WE CAN BE HEROES
“I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them just for one day
We can be heroes just for one day
We can be us just for one day”
David Bowie
Close your eyes, listen to music, read the quote, look at the pictures and search deep in your soul…
Write down a piece of prose. Whatever comes to your mind.
I want to think I´m your hero. I want you to think
I´m bold, brave, helpful. Or at least useful. At least something.
I want you to see I´m trying. I´m trying to make you
smile, make you laugh, even a little giggle means the world to me.
I´m trying to help you with the heavy bags you carry,
I´m trying to do right.
You never see. You never see me trying. You don´t even want to.
Everyone´s a hero but me. I want to be like others.
Like the nice lady, like the nice postman, like my brother.
But mom, you never see. I want to be your everyday hero,
I want you to notice. No, I need!
Mom, you are my hero and I just want to be yours too.
I don´t want to think you need me to be a Superman,
Because I´ll never be. I just want you to see I´m trying.
I just want you to think… To think I´m enough.
Enough to be someone´s hero. Just like you. I promise
You are my hero. So why can´t I be yours?
I´m sorry if I ever hurt you, because I was wrong
for doing so. But I need you to see me trying.
Anna Kováříková, sexta B
As the rays of the morning sun shone through haphazardly closed blinds, a family of three was currently in the middle of a peaceful Sunday breakfast. Sarah was simply scrolling on her phone, making small talk with Ryan, her best friend and platonic dad of their lovely little boy.
“What´s better than spending your free time with family”, she thought as they carried out all sorts of stuff to their garden half an hour later. Just lazing around all noon, the rest of their friend group joining soon after.
Ryan playing – primitive version of soccer with the kid, chuckling water balloons at him when a playfight broke out. The perfect summer dream…
Of course, it wasn´t always just rainbows and sunshine, life, while definitely worth living is hard to please. Not being married for one. That was a difficult obstacle to overcome. Even in this day and age, living together with a kind simply as friends was still frowned upon. It ended up costing Ryan his relationship with his parents.
And yet, standing there in the adoption agency after months and months of intense planning, it was so incredibly worth if just to see a lonely kid be himself, carefree and happy.
And by the end of that Sunday, all three of them cuddled up on the couch, not worrying about the what ifs of what tomorrow could bring, they allowed themselves to feel, if only for a day, like heroes.
Růžena Matulové, sexta B
To my beloved king,
It´s been a while since we saw each other. I miss you so much. I miss all the things we had. I miss all the things we could have. Only if fate wasn´t so cruel to us.
I remember when we were 10. We were listening to a song and dreaming. We wanted to be strong and save the world. You said, that you would be a king and I would be your queen. We were just little children having fun, unaware of what will come.
I remember when you called me once. You were crying like I had never seen before. You told me, that you were dying. I felt like my world was crumbling into pieces. Pieces that I can´t fix to this day.
I remember the last day we saw each other. We were listening to the song that had been lingering with us for the past 10 years. We closed our eyes and just pretended that we are heroes.
However, the truth is that our enemy wasn´t a villain but an illness and we lost the fight. I miss you.
With love,
Your queen.
Thu Trang Nguyen, 3. A
I had sweet dreams. Full of clouds and blue sky. I saw spectacular landscapes every night. I played with my friends, patted animals. I just slept great, approximately seven hours every day. I used to get up sad, that I can´t continue in my dream. I never had a problem with falling asleep, I looked forward to it.
The sad part is, that since then, everything changed. I´m laying in the same bed as five years ago, frightened to ever close my eyes. I lost my sweet dreams, my heroes.
They always saved me, now I am abandoned. My dreams became my nightmares. My favorite heroes became some strangers with morally grey character. I don´t want to spend part of my life in this hell. Just stop torturing me. I would prefer dark, pitch black inky nothing than this. I never thought this could betray me. My dreams, my mind is supposed to be my friend. Or at least that´s what I thought. I guess I was wrong. I have to accept it. Times change.
I slowly pick up a bottle of rum but I hesitate. I probably shouldn´t. It´s going to save me just for a night. But what else am I supposed to do? I´ll have just a bit of my new heroes.
Veronika Daňková, sexta B
Sunset shone through the window, right on them, as they danced, close in each other´s arms. He knew it was wrong, but he just couldn´t help loving her. She could never hold him so dear, however it didn´t stop him. He knew she was here only for one thing, yet he never dismissed her.
She knew he wouldn´t send her away. She also knew this was their last evening together. It had to be, there was no other way. Right as she started thinking of what to say, he whispered: “You don´t have to do this, you know.”
He was her king and she should address him accordingly. Only if they weren´t long past that phrase.
“Alexander…”, she said, so quietly, that only he could hear. He stopped their gentle steps and held her chin up, so she would look him in the eyes. “I am the king. You could join me, become a hero. No more having to obey that old witch. Just… listen to me. I beg you.”
