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See the World: Part 6

See the World (An Easy English Story): Part 6

After the surgery, Neil picks up his daughter Leila from school. When he opens a box of macaroni and cheese for dinner, Leila shouts, “No!”

Neil jumps. “What happened?”

“Mama said I can’t have macaroni noodles,” Leila shouts and grabs the box.

“Mom just said that you need to eat healthier food.”  Neil takes the box from Leila and dumps the noodles into the boiling water. “So I’ll cut up an apple or something, too.”

Leila stands on her toes and tries to look in the pot.  Before her nose gets too close to the stove, Neil picks her up and lifts her above his head. “Super-Leila!” he sings and flies her around the room.

When the macaroni and cheese is ready, Leila and Neil sit down at Neil’s long oak dining table.  Neil got to keep the table after the divorce, and Amanda got the TV.  The table was more expensive, so two years ago Neil thought that it was better. But for two years, no one else sat at the table except Leila and Sam. Neil wishes he had the TV. 

“Daddy.”  Leila puts her spoon on her Mickey Mouse-shaped plate. “I heard Mama talking to Grandma yesterday. Mama said that you can’t spend Christmas with us because you… because… your work.”  

Neil frowns. When Amanda was angry, she used to tell Neil, “You’re married to your work.”  That’s probably it. “Leila,” Neil says. “Daddy is helping people. Sometimes doctors need to help people on Christmas.”

“Why?” Leila asks. Her usual question.

“Well, there are a lot of little bugs called germs. These bugs can make someone sick, but usually you can’t see them.  Daddy has special contacts–like X-ray superhero glasses–to help him see the bugs.  These might help me get rid of the bugs and make the people better.”

“Oh.  Okay!”  Leila picks up an apple slice and bites off half of it. Juice spills down from her cheek.  “Daddy…”

Oh, great. Another question about Christmas. “Please don’t listen to what your mom says about my work, Leila. We can open presents the next day.”

“Daddy, in school we read a story today about a frog and a fox who were best friends, and they went to play in the park, but the fox fell in a pond, and the frog helped him, and…”

The corners of Neil’s mouth lift as Leila talks about her day at school.  Five-year-olds are like a video game character. If something bad happens, they can restart. They feel sad about Christmas? Restart. They dropped their apple slice? Cry about it a little bit, and then restart. Add five character life points. Neil wishes Leila could be happy forever.

Part 7>

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The Cold: Part 7

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 7

Carlos picks me up in front of the mall. I get in his car, close the door, and whisper, “I saw something crazy.”

“An ice body? Should we call the police?” Carlos looks worried.

“No, but there was ice. And it was still cold, so it must be new.”

Carlos laughs. “But it’s winter! There’s ice everywhere. And there’s about five restaurants in the mall. They use ice.”

“But this ice was in an old cafe! Remember Green Leaves? They’re closed now.”

“Ari, you went into the construction area? You can’t do that! And you can’t write a news article about the ice. If the police read the article, they’ll know that you trespassed.”

I sigh. Carlos is right.

Carlos pauses, and then asks, “Do you think the ice was used for the ice body?”

I nod. “The cafe is right next to the dumpster.”

“Do you think the construction workers killed someone?”

“No,” I say. “I think that someone put the body in the freezer overnight. The construction workers only work during the day. They seemed normal, too. I don’t think they killed anyone.”

Carlos and I are quiet for the rest of the car ride.

When I get home, I walk into the living room. Mom is reading a book on the couch. She looks up. “Is Dad still parking the car?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Did he go somewhere?”

Mom frowns. “He went to pick you up from the mall.”

“Carlos picked me up, remember?”

Mom closes her book and goes to the garage. Dad’s car is not there. “He said that you called him. He said that Carlos couldn’t bring you home, so you asked him. I heard him talking to you on the phone!”

My hands begin to sweat. “That wasn’t me. I never called Dad.”

Mom picks up the phone and dials 9-1-1. She tells the police that her husband is missing and that he might be at the mall. The police ask for information about him, and they say that they will call again soon.

Mom and I wait. We sit quietly in the living room for hours. When a car drives by our house, Mom jumps up to see if it is Dad’s car. It never is.

