M. G. Davis
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M. G. Davis was born in 1990 in Chino
Hills, CA. She’s been a storyteller at heart ever since she was
a child. After graduating from Chino Hills High School in 2008,
she went to work for the Disneyland Resort, which she still
does to this day. She was first published in 2007. Her high
school essay was featured in the collection called Believing in
Greatness by Elder & Leemaur—Publishers. Broken Things and
Angel Feathers is her first novel.
WEBSITE: http://www.mariellegdavis.com/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/MarielleDavis
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/marielle.davis.3
OTHER: http://lightshade393.tumblr.com/ |
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Sylvester “Sly” McMahon is a depressed
sixteen-year-old teen who wants nothing more than to die. He’s
saved from a suicide attempt by a mysterious stranger, who later
turns out to be his not-so-angelic guardian angel Cliff. A
chain-smoker with a penchant for sarcastic wit, he’s determined
to save Sly from himself. Sly is less than thrilled with the
idea of staying alive. The two have to learn how to tolerate
each other, even while Cliff keeps stressing the idea that the
purpose God has set out for the teen isn’t yet fulfilled.
Excerpt
Word Count: 39680
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Price: $ 4.99
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ORDER Broken
Things and Angel Feathers in PRINT!
(ISBN #978-1-61950-292-5) |
| Excerpts |
Broken Things and Angel Feathers |
Chapter 1
I walked out of school with only one thought in my head. I was
going to kill myself.
Okay, let me back things up and explain. I’m not one of those
emo teens who sit in the back of the classroom wearing all black
and who secretly cut themselves with a protractor in the
bathroom. I’m also not the type of guy who sits at home and
idolizes the Columbine duo and plans to take out everyone with
me just because nobody sat with me at lunch. For the most part,
I’m normal, excepting the part where I read probably six times
more books than any of my peers.
I’d always been a pretty easy-going kid. Out of me and my
sister, my mom had consistently said I was the easiest one
growing up. I just always went with the flow, never really
getting too worked up about anything. Sure, I’d had some rough
patches, as every kid does, but there was no trauma in my life.
I never watched my parents get gunned down in an alley, I didn’t
have an addiction to cocaine by age twelve, and the worst injury
I’d ever gotten was when our dog Bandit knocked me down hard
enough to break my leg when I was seven.
But somewhere along the way, everything changed. It’s like
everything just stopped being as fun and interesting as it had
been. Life turned into one of those old-timey photographs, where
there’s no colors and everything’s just a monotone black and
white. It didn’t matter what I did. Hanging out with friends,
eating an ice cream cone, or curling up with The Two Towers held
nothing for me anymore. I felt I had no purpose in life. I did
try, don’t get me wrong. I kept pushing on, figuring I’d snap
out of it eventually. Shoulda listened to that old saying: When
you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting
different results and getting the same one, you know what it’s
called? Madness.
When everything didn’t just snap back into place, I got good at
faking it. I didn’t need anyone worrying about me or asking me
all the time if I was okay. It’s amazing how easy it is to just
slap a smile on your face, say all the right things, and watch
everyone around just assume everything with you is fine and
dandy. I figured if I gave it enough time, I’d get better.
Cue me two years later, getting out of my junior English AP
class and deciding today was the day.
This wasn’t an easy decision to make. It’s not like I woke up
one morning and decided, Hey! Killing myself sounds like a great
idea today! while I was munching on Froot Loops. I mean, it’s
not like I wanted to die, exactly. I just wanted to just stop
existing, with no more pain and no more thoughts in my head.
Since turning into a rock was out of the question, that left
only one option. So, yeah, I started thinking about death.
Here’s a little aside for all you teens out there reading this:
It’s incredibly easy to find out ways on how to kill yourself.
Go on; start listing them off the top of your head. Bet you can
come up with two handfuls no problem. The real problem for me
wasn’t dying; it was how to make it look like an accident. See,
I wanted to die, but I had enough sense that I didn’t want to
hurt my family. Sure, they’d be sad anyway if I died, but if I
could make it look like an accident, I thought they would get
over it quicker. They wouldn’t beat themselves up about not
getting me help in time or bullshit like that.
It had taken the better part of a month, but I finally had the
plan down pat. All it would take was the school parking lot, one
fast-moving car driven by one of my classmates while they were
too busy texting to pay attention to the road, and me taking
five steps at the wrong time. So I wandered out of the quad,
taking one last look at the campus around me. Now that I’d made
the decision, it was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders.
