Life Might As Well Of Been Over

Setting: Some years back, when Locke is a teenager.

Characters: (added) John Locke, Lewis

Summary: As a teen, Locke is wheelchair bound. (Despite the fact he couldn’t be a teen since he told the guy at the bus company or whatever that he had dealt with his wheelchair problem for five years…leave me alone.) His high school has a fire drill…(based on a radio announcement)

Rating: PG

A/N: This is based on a radio announcement I heard this morning. Some school out west had a fire drill, and it’s school policy that wheelchair bound students, if they have a class on the second floor, to be left at the stairwell until authorities come for them. (Sickening, isn’t it?) Despite what we know about Locke’s issue, lets clear our minds for a sec. He is a teen, in school, in a wheel chair. There is a fire drill and he and another wheelchair-ed kid named Lewis are sitting at the top of the stairwell…

“John! John!” Mrs. Joel, John’s 10th grade English teacher cried as he grabbed the handlebars of her student’s wheelchair and whisked him down the hall, her walking students following her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Locke saw Lewis, another handicap being rolled out of the Chemistry room. Everyone was heading for the stairwell. The walkers would be the only ones going down.

Locke was rolled over to the side, leaving room for the more fortunate people. Soon, Lewis was there next to him. They watched as giggling and screeching kids trampled down the concrete steps and outside into the sunshine, like they always did on the monthly fire drill.

Locke’s eyes followed Nora Wayne, a pretty girl with shinny dark hair and small, always eye-shadowed and lined green eyes. She was with her normal gang, the cheerleaders. A few football players tossed a paper wad at Nora and her posy, causing them all to giggle and screech.

Locke had always wanted to be a football player…to be with Nora. To get her attention; but with his problem, this was impossible.

“Someday,” he told Lewis. “I’m going to walk down those steps.”

“Dream on, John,” Lewis said, still watching the students. What Lewis said wasn’t hateful. It didn’t even bother Locke.

“Well, someday I am. And then I will play football,” Locke said with much confidence.

“Would you go into pro?” Lewis said as if he really did believe what Locke was saying.

“No. After college I’d take after my dad and go on walkabouts.”

“Sounds cool.”

As a child, Locke longed to be with his father on the walkabouts, but he was young. Instead, he’d go into the small wooded area behind his house where he would dwell on his thoughts and be with nature.

When he fell out of that tree and was announced to be paralyzed in the legs for the rest of his life…well, life might as well have been over.

But it wasn’t.