In Memoriam

In Memoriam

 

Dear Mr. Killer,

Today I thought I saw you. I was walking down the high school’s hall on a tour and saw the table where we used to eat together. It felt like you were still there. Do you remember when that girl cried because of something I said?

On my way out, I walked past the room where we had so many classes in our gifted program. The teacher who mocked you when you broke your arm had that room in the morning.

Mr. Killer, I drove past your house on the way home. I wonder if your mother and sister still live there. If I were them, I would have moved and changed my name. You always seemed so out of place in that house, like a third wheel in your own home. The only time that wasn’t true was when you introduced me to her, the woman I thought you would spend the rest of your life with. Instead, you just spent the rest of her life with her.

I decided to take the long way home, Mr. Killer. I saw the hospital where I took you for physical therapy, the grocery store where you worked, and finally the restaurant. That restaurant is where we shared our last meal together. You came back from Colorado, ready to tell so many stories. You went to the bathroom, and she told me how great things were. Why did she lie? Was she afraid of you? Was she afraid I would tell you, and you would come back even angrier?

I drove down the highway, Mr. Killer. I pulled over where I screamed and cried when I found out what you had done. Back then, I wondered if I could have saved her. I wondered if I could have saved you from yourself.

This will be our last exchange, Mr. Killer. I loved you. You were a brother to me, and I would have done anything to make you okay. I felt angry when I saw people saying you were always a monster. You weren’t always a monster. You were a sad little boy with only a handful of friends. I had hoped I could have done enough to save you, but you were a victim of a community that was determined to isolate you. I can’t forgive you, Mr. Killer. I tried and failed. I hope you can forgive yourself someday.

Once yours,

Your last friend.

 

What the heart wants

As a child, I would see so many animals, both extant and not, and I felt my heart flutter. To see feathers, fur, fins, and scales; it must have made my mind swoon. It truly is incomprehensible to me, how people can see life so unlike their own and not fall in love. As a child, I included people in that assessment. Humans lead such complex inner lives that we must be special too!

However, someone I loved became someone I now hate, and I saw humanity for what it is; gluttony incarnate. Take from the land! Take from the sea! Take the land itself, and the sea too! Take from the sky! Take from ourselves! It disgusts me, to see a species so infatuated with itself that it will continue to grow until it implodes; only to do it all again.

We are not mindless. Humans know what it is that they do. Even so, they take. The one I trusted beyond any other did. Took a life. Took my trust. Took away my naïveté. For a time, I thought my heart was broken. What is broken about realizing that as humans call a rat vermin, the rat is less harmful and more productive to the world than any human has ever been. What is broken about thinking of betrayal and longing to feel bones crack beneath your feet, splinter between your teeth? No, hate and rage and excess are the natural state of an odious human heart. What could the heart want more than blood?

 

Blind sensation

I shut my eyes and reach out my hand. I don’t expect anything. There’s nothing for me to see. And yet, I feel something against my palm. Is it a handshake? Am I caressing a soft cheek? Is there someone who is reaching out as well?

My heart races. A bead of sweat runs down my temple. I must know. Who is there? As I open my eyes, I see the fading image of someone I long to know, running through my fingers like sand. I wave my arms wildly in the dark, trying to find something, anything to touch. However, there is nothing, not anymore.

True exhilaration can only exist in the dark. You have to accept that there are things you will never see. By the time you open your eyes, they’re already gone. Cherish the sensation in the moment, but don’t hold onto it for longer than it lasts. Grasping at ashes is bound to get you burned.

 

Animal

Am I more than an animal?

My wallet has run empty.

My heart now burns cold.

As I look for respite, all I feel is my hunger.

I want them so badly I can almost taste it.

The blood, meat, and fat, fried and charred to my delight.

A soft breast in my hand, and a pair of lips against my cheek.

So badly I wish that I was something more complex.

At the end of the day, I am just an animal.

 

A Sad Joke

I was in my parents’ living room when I found out. Just scrolling through social media when I saw the article, my heart raced as I opened it. She was dead, found on their living room floor, broken. My mom asked me what was wrong; my face must have gone pale. My best friend had murdered his girlfriend.

