THE SUBURBS

by Eric Lopez and Rogelio Cortes

The suburbs are a lot quieter than my neighborhood, the dark figure thought.

He snuck out of his bed and managed to find his way into a random, nearby neighborhood. He loved how calm everything seemed. The sky was completely dark; however, it was light enough, he could see perfectly.

He tried not to keep himself restricted to any specific parts of this new environment. He climbed fences to go into yards, but tried to be as quiet as possible so as to not wake up the people in the houses. He roamed the sidewalks, main roads, alleys, park walkways, playgrounds, and puddles.

He wanted to appreciate it all. He loved how the trees moved with quiet restlessness. He loved how clean everything was. He loved how perfect all the houses looked. Most of all, he loved the feeling of carelessness and peace that was exerted by everything he saw.

It all seemed so unreachable, until now. He always watched the suburbs from afar with an admiration and longing for what he couldn’t have. He found it hard to believe that he had barely took the time to come and appreciate it up close.

Something started bothering him. He began to cry. Then, he began to run.

Run.

Run as fast as he could.

“Why me? Not now! Give me more time!”

He felt his body getting heavier and his lungs getting smaller, but he kept running. He wanted to take everything in.

“Please…no…”

His run became a slow trudge. A cold sweat ran down his back. Everything was getting darker.

“No…”

Blackness. He fell to the ground with a hard thud. His time to appreciate was up.

“Hello good morning and welcome to the Channel 7 news. My name is Rita Tamasaki and our top story today is about a poor, young boy…”

The television flashed to a pale boy being carried away on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face.

“A 12-year-old boy named Henry Rivers was found collapsed today in the morning by Steve Oakson and his wife in front of their home in Plainfield, Illinois. Henry escaped from a nearby hospital through a window in his room. Henry was there receiving treatment for brain cancer.”

A picture of the same boy, but younger, is flashed on the screen.

“Henry left a note on his bed saying:

I don’t have much time left.
I’m going to enjoy it.
People don’t appreciate the small things.

Doctors say that the first line refers to information the doctors told the boy’s parents.”

Dr. Peter Willington appears on the screen, “It was official that he only had 2 days to live. We told his parents and he must have overheard.”

“Reports confirm that Henry Rivers is now dead at the young age of only 12…”