The Ides of March: A Fable | Teen Ink

The Ides of March: A Fable

June 30, 2011
By ShannonJr GOLD, Newton, North Carolina
ShannonJr GOLD, Newton, North Carolina
10 articles 0 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
&ldquo;He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.&rdquo;<br /> William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)<br /> <br /> &ldquo;Does he really think big emotions come from big words?&rdquo;<br /> Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)


March 15, 2011

The Last Day of All Living Life


Albert Norrington was standing in a long line outside of a book store in some small town in the state of North Carolina. Albert, of course, is an ordinary human being who likes to do things like read, ride bicycles, and even draw a picture or two. Sadly, Albert Norrington is going to die. Albert himself doesn’t know this, how could he? He just has the thought of a new book on his mind. It’s a rather sad doom, to have such material things on your mind like a brand new book.


Of course, Albert is a human being; an insignificant carbon based life form that will die anyways. “BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH! BEWARE!” yelled Old Man Pete, the crazy man who claims to have been abducted by aliens exactly a year ago today. Albert passes it off as crazy talk and continues to wait in line for his book.


Suddenly a loud gunshot is heard and everyone looks to see that Old Man Pete has apparently taken out a pistol and shot a 10mm bullet through directly through his temple and everyone who cared ran to the scene, but Albert did not believe that it was any of his business and kept on waiting for his book. He wanted that book and he was not going to lose his place in line because someone killed themselves.


Then Albert noticed that the sky was getting darker, but then passed it off as rain without looking even attempting to look at what it really was. He was focused on his book, and did not care what meaningless precipitation would fall from the sky, he wanted his book. He then heard a woman scream as the sky got darker and darker until the sun was completely eclipsed. Albert looked up to the sky and saw a large, black, floating monolith and turned back to the bookstore. He wanted his book.


“You foolish humans, you should listen when someone tells you the truth, instead of mindlessly continuing your meaningless materialistic activities.” said a robotic voice from the sky and then a large beam of light swept the surface, killing everyone in sight, including Albert.

Albert never got his book.


The author's comments:
I was sitting in my English class while we were reading Julius Caesar, and we got to the point where the soothsayer warns of the Ides of March or when the Roman conspirators were planning to kill Caesar, and I immediately thought about what it would be like if a man warned of the end of the world and nobody listened to him because he was a crazy old man. Then I thought of the main character Albert, who represents a main human flaw and this flaw kept him from seeing what was before him...the end.

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