After high school, I felt totally alone. All my friends had moved on with their lives. I didn’t blame them. Time goes on, and they didn’t need me anymore. He was the exception. He asked me about homework, what dates he should take her on, and so much more. We could still chat for a few hours a week even when I was hours away. People I had thought were friends wouldn’t talk to me when they were just a ten-minute drive away. I went to his graduation a few months later. I saw him on stage and thought I had put him on the right path. I thought I had some claim to his success. I thought he would be okay.

After I told my mom what I had just read, she and my father tried to give me advice on what to do. I didn’t say anything back. I didn’t hear a word they said. I could only pay attention to my heart rattling in my chest.

When he introduced me to her, I was surprised. I had known this girl since kindergarten. She seemed nice enough, if a bit simple. I had never thought of them meeting, much less dating. Even so, there was something perfect about them. Like two pieces of a puzzle that you never thought would fit together. The picture I saw was of arches, wedding bells, and the potential to be a best man. Maybe it was just hopefulness on my part, but I truly thought this was his relationship that would work.

I had class the next day about an hour away, so I packed my things and left. For the only time I can remember, my car was silent. No music, no singing, just me, staring ahead at the road.

About 40 minutes into my drive, there was this beautiful view of the mountains. You could see individual trees as they shifted from deep green near the base to a blue, indistinct midsection, to snowy peaks. Something about that view I had seen a hundred times before got to me. I clutched my chest. I felt the world shaking around me, pounding my head from the sides. I let out an unrestrained scream. My teeth vibrated as the sound resonated against them. I could feel my throat shredding, like I was coughing up razor blades. In that moment, I wondered if that was how mothers felt when they held their child’s body. I wondered if this was the sort of wail they let out. But my baby was in his 20s, and he had done something unforgivable.

When I parked at my apartment, I immediately went to my room and pulled a comforter over my head. My sobs were small and pathetic, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I wanted to be small and pathetic. I wanted the world to forget me.

The last time I saw them was at a local restaurant. They had moved out east but were home to visit. It was meant to be his birthday dinner. We laughed and reminisced like nothing had changed. He ran to the bathroom, so I started to visit with her. She told me she was happy. She said that she loved her new job. Why didn’t she tell me more? Was it because she was afraid of what would happen if he found out? Did she know that I couldn’t help even if I knew? He came back, I paid for the meal, and I took them back to their hotel. I promised that the next time I would drive out to see them. That trip never happened, and I doubt it ever will.

That night I stood in my room, staring at the wall. It struck me then how funny it all was. I thought I knew him. I thought he was my friend. I didn’t know a thing, and I never could have. I was just the poor sap holding the bag while he destroyed nine years of friendship. I held my sides as I doubled over laughing. It came out like bloody vomit. I couldn’t stop the tears.

The next morning, I skipped class, just searching his name every 15 minutes looking for an update. More and more I saw familiar names, talking about how they always knew he was bad. How dare they? HOW DARE THEY!? I was there, right beside him for so long. I knew how bad he always was. He was so terrible he ignored these very same people when they spat slurs in his face. He was so awful he would clean up food every time they knocked his tray out of his hands. How evil must he have been to work part-time to pay his family’s rent at 16. How could they break him, and come back saying, “I told you so”?

That was the moment I thought of every time he came to school with a black eye, no lunch, or when he told me about the teacher who stood over him, laughing, when he broke his arm. I didn’t address those things when they happened, but how alone was he really? On the few occasions I visited his house, I sensed that he was a third wheel. His mom doted on his little sister, and he was left to his own devices. Did he feel forgotten standing in front of the woman who should have loved him no matter what? Did he resent the fact that she only got clean when his sister was born, but didn’t care to during his childhood?

Where were those two now? His mom wasn’t online, defending or apologizing for her son. She didn’t go to the funeral. Last I checked, his sister wasn’t in this district. I would guess she changed their names and washed their hands of him.

