A Dream Come True

Not a day went by where Casey Ross didn’t strike fear into the hearts of many. After all he had an extra 40 pounds of muscle than everyone else in the whole school, and you better believe that he used that advantage to get what he wanted, when he wanted. You may ask yourself, why no one ever went to a teacher or the principle when in reality about half the school did. The only problem was that Casey’s mom was the principle, and his father was the superintendent of the school district. He was an untouchable and unstoppable force that there was no defense from. There was only one person in the whole school with the power to stop Casey’s dictatorship, and that man was himself.

Casey was the star athlete of the football team, and he sure did act like it. He was the exact stereotype of a “jock.” He surrounded himself with other people who were just smaller, less cocky versions of himself. He always had someone to do his homework for him, he never had to pay for his own lunch, and he surely never received the answer of “No”.

Casey had a schedule that he always followed, today was Thursday and that meant that he was to take Jared Philips lunch money. As he approached Jared, the smallest kid in his senior class, he calmly stated, ”You know the drill,” but was puzzled when Jared mumbled, “ Everyone knows you for what you are except yourself, a coward,” and promptly handed his money over without any further hesitation. Casey sat alone in the hall that day thinking about what Jared just said. As he was pondering whether what Jared said was true or not, the bell rang son he gathered his books and headed off to English Class. The topic for the notes that day was various literary terms. What seemed like another boring class in English would be the start of a new chapter in Casey’s life.

As the words of the literary world passed by, so did the time. To Casey, English was the bane of his day. What felt like a hundred words later, the term empathy arose on the projector. It was followed by the summarized definition of the teacher, “Putting yourself into another’s shoes.” The words of Jared Philips flowed through Casey’s mind just like an hour before. These words haunted him for the rest of the day. The final bell of the day rang, and a sigh of relief came with it. Casey promptly headed outside with his friends to go right down the street to Amad’s house where they could swim, shoot hoops, or play some video games. After the fun was over Casey set off for home to make curfew. He started his 1998 Subaru Forester and headed to his house across town. For all of high school he had taken the interstate to and from downtown every day for school, and today was no different. As he drove along his radio was tuned to his favorite station, Groove Town 94.7, and he paid little to no attention to the road as usual. As he was shooting out a text to his friends about their plans for tomorrow he didn’t see the drunk driver that swerved into his lane and hit him head on at 45mph.

When the two leading causes of death among of drivers meet in one in a 45mph head on collision there can only be one outcome correct? Wrong. Against all odds Casey survived his duel with fate that September night, but he did not walk away from this event. He entered a trauma related coma, and was expected to be on his feet again in a week. The diagnosis was 100% correct. The next week at school, all of the students were assigned to write Narratives, fictional or non-fictional. Casey thought deeply and chose to write the strange dream he had while in his coma. It took place from Casey’s point of view at high school except it was not the one he had known for so long. He had turned from his role of the biggest and the baddest, to the smallest and puniest kid in the whole school. His whole life had been reversed, now he was the one who was giving up his lunch money, or giving his homework to someone who could beat him up. As Casey wrote, he realized that he experienced empathy in a way that not very many people ever had. He realized how much of a jerk he really was and how much everyone hated him. He knew that he needed to make amends with the ones who he had hurt and never do it again. He vowed to all of his victims to turn from his idiotic ways and to become a protector to all from bullies. He had not earned anyone’s trust immediately, it was a long and winding road, but by the end of January he had befriended all in his school. He went from being the curse of the school to the hero they had always needed. Just like before, no one dare stood up to Casey, except this time, he was getting peoples’ lunch money back, not taking it.