Life Can Be Lonely by Colon Kelly

[Altimexis]

It's been a while since I posted something here, but Life Can Be Lonely by Colin Kelly is an interesting story that at first blush seems like yet another of Colin's brilliant, feel-good stories. Without giving anything away, from the beginning, something seems a little off, and it has nothing to do with the writing. The situation the protagonist finds himself in is horrible - so horrible that he completely shut down for seven weeks and didn't even bother to notify the school of what had happened. Perhaps I'll turn out to be wrong about this, but things can't all be what they seem. For one thing, why didn't the school reach out to him? Yes, Edison is supposed to be a big high school, but an entire family being killed in a home invasion should have been big news. Surely someone - a teacher, the principal or Kevin's counselor would have been aware of the situation. Why would the school have treated him as AWOL? I went to a high school with 3600 students in three grades, yet when my dad died of a heart attack, my U.S. History class sent me flowers. A couple of my teachers came to the funeral. The principal sent me a card. No one expected me or my mom to notify the school of my absence. A few days later, my counselor called to see how I was doing and to ask when I'd return. Colin has gone into exquisite detail with this story as he always does, so this is truly a glaring inconsistency that perhaps portends greater mystery ahead.

Now for some spoilers:

Spoiler

Kevin's family wasn't simply murdered - they were executed. Their killers marched them out of the house, lined them up in the back yard, had them lay face-down and then systematically shot each of them in the head. Startled robbers don't do that. Crazed druggies, high on PCP, don't do that. Kids undergoing a gang initiation don't do that. This was a carefully planned execution. The only reason Kevin wasn't killed supposedly was that he was away at a tennis match as I recall, so I think it's probably safe to assume that in some bizarre plot twist, Kevin wasn't the killer. But if this was an execution and if the perps are still at large as we've been lead to believe, why isn't Kevin in danger? Would the police really let him move back into his house so soon after the crime? Are they really that inept, or are things not as they seem?

One thing's for sure - or maybe not - the way Colin left the end of Chapter 11 seemed pretty ominous.

 

[Bruin Fisher]

Colin might, possibly, want to see the title of this thread spellchecked?? A tad unflattering...

[Cole Parker]

Just like you, Bruin, to be very polite and try not to offend.  I might have been more raucous in pointing to the problem.  British sensitivities, I'd assume.

I hadn't even noticed till you mentioned it.

C

[Camy]

3 hours ago, Bruin Fisher said:

Colin might, possibly, want to see the title of this thread spellchecked?? A tad unflattering...

Concur.

Thank you, Bruin. I needed a damn good guffaw. 😹

[colinian]

7 hours ago, Bruin Fisher said:

Colin might, possibly, want to see the title of this thread spellchecked?? A tad unflattering...

Bruin, spell checking wouldn't have caught the problem.

I could fix the title but that would make some of the posts... confusing. Altimexis should be able to fix it.

Colin 

[dude]

I knew that he was a physician but  didn't realize Altimexis was a proctologist!  😁