I’ve never felt like I can do anything right. Every time my parents asked me to do a chore, such as shoveling the driveway after a snowstorm, I’d do it. I remember a particular time when my dad gave me a lecture after I shoveled. He asked, “Stark, thank you for shoveling but I think you could have chipped away the tire marks a little better, don’t you think?”

“I thought it looked fine” I’d retort.

“Do you really think you did your best, or did you just try to finish it as soon as you could?” my father would say

“Well, maybe it could it have better, but it’s good enough.”

“When better is possible, good is not enough. You should know this by now.”

“Yeah, I know” I said in a defeated tone, looking at my boots.”

All my life my parents have taught me to put forth my best effort, don’t give up, try to be the best, and many things like that. These lessons are what shaped me to be the hard working, modest person that I am, but at some point, the constant hassle of being told how to live my life has gotten to me.

There isn’t too much to do or see in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. School was as boring as anything but I know I had to do well, otherwise I’d have my day to day privileges taken away. Got a D+ on a test? No car. Didn’t take the garbage out in the morning? No car. I never understood this from my parents. I’ve always been an exceptional student and I did what I was told, but one little slip up meant that I needed some kind of behavioral rehab, according to my parents. They were good parents though. My dad took me to Oilers hockey games and let me tag along with my grandpa to go moose hunting. My mom always treated me nicely, making me dinner every day and making sure I was warm on those frigid, unforgiving winter nights. I was an only child, (not the spoiled kind) so there were a lot of expectations my parents to do well in everything whether it’s school or sports. So, when I actually did get a D+ on my social studies test, I was stuck taking the bus as punishment the day after. Being the week before the end of the first semester, I needed to get my C+ to at least a B as my overall grade.

Taking the bus was miserable. It was negative two degrees Celsius making the bus a freezer on wheels. I had to lug my massive hockey gear bag onto the damn thing, and I was stressed about the semester ending soon. After a few stops, my best friend Christopher walked into the bus and placed his hockey bag on top of mine in the seat in front of ours. It was still dark out when he groggily asked me, “Hey Stark, did you hear the news?”
Squinting back at him I said, “No, what happened?” with concern.

“There’s a huge Moose stampede going through Edmonton wiping out a bunch of people in the city. The death toll is at forty four already. The guy on the radio said it’s headed this way towards the high school.”

“No way dude, that’s ridiculous”

“I’m not sure if administration is going to do anything about it. They probably think that the herd is going to die down and be scared back into the wild.”

We walked into school together and went our separate ways to retrieve our school supplies for the day in our lockers. I found it very odd that no one was really on edge about the news that morning, but people tend to internalize tragedy, as do I. My classroom was right outside of the cafeteria for first hour math, so it was hard to concentrate between the urge to fall back asleep and smelling the greasy aroma emitting from the lunchroom. As my math teacher, Mr. Delacroix was lecturing us on palaboras, the ground began to vibrate. The floor felt like it was built on top of a giant iPhone with its alarm going off as the shaking began to intensify. An announcement played over the school speakers in a panicked voice saying, “everyone get down and take cover!” The command was so frantic that I couldn’t even make out who it was that was talking. The foam panels in the ceiling began to crumble and fall in pieces as the roar of the earth below grew to more catastrophic every second. Then I realised that this was it. This was the Stampede. I had to yell it as loud as I could to let my uninformed classmates could know what was happening. “MOOSE STAMPEDE!” I shouted. Everyone began to scream in terror, as if they knew of the moose herd, but didn’t believe it would actually affect them. The whole class was gathering in the corner of our classroom. In the chaotic rumbling of the building, I heard a faint cry as I huddled in the corner with my friend Douglas, a chubby gamer with glasses and a kind heart. He asked, “Did you hear that? It sounded like a dragon shout from ‘Skyrim’!”

“Yeah I think it came from the cafeteria” I projected, trying to be louder than the roar of hooves trampling the school. “We need to go check it out...what if it’s Christopher?!”

