Our Short Stories: Year 3

To end our unit of study on short stories, we wrote some of our own inspired by an image. Take a look at our best work from the students in Year 3:

The tale of the hotel of Life

by Baggio, Riscaris, Minervini

There was once a tale that when your life comes to an end, you have to check into a mysterious hotel. Miles and miles of hallways with doors to choose from. These doors show you all the memories and experiences you have been through in your life.

Every person who passes on has a choice. Some of the doors could lead to the most beautiful moments they have lived, or to someone’s worst tragedies.This is a story about a man for whom, once his life ended, another unexpected adventure began.

Edgar Pinto died at 78 years old. He woke up and realized that the Tale of the Hotel of Life was true, and he found himself prepared to re-watch all of his memories. Edgar checked-in and started wandering in the hallways. He started noticing that he wasn’t familiar with some of the doors. When he opened them, he saw some incredible adventures being played out in different places in the world. This was very strange to Edgar, because in his life he had never left his little town just outside of Lima, Peru.

Edgar soon realized that there was a mistake, he noticed that all the doors lead to every scenario except for ones he had actually lived himself. He was curious, so he started exploring these different moments. He saw deserts, snowy mountains, busy cities, and golden skies. But reality soon caught up with him as he had to make a decision that would determine his eternity. Which door would he choose to stay in?

Edgar unexpectedly found himself missing his own memories of life. As extravagant as these other memories were, he was ultimately looking for his own.

This tells us that as incredible and beautiful as another life can be, your memories and the people you have met will always be even more special to you.

A strange story

by Maggiani, Parisi, Brogelli

The strangest case they ever gave me was that of an apparent murder of a night guard in a museum in California. My name is Stephen Kolinsky and I am a police detective, and that was my seventieth case.

As soon as I arrived at the crime scene, my boss stopped me to tell me about what had happened. “This body was found this morning. From the analysis, he died around 3 a.m. last night, and from the corpse you will surely notice that he died from a gunshot wound. We're sure the gun was is not his, since his gun still has all the bullets in the magazine,” my boss said. 

I rushed right on the spot, still holding my sandwich with egg, ham, and ranch sauce in my mouth, and as soon as I arrived, I saw the corpse with bullet holes piercing the nape of its neck.

I immediately found the bullet, and looking at it better I understood that it had been shot from a 9mm. I quickly ran to give it to my boss to have it analyzed, however he told me that the results would be available only the next day since it was already 12 pm. However, I decided to stay there for the night and I sat down in front of the corpse. Looking up I noticed a painting, a portrait of a robot. 

To better concentrate I said aloud, “how would the killer have entered, and who is he?" I started cursing the saints since when I he heard a voice coming from in front of me; it was the picture! It came down from the painting and revealed itself alive! At that moment I wondered what they had put in my sandwich, and after a while I fell off my chair and hit my head. I recovered, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a group of figures beside me. There was "Liberty Leading the People," the "Gioconda" and the painting of the robot, but the only one that seemed to speak to me was the latter, who asked me how I was doing. 

Stammering, I replied that I was fine and that I was a detective, and then I asked him who had killed the guard. He looked me for 10 seconds, and then he turned to the lifeless body of the guard and he replied, "I know who killed him." I told him to tell me who it was, and he pointed out the girl in "Liberty Leading the People." I gasped, and I asked for explanations, so he told me that the guard was actually a thief, and he had tried to steal the painting and in response she shot him. At that moment, I started laughing, and after that my vision began to fade until I fainted.

As soon as I opened my eyes I found myself in a cell with a bed nearby and a poster of the robot painting. Then I  heard the sound of a door opening, I turned around, and I saw a lady dressed in white who said to me, "It's time for Kolinsky's medicine."

Back to Reality

by Giulio Boggetti, Matteo Iuculano and Federico Pica

9:00 am 

It was the 8th of January, the weather was very cold and a famous journalist from Forbes magazine, named John Smith, was interviewing Mr. Wilson, one of the richest people on earth.

"Good morning Mr. Wilson, I am glad to be with you today, how are you feeling about this  interview?" 

"Surprisingly, I am not feeling nervous because I already know what you are going to ask me."  

"Oh really?" 

"Yeah. When you are going to reach my level you will understand that common people are  repetitive."

"Okay, that was expected. In fact, when coming here I asked many people about your attitude and their feedback wasn't positive at all! They described you as an extroverted VIP  who doesn't care about peoples’ lives. The most surprising thing is that everyone agrees with the fact that you make your decisions superficially. Does this description represent you?" 

"Yeah, I don't like to overthink when making a decision. Usually, I flip a coin and then I decide!" 

"Oh wow! Anyway, let's get back to the main point of the interview because we're running out of time. How do you feel about the recent crisis the world is facing?"

 "As you probably already know, I am not affected much by the crisis, but I think everyone struggles in life sometimes so there is no need to worry."

 "Thank you for your time. I would like to say it was a pleasure, but I have mixed feelings about this interview. Would you come to my studio for the photo shoot since we need to  make the front page of the magazine?" 

"Okay." 

In the evening Mr. Wilson arrived at the studio late, and he was greeted by John in a very strange way: it seemed like John was very rude and anxious. As soon as Mr. Wilson entered he was  dragged into a dark room. At first, Mr Wilson started screaming for help as loud as he could, but  nobody answered. He was shaking in fear and all he could see were three doors, so he started figuring out a solution, and the first thing that came to his mind was to take one of those paths. 

