Darkest Hour

This is it. It has to be. I’ve counted to three, and so have we.

Three dates, in three months. Normally, that wouldn’t suffice for someone. But when you struggle to get just three a year, that many in a few months is a blessing, and miracle. It helps that we’ve known each other for a year or so. His girlfriend had left him not long ago, and I swallowed my awkwardness to ask him out for coffee. I thought it went well. He had to buy, but he said he didn’t mind. We talked for a while. Well, he talked for a while. I mostly listened, and tried to ignore the growing, hungering throb in the pit of my abdomen. I smiled through it all of course, and he was nice enough to invite me to a poetry slam at a small hole-in-the-wall club downtown the following month. He spent most of the time battling someone in rhyming verses. It was impressive, I have to admit. On the third month, this month, I was excited, because everyone knows what goes down on the third date. Hint: Usually at least one does. If you’re lucky, both. I wasn’t so lucky, but that isn’t a huge surprise.

No, turns out he wanted to meet for coffee again, in the same cafe, to tell me he’d rather just be friends. That was the third guy this year to say that. Let’s be friends. I’ve grown to loathe the phrase so much, I spat at him and stormed out of the cafe. I guess he was actually decent enough to not tell me why. I had someone do that once.

“I need someone who’s going to do something with their life. I need ambition, and cleanliness, and /income/.

You don’t go to college. You don’t have a job. You don’t..you just don’t do anything. I’m not gonna get stuck paying everything for you.

What future could we possibly have?”

That came from a couple guys, actually. The one wasn’t entirely right; I have a job. Well, half of one. I work part time at the McDonald's across the street. When you hit rock bottom that seems to be the only thing someone unemployed and inexperienced can get around here. You need experience to get a job, and a job to get experience. That’s pretty crappy if you ask me, but I digress.

Anyway, my job isn’t glamorous in the bit. I go to work sleepy, from my nightly haunting of insomnia. I deal with crabby, demanding people all day, with a crappy boss, in a crappy building, with crappy food. God forbid you put diet coke in the cup when they asked for regular, because one is so much better than the other, and when you mess up, the world’s ending. And per usual, whenever I bleep up my manager’s there, with that same, stupid scowl on his face, arms crossed and lips pursed. He scolds any minor default, and yells when things go to hell. Eventually you get so used to it, it stops bothering you. And of course, by the end of the shift I have splattered food in and on my hair and clothes, with a more worn and withered expression on my face than when I first woke up. I’ll trudge across the street, dodge an ignorant pedestrian or car, and trudge my way into the dinky little apartment I rent in one of the most desolate buildings, it’s a wonder it hasn’t been shut down.

Every night, or day, I’ll peel the grease ridden clothes off my body, smell a random shirt to determine the level of mustiness, and slip it on if it’s not bad at all, before wiggling into a pair of basket ball shorts and plopping my booty down on the floor, where a short coffee table stands, with my hand-me-down laptop sitting on top. My brother had given it to me, bless his soul. There was a whole folder titled “Ducks”, and I deleted it instantly. I know better than that.

My living room doesn’t have much. It doubles as my bedroom, with the couch, an old 90’s box TV and coffee table as my only furniture. The kitchenette is behind, with a mini fridge full of veggies and vodka, a small stove I’ve used once and managed to burn water, a microwave that hasn’t been cleaned in probably years, and a small kitchen table with an ashtray on top. Besides that, I have a small bathroom to the back of the living area, not far from where I sit. It has a small bath, shower head, sink and toilet. The bath has more mold and mildew than my grandma's. The shower head only spits, the bath spurts out in turns with a horrible groan, and the toilet either won’t fill with water or it flushes on its own periodically. Nothing really works a hundred percent correctly, but I’m luckier than some. At least there’s a roof and walls around me. Though, at times, even those bother me, with occasional banging and creaking. It’s like living in a brothel, I swear.

You’d probably wonder how I keep up with the rent on such a luxurious place. The rent is pretty small, compared to other apartments. But on some months it’s still too much, and I have to do extra, favors in turn to keep this glorious crap-hole as my home.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not the most pleasant person in the world. I’m no happy, little ball of sunshine and rainbows and unicorn turds. I’m not proud of myself. My father always said I couldn't do it. Couldn’t go to college for this, or for that. I couldn’t do that, or this. I wasn’t going to amount to anything, he said. I wanted to be something. This wasn’t my plan all along. I was gonna be a paralegal. I wasn’t good enough for that, so I wanted to be a teacher. I wasn’t smart enough. So I did my research, found the perfect job as a nurse, and I was both too stupid and useless for that. I gave up after that, and when cancer got my mom, I ran as far away from that hellhole as I could. Before I did I took the two hundred dollar bills he’d stashed in his liquor cabinet. It bought me two months of rent, with a special favor thrown in. I had those two months to get a job, so I went to the last resort: McDonald's.

And here I sit. On the floor, where I’m sure a rat just ran from, but I’m too tired to give a flying frog fart, so I sit there, staring at my laptop screen. There’s a crack that goes diagonally across it, a few keys are missing but I can still use them, and the pad is so worn it’s as smooth as a baby bottoms instead of having tiny little bumps. It’s not the prettiest looking device, but it’s all I have, save for the TV and my cheap little flip phone, whose screen is also cracked. It’s in a pocket somewhere, lost for the second day in a row. Thank goodness I never lose my laptop. I’d lose myself if I ever did. Somehow I might do that anyway.

