Non-pony short story: Lewis Osborne · 6:14am Sep 19th, 2019
This one was written around a year and a half ago, using the same writing style as Pony-Me. I originally wrote this for my Creative Writing 1 class, but I'd might as well post it here now. Wattpad is still garbage for posting anything serious anyway.
Lewis Osborne
A soft light shimmered through an open window, its rays touching on an array of figurines, their faces unmoving, and their limbs plastic. Lewis Osborne lay slumbering under a plush quilt, the rise and fall of his chest accompanied by a roaring snore. 12:33, read the desk clock, its digital face a blaring red. 12:34. Lewis awoke with a start, the musty smell of days-old chip bags catching his nose as he scowled.
Where am I?
The boy glanced towards the window, to the ever-stretching horizon beyond the room.
Who am I?
As he turned his vision back towards the wall in front of him, his eyes caught a glimpse of a lone calendar, hanging by a pin beside the window. Strangely, no year appeared on the page, no month, nor week or day. A single number, rather, occurred in the place of the days.
4.
Raising a brow, Lewis rose from the bed, his dark hair matted behind his head. Chip bags crackled as they tumbled off the sheets, the scent of their contents still haunting the air. He took the single calendar page in hand, tearing the sheet from its lonely pin. There was nothing on the back. The only thing on the front, save for cat pictures, was the number. He stared towards the blank wall that now stood in place of the calendar.
A low creaaaaak emanated from behind. The boy whipped his vision to the back, the page still clutched tightly in hand as his eyes scanned the room.
It’s nothing. His thoughts whispered, There’s nothing there. Don’t freak just yet, alright?
For the first time, he turned his focus towards a barren nightstand, four figurines standing, unmoving on their wooden pedestal. His eyes wandered back to the calendar sheet.
When am I?
Lewis took a final glance at the paper, balling it up and letting the mysterious calendar rest among the multitude of chip bags. He turned his attention back to the figurines.
One was an astronaut, the bright sunlight reflecting off their helmet.
Another was a strange man, his filthy clothes coated with a layer of dark patches of soot.
The third and fourth were children. The first was smiling, a bright glint in its eye. The fourth, however, plastered a perpetual scowl across its face, the figurine’s tiny hands balled into fists.
That’s interesting… The boy thought, reaching for the astronaut. His fingers grazed the helmet, and his vision went dark.
Lewis awoke with a start, a black-and-white television blaring a speech through his ears.
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Eyes wide, the boy turned towards the television set, the sounds crackling and popping as it momentarily lost signal. In moments, the images reappeared. There he was, Neil Armstrong, leaving his footprint forever embedded on the moon.
The calendar! The boy remembered, turning his gaze further up the wall. There it was again, a calendar, adorned with stars and spaceships, and accompanied by a single number.
3.
Once again, the boy rose from his bed, though this time he was not met with the crunch of chip bags, but rather a multitude of dusty comic books tumbling to the floor. Before the final issue slid beyond the bedding, Lewis slammed a hand upon the cover.
The Brave and the Bold, issue #85.
The boy raised his hand, watching as the comic tumbled down to join with the others. A dry breeze bellowed through the open window, bringing with it the crisp scent of freshly-cut grass. The endless horizon from before was now replaced by the silent rooftops of an afternoon suburb. Silent, save for the broadcast on TV, and the cheerful tweeting of birds faraway outside.
He turned once again towards the pedestal. The same four figurines stood in their places, the same expressions, and the same people. The astronaut, however, now lay on his back, toppled over onto the smooth grain of the furniture.
Lewis reached for the strange man, and his vision went dark.
The boy awoke with a groan, the figurine still grasped tightly in hand. Immediately, Lewis hacked up a deep cough, a putrid odor of smoke wafting through the air and up his nostrils. He coughed again, jerking the quilt from the bed as he sat upright. As per usual, a lone calendar adorned the wall, accompanied by a lone, filthy window.
2.