No more going through the tedious rituals of high school.
Talking with friends about absolutely nothing of importance,
struggling to turn in homework on time, and generally being
nothing more than a blip on the radar of the hive mind
consciousness that made up Ayala High School. Hell, who am I
kidding? I wasn’t even a blip. I was nothing, a nobody just
taking up space, food, and air.
Everyone was practically running out of school that day. It was
a three-day weekend, the magic words that make every teen ready
to sing and dance around like they’re in a Judy Garland and
Mickey Rooney musical. The only real importance I attached to it
was what it meant to my plan. Every person in the joint, from
the seniors everyone knew the names of, down to the plebian
freshmeat, wanted to get the hell out of that parking lot as
fast as humanly possible. The chaos would be a perfect time to
put my plan into action. (Yes, I am aware I sound like an action
hero out of an eighties film saying that, but what else do you
want me to say? Yeah, offing myself was just a dandy little plan
to enact.)
I walked out of school, looking just as glad that the jail was
open as anyone else. Here or there, I called out to people I
knew, talking about nothing important, and then forgetting the
conversation as soon as they were out of sight. This was it, the
last few minutes of my life. What a relief. I wondered how many
of my classmates would come to my funeral. Probably a lot.
They’d all say how wonderful I was and forget every little
annoying thing I had ever done to them.
I worked my way through the crowds, past the open-air buildings
(designed to take advantage of the California sunshine), and
past where some bullies were stuffing some hapless victim with a
white man ’fro into a trashcan. I went onto the baking asphalt
that made up the parking lot. It must’ve been a good idea back
when the school opened up in 1962, but fifty years later, there
was barely enough parking for the students. Add in the teachers
and all the parents cramming their twelve-year-old Dodge
Caravans in there, and it was like maneuvering my way through
the streets of Calcutta.
That made it perfect for me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
It was an old model and a few years out of fashion, but hey, at
least it could make texts and calls, which was the important
part. I flipped it open and scanned through my contacts,
deliberately looking surprised when a mom in a minivan went
zooming past not two feet from my head. I picked Jesse, and
before you ask, yes, I’d hummed the old eighties song to him
incessantly until he threatened to permanently glue my tongue to
the roof of my mouth. I started rattling off a benign text
message, the usual, Hey man, what’re you doing this weekend?
nonsense.
I kept one eye on the cars going by. I knew what I had to do. In
a few minutes, it would all be over. No more pain. Just sweet
oblivion. It couldn’t be someone driving too slow or looking too
cautious. One of my classmates, then, as opposed to a teacher or
a parental unit. I heard a truck’s tires go peeling as it went
around a sharp curve, the music blaring loud enough for even a
deaf man to hear. Half the driver’s attention was tuned into
changing the radio stations and the other half was glancing down
every few seconds at a text message. They were going way too
fast to boot. Perfect.
I took five steps out into the middle of the road and prepared
to die.
He looked up at the last second, the panic clear in his dark
eyes. I felt a little bit sorry for him, but the relief I felt
for myself was more overwhelming. This was the end. I kept my
eyes open, wanting to savor the moment.
Then I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt and yank sharply to
the left. My body jerked automatically and I stumbled. The car
went past me, only clipping my right side and sending me
sprawling to the ground. I hit my head pretty hard as I went
down. Unlike what the movies teach you, getting a concussion
doesn’t automatically knock a person unconscious. It just makes
you feel really, really crappy.
There was a crowd forming by this point. I wish I could tell you
it was made up of concerned classmates, but for the most part,
everyone was using their cell phones to take pictures and video
instead. Yeah, feel free to have your faith in humanity drop
about six points. I tried to say something, maybe some profound
last words, but the breath had been completely knocked out of
me.
At some point, my sense of time shot to pieces, a teacher showed
up and told me to lie still. She also said to stay awake and
conscious. Of course, my body decided to choose that very moment
to shut down like an overheated laptop. A crowd of strangers,
who merely cared about the drama of almost seeing me die, was
the last thing I saw. Just before I was dragged under, I could
smell cigarettes and a low voice chuckling. It said, “Damn, kid.
You certainly know how to make a spectacle of yourself.” My last
conscious thought was to wonder who the hell thought this whole
situation was so effing funny.
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