➊ Bystander: A Short Story
I had two beautiful children in Bystander: A Short Story process. They were coated in this beautiful golden color that would shine so nicely even under the office lights. The We-Haul truck is creeping out of the driveway. Show More. I considered Bystander: A Short Story what I started Gender Inequality In Law Enforcement Essay morning. Rutkowski, G. After apologizing to the reporter talking to him, of course.
Alfred \u0026 Shadow - A short story about emotions (education psychology health animation)
We walk in silence. The only thing you hear is Bruno's nails against the concrete. Step by step, we creep closer to the Bystanders house. The trees thin up, and the house starts to appear. First, the opening of the driveway. Then, the moving truck? Anya looks up at me at the same time I look up at her. We slow our pace and Bruno looks up for direction. I tap my leg, and she comes a little closer. I watch the movers take each item out. They are cleaner than when they were put in the house.
It reeks of cat litter. The curtains are also wide open. A first since they moved in. We keep walking, and the house slowly goes out of sight. The trees start to thicken, and I relax a little. The moving truck passes us. Bruno sticks her nose in the air and draws in a deep breath. She exhales and starts barking. I shush her and continue on. A few minutes later, the Bystanders' car passes. You must sign up or log in to submit a comment. An interesting neighborhood! I am only just catching up with critiques, and emails from a few weeks ago.
Enough open questions at the end to wonder what might have happened. I liked the little dog. Over 1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy, come meet them. Kaya Atkins. Kaya Atkins 6 submissions. Show 0 replies. Find the perfect editor for your next book Over 1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy, come meet them. Join today. They always make suicide seem like this big decision you reach after many pivotal moments of your life go to hell. Honestly, for me, life just stopped having a point.
Those winged monsters destroyed all of our life savings in ten minutes, and all I could do was hide under a table. Every day, I would have to go to the same dead end job and smile at the sleazy old man who was sleeping with the love of my life. What would anger me the most were his pretty golf clubs. They were coated in this beautiful golden color that would shine so nicely even under the office lights.
I would always see them walk by like pretty ladies, neatly placed in the red leather golf bag. That dumb bird apparently flew out of the window one day, when Paola was too busy texting my boss about what color her underwear was, and got devoured by some hungry hawk that lived in the area. It inspired me. I even had a romantic little plan and everything. I would go to my office and write a post-it note in which I blamed Paola and my boss for all my problems, making sure to exaggerate the sad parts. Hopefully, if luck was smiling at me, they would both be left with mental scars that no amount of money could fix. After that, I would go to the last floor, look at that ugly city for the last time and jump to my death.
If I was extremely lucky, maybe a giant hawk would devour me too. I still can remember the sickening morning air so well that I could vomit if I focused too much on the memory. Not even the view from the highest story was worth talking about. There was a bigger, taller building that covered the entirety of the view to the city. A long, white wall that I knew so well, as it was all I would see through my office window. Back where I worked, if you got the windows that were covered by the bothersome colossus, you were a second class loser, while if your window pointed to the city, you were worth the time talking to. Anyhow, I digress. This is where it gets good.
Right when my feet were at the edge, there was a huge explosion in front of me, and the white colossus started collapsing. I heard a hellish screech ascending, and then I saw huge, dark wings that I immediately recognized as the ones that had destroyed my home a year ago. The only thought that crossed my mind is that maybe I did hit jackpot. Maybe I would be devoured just like my canary did. However, before I could jump to its beak, someone else showed up. There he was, the man that I would never be: Bewilderman.
He was standing on what was left of the colossus, with his dignified, orange cape flying behind him like a trail of fire. My heart was suddenly filled with hope and excitement. I remember smiling so widely that my face hurt. He was so marvellous that it felt like some force was hypnotizing me to bow down in adoration. It happened so fast, and it made me feel so foolish. It was also strong enough to hit the building I was standing in, and before I could even say my last words, the floor underneath me started crumbling.
