• THE SHINY BLADE


    Miri grasped the shirts next to her in her father’s closet and let her tears soak them. She was miserable. And a pure devil, at the same time too. She lived with one older brother named Ace, and two younger siblings, Sarah and Josh. Ace and Sarah were like partners. They stuck together.
    Miri was a very lucky girl. She had very generous grandparents, and very smart, caring and hardworking parents. She was a beautiful 10-year old girl. However, she was just a fancy lady outside, but on the inside, she was a nightmare.
    She’d bully her siblings, even her older brother. She’d blackmail Ace, and of course, he had to obey her. They did stuff for her, and most of all, she hurt them. But only because she was afraid to realize she was just a selfish bully.
    One day in early June, the cherry blossoms at her school started to bloom. But unfortunately, she was allergic to them. Her nose started to get runny and her nose grew red and soon, she needed tissues everywhere. She started to get cranky after 4 days of this, so she got mad. On a Thursday afternoon, she came home and collapsed on the couch. She waited until her mother fell asleep in her bedroom, and then Miri opened her backpack and pulled out her math notebook. She was so vain of herself that she was so neat; she decided to brag to her sister.
    She opened to the first page and called her sister. She began to show Sarah her work, and at the end, Miri asked, “What was most common about those pages?” Sarah thought for a moment.
    “They all have numbers in it.” She finally said. Miri stared at her. Numbers? Who cared about that? She rolled her eyes.
    “No! Look!” she pointed to her organized handwriting. Sarah had no clue what Miri wanted her to see. Miri narrowed her eyes.
    “Never mind, you dummy,” she hissed, and walked away. She could hear Sarah’s stupid habit of answering back and said; “I just didn’t know . . .” Miri whirled around.
    “Could you just shut up?!” Of course, Sarah had to do something. Miri knew it was coming. She spun around and caught Sarah squeezing her lips together. Miri clenched her teeth and walked up to her.
    “Do something else and I’ll kill you.” She growled. “Fix your brain sometime!” Miri started to walk away when she heard Sarah making a clicking sound. She again caught her, this time seeing her pretend to twist a key into her brain, “fixing it”.
    That went over the line. She again went up to Sarah, but this time, she threw a book at her face. Sarah wailed with pain. Ace, who was stomping up the stairs, yelled, but not too loud, “What did you do, Miri?”
    She ignored him. “Shut up, Sarah, or we’ll all be in trouble.”
    Ace stepped up towards me. “What did you do, Miri?” She narrowed her eyes.
    “What does it matter?” she threw back. Ace picked up the book Miri threw.
    “Do you know how much you’ve bullied us?” He stepped towards her. “Do you know how much you’ve torn up this family?” He squeezed Miri’s arm and slapped her with the book. “Do you?” He slapped her again. He pushed her against the floor. He slapped her and dug his nails into her arm. Finally, he let go, and he said, “Stop now, while I’m still here.” She stood up, tears, anger and embarrassment shown on her face.
    “I’m telling mom,” she threatened, and ran to her mom’s bedroom. She slowly opened the door. Then, instead of telling, she knelt down in her father’s closet and continued crying. She wanted to kill herself. She had only one idea of how she could make it up to her brother and sister: Kill herself. She got up, wiped off her tears, and hurried off to the kitchen and stared at a spotless, shiny blade on the counter in front of her. Her eye twitched.



    Ace hit the wall. I hate my sister! She is so mean, such a bully, such a #@$%*! He spat in his mind. Then he remembered: his mother told him to make her tea. So Ace gathered himself and traveled through the family room to the kitchen, upstairs.
    When he got up to the first level, he didn’t see Miri anywhere. “Good riddance,” he whispered to himself. He walked up to the kitchen and suddenly felt breathless. There, on the floor, was his younger sister, drenched with blood, a bloody knife in her hand.
    Ace stared. It was his entire fault. I . . . I was this cause. I . . . I was the reason why she committed suicide. Me.



    Miri watched her brother weep beside her dead body, silver tears also slipping down her cheeks. But then, she stood up and brushed herself down. She scanned the place where lots of people were together. I shouldn’t be with them, yet . . . I shouldn’t be with my family. She thought. Then, she started to walk, and walk and walk, ready to discover the wonders of Heaven.