Ik had al een tijdje zin om ne keer een kortverhaal te schrijven, en nu kwam het plots allemaal vrij vlot... maar in het Engels, om een of andere reden. U zal het mij moeten vergeven.
Timmy's Great Quest
Timmy tore up the piece of paper on which he had written his confession, and swallowed the pieces. He thought to himself "I shall take this to the grave with me, my heinous actions, my dark secrets, my... sin."
After that, he took his jungle knife out of his suitcase, tucked it underneath his belt, and decided it best to abandon the rest of his worldly posessions. He would have to go on by himself, facing the world alone, fighting for what he held true, even if it would kill him.
It was so that Timmy embarked on his great adventure, his quest for redemption. It was a very strange thing for him to do. You see, Timmy had never been an adventurer. He had always been a very demure youngperson, kept mostly to himself, and fled away to his own world that he found in his books, or even much better, his own imagination.
But then the day came that changed it all. One day, as he was playing in the yard, pretending to be the great Pirate King Yarblesnout fighting Smith the Royalist Scum, Timmy heard a rustling through the bushes. For a moment he paused and pondered, but as he realized there were no bushes on his pirate ship he had had no choice but to come out of his fantasy world and deal with the unexplained sound in the real world.
As Timmy went over to investigate, a vicious beast leapt out of the bushes, teeth bared, claws extracted, ready to kill. It jumped upon Timmy, who at that moment feared for his life had pleaded to all the deities he knew (which were precious few, as Timmy was 6 at the time) that the beast would spare him and attack someone else. And, as by wonder, the beast had obeyed his prayers. It had let Timmy go without so much as a scratch.
Of course, I don't have to tell you how relieved Timmy was by this. He had been saved from a horrendous death as, as Timmy remembered it, the Beast had at least 14 claws and two sets of jaws each featuring at least 95 teeth sharp as razorblades. But, by now you've gathered that Timmy had an overactive imagination, so we don't know how much to believe of that description.
The sad thing however, is that during his prayers Timmy never stopped to think what exactly would happen when the beast decided to go after someone else. And it was so that while Timmy was rejoicing in his conquest of death himself, he lived, heard and saw the following as if in slow-motion: the beast snuck out of the garden and into the house, he heard a scream, a reddish-brownish liquid he had last seen when he fell with his bike splotched all over the kitchen window, the beast snuck out of the house again licking the same liquid from its face, Timmy ran - still in slow-motion - toward the house, he saw his mother lying motionlessly on the kitchen floor, he wept, and he fainted.
When he woke up again, his neighbour was hugging him, his father was a huddled mass in the far corner of the room, and a white blanket covering something was to be seen in the kitchen. Timmy realized what it was, and what had happened, even though he did not want to. Young and inexperienced though he was, he was wise enough to realize that he did not want to think about what had happened, any more than he wanted the inevitable realization to sink in that it was all his fault. If he hadn't acted so selfishly, placed his own need in front of that of anyone else, the beast would perhaps have slain him, but his mother would still be alive.
This story was what changed his life, and which, weeks later, would ultimately lead him to embark on his solitary adventure to redemption. His first thought was to go out, find the beast, and slay it to avenge his mother. But then he realized that this would hardly bring his mother back, neither would it give him redemption. On the contrary, it would put another murder in his hands.
So for a very long time, Timmy mulled things over. He did his research (which, for a six-year old takes quite a while, if you remember how hard reading was for you when you were six), and ultimately found a story about a temple where a monkey lived. It was a buddy-monkey. (In the real story this was of course a buddhist monk, but if you knew the word buddhism when you were six you'll remember how hard you found it.) And the buddy-monkey had the power to help you undo one mistake in your life, and make the right decision. And this was precisely what Timmy felt he needed.
His mother had read this story to him before. Yet, she said that it was just that: a story. Nobody had the power to help you undo mistakes. Mistakes are something you live with, she used to say. But, Timmy thought, she had also always said that monsters and beasts only existed in stories, but there she was (well, technically, there she was no more), killed by a beast that wasn't supposed to exist.
And so he set out on his journey to the monkey, armed only with the precious jungle knife he had inherited from his uncle Stanley, who had explored the jungle of Brazil and married a Toïstor woman. It was not an easy journey he was about to undertake. And Timmy realized this, because suddenly, even though he really did not want to, he started to cry. He cried for the first time since his mother died.
Yet, just as his purpose hit him again and he was about to embark on his epic journey, teary-eyed or not, he heard an ominous, creeping sound, and saw a sudden flash of light. He knew that his time had come, and the final stance was near.
His mother opened the door and flicked on the light. "What are you doing honey? And why do you have that toy knife uncle Stan bought in that Brazilion toy store tucked under your belt? ... Timmy, sweety, have you been crying?"
And at that moment Timmy just had to let it all go. In one of those crying hiccoughs you're probably quite familiar with, he accidentally coughed up part of the paper on which he had written his confession. On this piece, his mother could read "sEllfIs", by which Timmy had of course originally meant "selfish". If you had tried to write selfish when you were six, well, it's just not an easy word.
His mother stared at the piece of paper for a second, and Timmy saw comprehension dawn on her face.
"Oh Timmy, are you still upset about that money you took from my wallet when you found it in the bushes two weeks ago? Oh honey, we discussed this, yes it was a bit greedy from you, but you won't let that little green-eyed monster well up inside you again, now will you? And well, the important thing is that you were very honest, and you gave everything back."
And she hugged him, and said "it's okay," padding him on the back and telling him to go play nicely outside.
It was as King Yarblesnout finally defeated Smith that Timmy realized his mother had in fact always been wrong about the buddy-monkey. It is possible, and he did exist. And he found the monkey in her that day.