Ah, yes, this is where I die. Ever wondered what happens when you kick it? All I saw were blurry lights of the city, dust and debris, as well as some other falling people, all of them chaperoning me into my death, with a ballad of screams and police sirens. After that, it was all black for a while, and excruciating pain all over my body. It felt like eternity. After what felt like centuries, the pain stopped. It felt like the end of a sentence, if that makes sense. I shot my eyes open, and sat up without feeling any sort of pain.
No broken bones or even wounds on my skin. The sky was grey, and what once used to be a street full of endless buildings was now reduced to a grey hellscape of glass, concrete and cables. Dust flew around. Opposite his factory was Rana Plaza , an eight-story commercial structure that housed shops, offices, a bank, and, unfortunately, another garment factory at the top of the building.
Reuters Satan's Jenga, if you will. We say "unfortunately" because it was later revealed that Rana Plaza was never meant to hold heavy manufacturing equipment, certainly not on the top four floors, which were built without permits. It was like putting a factory on top of a tree house, except tree houses have the benefit of a strong root system. Rana Plaza had so many cracks that inspectors wanted the building shut down. The owners of the factory said "No thanks" and told workers they'd lose their jobs if they didn't come to work. So far, so awful, right? It gets worse. Rana Plaza collapsed on April 24, According to Hossain, the building went from eight stories to three, with thousands of people trapped inside.
Like everyone else on this list, Hossain wasn't content to hang out in the safety of his not-collapsed building while others were suffering. So even though the security guard tried to keep him and the other workers in the building, Hossain pushed him aside to get to life saving. AFP We repeat: He was fighting to get into this "building. He had no idea he was walking into the most horrific building disaster since the World Trade Center bombings. By the time the "rescue" effort was over, the death toll was over 1, people, some of them already dead when Hossain started helping out. So picture smoke, dust, screaming, mangled metal, and corpses everywhere, and then try to imagine yourself not backing out and walking away from what we should presume hell will be like.
Hossain went forward, even though rescuing the ones who were still alive meant getting them out from between stacks of building stories. Hossain pulled survivors out, one after another. On Day 2 of his efforts, he found a little girl with a trapped hand. For five whole hours he stayed with her, trying to get her out. Finally, they both admitted the only way to free her from the rubble was to cut off her hand. Still with us? Hossain left the building to get help, obviously. But the one doctor he found in the crowd outside wasn't interested in walking into a death trap, so he handed Hossain a knife and some anesthetic and said "Good luck! David Bergman "Thanks. How easy would it have been to just pretend like that conversation never happened? Or to dig deeper into the crowd for another few hours in the hopes that anybody else would step forward?
Hossain didn't give himself the option. He went back to the girl and did emergency surgery while they both screamed and cried at the same time. Then he tied off her wound and got her out. This is her:. Showvik Das "My phantom limb is giving the bird to everyone involved with that building. AFP Oh, and he rescued a mother and the child she gave birth to while she was trapped. Later, after all this horrible shit, Hossain would visit the girl in the hospital. And the first thing he did was apologize for not being able to save her hand.
Then we assume the heavens opened up and Hossain ascended to join the ranks of angels, or at least ask them where the hell they were that day. Paul K Pickett can be contacted at paulkpickett hotmail. Related Reading: Looking for more nobodies who came through in the clutch? Click here to read about the random kid who filled in for Keith Moon when he passed out during a Who concert. Next, read about the window cleaner who stops suicides as a side job. And if you're more interested in the unknown heroes who save your life each day, this article will acquaint you with Norman Borlaug, the man whose disease-resistant crops have saved more than a billion people. Sign up for the One Cracked Fact newsletter to get even more craziness from our weird world sent to your inbox every day!
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I pace a few slow steps until I reach the door. It gets worse. Read More. Of course not, which was why Eldridge Bystander: A Short Story to reach through the car window, unlock the door, Bystander: A Short Story wrestle the old lady out of Bystander: A Short Story car.