A red ball bounces along the pavement in an uneven rhythm. It bounces across the street and all I want to do is retrieve it. My mother holds me back. "I told you to stop playing with that ball, now you can no longer have it." She says. She is mean but I guess she thinks that I should not be playing with such toys since I am twelve years old. All she wants me to do is be good and become a guard one day. That is all I hear her talk about day after day, but I do not care about my future, right now. All I want to do is play with a red ball. I have always liked to play with a red ball since I was one years old. I do not know what it is about hitting and throwing a ball to the ground that keeps me engaged but I am. Maybe its because I am always trying to break it open. I am sure there is nothing special inside of them but it would make feel so strong if I could break it open with my physical strength. My mother takes them away from me all the time but father understands me. He has to understand because he brings me a red ball evey night. He is a security guard so I am sure he comprehends physical training more than my mother will ever be capable of.

Mother is a problem that I will be forced to solve eventually. We continue to walk home and then we find ourselves near a riot. Guards shove the peaceful protesters and I watch with wide eyes. They are strong they have the force I want. I want to be like them. No, I want to be stronger than them. Mother pulls me away from the riot and I am peeved but I continue to go wherever she goes. She walks at a faster pace. "Why are there so many riots today? I thought everyone was happy with the food rationing system. I'll have to ask your father when he comes from work." She says. Of course she will ask him, she is so pathetic. I am ashamed of having her as my mother. There is no room for the weak in this world. That is why there is a such thing called survival of the fittest. It is so funny how so many weak people got complacent. Instead of building their strength like me, they settled with the way things were. They accepted their wives being slapped down by security guards if they dared to ask for extra food. Children sit in houses with mothers who can only hope that security guards do not find anything valuable in the houses when they do their daily check. They hoped that the males they cared for did not die in a decrepit arena to delay the deaths of everyone they care for.

I am sure that at one time the human population exceeded one billion but with decline of our trust and society we are barely at a few thousand. Some days mother reminisces. She tells me about the good days, the days full of warnings, and the days filled with widespread sickness. Many people are still dying because of the illness in the waters around us even the ocean has it. The water we have has to boiled and filtered twice daily to be suitable for any human to drink. So, this all sums up the annihilation of the weak and mother is very weak. Through many detours to escape riots we found our way home. The door to our home had been removed and we went inside. A pistol sits by the entrance and I crouch to analyze the object. My mother pulls me back. "Do not touch that. Do not touch anything." She says. I stomp ahead of her with my worn boots. She panics all the time. I go to the barren kitchen and find blood streaks on the floor leading to the fridge. Upon opening the door I find my decapitated father with a curving slice on his face that makes him look as though he is constantly smirking. His eyelids are closed and his arms sit on the rack below his head. His permanent tan has left his skin. He should not be the dead one. My mother should be in his place, but I must fix this somehow. Mother is too weak to survive without him so I must fix this. I slowly walk to the living room where I left mother and I find her at the entrance where I left her sitting on the floor. I kneel and give mother a hug as she hugs me I reach for the gun behind her. I have to do this, now. Her short, black waves sit on my shoulder. "I am sorry that you have to see all this and live in this time, sweetie. My poor son. What are we going to do?" She says.

I saw a guard shoot a woman in the head with a pistol. I wonder how it will feel. I pull the trigger and a shot is released. Mother falls forward and the dead weight pushes me to the ground. I push her off of me and turn her over. Dull ,brown eyes look at me and I close her eyelids because as long as her eyelids are closed she will not be able to show me the eyes that are not worthy of seeing me. Someone determined that my father was worthy of seeing me and he was far stronger than mother, but it may have been for the best. The dead should not be able to see the living and vice versa. It is because the dead is the epitome of weak and the living is the opposite, right?