The End of James

 

The End Of James

 

This is the story of a broken soul, a story of bleeding hearts and feelings most foul. So if you wish to keep your eyes dry and not cry yourself to sleep tonight put this back from where you so unluckily snatched it and kindly walk away, but should you wish to learn of how the human soul and image warps twists and transmogrifies under the harsh rules of the world, then welcome. Welcome to my job, can you guess who I am? What shadow is always watching, all things must come to an end, and at the end.. is me. Welcome to the Devil’s Playground, the Stadium of Sorrow, the Field of Failing, the Coliseum of Cataclysms, my office, Earth.

*   *   *

James walked, walked slowly. He was in no rush, his heart had almost already stopped its futile beating, why keep going he thought. To what end. To the end he thought, the end of it all… I watched him end, reliving his memories with him, but why start at the end, if I’m to tell you of a story it would be so rude to start at the end. First I must tell you of his most auspicious start. I won’t bore you with details of his birth, because for most it’s all the same and trust me I’ve seen most. Lets slip into his memories, a parasite unnoticed, how about here, two weeks ago…

*   *   *

                “Hey love,” James crowed to Julie as he slowly encircled her in an honest, open embrace. His 9 to 5 had just ended and he had arrived home in his sharp red blazer with a grin the size of his lonely mothers heart. (Her heart had been very big up until the year of her diagnosis with cancer, I decided to take her early, hey, I’ve been known to be merciful.)

“Ha ha, I told you James, stop calling me love,” Julie laughed smiling widely,” ha ha unless you would let me go back to calling you honey.”

                “Ha fat chance, Julie it is, as long as I can remember that,” he grinned kissing her full on the lips. He didn’t pull away; he just pressed himself closer savoring the feeling of importance she always instigated in his soul. Finally she played with his jacket a little which was her way of saying, as much as I want this to go on forever I still kind of need to breathe. So he broke away regretfully and just held her close to him, wishing he could stay there. He had no clue that less than 40 minutes before he had arrived home she had been in the arms of another, one with, well –lets just say a substantial amount of money. Not that James didn’t satisfy her, he completely did, they had just fallen on hard times and she didn’t want either of them to starve. It was a matter of priorities not of her loving anyone else. The man paid well, she didn’t tell James. Every night the man came she cried herself to sleep after James crashed into his deep blue pillow, his 9 to 5 job as a bank teller was stressing him to the point to exhaustion, she always made sure to leave the room so he wouldn’t hear her.

 

 (The man did pay her a very substantial amount of money, He was a wealthy CEO of a company that the police were nowhere near in finding the corruption, so I helped it along a little, I don’t only take the souls of people that would be so… so… monotonous, such as the life of a bank teller.)

               

“So how was your day Julie,” James joked, he hoped that it was good because tonight, this most auspicious of nights –well less auspicious and more deeply special –was their two year anniversary and he had a plan that would surely surprise the hell out of her. Literally to surprise the hell out of her, as in surprise all the depressing feelings –because he had awoken several nights to hear her crying in the kitchen, he assumed that it was out of stress from her being on call from the hospital, she was brave to be able to face death every day and it must take its toll on her –out of her so only the good remained. Tonight he was king of kings and master of surprises all rolled into one daring little package.

                “It was actually not that bad,” She giggled,” I guess you didn’t forget what tonight was then, you’re getting better.” She smiled, he always did bring out the best in her, “Happy or sad, rain or sunshine, I always feel better because you’re mine,” she always remembered those lines she had read the seventh day two years ago, he sometimes sung them to her with a quiet jazz beat.

“No I did not, I won’t forget something like that again, I actually made plans” he crowed proudly,“ Jeff Warrens Steakhouse, 7:30, table for two.” Lit by candlelight he thought to himself, that was a personal touch he had gone to his sister for. Sometimes it helped to have someone on the inside looking out for you.

 

(His sister was a high-end waitress At Jeff Warrens, she worked a hasty 50 hour week, late at night sometimes, it was killing her heart slowly, she didn’t know it yet but in a few years she would have to change or I would come and pick her up and take her for a nice quiet ride.)

 

*  *  *

Jeff Warren’s was the place. It was the place to be, the place that you took your Prom night date if you really wanted anything more than just a date out of them, the place you paid $32 for the steak you bought at home—but with the designer label that made it all worth it—the place you go with that friend who you really want to be more than friends with, it was the place that rich people lined up outside the rotating glass door, or if you’re not in any of those positions it was just the place to go if you wanted decent food. James stood outside Jeff Warren’s

 

 (For the sake of my mental health from now on we’ll call it JW’s, because in this job repetitiveness is the only thing that really kills me, ha funny joke, everyone thinks I have no sense of humor, “Oh God it’s the end, woe is me,” think of the way you people die, some of it is so stupid its just funny, like last week, the man you saw walking down the road—drunk—tripped falling into the road only to be boosted through the wall, into an emotional AA Meeting.)

