Henry's (and Morgan's Story) of Suicide

1. The Life and Times of Henry (introduction)
The young boy lied there, resting peacefully on the green. Below him was a steep, steep ditch filled with leftover trees, logs, woods, and plants from when it was deforested in the 1970s. The young boy had a name. It was Henry. Henry decided he'd continue sleeping until the break of dawn. When Henry was bored, he'd go to this special place he'd been sleeping on for the past three hours. Houses were also surrounding the ditch, but probably fell in the pit of it during earthquakes, leaving leftover logs and pieces of what were glass windows in some places over the ditch. Wildlife was everywhere, but Henry didn't even notice. The young boy called Henry had trouble going back to sleep once he had woken up. He was too excited about building a house himself with his father the next day on one of these ditches. Long ago, most of Henry's relatives died, including his mother, Mary, who died the night Henry was born, in 1990. Henry was going to make this home out of sixteen logs, four for each wall and two glass windows, for Henry and his father to see the beauty of outside nature. Henry's father did not own a car, for he couldn't afford one. His father was naturalist, and also owned a shop filled with plants and trees and the most majestic herbs that could cure just about anything. Where Henry and his father lived, there was only a large schoolhouse and small homes throughout the town, and Henry and his father liked it that way. Many people visited the shop of Henry's father's many times, even though it was a long drive. It was worth it. The schoolhouse was one mile away, and Henry was happy his father made the decision that he wouldn't go until seven. "Henry, you shall not go to school until the age of seven. Until this time, I want to teach you everything I know about nature and wildlife," is exactly what he had said to Henry, even though he knew the law required Henry to go at the age of five. And Henry's father stuck to this statement. By the age of seven, Henry knew just about everything on nature. The wildlife surrounding him, how the Earth was formed, what beauty was destroyed long ago, how our air is cleaner than regular air, and so much more. He also learned how the ditch they were soon to live near was made. "During an earthquake long ago, two plates moved in the opposite direction of each other along the fault line, making a large, large hill. In the seventies, workers deforested much of our land, and after one decade, and my fellow customers and I dug out the hill to make a ditch for trapping burglars so they couldn't enter our land. Everyone who was a good citizen knew about the ditch so they couldn't fall in," said Henry's father, "and the ditch is about one quarter mile deep."
notes from henry before death...
Time passed by and my father and I settled in our new-built home. When I became seven, I knew it was time I had to go to school, so my father enrolled me in the nearest schoolhouse. It was one mile from where we lived, so we walked there, for we didn't have an automobile. Everyday, my father would walk me to the school, and I absolutely loved it. Our house contained an old stove in the corner, a candle that lit our home that hung on the ceiling, two beds, one small one for me, and a large one for my father, and a table with all the casual stuff on it in the other corner: a telephone, a clock, and something called an ice box. An ice box was what all people used instead of a fridge before the refrigerator was invented. An iceman came by everyday with ice and we stored the ice in our ice box. Our iceman was my father's very good friend and best customer, Harold.
back to what the author knows about henry.....
But this is not what the story is supposed to be about. This story is supposed to be how Henry and his love he made at school and both or one of their DEATHS. Death is a weird thing you know. If you ever had experienced surgery, you wake up all groggily and then you realize you've just experienced temporary death. I unfortunately experience this "temporary death" and I thought So this is what death is like. Death happens to all of us, and it doesn't avoid a single creature on this planet, whether it is the tallest man on Earth, or the smallest fly you can find. Death certainly did not avoid Henry.....Here is where the ultimate story of death really starts:
2. Socialization at School (seconduction)
After a while, Henry reached the age of eight and entered his first day of his second year in school. Henry was very friendly, and had no social problems. His only problems were the academic ones. But that didn't matter much for Henry, because he knew he was set for life. He knew all about geology, nature, and science, which Henry and his peers did not study at school. He was going to become an excellent naturalist when he grew up, to take the chance his father wanted him to. Mathematics would never matter. Reading and Writing he had trouble with. His skills in these subjects were much lower than his classmates' ones, mostly because in the years of education he missed, Kindergarten and First Grade, the number one thing you learned was how to read and write. But Henry became so interested in Reading and Writing, he made it his goal to learn everything about these subjects by the end of Second Grade. Henry was great in P.E, but was absolutely horrid in artistic skills...he barely could hold up the paint brush and paint a smooth, solid-colored line. Anyway, Henry did make many friends in school. His teacher, Miss Bernardo the Fourth, or Miss B-Four, as she let us call her, was sweet as sugar-coated candy. Yet Henry's P.E teacher, Mr. Opal Jenkins the Sixth, who let us call him nothing but the sort, was as cruel as Miss B-Four was nice. Henry never invited friends over, not because he was embarrassed of his home (in fact he took pride in it), or because he wanted to spend time with his father, but because Henry liked to do things himself. He got into the habit of racing to a nearby tree what looked like the size of the Mississippi River by himself, eating by himself, jumping on a trampoline he made out of logs, leaves, and soft stuff he found by the ditch to make it jumpy and bouncy himself, swimming in the nearby creek himself, and even washing his own clothes, doing his own dishes, hunting his own food, knitting his own clothes himself. By Spring of Second Grade, Henry did almost everything himself, and learned a lot more than he knew about his favorite subjects (of course next to Science): Reading and Writing. On the first day of the new season, a girl named Morgan came to Henry's class. And boy, was love in the air. Henry was absolutely savoring over the tiniest thought of Morgan. He constantly made eye contact with the beautiful young woman named Morgan. Morgan sometimes made eye contact back. Morgan did not have the faintest idea why Henry kept doing this, for she did not know who Henry was and obviously did not feel the same way Henry thought of her as she thought of him. Morgan did want to be friends with Henry, so she slowly and maturely befriended him. First, she made eye contact with Henry before Henry made eye contact with her, and then actually said something to him. "Hello," she said with a beautiful voice Henry had never heard, "my name is Morgan, and I was wondering if you would like to be friends with me." You would think Henry would faint, for he was so in love with this girl that actually said something to him, but he didn't because this is a true story, not a fantasy. Henry took no hesitation when responding back, "Boy, would I!" He didn't care if he was acting weird. He loved Morgan to tears. Henry had never heard Morgan's voice, now that he thought about it. He saw her talking, but never actually heard her in the process.
