The following re-telling of a fairy-tale-story was inspired by ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ – it comes in two parts.
Enjoy!
RED CAP PREVENTION
Another catastrophe – Samuel stared at the newspaper in his hand. He shuddered. The front page exclaimed in black, bold letters, “Huge meteorite explosion resulting in ‘meteorite rain’ in Siberia, Russia”. Without noticing it he touched his head and the scar hidden under his scrubby hair.
Samuel took a deep breath and looked up. His eyes darted over to his old, red cap hanging on the opposite wall. The article about the meteorite explosion in Russia catapulted him back to his own experience years ago in Redhoodsville, Wyoming. It had happened exactly on the same day, just twenty-one years earlier.
He shook his head to wrestle himself out of the rigor but a sudden rush of memories flashed back on him, making everything feel real again. He could smell the sizzling potato plants, hear the sirens, feel the burns on his skin, and the cold hand of fear. The guilt that had grabbed his little heart.
On February 15, 1992, around noon, Samuel cut across the open field instead of using the road. He trampled through the potatoes not caring if he destroyed the plants.
“Why me?” he complained, storming forward with his fists balled. As if I had nothing better to do! She could have gone herself.
He was working on his LEGO job when his mother called him downstairs. He still had to finish this complicated ‘Droid Gunship’ and ‘Jabba’s Sail Barge’, which consisted of 850 pieces. The models were targeted for older kids, but Samuel was proud that this was no obstacle for him.
Not listening to his complaints that he was in the middle of something important, his mother insisted that he would take lunch to his grandmother.
Granny has nothing else to do. She could have waited. He stomped extra hard with his right foot.
“I’ve lived my life, and it was a good life,” Granny just said the other day. This was not his opinion, but when he stated this to his mother, boy, did she get mad! On top of the rude disruption of his work, she forbade him to take his bike. Now, it would take him even longer as usual to get to his Grandma’s.
“This way you can cool down on your way over to Granny and think about your behavior,” his mother said.
And to make it worse, she gave him a ridiculous basket to carry the lunch.
“I’m not Little Red Riding Hood,” he yelled at his mother.
The look his mother darted him, made him flinch, grab the basket and take off. He even forgot to take his red cap.
“No dawdling on the way, go straight to Grandma’s,” his mom said before the door snapped shut.
Engrossed in his anger, Samuel didn’t notice when the black birds stopped singing their happy songs. He didn’t smell the fresh cut grass at the border of the field or the brown and fertile soil under his feet. And he didn’t notice the blue of the sky above him. Any other day, he would have been happy to be outside. He would hop along the street’s edge and skip from one of the huge stones laying there to another, pretending to be on a desert island and fighting his way to survival.
Not so today. A big, black ball of wool in the middle of his little stomach chafed at his 8-year old soul. Wasn’t his mother supposed to love him and want him to be happy? Wasn’t that what she was telling him over and over again every evening before she kissed him good night? He clomped forward.
She’s so mean. She doesn’t love me, doesn’t care about the things that are important to me. He kicked the plant next to him, dark soil flew around.
“I hate you!” He kicked another one, jumped with both feet on it. Granny’s lunch in the basket jumped with him. He didn’t care.
Somewhere deep inside, he knew it wasn’t right to carry out his anger on the field, but right now, he didn’t know any other way to handle it. And for a moment, it felt good to kill something.
Absorbed in his dark feelings, he thought the wrath of God struck him when the first rock hit his scrubby hair and made a sizzling noise. He raised one hand to cover his head. Then another smoking stone stroke him. This time, it burned his right arm. He heard the deafening noise of an explosion, followed by horrible growls behind him that sounded like a pack of wolves trying to get him. A shock wave went through his little body and caused him to cough. More burning and stinking stones rained down. What was that? He dared to glance up and behind. A long streak of white angry clouds divided the blue sky and a bright flash was coming directly towards him. Another ear-splitting explosion shook the earth and the flash burst into all directions in front of his eyes. The clouds turned black. Samuel stumbled ahead. A hazy darkness swallowed him.
Now, would God really go that far and kill a whole potato field because of his behavior? Was this the punishment for acting out on the plants? For his anger?
His little heart hammered against his breast and his breath came in gasps. No, that had to be something else. Then it dawned on him. This had to be the meteor this scientist had talked about on the radio the other day. He predicted that it would soon enter the atmosphere.
Of course, … the meteorite exploded and boom … it rained down in little tiny meteorite pieces. Within a split second, Samuel was in flight response.
Turning his head left and right while running, he noticed that it rained down only on portion of the field. He made a 90 degree turn, pressed the basket with Granny’s lunch with both hands to his thin breast and raced off. He ran through the field to escape the reeking hail and the darkness.
Coughing and puffing, he came to a halt when he noticed no more stones were raining down on him. He dropped the lunch basket on the ground and bent over, his hands on his knees, panting. Pain pulsed through his head, the right arm and the back of the left calf. The throbbing ache sent tears to his eyes he couldn’t keep inside. Staring through his tears to the ground, he noticed that the basket was smoking. He gasped. Granny’s lunch had transformed in a big sizzling mess. A black rock laid in the middle of what had been delicious macaroni and cheese. Samuel wiped his tears away to take a closer look. The stone had the shape of a wolf’s head, and the two blazing holes looked like fierce, red eyes staring at him, threatening him. Samuel shuddered.
Granny’s lunch was gone. He sniffed.
Straightening himself, Samuel looked up. His eyes grew big as he gaped at the path of destruction. His face turned white. The path led in the direction of Granny’s house. The potato plants still sizzled and smoked, all else was silent.
His jaw dropped open as he turned around himself and looked at the whole field. Was this a bad dream? Or really some kind of punishment? Maybe, if he hadn’t been that angry it would have hit another spot?
“This can’t be,” he told himself shaking his head frantically. I had nothing to do with this! … Or, had I? Was it all my fault? What if Granny’s house was hit because of me? What if she was … dead? Samuel bit his lip.
He would never be able to bring her lunch again, listen to her stories, hold her old, wrinkled hand, and eat her delicious, homemade cookies. Why had he even been so angry about bringing her lunch? A heavy pile of guilt built up inside his heart. He shook his head and new tears pooled in his eyes. If something had happened to Granny he could never forgive himself.
Part 2 is coming soon …