DESCRIPTION
Something's wrong in Sandra Richardson's life, but she just can't figure out what's going on. Will she get the help needed to uncover the truth before it's too late? [1,304 words]
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
My name is Andrea Brown and I'm an 18 year old high school senior from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm going off to college soon where I plan to major in creative writing. Writing has been a passion of mine for as far back as I can remember. My ultimate goal is to become a screenwriter, but I want my short stories to take off a bit more before I begin developing any major scripts. [March 2002]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (3) Love That Never Dies (Short Stories) Daniel Jackson lives with his father. Both are having a great deal of trouble overcoming a tragedy that occured a few years prior, and neither of them knows how to deal with it. If they don't find a... [1,273 words] [Relationships] Qualities Of A Friend (Short Stories) John Denton, a high school sophomore, is excited to learn about the new neighbor his age moving in next door. John likes him, and wants to be his friend, but how will his old friends take it? [844 words] [Teenage] Scars On Scarlet (Short Stories) This is a short story I wrote on self mutilation. [804 words] [Drama]
False Accusations Andrea Diane Brown
As a steady breeze fluttered past, Sandra Richardson brushed a wisp of her chestnut
brown hair out of her eye and back behind her ear. As she continued to walk, her eyes seemingly
fixated upon the ground, she did not raise her head so as to look up at the gorgeous mid-April
morning. She was concentrating intensely, and making a desperate attempt to group all of her
drifting thoughts together into a single heap. She was not sure she had been aware of exactly
what had happened over the course of the past three days, nor was she completely certain that she
wanted to know. Still, if she didn’t figure it out soon enough, she felt as if she would go
completely insane.
Involuntarily recalling the disheveled fragments of events from days prior, Sandra became
suddenly aware of the unpleasantness of them and shuddered with discomfort. Rising slowly from
the recliner beside the coffee table in her living room, she made her way toward the set of desk
drawers in the corner of the room. Pulling out the drawer second from the top, she began
rummaging hectically through it. When she discovered it did not contain what she sought, she
closed it and opened another; second to the bottom, third from the bottom, and lastly the top
drawer, searching each one with a frantic commotion. When she was absolutely certain that none
of the drawers contained the crucial photographs, she returned to her chair and sat back into it.
She was only disillusioning herself, she contemplated. After all, the pictures hadn’t been in there
that morning, although they had been yesterday and she couldn’t remember moving them. She
didn’t know where else to look, as she had searched her small apartment six times over and came
up empty handed. She was left to consider only the worst possible scenario. They had been
there, looking for her.
Sandra was back out in the warm April weather the next morning, as she had needed to
pick up a few grocery items from the store. She was a little apprehensive about venturing out
again on her own, but she didn’t want to burden anyone by calling and asking them to accompany
her. She was sure no one knew about what had happened, anyway, and they wouldn’t understand
her predicament or why she needed to be escorted only two blocks from her apartment. The night
before, she had stayed up until all hours of the morning piecing together what she could have of
the past circumstances. She managed to understand more than she had previously, but still had a
long way to go to find out exactly what was going on.
So far as Sandra could tell, the men that had approached her as she left her home for a
short walk that dreadful night had been sent there purposefully. The incidents that followed
didn’t seem to be by chance. They seemed to recognize her, and were on her like a pack of wild
dogs on a raw steak. They outnumbered her four or five to one, and all were carrying guns.
Despite these facts, Sandra had managed to escape them. She could recall wrenching violently
away from their firm grips and running to hide in the dark shadows of a nearby alleyway. When
the men started in the wrong direction after her, Sandra fled and made it safely back to her
apartment. Why they were after her, Sandra was still uncertain, but she had a few theories. Her
strongest was that it had something to do with the old woman who had lived in the apartment
above her’s and had passed away the night prior to the men’s pursuit. This made logical sense
considering they had wanted the photographs of this old woman so desperately.
Sandra awoke the next morning, her mind a complete blank from the time she had been
halfway to the store to where she was now. She stared up at a cold, cement ceiling and three
identical, adjacent walls. The fourth wall was constructed of harsh, black iron bars, the door of
which was locked securely. As she came to her senses and peered through the bars, her gaze fell
upon a uniformed man standing thirty yards away, talking to a man of similar dress. Recognizing
the first man at once as one of her attackers, Sandra let out a loud, maniacal scream. The name
on his shirt read “Smith.” The man Smith had been talking to approached Sandra, and yelled at
her harshly to keep quiet before she awoke the others in the facility, who were still asleep. Sandra
could not contain her terror and refused the order. The two men further ignored her, and
continued their conversation.
As Sandra was unable to comprehend her actions, she was tried and found not guilty by
reason of insanity, and was to be dealt with accordingly. The death of the elderly woman in the
apartment above her’s was no common household accident, but Sandra simply couldn’t
understand that, even though she had admitted that she was the one responsible for her death.
She was questioned intensely, and answered as best she could. She was asked several times what
her motivation for committing such a despicable act had been, but Sandra claimed not to have had
one, or at the very least not to have known what it had been. Sandra had gone up to bring the
woman her mail, as she had a great difficulty walking down the six flights of stairs and back up
again, and the elevator happened to be out of commission that day. All Sandra declared to
remember was catching a glimpse of the handle of the gun as the woman opened her foldout desk
to stash her opened mail, and watching it disappear again as it closed. The next thing Sandra
knew, the gun was in her hand as the woman milled about her bedroom, the trigger was pulled,
the gun and something else she had on her at the time was dropping away from her, the woman
was dead. Sandra told of the overwhelming feelings that came over her during those moments:
rage, jealousy, desire. She had no control over these emotions, and had let them run their course
naturally as had been displayed through her actions. Sandra had not known she was dead. She
assumed she had only frightened the woman and figured she was now simply resting, as she had
fallen face forward onto her bed. The woman’s scream of agonizing pain was mistaken by Sandra
for a sigh of relief and relaxation, a yawn, as she herself often expelled herself before sleeping.
“She looked so peaceful, I wanted to capture the moment,” Sandra explained to the investigators
when they inquired about the photographs they had encountered, as truthfully as she believed it to
be. “I didn’t think she’d mind. I wanted to be able to look at the pictures, so they could remind
me how to be peaceful. Calm. I have problems staying calm. I just thought it would have been
nice to learn how to stay that way for a while. I didn’t know she had died until later that evening,
when I saw her being wheeled from the apartment. She was old, I thought she just died as people
tend to do when they get up to around her age.” Sandra’s eyes never shifted, and neither they nor
her voice changed in mood or tone as she answered the prodding questions. “And,” she began
again, questioningly, “how did you come to such a conclusion, when even I couldn’t figure out
what had happened?” The investigator said nothing, but produced from a paper bag sitting next
to him on the table a small, black wallet, with Sandra’s name and address displayed on the driver’s
licence encased in the front pouch. “Thanks,” he said, handing back to her what was found on the
floor, next to where the gun had been dropped in the woman’s apartment. “You have been most
helpful.”
“No,” Sandra corrected him. “Thank YOU. I was about to go crazy trying to figure everything
out on my own. It just didn’t make sense to me. I appreciate the help.”
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