I knew Christopher skipped a lot of class, and if he did today, he chose the worst of them. Doug and I busted out of the classroom with determination, paying no mind to Mr. Delacroix demanding that we stay inside under cover. Turning out of the room, the thunderous noise of the trampling grew louder and more horrifying, as did the screams of what I knew now was the mortified voice of my friend Christopher. Peeking into the large entrance way of the school cafeteria I saw what looked like hundreds of bull moose galloping from one end of the lunchroom hall to the other. There was a massive destroyed hole in the wall leading to the outdoors that the moose battered through in their run of rage. In their path used to be lunch table but they were all either pressed up against the wall or hammered into the floor from the force of the Canadian beasts. I looked to my left of the chaos and there was Christopher, surrounded by five large infuriated bull moose. So much so that they looked like they were about to bash my best friend in with their over sized antlers.

“Christopher I’m coming to get you!”

“Help! Help!” he kept on crying.

Doug asked, “what are you gonna do?”

There was no time to talk; acting on my instincts I sprinted into the group encircling Christopher. Surprised by my appearance, the surrounding moose stopped to see what I was up to. The stampede had left the building by now, but it was just me, Doug, and Christopher in the same room as the remaining moose. I helped Christopher up slowly, trying to avoid the animals from becoming startled again when I noticed the moose were more fixated on me. Steam started coming from their nostrils, and their eyes were more squinted and more angry than they were before.

“Runnnnn!!!!!!” I yelled.

Doug stayed at the doorway to make sure we got through safely because luckily, the door wasn’t large enough for the five bull moose to get through.

“Hurry, hurry, come on!” Doug yelled reaching his hand out.

I saw Mr. Delacroix and the rest of my math class approaching the doorway to scope the scene, but by then it was too late. I shoved Christopher as hard as I could towards the doorway, and in my haste, I was knocked over by the charge of the moose. All five of them started battering and puncturing me with their antlers. They attacked me in cold blood while my math class watched in horror, not saying a word in pure shock and disbelief. One by one each moose took turns stabbing and pummeling me in the legs and back, enjoying their destruction. It felt like machines were hurling sharp weights at me for an hour, even though the attack lasted a minute. The longest minute of my, now, miserable life.

I blacked out after the moose ran away in the path of their stampede in satisfaction. I woke up in the hospital bed in excruciating pain. The lack of feeling I had in my legs was frightening. Looking around, I pondered on whether I was okay or not. I saw “Get Well Soon” cards on the frosty window sill and a table in front of my white bed. There was food on my table consisting of mashed potatoes, cherry jello, and a carton of milk. This was hospital food. My pondering ended when I looked down at my legs completely wrapped in stiff mesh. I then brought up the courage to ask the doctor, “what’s going on?”

He said, “Well son, there’s no easy way of saying this so I’m just going to say it. You’re never going to be able to walk again. What your friends Christopher and Douglas told the paramedics was the absolute most courageous story I’ve ever heard.” I couldn’t even feel happy about that compliment. I was absolutely numb from the waist down. What was this going to mean for me as a hockey player. Hockey was the only thing I felt like I was remotely good at; everything else like school, making friends, and video games I was always horrible at.

Now that it was a month after this strange phenomena with the moose stampede, Edmonton was starting to make leaps and bounds in rebuilding the damages. Luckily, no one was killed in our school, nor were they severely injured (besides me). To pass the time I play video games with Douglas, even though it starting to become extremely boring. We’ve ran out of games to play, but we still play “The Elder Scrolls Online” to talk and blow off some steam. The end of the hockey season was near and the high school team did well, as expected. Christopher always gave me updates on all the locker room talk and politics, which was nice, but I was devastated that there was no real reason for me to be in the locker room anymore. Because of my “heroic” acts, my high school retired my number I wore for the past two and a half years. I was given province wide recognition for saving Christopher and the Prime Minister even sent me a medal. I knew now that I was supposed to feel good enough, but this wasn’t the case. All the pain I endured to save my best friend would have felt a little bit better if I wasn’t wheelchair bound. School is the same though, except now I have more anxiety to do well than ever before. It’s the thing that I should be working hard at the most, but I just don’t have the motivation. There are everyday tasks I struggle with now that are easy to the average person. I can’t drive my own car and I struggle to put pants on in the morning, but I guess this is the price I had to pay in my constant search for self approval.