Intro for book that I most likely won't finish

Yeah. The book's entitled Quiet Angel. It's just a sad little tale about the trauma caused by the death of a family member in a family. Pretty stupid. Enjoy, here's the intro.

It was August 17th, 1993. There was a dark overcast with a light drizzle falling from the near-black sky. It was humid. The swimmers at the community center were quickly filing out of the pool after hearing the first crack of thunder. They began to dry off and shortly they had all left in their vehicles to go home. There had been a 7 years old and younger swim meet at that exact pool earlier in the day, but it was postponed due to the weather. The swimmers complained, and they boasted that, "A little rain won't hurt me!" to their parents. Naturally, however, the children were taken away despite their courageous claims. One car, however, had not left the near-vacant lot. It was a red SUV, with the standard Honor Roll bumper stickers on the back and air fresheners on the dashboard. The only other car in the lot was an ambulance, sirens still going at full, earsplitting volume. They had rushed to the pool after hearing a distressed call from one of the lifeguards. The paramedics couldn't make out much with all of the screaming in the background, but they came nontheless. They thought at the time that it was a standard pool procedure, which typically involved someone near-drowning or hitting their heads on the pool floor after blatantly disregarding the warnings and diving into the clearly marked "SHALLOW - 3.6 FEET" water. By the time they arrived there was a large commotion coming from the girls locker room. Nobody was silent or stagnant. Everybody was doing something. Some were screaming, others crying, and some even whispering. The only thing that seemed to be binding all of the people together was a particular feeling, one that everyone felt in some way or another. The feeling was creeping, and nobody mentioned it, but it was still there, lurking in the depths of everyone's minds. The feeling was that of death. It gave everyone that tingling feeling running down their spines that made them feel like the end was near. Even the kids, who didn't completely understand what was happening felt it. It was unevitable.

The paramedics quickly pushed their way through the exceedingly large crowd to find a woman lying on the ground. She was pregnant, and her eyes had rolled back into their sockets. Their was a foamy liquid secreting from the ends of her mouth, and she was convulsing on the ground. The lifeguards exhausted every trick and technique that they remembered from their textbooks during their training, but none of it seemed to help the woman. The paramedics approached the large huddle of lifeguards whom were standing over the body of the woman. They asked them to stand aside and quickly lifted the woman and put her on a cart and trolleyed her off to the ambulance. The woman was one of the few in the room not wearing a bathing suit. She was dressed in a black leather jacket and a striped shirt. She had a pair of capris on that were about twice her normal size, and a pair of sandals on. She was about 5'8" and looked like she weighed a good 180 pounds with the baby in her. One of the paramedics remained behind to try and gain control of the situation. He asked the crowd where the woman's family was and they directed him in the direction of a short, stocky man holding his child next to one of the shower stalls. After hearing this he asked everybody to leave the pool and go home. They obeyed. The paramedic then turned to the man by the showers. His glasses were perched on his nose and he was sweating. He looked very pale, and had a look of fear in his eyes. The child he was holding was one of the kids competing in the swim meet. He had a bleak but confused look on his face, and seemed to be wondering why on earth his father was holding him in such a way. The paramedic came over and pulled the 2 aside in order to wait for the police to arrive. "You two just sit right here OK? The police will be here shortly." "A-alright, I think I can do that." replied the man, who appeared to be fighting through tears.

The ever-sounding sirens of the ambulance started to appear more and more faint, as it drove off with the man's wife now in the hands of better care. The police arrived about 5 minutes later and sat down with the man next to a pillar. They had one of the officers take the kid away for a while in order to get a few statements from the father. "So I assume you're the husband of the woman in the locker room, is that right?" "Yes. I'm her husband." "Alright, excellent." The officer pulled out a notepad and pencil and started scribbling down information. He was a tall and handsome man, and had a smooth, soothing voice. He had clearly dealt with this kind of situation before. "Alright, so do you remember why your wife went into the bathroom? Did she tell you why she went in?" "Well, we had a bit of a fight--" "About what?" interrupted the officer. "Oh, something stupid. You know, trivial things." "It'd be great if you could just be as specific as possible, no matter how trivial the information might be. It'll help with the report." Insisted the officer. "Oh, OK then. Well we had been arguing over who was going to pick up the dry cleaning after we arrived home. We argued about it for a while but she said she needed to use the restroom so she went off. At that point the rain had just started to come down, so I suspected she was also preparing to go." "OK, so the dispute was over dry cleaning and she went off to take a bathroom break, is that right?" asked the officer. "Yes, that's correct." "OK, continue please." "Alright. Well just as Ben was about to start swimming-" "Ben? Is that your son?" "Yeah, that's him." "OK, I'm sorry, go on." "Right. Well he was about to race when I heard a shriek coming from the bathroom. I assumed it was my wife so I rushed over there to see what the issue was. It wasn't my wife screaming but actually another lady who had walked in. She yelled for me to come in and when I went in I saw. Well. You know, her... Condition." "So you saw her having a seizure?" "Yes." Clarified the man. "But there was something else," continued the man, "She was laying in front of the sink so when I ran over to her I happened to look inside of it. In there I found something. I put it in this bag here, but I'm not quite sure what it is exactly." "OK, could I see it?" asked the officer. "Sure." The man handed the officer what he had found. Whatever it was was crudely wrapped in toilet paper and shoved into a beach bag. The officer unwrapped the discovery from it's makeshift covering and layed it out on the bench. What he saw was a small straw that had been about 1/4 the size of a regular straw. He also saw a small bag of a powdery substance. The officer stared wide-eyed at the discovery and looked over to the man. "You don't know what this is?" the officer asked. "Well, no, not really. I just know that whatever it is is something that my wife usually packs in her purse before we go to these swim meets. I assumed it was makeup or something." "Thank you. Can you wait right there for a moment, sir?" The man stayed silent and kept still while the officer entered the locker room and pulled aside another officer and showed her the findings. "What do you make of this?" The woman stared down at the objects in the officers palm. She looked horrified. "Where on earth did you find this?" she asked. "The father claims he found it in the sink next to where his wife had collapsed. Do you think you can go bring this in for identification?" "Yeah, I'm on it." The woman left to go figure out whatever the substance was in the small bag while the male officer returned to the father. "What's your name, sir?" "My name's Walter." "Alright Walter, I'm afraid that I've got bad news for you. The substance that your wife had was not makeup, it was something entirely different." "Well what could it have been?" asked Walter. "Well, we're not exactly sure yet, but we'll have the results back soon. You just wait here. The substance was identified as a concentrated dose of cocaine. This information was relayed to Walter. This was not the only bad news he recieved that day.