Now that I am more worldly, I think of a phrase a professor said to me: “To understand is to forgive.” Even then, I felt like that was wrong. I feel now that I understand pretty well. I understand better than anyone in this world why he did what he did. They called him a monster, but he was a sad little boy, who felt so powerless and alone that he did anything he could to express that power. I understand that the town he lived in, my home, rejected and abused him at every turn. I understand so well that this is something I can never forgive. Not him. Not them. Not myself for not seeing it sooner. I will clutch this feeling to my chest until I die. I will cherish this rage because it will give me the strength to do better in the future. I will remember him when no one else will.

I remember telling him that the greatest revenge he could get was living a great life to spite them. He failed in his vengeance. I was a little boy then. I took on a responsibility to care for a friend, and I never could have fulfilled it. I had no resources. I had no perspective. I should have never been the one burdened with that responsibility. I will return to those schools one day, fueled by my own burning vengeance. Not as a student, but as a teacher. And with my resources, and perspective, and my willing responsibility to protect those that could never protect themselves, I will have my revenge. I will live a life to spite all those that did him wrong. I will do it all as a requiem, for the brother I lost and the sister I never had a chance to know.

 

Imagined touch

In my dreams, I feel myself held in strong warm arms, a head on top of mine, and my face nestled against a soft chest. I feel safe. I feel wanted. I feel that no matter what the world may demand of me, I will be okay in the embrace of the one who loves me.

My eyes open, and it’s all gone. Once again, I am alone in a world that would tear me to shreds in a moment if it had the chance. I feel the demands that are levied on me at every moment piling on my shoulders and crushing me from above. From below is my own in voice screaming at me to be better… to be better because if I am not then I will be crushed and left behind again.

I wish I could shut my eyes and leave this world again, to be back in their arms… to feel the love of someone I have never met but wish I could never be without. However, the sun’s rays will not go away, and I will not be allowed to act as if my own existence is enough. The world demands that I produce and develop, and that which does not will fuel hell’s fires.

 

One day…

For a day, I felt amazing. The hatred of my own life was gone. The feeling that the world would be better with my death was gone. For one day, I was just me. For that one day, I was fine.

Then the pills went too far. I felt my heart beating so hard I wondered if I might die. At first, I wondered if it was a side effect. I think not. I think that was “me” too. I think that my natural state of being is fear.

Are these my options? A choice between apathetic existence or anxious persistence? Must I suffer regardless of my own will? All I have ever wished is to love and be loved, and yet I am stuck between wishing for death and being denied, or denying death and feeling it close in. Must I be lost in a rage against this foul world? Must I be tortured in this prison of flesh?

Even with the pills, fear is all there is. There is no love. There is no rage. There is no grief. There is no color. I feel that it is better than the overwhelming kaleidoscope of emotions that would make my head spin. Even so, I treasure my rage and grief. They are a part of who I am. They are what keep me connected to others that have long since left me behind.

Can I forget my rage for a friend that committed the greatest transgression imaginable? Can I forget my grief for his victim, a girl I knew but never had a chance to know? Can I leave these blinding images in the past for a new existence? Would I even be able to bear this new existence if I chose it? Would I be myself without those painful bonds? Would I be myself without the pain?

Perhaps the pain will never truly be gone. Even with the dulled point from the medication, I still feel the steely blade. It still hurts. It still makes me bleed. Perhaps I need the dulled sense. Perhaps without the blinding brightness, I can see those colors for what they are. If I am not doubled over in pain, I might be able to touch my emotions in a way I never thought possible. I would not have survived the way I was before. Now, there is a chance.

 

Faded Image

I look out to the horizon and see the image of someone I never knew. Would I have hated them? Would I have cherished their mind? Were they as shallow as I expected, or were there depths I could never touch?

I reach out to feel the person they were. Smoke dances around my fingers, taunting me for my sin of ignorance. When I finally make contact, I touch only the shards of a broken life. I pull my hand back in pain, only to reach once more.

