disappears as the car turns on another corner.  Will I ever see him again?  Will I ever see home again?
 “Where are we going?” I say once the car is on its way to the airport.
                “I would have hoped that your mother filled you in on the details of where you’ll be living,” my grandfather says almost irritably as he looks over some paperwork his assistant pulls out of her briefcase for him.
                “She didn’t tell me anything,” I say at once. “She just told me to get out.”
                My lips tremble as I fight hard to keep the tears back.  I never felt so unwanted before in my entire life.  I thought it was just words to my mom.  I thought she was bluffing my entire life, but the fact that she sends me off to live with a grandfather who is practically a stranger to me, shows me she never even gave a shit.  I was just a burden to her.
                “Have you ever heard of New York City?”

A Story Idea

Introduction

Genetically modified organisms is what got this whole damn world in the mess it's in right now. Since the beginning of GMO, human resources have resulted into food options that eventualy limited their mobility, raised obesity, and even increased the rate of depression among human beings. Once everyone began to realize that this food was causing so many health issues, it became clear that they had to stop eating processes foods all together and start growing their own. A majority of humans converted to being strict vegetarians and grew their own gardens. Others, unfortunately, developed a different taste for protein and began eating each other, rather than hunt for animals. They figure the best way to prevent food corporations from gaining profit was to start an organization that allowed cannibalism.

It was a combination of PETA meets Chainsaw massacre, only they didn't violently attack innocent people with chainsaws—not at first. What they did was dissect the people who died of heart disease, diabetes, and what-not, cut away their fat that they fed to their dogs, and eat the rest. What people didn't understand was the the GMO food that was already digested from their new-found resources, was that it continues to mutate if consumed a second time. This started a chain of problems.

Once the mutation started, people could no longer wait for the others to die. It all started with nibbling on their fingers, and eventually their necks. Eventually their bites became deadly and began a stream of zombie-like apacolypse for the human race. The only difference is, no one is undead, they just have a hunger for people living and breathing. And the only people living and breathing who aren't affected by the GMO foods are the vegetarians.

I'm one of the lucky few who haven't been affected, nor will I ever. I'm a hunter—a survivalist. I live off the land and I refuse to buy from the grocery store. And because I have the ability to hunt and gather, I've become stronger, faster, I have developed more endurance than any person who buys their food, and my attention span is better. Since the cannibals began eating all the vegetarians, there has been more vegetation for herbivores to eat which leaves more herbivores for carnivorous creatures to eat. The animal population has, in fact, tripled since the beginning of this apocolypse, and what the humans fail to realize is that the more they eat one another, the less of them there will be, which will eventually lead the animal kingdom to completely take over.

Since the apocalypse began, I've uprooted myself and my son from the rural farmlands of Puyallup and into the foothills of the Cascades. We have built a cabin near a creek that provides us with enough water, surrounded by berry bushes, and enough deer and raccoons we can catch and eat. We've managed to live here for the last seven years without much trouble. We have had our run-ins with both the vegetarians and the cannibals. Neither had the human capacity to negotiate. The vegetarians are in the mindset of surviving, while the cannibals are in the mindset of eating. And because they're both still quite human (they simply lack the human capacity to connect with their emotions) killing them would be murder. Because surviving is what I'm an expert at doing, my goal isn't to survive. My goal is to live.