Mr. Wilson quietly entered into the first door, and he was immediately teleported to a primary school. After a few seconds of confusion, Mr. Wilson recognized the school... it was the one where he studied when he was younger! He tried to talk to the people around him, but it was useless because they couldn't see him. He saw a child he recognized at once. It was himself! Mr. Wilson was frightened, he looked around, he was screaming, but no one could  hear him. The only thing Mr. Wilson could think about was following himself. He entered the school, where he saw, squinting his eyes behind a pillar, the young boy making fun of a thin, four-eyed child who started crying desperately, but Mr. Wilson jr. and his friends began to laugh at him loudly. After school, the bullied boy went home to his parents crying, but they didn't care about his broken feelings and instead of comforting him, they started scolding him. Mr. Wilson felt guilty about what he had done and tried to interact with the child, but he  couldn't.

At this point, Mr. Wilson was teleported back to the obscure room where the second door opened. Mr. Wilson immediately entered into the second door intrigued by what the first door had shown him so far. He was teleported to a company which he recognised as his own. Indeed, with its huge dimensions, this industry was looking like a huge construction surrounded by little houses. After a few seconds, Mr. Wilson entered the lobby of the building and in front of him he saw two people arguing about something. He made a few steps forward and he identified a rich man talking to an old lady. Quickly, he recognised himself in the businessman and the pretty woman was his secretary. She was giving the other person a one-week leave request made to process the death of the employee’s mother, but Mr. Wilson (the one from the past) outraged by the request at first lowered the employee’s wage, and then he decided to fire him.

Mr. Wilson found himself back in the dark room where there was the third and last door unlocked. Without thinking too much, he entered into the door in despair because of what the two previous doors had already shown him. Surprisingly, he was transported to in a white room where a large table adorned with precious stones dominated the entire area. John Smith was sitting there. Mr. Wilson was surprised and asked him:

"What are you doing here?" 

"Have you ever asked yourself who was the kind, calm, and polite person that you  mistreated? Well, that was me!" 

"No... that can't be!" 

"The interview was just an excuse to show you the doors, I was sent here by all the people that you have mistreated over the years. We gathered together to make you change! Do you  know what we all have in common?" 

"...No." 

"We all have doors!" 

"I am truly sorry, I could have never imagined that... Can you tell me the names of the other people in the group?" 

"They are too many..." 

"I don't care, I will spend the rest of my life helping not only those people but everyone! I know now that all my actions have consequences on other peoples’ lives."

[back to reality] 

9:00 am 

It was the 8th of January, the weather was very cold and a famous journalist from Forbes magazine, named John Smith, was interviewing Mr. Wilson, one of the richest people on earth: 

"Good morning Mr. Wilson, I am glad to be with you today, how are you feeling about this  interview?" 

"I am very happy to be doing this interview with an old friend… "

A Road

by Lorenzo Crucitti, Leonardo Benvenuti, Niccolò Terrazzi

Every night for the past few weeks, Joe had woken up at the same time in a sweat. He opened his eyes and looked at his clock on his bedside table. It was 3 o’clock in the morning yet again. He tried to remember what had woken him up. After a while, he started to have visions of doors.

 

Joe had always been a good sleeper; he got a lot of exercise, and had a busy timetable at school. He usually relied on his alarm clock to wake him up. However, recently a recurring dream had been waking him up in the middle of the night. At first, he wasn’t worried; he spoke to his parents about it. They thought it was just a passing phase. After a few weeks, Joe became nervous and started losing weight. His parents decided to send him to a therapist. They thought by talking about his dream it could help him come to a resolution. 

 

Dr. Leonard was a therapist who specialised in young people. Joe was not sure whether this would be a solution to his problem or not. He felt uneasy talking about his dreams to a stranger. When Joe arrived at the office he was greeted by a lovely young woman. “Hello Joe , I’m Dr. Leonard. Nice to meet you.” Joe was surprised, he thought Dr. Leonard would be an old man with white hair and glasses. Dr. Leonard showed him her brightly coloured room where she told him to make himself at home. She asked him what was bothering him. Joe replied that it was a strange dream night after night that was starting to torment him. Dr. Leonard asked him to explain his dream. Joe said: “ Every night I dream that there are numerous doors in a hallway, I stand before the doors, and I can’t make up my mind which door to open. When I finally decide and I put my hand on the door handle, I wake up.”

Dr. Leonard asked Joe how long he had been having the dream, Joe said for about the last couple of months. Dr. Leonard asked Joe what year he was in at school. Joe said  “I’m in my final year of high school.”  Dr. Leonard asked him if he had decided what he was going to do the next year. He said that he still didn’t know. His parents wanted him to go to university. His maths teacher encouraged him to study maths, his English teacher told him to study literature, the P.E. teacher said he should try out for a sports scholarship. Dr. Leonard told him to relax and not to worry about the dream any longer and to come back next week at the same time.

 

The following week, when Joe returned to Dr. Leonard’s office, he looked relaxed and well rested. “How is it going Joe?” she asked. “Great," he replied, “I finally decided what I’m going to do next year.”

“Oh really?!”

“Yes," he said, “ I’m taking a gap year, I’m going to travel around the world.” Dr. Leonard said, “How did you decide on that?” and I answered,  “Last week after our meeting, I dreamt about the doors again. Finally, when I decided which door to open I didn’t wake up, I opened the door and went right through.”

Then she said, “What was on the other side?” and I said, “There was a road.”