Here is one of the stories I found in an old notebook at my mother’s house.  I tried limit the editing to compare how my writing style was back as a teenager. I was about 12 or 13 when I wrote this story.

A woman, standing on a corner is waiting for someone. Someone whom she has never met before. This was her first assignment since joining the Unified Espionage League. And she was perfect for the job because she had no family. Her family died in the surprise attack against the U.S. The person she was waiting for was late. Just when she was about to leave, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, ma’me, I believe this belongs to you.” The man handed her a black bag, that looked somewhat like an old doctor bag. It contained instructions for her case. As she shook the man’s hand and he slipped a set of keys attached to a piece of paper. There was an adress on it. It was the apartment she was issued which was accross town. She would have to take the bus to get there.

She crossed the street and hopped over the San Francisco trolly tacks or what was left of them. Most of the city was in ruins after the bomb landed on the city about 10 years ago. As she walked to the bus stop, she began to think about her family. She was in school when the war started. Bombs were dropped all over town including her house where her mother and brother were, and the factory where her father worked. Somehow, the school was spared. A tear ran down her check but she quickly wiped it away.

The bus stopped slowly and about ten people filed on the bus. She paid her fair of $6.50 and took a seat near the window.  The woman was happer her apartment was accross town because that was where all the new apartment buildings were built. She would have the comfort of a new place with all the new technology of 2030.  She started dreaming of her new apartment. Then the bus stopped at her stop.

She got off and walked about two blocks. Finally she reached her new home. It was a large building with many black windows with silver trim. The building seemed to sparkle in the sun. She ran to the front door and opened it with her keys. Her apartment was on the tenth floor. So she searched for the elevator. The elevator was something very new to her. As each floor was passed, a voice announced which floor it was on. There was an old man on the elevator with her.  However, he looked very suave. He wore a black jacket and a pair of wire rimmed glasses.

“This is the fourth floor.” She wanted to check out all the buttons and surroundings but couldn’t because the old man was there. She hoped that the next floor would be his. She was getting nervous and anxious.

“This is the fifith floor.” He didn’t get off. The next two floors went passed and he still didn’t get off. He just simply started at the door open and close. Finally, he got off on the eighth floor. She was finally alone and started to check everything until an old woman stepped in. The woman was so frail and bent over her walker. The glasses the o ld woman wore were so think that her eyes looked like giant bugs. She kept walking with her walker until she hit the wall and just stood there, staring at the wall.

“This is the tenth floor.”

She stepped off the elevator and looked back at the old woman staring at the wall and then shook her head. The elevator door closed and the young woman ran down the hall to her new apartment 1006.  She stepped into the apartmentand looked around. It was a loft with two bedrooms. She wondered what the other room was for but she didn’t care. She sat down at the kitchen table and opened the black bag. There as a false birth certificate with her actual birth date, February 24, 2010 but with a different name. Her new name was now Marisol Velez. Her real name is Claudia Vega.  There was a checking account with $25,000, a camera shaped as a broach, a few rolls of microfilm, a pair of car keys for the car parked in the building’s garage and a mission file.

Knowing how I was back then, I probably thought the story was stupid and just stopped writing. I did that a lot when I was a kid. I was very self conscious about my writing. But now as an adult, I think there might be something here to this story.  As I read it, I can’t believe how bad but what potential the story has. I guess you can say I had a wild imagination. I think I will try and rewrite it, using what I know now about writing.  I will say that after this finding my old writing and through this experience, writing is truly a craft that needs to be nurtured.