by Kevin Tiernan

Created on: July 04, 2009

GHOST IN THE GARDEN

I could just barely make out the garden gate from my bedroom window on the top floor of our Victorian home. My mother, my father and I had moved in just a week ago, which I was anything but happy about. I was a junior at John F. Kennedy High School, a decent sized school filled with all sorts of kids. You would get your run-of-the-mill jock types, your "artsy fartsy" kids, your gossip machines, then there was ME. I liked to think I was my own breed of high school student, a lone wolf. I knew a lot of people, but I wasn't the prom king, to say in the least. Just when I had gotten used to things around J.F.K. high prison, my parents dropped the bomb directly on my skull.

"Your father and I have been doing a lot of thinking, and we're going to move closer to his job", my mother said, my father's arm draped around her. They had brought me into the living room, and they were sitting on the sofa opposite me. Despite my cries that this would ruin my life, and shatter the universe as we know it, they persisted that this would be better for all of us. My ass.

When you live in a city all your life, it's a bit of a shock to your system to be plopped down in the middle of God-knows-where. I likened this place to be what hell was modeled after. No cell phone reception, no grocery stores for miles, no malls, no movie theaters. They should have just killed me when they had the chance. They kept assuring me that I just had to get used to things; I would find something to do eventually. My ass.

Our house was surrounded by trees as far as the eye could see. Every direction, all I could see was green, brown, and shades of gray. I entertained myself by exploring the backyard from my window. I made believe that the smoke monster from LOST was living in the woodshed, that Jack Bauer was camping out by the pinetrees, and Gregory House was limping across the lawn. Television had officially rotted my brain, I decided. Frustrated, I slumped down on my bed, banging my head against the brick walls of my room. I hadn't gotten around to hanging my posters yet, so the painted white brick was blinding. I had purchased a swiss army knife before I left, reasoning that I would need it to fight bears. My dad said it was a load of crap, but I wasn't taking any chances.

One evening, my parents went out to find the grocery store at least twenty miles down the road.

"Hey be good, Kid. We're heading out to pick up some things at the store. We need milk, among other things.

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