The second piece of bad news he recieved was when he was called by the local hospital and told that his wife was in critical condition and that she would have to stay for more tests on her and her child. Walter got Ben back from the police officers and dropped him off at a baby-sitters house. He then went into the ER where he found his wife sprawled on her hospital bed unconscious. She looked peaceful, almost content. Walter grabbed her hand and held it to his lips. He then prayed for what must have been the first time in years. He prayed to the God that he knew wasn't listening to him for his wife to be okay, for the sake of his future child and Ben. He prayed because he had no other options. Walter fell asleep at her bedside that night. She made it through the night safely, however she never woke up. Walter stayed at the hospital for 3 nights without her waking up. It was then that the doctors started to worry. They pronounced to Walter that his wife was in a coma and that she could wake up at any time, but that they don't have any way of telling when that time would be. "But she will wake up, right?" asked Walter, desperate for a straight answer. "We can't guarantee that Mr. Washington. We'll have to just wait and see." So Walter did just that. For nearly a month he made sure to show up at the hospital to check on his wife's condition, but she never recovered. His wife had been pronounced brain-dead, and had to be sustained by a feeding tube. She had apparently overdosed heavily on the cocaine that she had with her and her brain was no longer capable of sustaining itself. The doctors claimed that Walter was lucky that she hadn't died and that the child was still healthy in terms of its vitals and blood pressure. Of course, there was no way of telling how the child would come out when and if it was born. The doctors, after another few days, said that his wife had just reached her 34th week of pregnancy and would likely be having the child soon. They asked he wanted his wife to go through the the child-birth or if he wanted an abortion. Walter, sticking with what he thought his wife would have wanted, asked for the child to be born. At this point Walter had basically accepted that his wife would need a miracle to "wake up" again so he was prepared to make decisions for her. The child was born silent. It didn't scream or cry at all, which was unusual for a child born from a drug-user. The doctor called it a "Quiet Angel" and checked it's sex. "It's a boy. A very healthy one at that. You're a very lucky man." The doctor gave the young boy to his father and observed that same mesmerising sight that he had seen so many times in his life before. The sight was that of a father taking his first, breathtaking look into the eyes of his young child. Walter did just that. His blue eyes shined like the crystal clear waters of the Carribean and for the first time in what was probably about a month, he looked genuinely happy. It showed for only a second. His mouth never twitched, and his expression never changed, but his eyes told the whole story. Then Walter decided on a name. "So. You got a name for your little angel?" asked the doctor. "I'm gonna name him Sam. In honor of his mother." A week later the doctor cut Samantha's feeding tube. Her mother, father, best friend Angela, and of course Walter came to watch her die. Walter brought along Sam as well, but he made sure to leave Ben at home so as not to scare him. He didn't want his child's last memory of his mother to be hooked up to machines on her death bed. The funeral was a short one. It was somber, but thoughtful. The priest said standard prayers and looked back on the life of Samantha and all of the atendees went up to pay their respects. And then they all went home in their cars. Similar to how they all left the pool on that one faithful day a month previously. The only difference was that this time, a family would leave incomplete; motherless, wifeless, and broken.

Is this shit fiction or non fiction?

Quote :

The doctors, after another few days, said that his wife had just reached her 98th week of pregnancy and would likely be having the child soon.

That's well over a year and a half Luky.

StebenL wrote:

Quote :

The doctors, after another few days, said that his wife had just reached her 98th week of pregnancy and would likely be having the child soon.

That's well over a year and a half Luky.

lul'd

StebenL wrote:

Quote :

The doctors, after another few days, said that his wife had just reached her 98th week of pregnancy and would likely be having the child soon.

That's well over a year and a half Luky.

Fixed :D