2 Short Stories: Darrell, and Mr. Jackson

These are two short stories I've written recently, so I'm posting them here so you can read and enjoy. If you want to, you can review them. I know that by posting here people can steal my work, but I would ask you not to do so.

Darrell (600 words)
This was written as a part of an English competition within my school. Out of about 50 people I came third. The theme of the contest was success. See if you can spot my message/moral.

Spoiler

Darrell was a man of an unusual profession. He didn’t own a house, didn’t have social security and, as far as the world was concerned, he didn’t exist. He moved from place to place, and if he saw something, he acquired it. Put simply, he was a thief.

The thief crossed into the sleepy mining town of Vaname and he sauntered out of the dilapidated bus onto the dusty curb. Head swivelling, he spotted his first ‘purchase.’ An ancient wreck idled in a driveway, with a door hanging open, welcoming him in. Motoring along in the evening with the engine coughing along to the rhythms of Led Zeppelin, he watched for a promising venue for his skills.

Stopping by a brightly coloured bungalow, at contrast to the dull houses next door, he dropped the keys on the passenger’s seat, for he had no more need for the car, so he passed it on for free. Striding up the garden path he grasped the knob and gave a firm tug on the door. It stayed shut, as if obstinately denying him access. Taking from a pocket of his white chinos he withdrew a series of shiny picks, which he inserted into the lock, opening it in a matter of seconds.

Reaching for the knob, he was startled when he saw it begin to turn from the inside. Seeing what was on the other side of the door, his eyes widened in surprise. A deformed caricature of a child stood on the other side of the threshold, smiling at him with two heads, looking at him with two pairs of eyes.

Registering all this, he realized it was a Siamese twin. As the child clutched a small teddy bear the two mouths spoke in unison, “Hello mister, what’s your name?”
“Uh, I’m Darrell. Is anyone home?” Darrell was still reeling from his surprise and found it even harder than usual to maintain a conversation. Other people bored him, and his lifestyle didn’t encourage friendship. The child walked back inside beckoning him in, with one head looking away, the other talking to him, “Come inside, Mum just went to get something from the shops.”

As he walked inside he saw a compass inlaid with gold filigree. Hands like lightning he palmed it into his pocket with the grace and skill of a magician. This child was extremely trusting, no doubt thinking him a friend of their mother. “My name’s Debbie,” one of them said,
“And I’m Rebecca,” the other girl said, “What do you work as, mister?”
“I don’t really work, I travel around America,” Darrell responded guardedly, purloining another valuable, this time a watch.
“What a terrible life,” Rebecca seemed to be more loudspoken than Debbie, “Mummy always says that you can’t have a happy life if you don’t aim for something.”
Stung, Darrell turned away, momentarily forgetting the next object of his desire. He rejected what the children were saying to him, rejected it as he had all his life.

“Mummy isn’t rich but she still has fun. She says it’s because she has something to concentrate her energies on, something to aim for,” Darrell paused with hand in pocket, clutching an ornament as he took in those words. How was it that children could be so wise, he did not know. That moment he felt the world shift under him, a shift that wouldn’t be easy. He would stop running away from the world and its demands, and he would aim for the stars.

As he left the bungalow for a new life, he replaced all of his acquisitions. Except the compass. He still needed some guidance.

Mr. Jackson (600 words)
I wrote this spontaneously, in the middle of a boring geography class. I had no idea what was going to happen in it, until about halfway through.

Spoiler

On a hot winters day, which one may think is quite out of the ordinary, lay a bespectacled elderly man who was reclining beneath the shade of an umbrella. Before him stood proudly a spacious mansion built with one aim in mind: to impress.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Mr. Jackson wondered the reasoning behind the fool who had decided to knock the Earth’s axis out half a century ago in the mid 21st century thus causing a drastic imbalance in the Earth. At least, he thought, he was not on the cold half.

Checking the time on his worn and carefully maintained fob watch, he stood and packed his reclining seat and umbrella and held them primly beneath his sinewy arm. He stepped out into the street where hovercars skimmed along, only a few feet above his head. One departed from the speeding crowd, turned in and parked right where Mr. Jackson had been relaxing only moments before.

Stepping in time to a solemn funeral beat echoing through the corridors of his mind, he made his way down the street to his own home, which was modest and unassuming, but nonetheless holding within its walls a quietly powerful presence. It was forever encapsulated in shade, a combination of an sun fixed in place and a superskyscraper next door.

Again treading to his curious beat he headed towards a populous sector of the city, with the sky’s eye beating down upon him, condemning him. As he passed by harried businessmen and women they shied away from him, and some even went so far as to cross to the other side of the street. Children whispered frantically as he passed them and looked in awe. Mr. Jackson displayed no reaction; he had long since accepted this treatment over many dreary years.

Being deaf in one ear, the murmured curses against his name did not register. But this too, had long since ceased to bother him. Others demons were not his concern, he had demons of his own that plagued him.

Having reached his destination, a coffee shop in the old style wedged between two superscrapers, he stepped over its threshold and into the room that was lit up by the jovial bear of a man that was the proprietor. He was at sharp contrast to thin, wiry Mr. Jackson with a huge belly and an even huger smile.

“Billy, how’re you going?” he bellowed, hands rubbing together.
Stiffly, and yet warmly, Mr. Jackson replied, “Quite fine, I should think. And for the hundredth time, it’s William.”
“Whatever, Bill. The usual?”
William nodded his acquiescence, and took his usual seat by the newspaper rack. The other customers scattered about the sombre room began to hurry, evidently wishing to leave the presence of Mr. Jackson.

“Here you are, Billy. Hey it’s your birthday today, right?”
“Yes, it is. Thank you Mr. Palmer,”
“It’s Johnny to you,” Johnny said with an expansive gesture. Taking a few moments to cool himself down with his ice tea, he scanned the newspaper headlines.

“World-Destroyer celebrates!”

He read the article, smiling sadly at one man’s foolishness. The funeral beat grew ever more stringent as he read how the World-Destroyer inadvertently killed his beloved wife in a misguided attempt to save the world.

William Jackson saw his late wife being lowered into the earth she had loved and knew his burden was the worst of all: Regret. As her funeral beat ended for the last time so did the heartbeat of William Jackson, the man who destroyed the world.