 

 looking up at the sign. The giant fluorescent sign that—could possibly be seen from space given all the tacky flashing lights—was his gate to happiness. Once through this door, this night, if all went according to plan, he would be engaged. He had the ring in his pocket, her hand in his, the money for dinner and he felt bright, bright like a newborn star.

 

(I do that to, even stars eventually die, I take those ones to, everything has a soul, in some way or another and when I pick it up, it has it’s own memories, a human might remember the past few years but stars remember before humans were ever here, back when everything was untainted.)

 

 The sign flickered and James and Julie walked through the door to JW’s on a pure high, just as the wall-eyed worker walked from behind it carrying his phillips head screwdriver. They were almost floating to the table set in the back corner by the glowing candlelight. He really worked hard for this Julie thought; he must have spent tons of time setting this whole night up. So they sat at the table in awe of the things they saw that normal people would never see—unless of course you define normal as having enough money to eat out at a no-price-menu restaurant every night—so they ordered their dinners, smiled to the waiter, ate, chatted together and held hands. Finally the moment felt right, James stopped what he was eating leaned over and grabbed Julie’s hand.

“Julie I know we’re on the downside of money, and we’re struggling to make up for a lot of things, but I’m willing to work for the rest of my life with those things if you’ll be with me,” he kneeled to the floor, clumsily pulled the black velvet box from his pocket and popped open the top of the palm sized velvet case to her. The ring stared at her in the face, gleaming, refracting glowing, showing her all her dreams for life. She truly wanted to be with him for the rest of her life.

“James…” she whispered,” oh my God, yes, oh my God”

 

(Just for those of you that believe in God, he’s up there, or else I wouldn’t be here, I couldn’t create myself, not something this good looking, haha funny joke laugh, or I’ll kill you, haha that is funny, I can’t actually kill you, I can influence when you die, but I can’t kill you, so rest easy on that. Even God can’t decide when exactly you actually die—the whole free will thing. But he does have a purpose and a plan, I’m just here to help it along.)

 

 She began to hyperventilate; her heart beat reaching its all time peak. She sat dazed in an almost dream-like state as he slipped the ring on her finger. As the ring was almost up her almost limp hand, an almost inaudible crash was heard from the front of the restaurant. The inaudible became very audible as the disaster finished its most untimely interruption. James was already on his feet, the ring on Julie’s finger forgotten, he raced to the front, past the dazed servers, past the incapacitated diners and past the wall-eyed worker—who sat by himself, in the corner table just out of the light, enjoying the complimentary food for working on the building. As James reached the double door leading out into the brimming paring lot he saw what had happened. The sign, its fluorescent lights no longer shining, had crashed to the sidewalk, glass shattering and covering the sidewalk in a sea of incandescent light as the dusk reflected of the thousands of pieces of broken lights. The sight would have been breathtaking—if the people under the sign had not began screaming in voices of pure torture. The incarnations of animals, of demons, of fallen angels all culminated in the bleeding screeches of the people’s deadly pain. James dropped onto the nearest bench, covering his ears and closing his eyes.

 

*  *  *

                An hour later as the ambulances gathered the still-bleeding and the bodies, James held Julie’s hand.

                “Julie,” he whispered, “ that could have been us.” Julie didn’t say a word. The last body carried off had been her benefactor, from whom she had been collecting money from for the last 6 months. She began to panic, what would they do now, how would they pay for all they had.

 

*  *  *

His life was in turmoil, Julie had started working double shifts 3 nights after the night at JW’s and at first, all was fine. Then one night, after working late and stopping at the gas station for a quick drink and a refill of his gas-guzzling tank, he came home to find her with another man.

 

(Her new man was almost as wealthy, he was a top doctor at the hospital she worked in, he made around…. Well just more than you, the world is depressed enough without having to now someone makes more money in a month then you do in a year. He’ll die later to if it makes you feel any better—a cocaine overdose with his other mistress. But that’s beside the point, the point is we’re going to start skipping around; James’s memory becomes very choppy and slightly warped after this little incident. Yes I said little, in the grand scheme, James is—or was, depending on the point of view—only a very small piece in a very large, paradoxal puzzle.)

 

*  *  *

                Light…. Bright….  James awoke to find a man staring at him from the outside of a trashcan he happened to occupy at the moment. It was the wall-eyed worker, dressed in his company issue undershirt and blue suspenders.

                “Time to take out the trash Mister, you’re going to have to move,” the worker drawled.

                Damn it James thought just as the sunlight blazed his tear shut eyes. He rolled over of the empty bottles and cans of various liquors and alcohols he had purchased the night before. He didn’t normally drink but last night he had crashed—almost in the literal term, his car pulling up on the curb out front, his eyes blinded by tears—into the liquor store and asked the stunned 40-ish year old manager—standing in the back groping his 17 year old homewrecker of a co-worker—for the most potent drink he could find and then some. The man hurried, obviously embarrassed by being caught, and brought the drinks to him at the front desk at a speed only induced by a massive dose of adrenaline.

