John lay in his bed by himself in the dark at the New York City Jail. As the realization of what had gone down the past few months hit him, emotions rushed over him like a stream and his stomach felt as heavy as an anchor. Everything he had worked hard for his whole life, was ripped away from him. He realized then, that the decisions he made were wrong, and he deserved the consequences. He looked back at what he had done, and tried to remember why he had made those decisions.
A few months before this, John sat at his kitchen table, in his small, 1 bedroom apartment, just outside of the city. His stomach growled since, he was having to skip meals more and more to make sure his two children would eat. Dillon, who was 7, and Elizabeth, who was …show more content…
He put on his overcoat and drove his 1997 Toyota Camry into town. He went to the local coffee shop, the movie theater, and the bank, in search of a job, but they all turned him down. Finally he went to the supermarket. There, he was also turned down. On the way out of the store, feeling pretty defeated, John noticed a brightly colored flier by the exit door. When he took a closer look, it was an advertisement for a small, short story contest. He ripped off one of the tearable strips at the bottom, with the address to submit the story to. He went home, with the bad news of not finding a job, but he was excited to enter in the …show more content…
Though the contest meant very little, and there was no prize, he was still very excited, and he sat like a statue by the telephone. He waited all day, and when he was just about to give up, it rang. John rarely smiled, with all of his misfortunes, not much made him smile. But now, with the phone in hand, whoever was talking on the other side of that line, was making John smile like a kid in a candy store. He had won the contest, and pride filled his body. Then the man on the other end told him some more serious news. “Although there is no prize for winning John, I have some connections to a few publishers in New York City, and I believe you're talented enough to be published. I could probably send something into them, but their fee to read a piece of work is steep. Just over a thousand