Lion’s Heart Volume I: Robert Leslie

Far, Far, and Away Again

He was walking. He kept walking. He couldn’t stop walking. He looked down at his legs and wondered why they wouldn’t quit. “Stop,” he thought to himself. But they wouldn’t stop. This was getting ridiculous, he had no control over his own body. His legs were just taking him along. This time he shouted out loud, “Stop!” And he woke up with the word reverberating off of the walls. He found himself in a cold sweat and had to push the blankets off. His phone vibrated and he picked it up. His mom had texted him to see if he was alright. “Fine, just a bad dream.” He texted back. “Why would he have a dream like that?” he thought. Dreams were supposed to mean something or so he was told. This meant that he always tried to analyze his dreams. He thought maybe that his life had gotten out of hand. That he just had so much stuff to do and so many people telling him what he needed to do. He felt like he had lost control of it all and his body was just doing the actions. The stuff needed to get done but at what cost? Was he happy? Is a test more important than sleep and happiness? His head hurt. He had been thinking about this for too long and needed to get back to sleep but he couldn’t help but decide right then to take more time for himself. So he could relax and maybe the work would get easier. He could always hope at least.

The next day was going pretty well. No new assignments but the old ones still hung over his head. He knew that he told himself to relax but he still needed to do the assignments. It was just starting to stress him out again. His teacher saw him and called him over. He got up and went to him. His teacher told him if he was alright and that he seemed kind of worried about something. He simply nodded and told him what had been going on. His teacher thought he understood and offered some advice about how it was almost summer and that he would be able to enjoy himself soon. He nodded again and thanked his teacher for the advice.

He walked back to his desk. Honestly, that didn’t really help him. He was a senior and sure he should enjoy the fact that he is finally done with high school but the fact that he was graduating just made the stress worse. He was going off to college soon and would have to adapt to a whole new atmosphere. He would also need to get a job this summer to help pay for it. This would take away from his relaxation time and would just lead to more stress. “I can’t win, I can’t stop, I just have to keep going I guess.” He trudged out of the classroom and was suddenly embraced. “Well at least I have you,” he thought to himself with a smile and he hugged her close.

 

My name is Robert and I was tasked with putting together Seattle Lutheran’s first arts journal. As a writer, I also wanted to submit some of my own work to be shown off to everyone. I hope you enjoy my short story, it isn’t real but does take aspects from my own life to make it feel realistic.