The Hill

Ben Darvan was the only other boy that ever went down that hill, granted he was never seen again.  The only items the authorities found were a charred pair of converse and a twisted bike wheel, although a week later a team of scientists with hazmat suits tenderly transported it to Washington D.C. The hill was a menace in the town, children tried to walk down and came back screaming, terrible car accidents seemed always to occur on that treacherous street, and all of the flowers in front of the houses had wilted into sad heaps.  The town was plagued buy the accursed street but just recently it had crossed the line.  Mayor Dirst had been walking down the street when he tripped on a crack and had fallen down a sewage hole and died.  The town was in pieces, the curse had interfered with their daily routine and way of life and no one could stop it.  Except one boy, they called him Petar, Petar Janicijiveic, the strongest and tallest kid in town.  His quads were the size of water melons, each weighing in at 40 pounds.  He was 7’6” without an ounce of fat on his body, each individual muscle had been toned to perfection, and his chiseled jaw was rock solid.  Not to mention, his hands were as warm as forgotten coffee, he also hated fencers with a burning passion.  He was a legend and the towns-people new that he was their only hope, but Petar had recently been injured and had been hobbling around for weeks. It made him irritable and grouchy so no one ever really talked to him anymore and he became known as mean Mr. Janicijevic, but one particularly hot July morning Petar was hobbling out of the supermarket when he heard a small voice.

“M-m Mr. Janicijevic?”A small boy stuttered

“What do you want kid?” Petar grumbled back

“Well I just wanted you to know” he stuttered “I wanted you to know I think you’re the best ever!” he excitedly said

“Yeah, sure” Petar replied

“We need you to break the curse Mr. Janicijevic you’re our last shot.”

“But I'm a broken man, son, look at me legs!” Petar cried

         “I have just the thing” the boy said and pulled out a plate of pljeskavica, cevapi, and sarma. Petars eyes grew to the size of basketballs and filled with tears. 

“I have not had food from the mother land in so long” he said and devoured the plate.  Suddenly, his legs became straight again, the color returned to his face and his biceps doubled in size.  He burped and then said

“Now where’s that speed bump you were talking about?”

He stands at the edge of the world, his feet dangling off the sides. He gazes at the seemingly endless hill.  The bending horizon gives him the feeling as if he was in the center of the universe.  The hill was a death sentence they said, but Petar was no mortal man. His courage and strength were unsurpassed and cold Serbian blood pumped through his veins.  He borrowed his friend’s bike because it has shocks and pegs and it is totally rad. He slips on his Yankees baseball cap and slips on a pair of charred sneakers. 

“WHAT ARE THOSE?” someone yells

“Bens old sneakers” he coolly replies “this is for you pal, one last ride”

He kicks off and he is flying down the hill.  The wind in his ears is deafening, drowning out all of the voices begging him to reconsider.  The wheels on his bike screech and the smell of burning rubber fills his nose.  His eyes are rendered useless by the fast winds and he closes them.  A euphoric feeling of free fall washes over him, nothing to hear, nothing to see, just the wind in his face and the screeching of metal ripping from meta- “What was that?” he hears himself say as he turns around.  He sees a metal loop get smaller and smaller as he flies down the hill.  The Chain, good god the chain had fallen off, oh the humanity!  The pedals spin wildly under his feet and one of his laces gets caught in the gaps and he is thrown forward off the bike.  The hard earth comes up to meet him as he plummets.  Gravity steals his delusion of immortality as he is thrown across the street like a toy pitched by an angry child.  He lies the ground, staring up at the sky as he floats out of himself and gazes upon the scene.  There lay a boy, bloodied and broken at the bottom of a hill and hundreds of horrified onlookers at the peak. 

“He’s dead!” a woman cried “no one will ever beat the hill!”

They stood there, defeated and afraid and began to shuffle back to their dismal lives when they heard a whisper from somewhere down the hill.  They rushed back to see a crawling figure with tattered clothing and no shoes.  He looked back up at them with victory spread across his face.