 

(The manager would be caught one more time, but this time in a little more compromising position. It would actually lead to his death, his wife—a child of numerous… problems. Trust me she had a lot, maybe I’ll tell the next person her story. One of her most profound problems, the one that fits into this, was her anger problem. I guess you could say her quick and hasty decisions to. She pulled a gun on the manger and shot him in the forehead. His blood spattered the sheets and stained the memory of the young seventeen-year-old girl—who had no idea he even had a wife.)

 

After purchasing the liquor James had stumbled out the door—the bag being heavy enough to make him trip—and walked down the road, leaving his car with the keys lying in the front seat. As he walked down the road he handed alcohol to the connoisseurs that watched him as he went. If he gave them alcohol now, they would leave him and his misery alone later. And so he had spent the night drinking his pains away,

 

(Which never really works, trust me the number of increasing alcoholics that I have to pick up is really annoying. I try and talk to them when I’ve picked them up and I get brain dead answers, come on I’ve been on this job for a few millennia, at least give me something to look forward to when I pick up your sad little corpses.)

 crying in the alley and finally crawling up into the shelter of the very intelligent talking trashcan. James, caught up in the memory of the night before, had failed to notice that the worker had walked away and gotten into his truck. The truck now loomed over him and his broken bottles, he made a quick decision, or rather the alcohol made a quick decision, stay where he was. He passed out again, his head cracking a bottle as he fell.

 

*  *  *

This time James awoke several days later, the alcohol and head trauma had found him laying in the

Dumpster-yard, surrounded by trash. (Which is another thing that bothers me about this age. You people create so much trash it’s revolting. I could take all the trash from all the other centuries combined and only come up with a third the s**t you all create.) He pulled himself up, then collapsed back down. His body wasn’t ready to take the light that seemed to assault his shattered face. His head ached like he had been subjected to ancient tortures dealing in drugs and poisons. His eye was swollen and his lip bloodied, he couldn’t remember what from though. He forced himself up and dragged his sorry excuse for a body to the edge of the dumpster-yard. It was as if his body was a marionette, pulled in directions by unknown strings of masochistic torture. He wanted to see her. He pulled what was left of his broken soul out and masked the pain from his face.

 

(One thing I will applaud you humans for is your ability to wear masks as easily as you wear your own skin. Its not healthy and it even shortens your life from the stress it causes, but still with the effort it takes, I applaud you. Most of you don’t even realize that you have them in place. It a sad thing to see, but in your world a person without a mask is like a single duck on a lake in hunting season, you will get shot own. Eventually everyone learns to put on masks. It’s pitiful. The reasons you create them: popularity, acceptance, sex, love, pain. It disgusts me, the lack of guts the dominant race of a planet has.)

 

 James stumbled down the road at a pace that could only be described as breakneck—not for the speed but because of how he tripped almost every step. He made it past the general store and to the dilapidated bus stop. It was covered in filth that is only found in major cities populated by an abundance of grey-white birds and graffiti with language as colorful as the paint it had been sealed in. When the bus stopped the squat balding driver opened the door and let James drag himself in.

 

(The bus driver would soon suffer a fatal gun wound to the head, it would happen in the next few weeks, a bum with a pistol would board the bus and he would be a hero saving the life of a small family in the back. He would be honored, I promise that. Self-sacrifice is always rewarded by the big guy. It makes him happy to see at least something innately good in his broken creation.)

 

The bus driver took one look at the haunted expression that crossed James face when he had no bus fare and gave him a ride free.

                “Where you headed?” The driver asked genuinely curious. A look crossed James face, he had made it this far by just doing and not thinking. The idea he conjured in his mind broke him and he lost his mask. The pain was so open and crushing that he felt as though a demon had a claw in his heart and was slowly and perfectly cutting it into a shape most delicate. And then s though the demon knew exactly how much it would take for his heart to be crushed and wanted to watch him crush it to himself, the pain abruptly disappeared and his mask was back up.

                “To see my fiancé,” James replied in monotone. The driver decided from the expression, though it had lasted only seconds, that he wouldn’t push the subject.

                “What are the cross roads?”

                “It’s here,” James chocked. The driver pulled over and wished him good luck but James was already out the door in a dream, he stared at the building and the memories flooded back unwanted. The pain hit him like a bullet to the chest. He reeled back and began to cry on the sidewalk, sobs escaping his chest like beaten animals from an open cage. Then he got up and walked, he walked slowly. His heart had almost stopped, it didn’t matter what happened to him now. He stepped out into the road and fell o his knees. He didn’t even look up as the car approached at almost 70 miles per hour. It was over.

 

*  *  *

 

                That’s it. It could end just like that. As easily as taking five steps out into the road. So remember that next time you think you’re invincible.

 

*  *  *

So now you have the story from beginning to end, how easily the mind is warped and broken. I’m sorry but your ride’s over. I have to go pick up James; we have an important appointment. Maybe I’ll tell him your story, it’s a long drive to the gates, and I have to tell him something.