 |
| (Cell Phone) |
Lila never meant to raise a monster, but sometimes if you’re not careful enough, you reap weeds you never meant to sow. She had been careless, but Lila never dreamed that trying to give her son everything she could afford would end the way it had.
Our story,
as so many stories before it, begins with an unforeseeable tragedy. Shortly
after their son Lyle was born, Lila’s husband was killed in a mugging on his way home from work. The couple
didn’t even have
much money to speak of in the first place. After his death, Lila and her
newborn son were left destitute, the former beyond desperate.
Finding a
full time job and some kind of childcare for her infant was no easy task. Lila
was forced to move to the city and take any position she could find, often
working upwards of 70 hours a week. Between all her jobs and an intense sense
of frugality, Lila managed to ferret away enough money to get a small
one-bedroom apartment and send her son to a high-end private school in the
area.
All that
work exhausted her, but Lila would have done anything for her son. He was her
pride and joy, and anything Lyle asked for he received, one way or another.
Eventually, without meaning to, Lila spoiled her son, and he became a selfish,
implacable nuisance. No matter how much he received, nothing was ever enough to
satisfy him.
One day, some
of Lyle’s school
friends got to talking about the different gifts their parents had given them
as a result of the performance in the last semester. Lyle listened for almost
an hour to his friends discussing brand new cell phones, expensive computers,
and imported gifts Lyle couldn’t even
pronounce.
When he
came home that night, Lyle walked straight up to his mother who was collapsed,
exhausted on the couch. He began wailing at the top of his lungs, startling his
mother awake. Lyle bawled and squalled
without end, demanding to know why she hated him so much that she wouldn’t give him a brand new phone like
his friends had. Seeing her only son so distraught upset Lila, and she began to
cry quietly, trying to assure her son that she would save up and get him a good
cell phone as soon she could afford it.
Dissatisfied,
Lyle only screamed louder. Lila offered him her cell phone, saying she would
get herself a cheap one from the supermarket. Without warning, the screams
ceased. Lyle glared at his mother and in a dark, soft tone warned her that he
would have the phone he wanted or nothing.
Unfortunately,
Lila knew she could do nothing and had to watch as her spoiled son locked
himself in the only bedroom and refused to let her in or speak with her.
Resolving to do what she could after work the next day, Lila laid down on the
couch and fell asleep almost immediately.
When Lila
woke up the next morning, she saw Lyle sitting at the foot of the couch playing
with an expensive looking phone, the box and wrappings sitting beside him. Lila
knew her son couldn’t have gotten
the phone legally, but he wasn’t screaming
anymore, and she was so tired. She simply didn’t have the energy to fight the boy
she had created so she let him keep it. She said nothing.
Imgaine
then, Lila’s guilt when
the police showed up and took her son into custody based on fairly damning video
security video. Lila spent the next week crying in the temple down the road
from their apartment. Her son had been arrested and she was alone. Lost for
options, she began to beg god for an answer to her son’s imprisonment.
Author’s Note: I chose to make this into a
two-week story because I wanted to explore some of the later impacts of such a
selfish and poorly behaved boy being given immense power, but I didn’t want to write an unreasonably long
story. The source material is about a widowed woman who sends her son to school
using what money she can beg and finds that he is dissatisfied when he
discovers that his classmates can all afford to eat meat while he can have only
vegetables. The boy steals a goose from the king’s aviary and eats it. When he’s caught and sent to prison his
mother prays for his release. I’ll explore the
end to this tale next week.
Bibliography: Neogi's Sacred Tales of India
I am wondering how old Lyle is throughout most the story? Sounds like a preteen. If they were still living in a small low income one bed apartment it's interesting to me that the kid didn't notice they didn't have much money. If he is old enough to work, why doesn't Lila ever send him to work to help out? I really loved your story! The ending was really good!
ReplyDeleteGood job on your story. I think that your portrayal of the story was great. It was cool to see how you created a story based off the original and putting into this age. My only thought was there another picture that you could have used? This one cell phone picture doesn't tell much of the story itself. But it was a great story.
ReplyDeleteI really like the spin that you put on the original tale. I find this tale to be very applicable to today's society and the younger generation. I think that we've taken on the idea that the newest innovation or production of technology is never enough. Beyond technology, people in our society are less likely to appreciate what they have. We measure our success by what we don't have and what others have. However, what we don't know is the loss and the extent in which the "other person" had to go through to have these items or the next best thing.
ReplyDelete