The sun rises. My eyes want to shut, but I keep them open. Mom looks tired, too. I know that we are thinking the same thing: What if Dad becomes an ice body?

Mom’s shoulders shake, and she puts her head in her hands. I cover her with the blanket on the couch. “Dad will be okay,” I say. But I don’t believe it. “I’m not hungry, but let’s eat something, okay?” I don’t have the energy to cook, so I put bread in the toaster and boil water for tea. Mom lies down on the couch, looking at the window.

Right after we finish breakfast, Mom’s phone rings. “We still can’t find your husband or his car,” the policeman says. “But we will keep looking.” Mom begins to cry again.

“This is good,” I say, hoping to comfort her. “If they didn’t find him yet, he’s probably okay.”

“But what if the police find Dad’s car in a river, like with Alex? It took the police two days to find him. Maybe Dad’s car slipped on ice or…” Mom can’t stop crying. We almost never talk about Alex. But we remember Alex in everything we do. Now we drink tea because he liked coffee. We eat dinner in front of the TV because the table feels empty with three people and four chairs. We keep his old bedroom closed, untouched.

I begin to cry, too. Mom may be right.

After calling Ms. Sato to explain that I have a family emergency, I went upstairs to try to sleep. Mom went to her bedroom, too. But I can’t sleep. I think about Alex. He died last year in a flood. He was 17. It was raining hard, but he wanted to go to his friend’s house. He stayed until the night, and when he drove home, he didn’t see that the river water was above the bridge. The water quickly washed his car into the river. The car flipped over, and he drowned in the water.

After Alex died, my parents fought a lot. Mom asked Dad, “Why did you buy him a car?” and Dad asked Mom, “Why did you let him go out when it was raining?” I stayed in my room and studied for my exams. Slowly, Mom and Dad stopped talking about Alex. They couldn’t find answers for their questions, so they stopped asking questions.

I still miss Alex.

I miss his loud music. I miss his baseball collection. I miss his wide smile. I miss his messy bedroom.

Without thinking, I get out of bed and walk down the hallway to Alex’s old room. When I open the door, I smell Alex’s favorite body spray. I used to hate that body spray. Now the smell makes me feel like Alex is hugging me.

I look around his bedroom. It is exactly the same as one year ago. His homework is still on the desk. His dirty clothes are still on the floor. Even his coffee cup is sitting next to his bed. I lie down on his bed and look at the tree outside his window. This tree had flowers on it when he died. What did he think when he looked at those flowers in the morning on that day?

When I open my eyes, it is dark. Probably 6:00. Remembering I am in Alex’s room, I feel the furniture in front of me until I find his desk lamp. His bad handwriting on his English homework makes me smile.

And then I see another piece of paper next to the homework. This paper has neat handwriting with small letters. Dad’s handwriting. The paper only has three sentences:

I’m sorry, Alex. If I didn’t buy you that car, you would never have died. It’s all my fault.

Part 8>

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The Cold: Part 6

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 6

Carlos arrives at 6:55 p.m. He’s always a little early. Mom gives me a face mask after I put on my jacket. “We don’t know the reason for the ice bodies. Just be safe,” she says.

Carlos drives a used Toyota truck. It is old, but he cleans it every day. The inside smells like pine trees. Carlos is wearing a face mask, too. “You ready?” he asks. He looks at my backpack. “Got my journal and recorder,” I explain. “I’ll take videos with my phone, too.”

It takes 15 minutes for us to drive to the mall. The mall closes at 10:00, so I have about three hours to get information about the ice body from here. “Text me when you’re finished,” Carlos says. His apartment is only five minutes from the mall, so he’ll wait there until I text him. He has not been to a store or a restaurant since the first news story about the ice bodies. Instead, he buys all of his things online. “Better to be safe,” says Carlos.