Like that, the image of someone I never touched disintegrates like ashes spread to the wind. I clutch at anything I could hope to know. It all slips through my fingers once again. I can barely remember their eyes, their skin, their hands. How did her voice sound again? Did she sing? What was her laugh like? Did I ever hear her cry? I might know, if she spoke to me. I just wish she never told that lie.

 

Dawn

From my seat on a hill, I watch as the sun tucks itself behind the horizon. The smallest stone casts shadows for miles. Even so, the only thought on my mind is “Why?”. Why did he do it? He had so much potential. He could have done or been anything. I would have done or been anything for him. I don’t know what I would have done or said if he had come to me before it was too late, but I wish I had done something. Perhaps that is my sin. The sin of ignorance has turned me into a hypocrite and the man I loved into a murderer. I wish that she had told me; told me everything he had done and everything that she feared. I don’t know what I would have done, but I could have said something. My inaction has cost her her life and him his memory. Unless one is arrogant enough to believe they will get away with it, murder is almost always suicide. How did they feel, in those final moments that they shared? I cannot pretend to know.

My heart races as I consider all the things I should have known. It’s too much. My brain is screaming at me for my arrogance and interpersonal slothfulness. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to be here. I need an escape, and I will take any that will spare me from this agony. Sleep will give me some solace. I choose to lay my head back and surrender myself to an all too familiar dream. A dream I find far preferable to this reality.

My vision fades into a light blue sky with a set of soft clouds. I am lying on the ground. The sun is bright. The ground is warm. The asphalt scratches my cheek. Something must be wrong. My chest hurts, and I hear indistinct shouting. The sun is blocked out as someone steps into its path, their face obscured in silhouette. Metal glints in their hand. I raise my hand, immediately understanding what had occurred. Blood. I have been stabbed.

Why did they stab me? I probably deserve it. I have caused so many fights in my life, by mistake and on purpose. I have probably done it once more, but now I am finally paying for my arrogance. I wish I could see their face. What face do they wear? Are they happy? Did they slay a monster in their eyes? Are they angry, pushed into an act they never wished to do? Are they sad, knowing they will be buried by society, almost as dead as me?

We humans love to hate. My loved ones will dump their grief at the feet of my killer in the form of rage, but they will be outnumbered by those that are simply looking for a new target to hurl insults and abuse at. But those people will forget and move on soon enough. Then my killer’s friends and family will do the same. The world will not cry for them. My killer will be forgotten.

Will I be forgotten? I think I will, in part. My parents wouldn’t; you don’t forget the loss of a child. My sister probably won’t think of me daily. It will hurt, but that hurt will fade. Soon, I will be a shadow that sits behind her more relevant thoughts. I hope my cousin forgets me. His father was worthless, and I don’t want to be another man who abandoned him. I would rather be forgotten than resented by someone I love.

Will people cry for me? My parents won’t. I have never seen them cry. My mother loses herself in sentimentality rather than be submerged in grief. She will post hundreds of pictures on the days she feels I am gone. My father will rage against the world and himself. He will smoke, drink, and spend money recklessly�"anything to hoard tears. My sister will. She had been my closest friend in recent days, and I must believe the feeling is mutual. She will not let me go easily. Though, I hope my cousin will. I held my hands out during his first steps. I listened to his voice as he said his first words. To hear that voice twisted in anguish as he stumbles; it would destroy me.

My killer will be far more alone than I would be in death. Mr. Killer, I promise to remember you. I promise to cry for you. So, please, don’t forget me. Don’t let me die alone.

I feel their hand reach down to caress my cheek. I can finally see their dark eyes glistening with moisture. A warm tear makes a path from my forehead to the bridge of my nose, and finally down my cheek. That is when I hear a soft, fragile voice.

“I’m sorry you have to die alongside me. Killing you will be my greatest sin. I feel there is a demon inside me. The demon will not allow me to let things go. I will bear my grudges of years long past until I pass too. This demon won’t let me forgive you. I’m sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. If it is any consolation, I will be here for you as long as I can. Feel my warmth. Feel the weight of my heart and know that yours is greater.”

I feel their palm against my face, warmth pooling around my rapidly cooling body, and wonder whose voice that was. It sounded like words I would have said.