3. The Final Chapter in How Henry Committed Murder (thirduction)
Henry stopped doing things himself for a small period of time. Henry wanted to do things with Morgan. Of course, like all boys would have to say, Henry did not have the guts to ask Morgan on a date. Morgan and him would always sit over the ditch and talk to each other every weekend and on Friday nights (which he liked most because he thought they were the most romantic). It was nice watching the sun set with Morgan, Henry would think to himself. Henry only tried to make one move on Morgan: A month after he had met her and two weeks after they started hanging out on the ditch, Henry leaned over and puckered his lips for Morgan. Morgan (thank God, thought Henry) did not notice (which caused sorrow to fill Henry's body, but he soon got over it) and continued to relax there with Henry, just talking. After this, Henry never dared to even put his arm around Morgan. Exactly on Henry's fourth Friday hanging out with Morgan over the ditch, he noticed signs surrounding the ditch and surprisingly people doing things inside of the ditch (and it was a deep, deep ditch). Morgan wasn't there yet, and speaking of Morgan, let me tell you where she lived. The schoolhouse was exactly one mile away from Henry's home, and Morgan's family had a house built halfway from where Henry's home was. There was a large hill separating Morgan from Henry, and Henry sometimes felt bad for Morgan, because she had to walk a mile and a half to get to the schoolhouse, but her mother would always take her just like Henry's father would always take him. The signs read MEN WORKING and PLEASE STAND AWAY FROM THE CONSTRUCTION SITE and when Henry read them he wondered what was going on. Pretty soon Henry heard the head construction worker in the ditch shouting, "Hey! Get out of here! Leave, scram! Kid, move on!" Henry thought the worker was crueler than his P.E teacher. When Morgan came over, ten minutes later, she also wondered what was going on. Trust me, Henry was much angrier than Morgan was. He knew this was the end of his place to sit with Morgan. Morgan was only friends with Henry in her mind, but in Henry's mind, Morgan meant the world to Henry. Morgan wasn't happy about it either, though. She knew Henry was disappointed about the spot, but she tried to convince him to get a new spot for them to hang out. But Morgan did not understand. The workers weren't just destroying the ditch, for they'd have to have a reason. And that reason why mostly why Henry was so mad. They were destroying the entire town, building huge houses for rich men and their wives over it. Hotels, malls, shopping strips were going to be placed over the town in which both Henry lived in. I cannot describe to you what happened after this. I can give you little details, which may or may not help you understand why the workers continued shoveling and digging and building and destroying. Henry over time tried to convince the workers to stop digging, but that didn't help, especially because all workers except the head worker spoke only Spanish. A thought soon ran through Henry's mind: Why wasn't his father or the rest of his customers or anyone who lived in our town helping? Why was I the only one? Why...Henry couldn't tell all his fellow citizens to help, for children had to be respectful to all adults, but he could tell his peers. And he did, but that didn't work. None of the children listened to him, for they all didn't care. They all wanted to have a shopping center, a mall, and live in big houses. Of course, they didn't know that they were going to be the ones to get kicked out of their small houses and not get be invited back to a big mansion.
Look, I am tired and sleepy, and cannot go on with the story. I will have to tell you only part of it and go directly to the conclusion:
One Friday night, when Morgan knew she was not supposed to meet Henry at the ditch because the workers were well...working. But Henry telephoned her and told her to come. She asked why, but Henry preferred not to tell her, so she came anyway. When Morgan got there, she was surprised to see a pack of black and white police cars surrounding the ditch. But when she saw Henry's body lying face down in the ditch, probably a quarter mile down, her surprise went away. Instead of surprise, she felt a new emotion: Suicide.
Where, you ask, is Morgan today? Well, she now is in sixth grade, attending a middle school somewhere in America. Morgan was inspired by Henry's passion to read and write, so she decided to write a book. She had to switch around the years in her story, and was so modest she wrote it under a pen name. Where is that story today? You have just finished reading it.