I enter the mall through the clothes store. At 7 p.m., the mall was always crowded. Even on a Tuesday night, high school students usually come to the mall to look at clothes or get coffee. Now, only a small group of high school girls look at the prom dresses, talking quietly. Half of the mall workers wear face masks. Some construction workers are moving tables out of an old cafe. In the window of a spa, a woman gives an elderly man a bathrobe. Two couples wait outside the movie theater, talking loudly. A young perfume seller sadly packs her perfumes in boxes and hangs a CLOSED sign on her cart. A homeless man sleeps on a bench in the corner of the mall. Everyone looks at me when I walk by. There is almost nobody here, so it is easy to notice other people. I pretend to look at some of the things in the store windows while I walk through the mall. Really, I am looking for something strange.

Everything in the mall looks normal, though. How did an ice body come from inside the mall? I decide to look outside the mall. There is one area in the back with large dumpsters filled with trash. That’s where the ice body was found. The cold air hurts my cheeks. I try to breathe warm air into my face mask and pull my hat lower over my ears. Using my cell phone flashlight, I look around the dumpsters. One rusty dumpster is covered in yellow police tape. The ice body was probably here.

I find a box on the ground and stand on it to see inside the dumpster. The police tape says “DO NOT CROSS.” But if I stand next to the dumpster and look inside, I am not crossing the line. The inside of the dumpster is surprisingly boring. There are only a few empty coffee cups, dead leaves, and broken clothes hangers. I look behind the dumpster, and there is still nothing.

I open my phone to check the time. It is 9:30. I haven’t found anything about the ice bodies. Maybe I should just call Carlos.

But where am I right now? I open Google Maps on my phone to send Carlos my location. I look closer on the map. The dumpsters are right behind a cafe. Is that the cafe that closed?

If the cafe is closed, people wouldn’t notice a dead body. The construction workers aren’t in there the whole day.

I decide not to call Carlos yet. I still have 30 minutes, and I am going to look around the old cafe.

Thankfully, the construction workers are gone. No one is shopping now, and the workers are all cleaning up their stores and getting ready to go home. I quietly go inside the cafe. The lights are off, but enough light is coming in through the plastic that covers the doorway. The construction workers took out all of the tables, chairs, and doors. Half of a long counter is on the right side of the cafe. The other half was broken with a hammer and lies on the ground. I look up. The ceiling is painted with green leaves. I remember this cafe now. I went here on a date in my second year of high school. My date wasn’t fun, but I liked the cafe. I feel sad that I never came back. The cafe was called Green Leaves and decorated like a jungle. Tall plants stood by the heavy wooden doors, and there was a small fountain in the middle of the cafe. Now, there is a circle in the floor. The fountain must have been there.

Behind the half counter, there is a rectangle hole in the wall. It leads to the kitchen. I walk softly to the kitchen. When I am behind the wall, I turn on my cell phone flashlight. Wires hang out of the walls like dead tree branches. They used to connect to stoves and ovens. The kitchen still smells like coffee and cake. On the other side of the kitchen are two doors. One has a small window, and I can see the back parking lot from there. This is where they took the ice body out. The other door is thick and metal. It must be a large refrigerator for Green Leaves’ famous milk tea and fruit cake.

My heart beats faster. I turn the fridge handle, and the door is unlocked. The fridge was turned off. Large metal shelves stretch from floor to ceiling on both sides of the fridge. They are empty, too.

Across from me is one more metal door. This one is unlocked, too. I open it to find a freezer.

A freezer.

The freezer is turned off, but inside there are about twenty bags of ice on the ground. And the ice is still cold.

Part 7>

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The Cold: Part 4

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 4

After breakfast with Mom, I go upstairs.  It’s only 6:30, but I can’t wait any more.  I turn on my computer and desk lamp.  My desk faces the window, and I look outside at the dark winter morning.  A thin pink ribbon of light stretches behind the mountains.  It will be a beautiful sunrise soon.

Where should I begin?  A journalist finds the best information from many different people, so I decide to look on different social networking sites to see who is writing about the bodies.

There are more social media posts than expected.

On just one site, hundreds of posts appear when I search “dead bodies found outside.”  It seems that on the Internet, people are using the name #icebodies.  I enter #icebodies into the search bar, and thousands of posts appear.

Many posts are not interesting.

@yuki925:  OMG!  This is crazy!  What’s happening?!?!?!

@chessman:  thanks #icebodies for this lockdown!!  no work for a week!!!!!!

