Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Writing Prompt #13

It was a warm summer Friday night, so my buddy Hector and I decided to break into the local pool and go swimming. Its not the first time we did it so it wasn't really a big deal. We were showing off our diving skills and splashing around having fun. We both jumped in making a giant splash and when we surfaced we both had water in our eyes so we couldn't see clearly but we both noticed something big floating in the other end of the pool. We waded over to see what it was, once we got the water out of our eyes we noticed that it was a body! We both yelled and made a frantic dash out of the pool. Once we were on the edge we looked at the body again and that's when I knew who the person was. It was Johnny Smith. He played on my summer baseball team, he was one of the quiet kids but he was very talented when it came to playing baseball. I jumped back in. Hector shouted at me,"what are you doing! Leave it alone, lets call the police!" I went over to the body and grabbed it. I have heard dead bodies were cold but I never knew how cold they actually were. It felt like he was in a Minnesota blizzard with just shorts on. I was shocked by how cold it was that I couldn't even hear Hector yelling at me. "Derek! Leave the body alone lets get out of here!" Hector was so scared he was shaking uncontrollably. I shouted to him "Hector, help me get him out of here!" He got wide eyed and said " are you crazy? Let the police deal with it, please lets just leave him be." "Do you even know who this is?!" I yelled "Its Johnny!! so get your a** in here and help me get him out!" That got his attention so he jumped in and we carried him to the edge of the pool. "Hector, run to the gas station on the corner and call the police, I will stay here until they get here." I said to him. He didn't object to that because he was almost out of the door before I finished the sentence. I sat there holding Johnny in my lap, I didn't know what else to do. It felt like it was the right thing to do. I noticed a giant gash on the top of his head. Hector came back ten minutes later with the police right behind him. The police and EMT's took the body from me as I sat in shock just staring at Johnny. He was a good kid. He always had the top grades in school, he would help kids who were physically disabled at the YMCA every Saturday. "How could this happen to such a good kid?" I asked myself. The police took us aside and questioned us about what happened. We told them what happened and they called our parents to pick us up. The next day a couple of police officers came to my house and told me what happened to Johnny. It turns out Johnny dived into the pool at a somewhat shallower side of the pool and hit his head on the bottom. He was knocked unconscious and drowned a couple of hours before me and Hector broke into the pool.I went by Johnny's house and told them that I was one of the boy's who found the body. They told me that they were glad I stayed with him while the police came. This experience changed my life. I have never seen so much grief in parents eyes and I never want to see it again. Finding Johnny in the pool made me change my ways. Everything that I do in my life from now on, it will all be in remembrance of Johnny and what he did to help make the world a better place.

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