Act 1. Part 1. "... the crime."

What's the most horrendous crime you can think of?

Act 1. Part 1

“The Crime”

What’s the most horrendous crime you can imagine? 

 

Would it be setting fire to someone?  To someone you love.  To someone you promised the world to?

 

Burn victims say catching fire is the most painful thing any human being could ever experience.  The flames feel like a million tiny needles pricking the surface of the skin.  It’s a burning and ferocious sensation that drives deeper and deeper, lingering to devour the flesh.  It’s an itch that stings. 

 

Once the pain passes the nerve endings, the flames no longer hurt.  It just feels numb. Everything feels numb, like it never existed.

 

Most people don’t die from the flames.  They die from the smoke, inhaling the black and tawdry smoke. Once it burns your lungs, you’re dead. 

 

Maybe the most horrendous crime is loving the very person who tried to kill you. 

 

It’s painful. I know.

 

The most horrendous crime I can imagine is someone leaving you when you truly, madly and deeply love them. It’s a crime to kill the love story in someone.  It’s a crime to crush a vulnerable person’s hopes and dreams for eternal happiness.  The most devastating of all crimes is…

 

the death of a love story.

 

I know both crimes... the burning bed and the broken heart.

 

I’m not certain which came first.  Did my heart break when the flames covered my body like a soft and familiar blanket? Or was it broken long before this sadistic and narcissistic crime. Perhaps it broke after the burns settled on my skin.  

 

When exactly did my heart break?  Let me think…

 

I’m going to say when the match struck the flimsy cardboard backing.  When the person who claimed to love me lit the book of matches.  Yeah, that’s when my heart broke. 

 

Have you ever been so comfortable in bed, waiting for the love of your life to join you?  Have you ever stretched your arms out and touched the pillow, wishing it was them? Funny how a person can complete us, even when we sleep.

 

Just before my heart broke, I remember my eyes fluttering. I remember lying on my stomach.  The black and white sheets felt cool despite the heat of the night. I reached one hand out and massaged the pillow. I felt I was dreaming, barely aware.

 

I remember music playing in the background. Samba music.  It was barely audible, but noticeable.  I love Samba music.  It’s so passionate and sassy.  It has a heat and a presence. It makes you want to move with it.  It reaches into your heart and causes you to dance from the inside out.

 

I saw a distant silhouette lift the match to the cigarette. One more nicotine rush before retiring for the evening.  Or, perhaps not.

 

I stretched my arms over my head.  It was dark, except for the single match lighting the way, and the red butt of a familiar cigarette.  It initially seemed soft:  a single match, a wavering light, candlelight. 

 

Until, I smelled the faint hint of alcohol.  It must have been vodka. It’s always vodka.  That’s when I became concerned.

 

I closed my eyes.  I closed what little beliefs I carried with me.  I closed myself, not wanting to believe what was about to happen. I just hoped it wouldn’t be as painful as it was before.  So unfortunate, it would be more so.

 

“Goodnight, I like the way you dance.” Their words, not mine.

 

The single match lit the book of matches.  It was a rush of flames, exploding in sparks. 

 

Then fire was delicately tossed on the bed. The flames exploded with help from the vodka.

 

Fire, everywhere. 

 

My heart broke. Yeah, that’s when my heart broke.  Sad, isn’t it.

 

I couldn’t escape it.  I drowned in the flames.  I kicked.  I screamed.  I ran.  Then numbness.  Everything stops.  Dreaming stops, sleeping stops, life stops.

 

When I awoke from the burning bed, I was caught between reality and fantasy. I was encaged by the pain, the drugs, and the disbelief.

 

Is this my new life?  Is this my sin, my purgatory? Is this me?  Am I dead?

 

Sorry sport, not that lucky.  The pain lingered long enough. My body covered in sterile, white, gauze bandages.

 

What happened to my beautiful skin? What happened to my flesh? Why is skin so fragile and life so frail?

 

The doctors and nurses tended to my burns. I told them, “Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.  It no longer matters.” Because, you can’t bandage a broken heart.  You can’t resuscitate love once it burns to death.  You can’t salvage and repair a scalded memory.  You can’t graft a dream back together.

 

But now I relish my scars.  It’s a badge of honor.  It shows the true ugliness of love.

 

I'm lost in the pictures of my broken heart.

 

Did someone gasp?  Did someone just scream... out there, in the middle of the world wide network of humanity and humility?  I heard it.  I… I felt it.

 

I’m sorry, but I’m not going to apologize for my ugly.

 

The true crime was that I didn’t die. I’m still live. 

 

However someone coldly killed the only love I ever knew. In exchange, I have over a thousand scars on my flesh.  The death of a love story is a bitter one, the scars only prove it.

 

Only real love has the strength to create a spark.  Only true love can ignite a passionate flame.  Only someone who really knows and understands the dignity of innocent love can kill a love story.

 

That’s important. Remember it.

 

Every single person who broke my heart, one way or another, inevitably contributed to these scars.  Each former lover tended to the death of my love story, just like a long string of doctors tended to my burns. 

 

You can't have a love story with lovers. I’ll be honest. Many lovers have come and gone, contributing chapter after chapter to the story.  Now, well now they’re just suspects. 

 

They’re all suspects in this wicked and burning game. Each of these suspects wounded me in some small regard.  Eight. That’s not too many, is it?  I don’t think so.

 

Eight significant journeys into love.  It seems too few if you ask me. 

 

Each of them represents a significant chapter in my love story.  Eight suspects and only one, true love.

 

I dated, loved, and endured each suspect.  One-by-one they broke my heart. Each one broke a significant piece of my soul. See, it’s very few suspects.

 

However, only one of them tried to kill me.  Only one of them played with a match. One sinning suspect lit the book of matches and tossed it on the bed, undoing my entire and desperate world.

 

Let me introduce you to the suspects and then you can decide. Who could love someone and then destroy them all from a single match.  Who could do such a thing?

 

It’s just choices. Right?   Sinners or saints?

Reviews

[Dane Osborne]

This is a word I don't use lightly or say often: Brilliant. The most destructive polarity I think out of all of them is between the brain and the heart. What people call "thinking with their heart" is actually just seeing the world the way they want to and thinking with their heads is seeing what reality really is. Most people prefer seeing what they want to so they go with their heart. In trying to look at the world the way you want to you are trying to transcend reality, to escape it, to mold it in your image. Neither of these things can be done and thus come follows the tragedy of the heart, the shattering of the proverbial rose colored sunglasses into your eyes. With love people especially want to see only what they want to see, for reality to be the way THEY want it to be, but you can't make existence do what you want and thus reality shatters illusion.

I always tell people I hate love movies like "the notebook" and people ask "why?" and I always say because they are all lies. The only purpose they serve is to give people a slanted view of reality and make them think stuff like that really happens when it usually just doesn't.

This isn't a story, no. It is rather a poetic cosmic hymn to our molested souls and a lament for our fragile psyches, fragile as china and how it shatters at the softest touch of our own nature. Bravo I will be reading more of this. I rarely get this impressed. 100/100

[D1218]

Hm I was confused at first... I didn't think you meant that the person literally was burned by the person who loves him/her
xD Lol I get it now.. I think
And I loved it
"Only someone who really knows and understands the dignity of innocent love can kill a love story."
I especially loved that part - Keep writing :D

[Sean M. Addams]

very interesting chapter .. great start to this ..

[ScarlettTheDreamer]

This is written well, very well indeed. I like the idea of the crime a lot! This is way too interesting! Post the next chapter soon please!!

[B MacGregor]

So... what do you think so far about Velvet?