She could see the pain in his eyes, and realised that hers were reflecting it. A single tear slid down her cheek when she pushed the dagger in his stomach.
“I´m so sorry, my love…” her voice cracked as his body went limp.
Karolína Vlčková, kvarta A
I trembled as I received the message, a suicide note. I hurriedly dialled the emergency number. I needed to be brave. I needed to be a hero. I answered all the questions with a shaky voice, tears threatening to spill from my eyes. The call went on and on, more and more questions being thrown at me.
I waited anxiously for several hours after that. Then I finally mustered up the courage to call the emergency number again to ask for information about the case. I was reconnected to the hospital, my heart swelled with joy and relief when I heard the good news. I made it. I saved my friend´s live.
I got showered with praise from everyone – the doctors, my friend´s family and my friends who happened to know of the incident. I was a hero and yet, I didn´t feel like one at all. Sure, I had saved a life but what if it was all my fault in the first place? Did I not pay enough attention? Could I have prevented it?
Those thoughts plagued my mind relentlessly. I drowned in guilt. Those feelings surrounded me every second of life back then. I spent hours mourning a loss that only did not happen, but I also prevented myself. It was only months later that I realised those feelings were utterly futile. My fault or not, I did a good thing. I saved a human life. I truly was a here, I simply didn´t want to admit it for I did not believe in myself. I believe that we can all be heroes, we just have to find it in our hearts to believer in it. We need to appreciate the good we´ve brought to the world, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It´s important to give ourselves some credit because we are all heroes in one way or another.
Linda Jelínková, kvarta A
I´m not a hero. Not really. I don´t wear a cape. I don´t have any kind of superpower. But that doesn´t mean I can´t feel or act like one. When I´m helping people who are in trouble then I feel like one. I often watch superhero movies. They are always co cool. Helping everyone, saving everyone. It always gives me inspiration to do so as well.
I´m a police officer. I´m wearing uniform. I feel like hero in it. My job is to help and save people, just like heroes in movies. I´m trying to become inspiration for people like heroes in movies are for me. I want to be seen as someone they can trust. They will see me as a strong person who they can trust with their lives. Even when it´s just helping old women crossing the street and carrying their bags. When it´s a little child looking for his parents. I´m always willing to help. No, I´m eager to help. When I see something wrong, I will make it right again. My co-workers think that I´m to heroic for my own good. And they were right.
You could hear a gunshot form a bank. And then another. Then silence. There was a robbery in a bank and the police were sent there. Everything went smoothly until a robber took out a gun. Those were the gunshots that were heard. The robber tried to run off but was caught in front of the bank. Everyone inside was all right. Only one police officer was lying on the ground death.
“He was a police officer and a hero of this city. He saved people and gave his life away for them.” He didn´t wear a cape, but he will be remembered as a saviour of many people. “Rest in peace, my dear friend.” Those were words of his co-worker and the best friend on his funeral.
I was a hero, even if just shortly. People will always remember me as one. That was the thing I tried to achieve. People will remember me for things I did for them and for that one day. The day my life ended. Thanx to that day I will be remembered as a hero.
Lucie Smejkalová, 1. A
It becomes an ingrained cycle for me – to have a period of time. When I´m an absolute model citizen. Filling out their duties with an upmost precision, whether at school or at work, only to have it replaced by an incomprehensibly blue days, not to be distinguished among each other and during which it´s a great achievement to keep the pieces of my mind collected together. This begs the question – is it even worth it? Is it worth overworking myself into a grey, husk of a person with days that make it difficult to not break down emotionally over the tiniest inconveniences? No, of course not, it´s so obviously ineffective. Yet, I still fall into the same trap.
When I was younger, I found it to be absolutely unbelievable that someone would deliberately miss our on their free time and have it be consumed by a burden of work created by their crippling fear of the future. To let it consume them. To let themselves be kept awake at night because of it, because beneath all of that there still remain the tiniest shards of set awareness urging them to break out of this terrible mindset, desperately begging to have the fragments of their personality back, if it´s not too late. Looking at it now, I realise why this happens in the first place. How simple it is to let yourself be terrified of the veil of the unknown, bestowed upon the future if you let time really push the limits of your meticulous planning, is something you barely recognize, when you finally become the one, trying to chaotically salvage all the tiny errors and holes of your careful organisation.
Would your younger self ever comprehend why you´re hurting yourself like this? The answer depends if you realize it yourself. You´ve always wanted to be a hardworking person, but what you truly nee id to be a hero.
A hero that knows what´s the best course of action and that does brave acts. And if you can´t be a hero for yourself, be a hero for your younger self. You would be so proud of yourself, truly amazed at the fact how far you´ve gotten. So do it, be a hero for y child that would never understand why you are putting yourself through this much torture with such a strain. They´d need a break. Just like you though you may not realise it. So be a hero, that goes through the unknown and helps children. At least for one day.
Tereza Šavlová, 1. A