A man I called friend and looked to as a brother was similarly warm. He was born to burn, after all. I must have met him just as I was starting high school, and we stayed friends for nine years. He had an energy about him as he danced around the room, like a flame desperate to grow beyond its candle. He would ask more questions than I knew how to answer, though I would try my best.

I don’t think I appreciated how strong he was at the time. I watched as gasoline, powder, and napalm were hurled at him in attempts to make him explode. He would wipe himself clean, laughing like it was all some joke. I would take his rags of kerosene and pass along new ones that were clean, never considering how much those attacks must have hurt.

He seemed to have been raising himself. His mother had long since burnt out, barely smoldering. His father was out of sight and mostly out of mind. His mother had long since forgotten him. He would confide in me that he was afraid that one day, he would be alone. His mother would simply forget about him and move on, as though he were never there to begin with.

Eventually, he met this girl. They seemed like a match made in heaven. He showed so much strength and warmth in his resistance to the hate he received endlessly. She was so bright and kind that those attacks would leave his mind. Together, I thought they would shine brighter than the sun. When they looked for a place where he wouldn’t have to cleanse himself constantly, I was happy. I thought that maybe, she and my friend would be everlasting.

Well, one day, he did burn. He burst into flames, running and screaming for help. Only one person did. She walked up with another rag to wipe him clean of the fuel, and she caught too. She caught, and she burned, and she burned until there was nothing but embers glowing weakly, until they too faded. I tried to hold on to what remained, but it was like trying to take hold of smoke.

When he was finally caught, they locked him away. They called him an arsonist, a demon, a murderer. No, they all had seen what was happening to him. None of them would lift a finger until he was the problem. Now an innocent girl is dead, and he was their victim too.

I’m awoken by the sun against my face, accompanied by the wind throwing my hair around and a weed grinding against my neck. Something feels wrong. Something had been wrong for a long time.

My mind snaps to memories I would rather forget.

I remember reading an article: “Arrested for murder in the first degree, age 20.”

I remember looking for a way it was wrong: “It’s all a misunderstanding.”

I remember reading a coroner’s report: “Skull fracture, bite marks, blood under her fingernails.”

I remember crying as I drove down the highway, screaming until my lungs ached and my throat was raw.

I remember reading a sentence: “45 years for murder, 15 for kidnapping.”

I remember the burning hate in my gut.

 I remember my heart and mind being shaken by my grief.

I remember thinking that people will only know my friend for his crime. Even his mother would forget him.

Hey, Mr. Killer, I promise to remember you.

I had wondered if I could have saved her for a long time. I wonder if I could have saved him. But something feels different. Why isn’t there a voice berating me anymore? My heart feels like an anvil, but it isn’t being weighed by my guilt anymore. I can’t understand what is going on. It’s like I’ve seen a flash, but there is no thunder. I don’t wish that I could shrink away from the light, and have my life be forgotten. Before I realize what I’m saying, some unfamiliar words dance on my lips.

“Oh… I want to live…”

I want to live? I want to live! When was the last time I wanted to live? When was the last time that I knew that death didn’t seem preferable?

People speak of this feeling with a sense of childlike wonder. That’s wrong. I feel a tightness in my chest. I feel fear shaking my heart. It’s heavy; the weight of a human life. Even so, it is delicate. One false step and it is shattered.

I feel… oddly strong. I feel stronger for bearing the will to live. I want to see the sun rise over the horizon and know that the world is better for having me here.

I remember watching my friend struggle as I helped him with his homework. I remember my pride at seeing him cross the stage at graduation. I think my efforts were not in vain. I think I like helping people, even if it ends in tragedy.

I can’t help but chuckle as the grass tickles my nose. It is only now that I notice how cool the breeze is as it wafts through my hair, tossing it a bit. It’s nice, laying in the warmth of the sun. I raise a hand above me, and it’s clean. There’s something much more solid that I can reach out to hold.

Author's Note

First time really sharing my writing with people, I'm sure there are gonna be grammar and punctuation errors, please judge me gently.