Going, Going, Gone

By Hidehiro Anto

It was the year 2015, September 12. I was sprinting away, exhausted and breathless. The police were chasing me, riding in their noisy police cars, trying to aim and shoot at me with their ebony black pistols.

I just stole the Constitution, burned the Articles of Confederation, and shredded the Declaration of Independence, but that doesn’t mean I’m guilty. When I went to the National Archives, the burly security guards would have machine-gunned me down, even though I just looked at the Articles of Confederation about ten feet away. Those guards shoot down anyone who looks even slightly Arab, ever since Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center again on September 11, 2011. Come on, I’m only a quarter Arabian, and I’m a twelve-year-old on a annual field trip that never had a bad thing happen. Why in the world would the guards attack me? I’m guessing that one of their loved ones got killed in the 9/11 attacks.

In any case, they immediately saw my slightly Arabic face and quickly got their .50 caliber M2 machine guns. I was on the track and field team at school and like a ninja, I saw that the guns were aimed at me and ran through the crowd gazing at John Hancock’s signature on the Declaration of Independence. I heard the guns opening fire and my teacher Miss Baxter’s high-pitched cry as her leg was wounded, as loud as a high-pitched opera singer. Suddenly, like God sent it, the Constitution, a burnt Articles of Confederation, and a shredded Declaration of Independence flew in my hands. And this is where I am now, running forward, going, going, gone.