Lewis scowled, fanning away the fumes with a hand as he held his nose with the other. A perpetual whirr sounded through the air as the boy glanced towards the window. Another breeze brought an additional whiff of the smoke emanating from the countless smokestacks that dotted the horizon. The boy glanced further towards the former location of the TV set. Nothing was there, save for a dusty phonograph, its brass gleaming brightly through its heavy layer of soot.
He let out a sigh, meandering towards the window in silence. The orderly grid of houses from before, the endless landscape from before even then. They no longer existed. Did they ever exist?
A thought crossed the boy’s mind. They never existed.
The whirring, by this point, grew much louder than before. Whereas before it was hardly noticeable, it was now blaring, echoing through the boy’s skull as the noise ricocheted across the room. Almost immediately after, the ground far below began to shift. Slowly, the vast collection of looming factories began to alter. The land buckled, the once-smooth plane becoming increasingly warped, as if some unknown force decided to knead it with an invisible hand.
The rippling landscape grew increasingly closer to Lewis. It’s getting closer? The thought crossed his mind, What could it possibly be?
He turned back towards the nightstand, with its two remaining figures standing firm on the table as the building around him began to jolt. Without another thought, the boy chucked the figurine of the strange man to the floor, lunging for the final two. He felt the figurine of the smiling child graze his cheek, and his vision went dark.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to Lewis, happy birthday to you!” Voices sang from beneath the floor. “Happy tenth birthday, Lewis!”
“Miss Osborne, can we have cake now?” Cried a single, high-pitched voice.
Lewis tore the heavy quilt off of himself. “Lewis.” He murmured, staring towards the window, “Lewis Osborne. That’s who I am.”
His eyes flitted across the room. For the first time, he noticed, the room itself changed. For once, there wasn’t only a window but a door. He turned towards the window once again. The calendar was missing! He turned towards the door, his eyes widening.
1.
What could that mean? The boy mouthed, hopping to the floor. A sickening crunch met his ears, complete with the familiar crackling of chip bags. Was this his home? He glanced towards the calendar again, then towards the lone figurine that still stood defiant upon the nightstand. The eternally scowling figurine returned the glare.
“Come on, Lewis! Open your presents, honey!” Another voice chimed from below.
“Mine first! Mine first!” Cried another.
The boy froze as he heard his own voice next.
“Fine, fine. Can’t we have cake first, mom?” A younger Lewis complained from beyond the door.
With a shaky hand, the boy reached for the doorknob. Step by step, down the stairs he descended, step by step, growing ever-closer. Step by step, the boy neared his past; his answers.
“I got you a fire truck!” A young voice squealed, following the rustle of wrapping paper furiously torn from its place. “Do you like it? It even makes fire truck noises!”
Lewis froze once again, the repetitive howl of a fire truck blaring into the air as his younger self set his hands upon the toy. Lewis continued down the stairway, gripping the railing as he descended. As the boy turned a bend in the stairs, his eyes were met with a gaudy birthday party, its banners and streamers littering the floor as he watched his younger incarnation shred his way through present after present of gift wrap.
The boy continued down the stairwell, each step slower than the last. A wave of uneasiness swept over him, swaying him in both mind and body as he gripped the railing even tighter. Slowly, he stumbled down the remainder of the stairwell, and towards the center of the room, ribbons and shreds of wrapping paper crinkling underneath his feet as he dragged himself along. A low gurgle emanated from his stomach, accompanied by an even heavier dizziness the closer he neared his younger self.
“No!” His younger self cried out, kicking away the fire truck, “I don’t like it! I wanted a race car!”
A woman, his mother as Lewis presumed, kneeled beside his child self. “Now there, Lewis.” She began, nudging the fire truck back towards the boy, “You shouldn’t be so picky about your presents, not when your friends aren’t as fortunate as we are.”
Lewis gaped as he watched his child self shove his own mother, of all people, aside. “They are not my friends!” The child complained, stomping upon the floor as his tantrum erupted, “You invited them! I wanted to go buy things! Dad said that we can, because we have a lot of money from his company!”
