That One Weekend. Free Essay Example

Never regret, if it is good, it is wonderful; if it is bad, it is an experience. Such sayings only really have meaning when we have genuinely humbling or elating experiences in life. One day my mum told me, “Son, bad experiences come in multiples, they push you to the edge.” True to her words, I would understand the exact meaning of her phrase years later in a span of one weekend.

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It was going to be a marathon weekend. Everything had been figured out. We had a Friday night house party to celebrate Jackie’s birthday at her place. On Saturday, we would go strolling at the park with a few classmates, before hooking up with others for an afternoon swim at the community pool. Sunday would follow with a family brunch at home, and one would start getting ready for the week. It had to be an amazing weekend. It had been a while since we planned so many activities for one weekend with friends.

“John! John!” Mum called me out from the living room downstairs. I left my bedroom and headed down to check out on her.

“Yes, mum, here I am,” I responded on arrival.

“Alright, I want you to rush to the grocery and get me these items,” She handed me a list and the cash to make the purchase.

I wanted to tell her to call the delivery guy instead, but I remembered that for two months, she had not been using the grocery delivery services. She always wanted to get them from the store so she could select the best. As I headed over to the grocery store, replaying the weekend schedule in my mind, I did not know this would be the beginning of the crumble. My phone buzzed, and I checked the text message.

“Hey John, are you still in for the party, it starts at 9 p.m. Jackie.”

“Fine, I will be on time,” I responded

It was already about 8 p.m. when I returned the groceries and proceeded upstairs to get ready. At 8.30 p.m., I left the house and headed over to Jackie’s. On arrival, I knocked, but there was no response. “They must be busy preparing for the party,” I thought to myself. I pushed the door open and went in. To my surprise, or was it shock, there was no one in the house. It was deserted.

I took my phone and dialed Jackie’s number; it rang several times without response. I sat there thinking about the next step to take. Twenty minutes later and still there was no one home, nobody was calling me, nor picking my calls. I decided to go back home. I was dejected. There was probably no party. Or maybe they changed the party location and never told me. Thousands of questions were running through my mind. As I walked towards the door, a firm hand grabbed me from the back.

“Where are you going?” My assailant asked in a hushed but deep voice.

That was a voice I had never heard before. However, I would hear it a few more times that night, probably the longest night of my life.

Before I could answer or ask anything, I was slapped before another face-covered man appeared and tied my mouth and my hands. I was then led upstairs and thrown into a room. Everyone else was piled in this room. Jackie, her siblings, parents, and all the other friends who were attending the party were in the room. All tied and manned by two gun-trotting men. I could join the dots now, all the unanswered calls, the messages with no replies, and everyone missing; things were tight here.

About thirty minutes later, the gun-trotting men left the room after a signal from one of their gang members. We were left on our own. Nobody could talk, nobody could help. We lay there helplessly. I was palpitating with terror. I was sweating profusely. About thirty minutes and the two thugs had not returned to the room. Then we heard voices outside the room.”

“Take cover!” “Take cover!”

The door pushed open. Two men in uniform swung in with their guns pointed.

“Officers, rescue mission here,” One of the uniformed men called out.

About five more unformed men came into the room and untied us all. As much as there was a sigh of relief, there were tears. Everyone was scared. Nobody wanted to leave the room. The experience of being mugged at gun-point was not only horrifying but draining too. It was now past 11 p.m. maybe the others had an idea what happened from the beginning, I only found the scene halfway gone. We were driven to the station to record statements, and everyone escorted home after that. I got home at 2 a.m. No party, just fear and a terrifying recurrence of the events of the night in my mind. Saturday mid-morning could not come sooner. I fell asleep at around 6 a.m.

“John!” “John!” “John!” Mum called out as she knocked on my door. It was 11 a.m. She still had no idea what happened last night. She woke me up to tale a late breakfast before I would head over to the park.

“How was the party son?” She asked as we settled down for breakfast.

“There was no party mum,” I said almost in tears.

“What do you mean there was no party?” She asked curiously.

I narrated to her the vents of the previous night. She could not help but sob as I narrated.

“Son, we thank God you are alive. Thugs could do anything,” She said in consolation.

After breakfast, I went upstairs to get ready for the park stroll and swimming later. I packed my swimming costumes and left for the park. “Take care of yourself,” Mum said as I left. It was a fifteen minutes’ drive to the pack, and I could not help replay the events of the previous night in my mind as the taxi-driver took the steering. My mind was sunk way far from the trip I was taking to the park. I was pretty late for the stroll, as it was supposed to start at 11.30 a.m., and I left home some minutes to 1 p.m. Thirty minutes later, he had not come to a halt. Back to my senses and I realized we had taken the wrong direction. I had directed the driver wrong, and we had to take a turn. He took heed, and we headed to the park, getting there a further thirty minutes later. I dialed one of my classmates, and they were already heading to the pool. Party missing, the stroll missed, and the only consolation would be swimming. I headed to the pool.

“Hey John, damn man, you missed the park stroll,” My best friend in class shouted when he spotted me. They had already changed into their swimsuits before my arrival. Some classmates were there to learn swimming.

“The stroll was much fun,” He continued before I could say a thing.

He led me to the changing rooms so we could find everyone else in the pool. He was aware of the party I was to attend the previous night, and he was pestering me to tell him how it went down. I promised to tell him after the swim. He was fine with that.

We headed over to the pool and sat on the edge as we enjoyed the relatively hot afternoon. It was all noise and fun inside the pool. The amateurs were getting lessons from the experts. Two of our classmates had participated in the state championships that year, and they were definitely the lead trainers at the pool. Then, something strange happened. A memory painted in my mind for years now.

“Save me!” “Save me!

These were cries coming from the deep end of the pool. Lillian, one of the novice swimmers, had inadvertently swum to the deep waters. Nobody had noticed this, and the cries could only be heard too far. In an attempt to save her, I jumped into the pool for the first time. Luckily, and I say very luckily, I managed to drag her out of the waters. Everyone was now concentrating on her first aid outside the pool, as we tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her. She regained consciousness after a while. Being the only group in the pool, we decided it was time to leave, but it was just too fast.

“Ken!” An agonizing shout came from Lydia behind us.

Everyone turned to check. Cries, tears, agonizing noises and screams followed. Ken was floating on the pool waters. When everyone left the pool, Ken unintentionally swam to the deep waters too. He had no experience swimming. With all the concentration on Lillian, nobody made a note of his struggles in the water. We had lost Ken; he was dead.

What was this weekend turning into? Why was it so painful already? Why was nothing happening according to plan? We left the pool in tears after Ken had been driven to the morgue.

I got home with my head down. All I wanted was to be asleep and have a peaceful time to recollect. The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind. All the good plans had been drowned by sadness and stressful moments.

I went straight to my room and tried to catch some sleep. I tried watching a movie. I tried reading a book. Nothing was working. The events of the weekend were replaying like horror music. I had informed mum I would take to bed early. I pretended to have taken food while outside to ensure I was not called to the dining table later in the evening. Maybe due to exhaustion, I fell into a deep sleep around midnight. I slept for ten hours straight and woke up 10 a.m. the following day. It was about an hour before our brunch, but there seemed to be no activity in the kitchen. Bad news, my sister informed me that mum had burnt her hand with steam fumes while making coffee earlier in the morning. She needed medical attention, and she had left the house for the hospital.

“Weekends do not get worse than this!” I exclaimed as I headed back to my room.

Truly, when bad experiences happen, they do so in multiples. They occur like a preplanned chain of sadness. That was a weekend to forget forever, but these memories stick around for a long time.