UNTITLED

Christopher Elvira

6th Grade • Sawyer Elementary

It’s a cloudy day in New York City. The atmosphere today feels like anything can happen, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. It’s a bustling city full of office workers and skateboarders. The little details are what make this place unique. Like little actions make big differences and because of that, anyone or anything could get affected. Somehow everyone is connected in a town full of activity like this.

This is Jacques. A simple but strange young man. He is sitting on the stairs outside his apartment in what looks like really deep thought. He has messy brown hair, wears a silver watch that doesn’t seem to tick and leather boots with way too many cracks. For work he’s a drum player at day, and a gambler at night. One day Jacques was walking out of the grocery store and he found an envelope of cash on the ground in front of him. He knows it’s wrong to grab the money but he thinks it’s a blessing sent by God. He drops his grocery bags, picks up the money and goes home with a smile on his face. Shortly after, his grocery bags were stolen. By a woman with long black hair and a long jacket. Jacques didn’t feel good about what he did, but didn’t feel bad either. To Jacques, fate had put the money there for Jacques only and it was better off his than anyone else's. He proceeded his normal day, though very paranoid of the people around him. Went to work, then he went out with his friends. Jacques was spending all his cash on expensive drinks and blowing his cash on gambling. He took a shot, then another, then another. He

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checked his phone and he got a notification from a lady friend to “come over”. Jacques took one more shot and he left the bar. He drank more than he had in quite some time. And without a second thought, Jacques proceeded to get into his car. He looked for the key, fumbled a bit, and put the key in the ignition. He felt confident that he could make a quick drive. Jacques then became easily distracted, foot on the pedal. He was driving without looking where he was going. He ended up losing complete control of the vehicle and.. Jacques drove himself into an accident.

This is Vanessa. She’s young, wears dark clothing and spends her time in obscure places around the city, like the subway. She lives by her own rules. She has long black hair, wears punk rock boots, and always wears long black jackets. Though Vanessa has an innocent face and a unique style, Vanessa suffers from kleptomania. Kleptomania is a recurrent urge to steal. Vanessa steals beauty items, toys, anything she can get her hands on. Vanessa doesn’t have many friends. But she doesn’t really want any. One day, Vanessa manages to steal a silver watch that doesn’t tick, earrings, and a banana smoothie. Soon after, Vanessa is drinking her stolen smoothie. It was a normal day for her, until she noticed a man with a balaclava and a bag full of money. No one was chasing him. Vanessa proceeded to call the police. She didn’t even have any thoughts of being a hypocrite. A girl that had just broken various laws herself, proceeded to call the police on somebody else. Was she a changed person, or was she protecting herself? A couple moments later, she comes across bags of groceries left in front of the grocery store. She takes the bags and leaves without a second thought. It turns out Vanessa hadn’t changed at all. She was sitting alone in her apartment, snacking on a bag of Tostitos, and proceeded to text

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a friend she knew would respond right away. There were two words to get the friend’s attention completely. “Come over”.

This is Eric. Eric is a criminal, he knows how to be a criminal like the back of his hand. Being a criminal is his life. He fails anytime he tries to be a good person. Eric would spend his nights finding ways to defy the law but he failed miserably every time. After he was sent to jail for a year, he finally came back to his wife. Though he was glad to be back in his home, his wife seemed different. One day, Eric noticed something peeking under his wife’s laptop. It was an envelope, Eric opened it to find overdue balances. His wife was in deep debt. Eric didn’t want to commit another crime but he needed to get his wife out of debt. Eric did what he knows best and went to rob a bank. He prepared a balaclava and a duffel bag to rob a bank. He walked past a suspicious girl drinking a banana smoothie, she was staring at him deep in the eyes but Eric went on with his robbery. All seemed to go well until a policeman caught him in his tracks, Eric dropped an envelope of money in front of a grocery store.

This is Jess. Jess is full of independence, yet has sad eyes. She has an addictive personality. Jess spends her days as a waiter and she uses the rest of her time waiting for her husband to get out of jail. A couple of days later she found a new hobby, gambling. Jess was addicted and she thought of it as a good way to keep distracted. Finally her husband got out of jail, she was finally happy. One day a letter came in the mail saying she was in debt. Jess grabbed her keys, her coat, and she left. She walked through the city without a destination. She thought things were finally supposed to be good after her husband got out of jail. It was late at night and Jess got in her car to go home, but before she put her seatbelt on.. she got hit by another car.

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What does all of this mean? Let’s go over what happened. If Jess had not been addicted to gambling she wouldn’t have gotten in debt. If Jess hadn’t been in debt Eric wouldn’t have robbed the bank. If Eric didn’t rob the bank, Vanessa wouldn’t have called the police. If Vanessa didn’t call the police, Eric wouldn’t have dropped the money. If Eric didn’t drop the money, Jacques wouldn’t have picked up the money and inevitably gotten into a car crash. If Jacques didn’t use the money to celebrate none of this would have ever happened. All of this shows that the smallest of things can lead to the biggest of changes and that things you do can always come around to you in a good way or a bad way. Everyone is connected in some way. It doesn’t matter what happens we are still connected through the events that happen in our everyday lives. What one person does affects another. Like dominoes. One of us falls and the other person falls, and another, and another. The dominoes keep going, and going forever. Until we’ve all fallen.

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