I read the posts for one hour.  I begin to see a pattern.  About half of the people are scared of the ice bodies, and about half of the people do not believe the ice bodies.  Many people have strong ideas and opinions.

@kycm71524:  The ice bodies must be prisoners from jail.  The jails did not want to pay for the prisoners, so they killed the prisoners.  Wake up, America!  Our jails are evil. 

@aaa888:  The ice bodies are not real.  The news is boring, so journalists made a fake story.  They want to get famous.

@yestolove:  people are dying because they are sad… their hearts are cold, so their bodies are cold…  we need more kindness!!!

@jimmywilder1980:  I never saw an ice body.  They are NOT real.  Let’s go back to work.

There are so many ideas.  Many stupid ideas, too.  I count the “believe” posts and the “don’t believe” posts.  It takes four hours, but I finish.

There are 3,862 “believe” posts.  Most of the “believe” posts are not interesting.  They only say, “I’m scared!” or “Why did these people die?”  About 25% of the “believe” posts have ideas about why the ice bodies appeared.  Most of the reasons are about disease.  People think that there is a new disease like COVID-19.  Some of the reasons are about the government.  People think that the president wants to kill these people.  Or another country is trying to kill Americans.

There are 433 “don’t believe” posts.  Most of the “don’t believe” posts don’t have a reason.  Some of the “don’t believe” posts say that the ice bodies are fake images from the government, from the news, or from other countries.  Interesting.  The government and other countries are reasons for both “believe” and for “don’t believe” posts.

Finally, there are only 17 posts from people who saw the ice bodies.  I want to send a message to these people.  Their stories are the most important.

@april.may:  Do NOT go near Parker Street today.  There are two ice bodies there.  I called the police, and the police were scared too.  Stay safe.

Parker Street.  That’s the street where I saw the bodies.  Is @april.may the angry woman from that day?  I click on her username and send her a message.

Hello, my name is Ari Brooks.  I am a journalist.  I saw the ice bodies near Parker Street.  I was on the bus that day.  I want to write about the ice bodies for my job.  Could we talk about what you saw?  My phone number is 555-739-2080.  Please call me any time.

I sent a similar message to the other 16 people.  I hope they will reply soon.

It is 3:55.  I have to call Ms. Sato at 4:00.  She wants to talk with me about today’s work.

I realize that I am still in my pajamas.  I put on a white sweater and gray jacket, and I quickly brush my hair.  There is only one minute before the call, so I stay in my fuzzy snowman pajama pants and turn on my video camera.  Ms. Sato joins the video call right at 4:00.

Ms. Sato starts talking about work right away.  She does not have a “small talk” personality.  “So, what stories did you get today?”

I feel embarrassed.  I spent a lot of time reading the social media posts.  I didn’t talk to anyone.  I sent the messages at 3:30, so of course no one replied.

“Well…  I found a lot of interesting opinions on social media.”  I opened my notebook and began to read my data.  “I read 4,312 posts about the ice bodies.  3,862 of these people believe that the ice bodies are real.  433 of these—”

Ms. Sato sighs.  “Of course the ice bodies are real.  We are a news station.  We report real news.  We can’t write an article that says, ‘Maybe the ice bodies are real, but maybe they aren’t.’” 

Part 5>

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The Cold: Part 1

The Cold (An Easy English Story): Part 1

My heart is beating fast.

I wait alone in a room.  There are newspapers on the wall and a big leather sofa in the corner.

I sit on a small, uncomfortable chair by the door.

Waiting for that door to open.

“Ms. Ari Brooks?” a woman says while she opens the door with her cherry red nails.  “Mr. Jones… did not come to the office today.  Can you come back tomorrow for an interview?”  The receptionist stepped through the door.  She looks annoyed, but she politely smiles.

How can this happen to me again?

“Actually,” says the receptionist, “Many of our staff are not here today.  It’s January, so maybe they are sick or have the flu…”

“I understand,” I say.  “Please ask Mr. Jones to call me when he feels better.”  I try to smile, but I want to cry. 

I leave the newspaper office and get on the bus.  I want to buy a car, but I don’t have any money.  I am 22 years old, but I live with my parents.  I graduated from college with a degree in journalism, but I can’t find a job.

