What's Been Blotted Out

A twist on the typical teacher note scenario.

            I read a suicide note today. It was from a friend named John. It wasn’t meant for me, or anyone I suppose, except the living. It was sent to the puzzled and the troubled left behind. John always wrote in a shaky hand. Ink from his pen leaked across the page blotting out the last portion of his explanation or statement.

            He and I used to pass notes in Catholic school. The teachers never allowed whispering, but we could manage to trade letters. Except one time, in the sixth grade, when Mrs. Dixon intercepted one of John’s more confidential notes.

            She’d been dictating her chalkboard lessons when a message landed in my hand. She was like a spider the way she’d catch socializing in her classroom. The moment I felt the note her eyes darted to me.  

            “Bring it Hear.” She said.

            “Bring What?” I tried to play dumb. I was, after all, an abysmal student. She came over with the ruler.
            “Read me that note.” She said.

            “No.” I said.

            “What’s it say?” She asked, a smirk creeping across her face.

            “I didn’t read it yet” I told her.

            “Well you better read it now.” She said. I guess she wanted to make an example out of me. Maybe note passing had been the virulent attention killer that was sapping the nation of an intelligent next generation. Mrs. Dixon was heroic in protecting our educational experiences.

            She pulled me to the front of the room and spun me to face the class. It was very much like every other time I’d been asked to explain things that I didn’t understand. I began reading from the note. The letters were blurry. The loose ink of John’s pen had spewed all over his writing.

            John’s penmanship reflected his character; always gushing out darkness. His emotions would spew onto evrything. He’d pour his heart out, and when his darkness wasn’t well received he’d become bitter and resentful of the world for not understanding him. I wish I could have convinced him that everyone felt the way he did, at times anyway. “It’s a matter of expressing yourself” I told him. He was offended. He couldn’t believe that any one hurt the ways he did. Maybe they didn’t, but if his pain was truly worse, it was a moot point. His writing was illegible. It prevented me from reading his note to the class, though.

            “I can’t read this” I announced, happy to have found a legitimate excuse.

            Mrs. Dixon snatched the letter from my hand and began reading aloud.

            “Becca Johnson is so cute…” Mrs. Dixon said, in her best impression of an awkward, desperate, and lonely twelve year old. The class wriggled with laughter. Mrs. Dixon rejoiced in the smiles of her audience. She was a natural comedian. John was already crying, brinking on sobs. Becca laughed with the class, but she tucked her chin and held her head, looking into John’s weeping eyes, as if trying to share his embarrassment. He tried to stop crying as she looked at him, but Mrs. Dixon continued.

            “I wish she wasn’t…?” The class waited for the punch line, but Mrs. Dixon couldn’t read that last word. That black blot muddled the message. The spider stopped before the fly.

            “What does this say?” She demanded. He started up again, like he was seizing, but Mrs. Dixon, true to comedy, did not laugh at her own antics. She waited for an answer.

            “What does this last word say?” She asked again.

            “It says ‘black’” John answered through his tears.

            The children shut up. Mrs. Dixon stood stern and stoic peremptorily silencing any laughter. No one smiled either. Becca threw a book at John, and then another. Maybe she was insulted. Maybe it was because he’d embarrassed her. Maybe it was because she liked him. But if she had liked him before, she didn’t then.

            “I hate you” she screamed. The class buzzed with laughter again, but it was nervous laughter. There were too many emotions swirling in their undeveloped minds, too much energy but they were stuck where they were. After throwing the rest of her things at John, Becca ran out of the room. Mrs. Dixon fled after her. John buried his face in his arms and let his back shake with paroxysms as the rest of the class focused inexorably on him.

            I think about that blot on the paper. Why did he write it? I think his parents, or at least his father, may have been racist. It’s puzzling. He had liked the girl. But how could he have admitted what he wrote to the class? It’s troubling to imagine his feelings at that moment in his life.

            I think something in his message was never understood. There’s that darkness covering the note, covering both notes, and I wonder what he wanted to say, what he can never say now.

            There’s a darkness in our lives. There’s a void in the moments that seem important to us and die with our memories. If I were to kill myself I would have to write a suicide note, and that note would end up being an autobiography. It would probably be too big to finish, but one day I will die and no matter what I will not have said all the things I’ve wanted to. At least, I want be understood the way I wish to be.

Author's Note

Please offer criticism. Any advice and/or comments would be enthusiastically appreciated.

Reviews

[Seshat Nidaba]

This was awefully entertaining.