Flushed- BSed short story

Everyone in the boys bathroom at Achewood High School heard the rubber on wet floor sound as some poor fool fell victim to the unnaturally slippery floors that resulted as an after math of chronically overflowing toilets. It was the sound that brought joy to the hearts of teenagers everywhere. The sound was the beautiful sound of someone else’s embarrassing situation. Jerald was in a hurry to lock the stall third from the entrance, the only one vacant, when his foot went out from under him. Jerald caught hold of the flimsy wooden walls of the stall only to slip again and he plummeted face forwards into the toilet. His head hit the back of the seat before dropping into the murky waters of the third stall toilet. Unconscious, Jerald's chest rests on the rim of the toilet, and his face is fully submerged. This is what you call a very interesting lesson in paying attentions to signs that read "Caution: Floor Slippery". They say that your brain goes hyperactive when you are about to die. Jerald never paid attention in any class that this could have possibly come up in. He was an artist, and he had a book bag filled with doodles that were becoming ruined from the puddle on the floor. If he knew this was going on it would probably crush him, but he had other things to worry about right now. We can get back to his empending death later because Jerald's life is flashing before his eyes, and he is just realizing that he has an audience.
Ummm…hi. Do I really have to relive my entire life? Would it be that interesting? I mean you've probably figured out the ending by now, and I hear stories aren't so great when the ending is spoiled. What the hell? Let's not start with the beginning. I don’t have much time.
Jerald wasn't born. He has a mom and a dad, but his mom opted for a c-section when the nurse on duty told her that the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. What the mom, dad, and even poor Jerald never found out was that the umbilical cord was just fine. Nurses need to deliver a certain number of babies through c-section before they can become doctors. The good news is that Francine who was present at Jerald's c-section is now a certified doctor. The bad news is that Jerald's mom is fond of showing off her scar when ever she felt like laying a guilt trip, or embarrassing Jerald. This was one of the situations that would be considering embarrassing. Jerald is six and this is his second memory. This was a play date with young Samantha Jennings.
At this point in the date things were going smoothly. You see Jerald was a smooth operator when it came to play dates, and new the way to a girl's toy collection. The two are playing with a set of Legos, but not the good kind that you can build detailed things with. It was one of those crappy sets that your parents give you when they still think you still might shove one into your mouth and end it all right then and there. You could still commit suicide with a crappy set of legos, but you would have to be both determined and inventive. Jerald was inventive, but he has never heard of suicide before. He is building a castle that even looked like it was a castle though one made out of brightly colored plastic.
"What are you building," says Jerald
"It's a unicorn," she says
"It looks like pile of plastic blocks"
"Sometimes a pile of blocks is more dummy!"
Jerald's mom walks into the room carrying a platter with sandwiches and lays them down between the two growing block structures. The sandwiches are cut diagonally with motherly care. Smiling at the two children’s creative process with the crappy Legos she heads back into the living room to watch her soaps.
“Do you want to have sex?” Samantha said putting down the large yellow Lego that she hadn’t found a place for down beside her.
“What’s that?”
“It’s when people turn up music loud and close a door. Oh, and they kiss a lot.”
“That sounds stupid,”
“I saw it on TV,”
“Mom doesn’t want us closing the door and we don’t have any music to play,”
“We can still kiss,”
“Ewww!”
And, that’s when I learned the importance of doing whatever a girl says or you might have a plastic unicorn lobbed at your head.
Was that all that you learned?
I learned about love. The lesson was in the Legos.
Jerald’s mom believes in saving money by patching up Jerald’s clothes that rip and tear. Which in it’s self is a wonderful trait for a home keeper to have. Unfortunately for Jerald his mom was not a world renowned seamstress. One of the few after school activities that Jerald enjoyed during freshman year was band. He was naturally talented. The thing Jerald doesn’t have is the work ethic to practice until he had something done perfectly. The school band didn’t have an official place to rehearse, but they shared the theatre with the drama club. Unfortunately for all involved the drama club was made up with lazy miscreants who couldn’t be trusted.
“Alright let’s see if any of you actually studied over the weekend,” the high school band director glowers over the various students holding various instruments. “Jerald get up there and do your solo”
Sometimes a plan comes together so well that it seems like second nature. Sometimes an embarrassing situation can fall in place like a brick smashing through a store shop window. The drama club had put on a one act play for their own amusement over the weekend and had left the trap door closed, but not locked into place. The combined elements of a short fall holding a trumpet and poorly mended blue jeans resulted in much ripped jeans for Jerald. These circumstances might have affected his behavior at lunch later that day.
“You want a cigarette man?” asked one of the drama club members that Jerald never learned the name of.
“Yeah, sure why not?” Jerald went outside and took his first smoke of marijuana.
You may have already figured out why Jerald wasn’t in his right mind when he found his way to the third stall in the boy’s bathroom, but I would assume drug use may have been involved.
Ok, let’s move a little forward. I didn’t think I had much time to tell you my story I don’t know why I wasted time showing such an embarrassingly stupid move.
Because this is where the story stops.
Is this the end of the road?
Not quite.
Who are you?
That doesn’t matter. You still have that door to go through.
Door? Oh, that. I hadn’t noticed it.
Few people realize they still have one last chance once it’s all over.
And, I am one of these few people?
No. I pointed it out to you.
Oh.
Jerald walks towards the shining door, and hesitates for a moment before turning the knob. On the other side is nothing but black void of cold nothingness. Jerald shivers and closes the door. He falls to his knees and begins to cry bitter tears.
I don’t want to go through there. It’ll be dark. I’ll be all alone. I don’t want to be alone again.
No one wants to be alone. The darkness is only a reflection of your fear. Be bold.
Jerald finds himself in the darkness, and he can feel nothing all around him. Fear takes him and the dark begins to eat away at his awkwardly spinning soul. Completely lost he begins to cry again, and he feels something caress his wet face. A brief moment of hope, and the darkness begins to fade. He feels Samantha’s lips on his own and then her playfully pushing on his stomach. Not so playfully really. She was hitting his chest pretty damn hard and it was beginning to smart. His eyes snapped open and he saw the middle aged janitor named Bob bending over towards him. His lips mere inches from Jerald’s. A loud cough from the frightened Jerald brings the janitor up suddenly.
“Forty years,” he says.
“Huh?”
“I’ve been working here forty years and this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,”
“You should get cable,” Jerald says as he sat up in the puddle of toilet overflow.
The janitor helped him to his feet and walked him to the nurse’s office. A moment of regret catches him by the stomach, and Jerald wishes for a second that he had drowned.
At least they would remember me if I died face down in a toilet in the boys bathroom. People tend to talk when you die under such unusual circumstances.
The moment passes, and Jerald smiles for the first time in a long time.
Be bold.