My sadness becomes anger.  Why didn’t Mr. Jones contact me to reschedule the interview?  Even if he is sick, he can still send a short email.

This is not the first time.  My interviewer last week did not come either.

People can be so rude.

The bus ride home is quiet.  The only other person on the bus is an elderly woman with a cowboy hat.  She gets on the bus at one stop and gets off at the next.

This newspaper company was my last interview appointment.  I applied to twenty companies, got rejected by eighteen, and got an interview for two.  Both interviewers had to “reschedule” for an unknown reason.  This one didn’t even come to the interview.

I look out the window of the bus.  In Clayton, there is a small city and a lot of farmland.  Cows stand close to each other in the field beside the highway.  It is hard to count them in the snow, and their black spots look like many watching eyes.

Screech!

The bus stops suddenly, and my black bag flies off the seat.  Many cars behind us honk their horns angrily.  A woman next to us rolls down her window and takes out her cell phone, recording a video of the bus driver and yelling horrible things.

The bus driver, a man with a large belly and a small gray moustache, does not respond to the woman.  He rushes down the bus steps and runs to the side of the road.

The bus driver is tapping something on the ground and shouting.  He calls for help and takes off his jacket, laying it over something I cannot see.

The angry woman from before runs over and begins to make a phone call.  She squats on the ground and covers her eyes while talking to the person on the phone.

I wonder if there was a car accident.  Is there a dead animal or a dead person on the side of the road?  The woman is crying now.  She hands her phone to the bus driver, who continues talking to the person on the phone. 

Thinking it is probably a person who died in some accident, I stand up and walk to the front of the bus to see what happened.

Most people do not want to see a dead body.  I don’t want to see it either.  But if I want to be a successful journalist, I need to get used to seeing terrible things sometimes.  It is our job to tell the world about these terrible things, hoping that the world can learn how to be more careful.

As I get closer to the front of the bus, I see a head of blond hair next to where the bus driver is standing.  A man, in his late forties.  His face is paler than his hair.  He looks like he was in the cold for a long time.  Did no one notice him until now?

I stand up on the bus seat to see more of the accident.  Was he riding a motorcycle?  Was there a helmet or a bike on the side of the road?

From his pale face, a pale neck appears.  Then pale shoulders.  Then a pale chest.  The rest is covered by the bus driver’s jacket.  Two blue-white feet stick straight out from the jacket.

This man died naked.

Sirens cry in the distance.  Soon, two police cars and an ambulance show up.  A police officer interviews the bus driver and the woman with the cell phone.  Another officer takes pictures of the body on a camera.  She calls to the other officer and points to a tree next to the road.

Among the tree roots that stretch out from the tree and disappear into the snow-covered ground, two legs appear from behind the tree.  Like the other body, the legs are naked, and they do not move.  Unlike the other body, both legs are dark purple.

Part 2>

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See the World: Part 3

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See the World (An Easy English Story): Part 3

Neil does not want the doctors to look at him.  He wants them to look at the patient or look at the machine.  The machine is working now, not Neil.

The computer works.  Neil looks at Sam.  Sam smiles under his mask.  Neil feels good when he sees Sam.  

Neil’s real name is Alexander MacNeil, but on his first day of work, Sam called him Neil.  Sam said that Neil’s real name was too long.  Sam also asked Neil to call him “Sam.”  Sam never told Neil his last name.  When Neil met Sam, Neil thought that Sam was too casual.  Neil felt angry.  But after Neil worked with Sam for ten years, Neil liked his nickname.  He also liked Sam.  

Neil and Sam usually ate lunch in Sam’s car.  They listened to music while they ate their cafeteria sandwiches.   Neil was the best doctor at Johns Hopkins, and Sam was not a very good doctor.  But Neil felt happy around Sam.  Most doctors use very big words, but Sam talks to Neil like a friend.

Neil hears a sound.  His memory of meeting Sam finishes.  A message appears on Neil’s computer screen.  The message says:  “The computer found 100% of the HIV cells.  The computer will start genome editing.  The patient is safe.”  Neil turns off the machine.  He feels very happy!

Part 4>