Be Careful What You Wish For

This story is by Evian and was part of our 2017 Winter Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Ellie is finishing up her project on her laptop in a cute little cafe in Paris. She attends school at Parsons Paris and is working on the finishing touches on her fashion templates. Her homework assignment is due by that noon. It is 9 o’ clock in the morning and now she has only a few more hours before the her work has to be turned in. Ellie Perie is an American hailing from Pryor Creek, Oklahoma. Although she loved her small country hometown, ever since high school she found herself longing for more, more adventure out of life. She knew there was more to life than just fishing and driving around with nothing to do but look at all the scenery that her little town had to offer –and a beautiful scenery there was. There was such to see back home from museums to art exhibits but not very much to do, to get into. She wanted more out of life to explore, to eat different foods, to meet new people outside of Pryor Creek. And she also wanted to create. Ever since she was little she had a fascination with colors and patterns and often would get inspiration from the nature that surrounded her. When she was in middle school she started drawing sketches of girls in eyelet dresses and long flowing gowns with shades of browns and greens, colors that she had seen ever since she was a baby. At a young age she knew what she wanted to be, what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to make clothes that were representation of the nature that she had been surrounded by her whole life. So when she graduated high school she got the craziest idea to move to the fashion capital of the world and pursue her dreams of being a fashion designer.

She has her face buried in her laptop every now and again taking sips of her latte. A guy with a black jacket walks in with the hood on his head. He immediately notices Ellie’s laptop. He looks at her and after watching her for a few seconds he walks slowly towards her and decides to wait for the perfect moment to make his move. Ellie picks up her coffee cup to take a sip, as she is putting the cup to her lips she feels a breeze but before she can turn her head to see where it is coming from her laptop disappears right before her eyes. Before she can even react the thief has already bolted out of the door. She jumps up out her seat, dropping her cup and splattering her coffee on herself and nearby customers having a coffee date.

“Ahh shit! Sorry!”, she exclaims as she makes a mad dash out the door to go chase after the black hooded who just took off with her prized possession. She grabs her bike and hops on it to chase down the black ˗ hooded man. She takes off down the street where she can still see him further up ahead. Pedaling and swerving trying to avoid hitting any pedestrians walking down the street. Pedaling, pedaling, and pedaling some more past boulangeries and cafes trying to catch up this man. Inching up on him thinking she’s about to catch him, he makes a sharp turn around the corner and she almost falls of her bike following his lead. “I gotta pick up the speed”, she says to herself. Biking faster now she’s about 10ft away from him when he hops in a van and drives off. “Dammit, just when I when I was right on his ass”, she says exhaustively. As she takes off after the speeding car, she thinks to herself, about how she moved here seeking adventure and in some twisted way she got what she wished for. Now she knows be careful what you wish for.

She weaves through cars making sure to keep her eyes glued to grayish tented van the thief took off in so she doesn’t lose sight of it. Up ahead she can see the traffic is stopping because of the stoplight. But instead of stopping the van makes it way between the two lanes of cars and makes a right turn through intersection. Ellie follow suits almost getting hit in the process by a man on a vespa. “Fais attention” the man yells at her. “Desole! Just in a bit of rush trying to get my stolen laptop back!” she yells in response. When she swirls her head back around she realizes she’s lost sight of the vehicle. “Oh noo! Where are you?!” she continues pedaling up the street but still no sight of the van. Exhausted she decides to stop to catch her breath and rest.

She bikes up onto a sidewalk and walks her bike up the street and parks it outside of a market. She goes in to get a water then comes out and drinks her water posted up against the brick wall on the side of the entrance of the market. She closes her eyes partially because she’s tired and partially because the cool water going down her throat felt so good she couldn’t help but close her eyes. Maybe after a minute or two there’s loud BOOM almost sounding like a bomb going off. Ellie jumps so hard she chokes on her water. Startled half to death she looks the down the road to see what in the world that noise was. She can’t really see from where she is standing but she sees that traffic has stop. So she takes her bike and rides up the street to go investigate. Now its apparent that there was a car crash but its hard to tell who or what was involved. Then she spots it the GRAY VAN. “Oh my God, it’s HIM”! The black hooded man stumbles out of the car bloody clearly badly injured. “You stole my fucking laptop you bum” she yells as she approaches the thief. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” the man whimpers. “Yeah you should be I have a freaking assignment that’s due and I’ve been chasing you around the city trying to get my computer back so I can get my work done. I almost got hit by a freaking vespa in the freaking process you a**hole!” Ellie is so infuriated she doesn’t even notice how bad the car is wrecked. She runs over to car to see take a look inside. She gasps and put her hand over he mouth. There laying on the floor of the passenger’s seat is her laptop crushed into bits and pieces.