The morning sun was barely peaking over the horizon when Trevor awoke. It was a particularly brisk morning, and Trevor did not want to get out of bed, but he knew the fish would not wait. Trevor slunk out of his small one-man tent and over to the remnants of last night's cook fire. Carefully, he dug through the ashes till he found a few coals still warm from the previous night. It was very difficult re-lighting the fire since all the good kindling was still hoary from the frozen morning dew, but his persistence paid off. Warming himself by the fire, he began cleaning the knife he was using to strip the wood of its wet bark. Then, picking up a piece of gnarled wood he had decided not to use in the fire due to its shape, he began whittling one of the several knots into a crooked nose. As Trevor was musing on the events of the fishing trip over the past few days, he heard a rustle from inside one of the other two tents and soon saw Preston, his younger brother, emerge. In the third tent lay Matthew Steele. “Why did we bring him?” thought Trevor to himself. Since the very beginning of this almost perfect fishing trip, it has been pock-marked by Matthew's uncanny ability to stumble into trouble. Although Matthew was a mischievous boy, it was hardly ever his own doing that trouble found him. It was like trouble was his own personal raincloud, waiting for him to put down his umbrella. His mischievous nature only served as a catalyst.
Preston sat down next to Trevor and pulled out his folding knife, joining his brother, whittling away in silence. Both boys were in the Boy Scouts of America and were proficient at knife usage and fire building, as well as first aid, life saving, shooting, swimming, etc. (the usual repertoire of a Boy Scout.) After some time whittling, it was clear that Preston was carving a small animal of some kind and that Trevor was crafting a bust. About that time there was some rustling from inside Matthew's tent and shortly he emerged. Stumbling about, wiping the sleep from his eyes, he started complaining about the amount of bug bites he had acquired thus far. He forgot his bug spray. Every camp out it was the same story, Matthew forgot something imperative. Once he forgot his sleeping bag, another time he forgot his flash light, he even on one occasion forgot to pack pants. Once he had finished his tangent and saw what the other guys were doing, Matthew wanted to do it also!
“Hey, Preston, can I use that knife?” Matthew asked.
“Not till I'm done, and that won't be soon,” replied Preston.
He knew he would get the same reply from Trevor so he tried a different approach, “Hey Trev, do you have another knife that I could borrow?”
“Where is your knife?” asked Trevor, but he knew the answer before it came.
“I forgot to pack it...”
“Well I didn't factor that in when I packed, I only brought this one” retorted Trevor
Matthew was relentless. “Yeah right, you always have like, a thousand knives.”
“What an exaggeration” thought Trevor,
“what would I do with a thousand knives? Where could I even pack that many knives?” “ I lent most of them to you, and they are now either bent, dull, or lost. So this time I only packed this one and the fillet knife.” He argued.
“Alright, I'll just use the fillet knife.” Matthew proposed, as he set off to find it.
“No, it's not a good knife for whittling. The blade's too flimsy and long, and it's incredibly sharp,” Preston reasoned, but to no avail.
Matthew returned a short while later, looking rather pleased. With the fillet knife in hand, he started removing small shoots off the branch he had selected to whittle. The knife cut through the smaller branches like butter. It seemed to Matthew to be working out just fine, in fact: he showed them! But in reality, he was breaking the number one rule of knife safety: Never cut towards yourself. He had one hand at the far end of the stick and the knife wielding hand moving towards his trunk, where he had the stick rooted. As Trevor observed this, a cold shiver ran through him.
“Matthew, what are you doing? Don't cut toward yourself!” Trevor warned.
“Yeah man, that's dangerous and stuff” Preston chimed.
“It's fine, I know what I'm doing guys” Matthew said, not attempting to hide his annoyance.
“Hey, Matt, that knife is really sharp he's just lookin' out for you” said Preston defensively.
“Leave me alone guys!” Matthew yelled, “I know what I'm doing!”
As the last word left his mouth the knife slipped, and he cut into his forearm. Blood immediately poured out, covering his arm. He uttered a faint scream as he saw what happened, and then panic stuck him. All the color left his face, he looked like death, and he started breathing heavily. Trevor immediately got to his feet and swept over to investigate. Preston merely uttered a string of expletives, only serving to increase Matthew's panic. Trevor could see at once that the cut was just a glorified scratch. It only barely broke the skin, and there was no need for worry of death or serious injury. Yet, he realized, Matthew was too busy using every curse word known to man to take a minute to inspect his own damage.
“That's a really deep cut.” Trevor was testing him.
“I know, I think I felt it hit my bone” said Matthew between sobs. He was crying now.
“Yeah, you're bleeding a lot” Preston said innocently.
“Shouldn't you guys be doing something? I could die!” he pleaded.
“I don't know Matt, we can't do a lot for you. And by the time the ambulance gets here...” Trevor was playing a sinister game with Matthew's mind, but he justified it by thinking he was teaching him a valuable lesson.
“What? Won't they send in a helicopter or something?” Matthew was sobbing uncontrollably.
“No, too many trees” said Preston. He had caught on.
“I think you're going to die, Matt” said Trevor.
“No...” he moaned “... guys, I... I can feel my heart slowing down”
At this, Trevor realized he had to stop. So, he took the shirt off his back and cut it to pieces and used it to clean and then dress Matthew's wound. Matthew's skin healed, but his reputation always was marred by: “I can feel my heart slowing down.” Thus was the legacy of Matthew Steele.
If you told someone 10 to 15 years ago that the music industry would be huge in video games they probably would have laughed at you. Music has come along way from the simple polyphonic tunes of Mario Bros. Although classic, the music from that time was simple and repetitive.