The boy’s thoughts wandered back to the brief glimpses of other times, back to the figurines that took him to the radically different periods in time. The overworked, dirty workman. The astronaut. Were they his ancestors?
“Lewis.” He heard his mother continue, her voice louder than before, “Just because your father works in aerospace doesn’t mean that he has the right to spoil you.”
For the first time, Lewis noticed that nobody in the room, not even his child self that his mother continued to scold, ever saw him. Nobody appeared to catch a glimpse, nobody gave a care, to the lone boy standing in the center of the room. Their eyes meandered, sure, but they never appeared to focus, always staring straight through Lewis, as if he was never even there.
The boy’s queasiness intensified, his throbbing head screaming in agony as his knees buckled. Lewis collapsed in the middle of the room with a thud as the stack of presents crunched beneath him. A strange, tingling feeling ran up his leg, taking all his strength to reach for the area it now resided on.
With a gasp, Lewis pulled out the final figurine, its face now contorted from a simple scowl into a sadistic grin. Once more, his vision went dark.
“Lew-is! Lewis Osborne!” A familiar voice called.
Lewis groaned, turning in his bed and grimacing as the bright morning sunlight struck his face. Suddenly, the boy jerked awake with a quick gasp, his eyes immediately turning towards the location of the calendar by the door.
June 6th, 2018.
His eyes turned towards the open window, translucent curtains flowing with a gentle breeze that ruffled through the boy’s dark, sunlit hair. There were rooftops. There was a backyard. There was a world. He turned towards the rest of the room. No longer was it a desolate, empty place, but rather a luxurious cavern of trinkets, with shelves upon shelves of books, items, and much more lining every wall. A model steamship rested at the foot of his bed, a model rocket, ready to launch, propped against it. Both held the same engravings onto their sides. Osborne Industries. The boy turned his gaze downwards. The nightstand now held the clock, the strange figurines long-since vanished from existence.
Was it… was it all a dream? The boy wondered, staring to the plush quilt shoved halfway off the bed, How would I even tell?
“Lewis!” His mother rapped on the door, “Your friends came to visit you! Would you like for me to tell them to come back next week again?”
The boy raised a brow. “N-no thanks, mom.” He stammered, “Let them in.”
The room fell into a deep silence as the sound of footsteps faded into the quiet whistling of the wind through the curtains. Just as quickly as the noise disappeared, the sounds of laughter and conversation burst into the air.
“Hey, Miss Osborne.” The first voice began, “Thanks for letting us in. Should we stay in the living room again, or should we—“
“What, are you crazy?!” A second voice countered, “You know how freaked Lewis got when we tracked sock smells through the house.”
Lewis pushed the door open with a hand, the other buried in his pocket as he dug at some irritating object deep within. With a grunt, he pulled one final figurine from his pocket.
Himself.
“Wow, Lewis. Dropping the formal look for once, I see.” The first voice snarked, “I’m guessing you came out of your man-cave to scold us and your mom for entering the house again?”
Lewis frowned, staring at the two standing below the stairway railings. “Um… no?” He replied, turning towards the source of the first voice, a young girl about his age. “Who are you?”
The girl shook her head. “Of course he wouldn’t remember.” She turned towards her friend, a towering teen with a gift-wrapped box tucked underneath his arm. “Do you think he still remembers that fire truck toy you gave him all those years ago?”
Lewis gasped, glancing back into his room. His eyes landed on a faded patch of red that struck out from beneath his bed. The girl below the stairway turned her attention back to Lewis, as did the other boy.
“Well?” She crossed her arms. “Aren’t you gonna come down and kick us out as usual? Your mom already left us, you know.”
The boy shook his head, dashing back into his room for a brief moment and returning with the fire truck. “I do remember!” He shouted, “Whatever it was I did wrong all those years ago, I’m sorry for it!” He ran down the stairs, his bare feet, thumping against the firm, carpeted flooring as his matted hair bounced with each step towards the two, his vision growing brighter, more vivid the closer he drew. “Please… could we maybe be friends?”
I'm getting Christmas Carol vibes from this, although it is quite different, there are a lot of similarities