With a sigh, I swipe my finger and the screen comes to life after a brief flicker. The fan roars for a moment, before dying to a low but unsettling hum. It’s hard to tell when it’ll finally die on me, for good. I push the thought away and type in my password. I use the same for everything. I use it to get into my bank’s site and other applications. When I open my bank account I see .17 as the balance. Laughing darkly to myself, I find such a dry humor in my own party, I chuckle. Life’s managed to suck everything out of me. My energy, my joy, my pride and will. And every time I look at this stupid account it manages to suck even more money from me. Rent’s due in the next couple days, it’s Monday and I don’t get paid til Friday. I dread it, but I know there’s gonna have to be another favor in store for the sleazy landlord.

Grumbling, I open my email next. Normally there’s nothing but spam, but I go through it anyway. Maybe I’ll find a letter from my aunt or dad, wondering where I am or how I’m doing. Ha, like that’d ever happen. But I look anyway, because watch, the only time I choose not to look and I miss my opportunity to connect with someone I know and miss. God, did I miss her. My Aunt had basically taken the place of my mother, who passed when I was born. I guess that’s why dad never liked me, and probably won’t ever love me. He used to drink every night after coming home from work. He’d start with a few beers, then migrate to something stronger like Jack or Captain. If I was around he’d yell slurs at me. For a long time it was the same thing he’d shout and blubber about. He openly accused me of killing his wife. Until I turned 10 he did this, relentlessly. So I guess I grew up knowing I had killed my own mother, and his loving wife. His Caroline. His love and life. I took it away selfishly, like some demonic monster. I even went through that phase in middle and high school, where my life revolved around MCR and googling magic online. I went as far as trying to find spells to bring her back to life, so this hell would end. I looked for some magical way to create friends, or to make one of the kids at school wish to be my friend. I would have been happy with just a friend, forget about best friend. My best friend was music until I discovered books.

As tragic as that sounds, it’s just the beginning. My darkest hour has yet to breach the horizon. Which says a lot, because I’ve had plenty of dark and twisty moments, the desperate search for magic aside. I turned away from that after a disappointing year and turned to writing. I hated it when I was younger, but it seemed to be all I could do to escape a slowly crippling depression. I wrote poems, and jesus, how awful were they. I still have a couple I’d written after my Aunt had died. My mom’s dead, then my Aunt. All I had was the depression, a room of nightmares and a hellish life with dad. So I wrote the poems, who bled darker and harder than my heart. I wasn’t aware how hard it bled until I was writing, and reading thereafter. I was far more dark and twisty than I realized. But it didn’t bother me. It didn’t, and neither did the cuts.

Oh yeah, I went through that too. How pathetic, right? Poor little emo girl who cuts to feel something other than woe and guilt. Sounds cliche as all crap, but it’s what happened. For some reason I relished in that pain, to get away from the agony of everyday life. I didn’t have razors. They seemed too extreme. So I went all natural by using my nails. Not sure if that’s more or less extreme than razors- at least then I really was just harming myself with myself. True definition of self harm, ha. It helped though, and if my nail didn’t break off how I wanted I’d cut it with clippers or scissors, to form that perfectly sloped tip. The way to ensure the nail would cut, would be to do it fast and hard against the skin. The cuts weren’t deep but they bled, and stayed for weeks. The slightest pain I got was a nice one.

That phase lasted into adulthood, honestly. Most emos stopped after high school, by choice or because they cut too deep and didn’t make it. I envy them. Only reason I haven’t in the past year is because I chewed off my nails, and I don’t have a razor. In a way I upgraded to something bigger and better, but that’s to be used in due time. I’ll digress until then.

I did go through another poetry phase, just a couple years ago. I wrote some lighter poems, and some darker ones. I tried to write a book, but it ended up depressing me even more. I don’t know if it’s because it sucked that much, or if it’s because it was that twisty. As always, I go to the dark and twisty themes in my writing. I’d say authors like Stephen King were an inspiration, but it all comes from my own bleeding black heart and terribly troubled thoughts. Terribly troubled thoughts.. Maybe that’s what I should call this. It’s catchy, with the whole ..it’s not onomatopoeia. Alliteration maybe. Maybe not. What do I care. My thoughts don’t make sense, so it still fits. I don’t think it’s dignified, so I’ll leave the title as is. I’ve changed it enough already. So I’ll leave it as is. I’d say it’ll be the only consistent thing in my life, but that’d be a flat lie.

There’s no rest for the wicked, or for misery. Pretty sure both have been chugging along since the beginning of time. As far as I know, anyway, during my time. I think the only time it wasn’t absolute crap is when I was with my Aunt. I miss her like I miss peace and quiet. She had been the only light in my life, a life of darkness and pain. She made me smile. She took me to the park and had picnics with me. We took lunchables, but it was as close to a picnic as I ever got. She even took me shopping with her, and had tea time with me. I got to spend so much time with her because dad went back to work and I needed a babysitter of sorts and he was too cheap to let me go to the lady’s house down the street. So I went to my Aunt's house, and honestly, I loved it. It was probably the only good thing he did for me.

...I still miss her. Day to day, I look for her email. I never get one. She stopped sending emails when I started high school. I still look though, because part of me hopes there will be one from her, waiting for me to open and smile. Maybe something happened to her, or she started hating me like dad. I’ll never know. I don’t want to know. They say the mind subliminally forgets unpleasant memories. I think they linger though. They have to. Otherwise my whole life would be erased from existence. That sounds so dramatic, but hey, I’m being honest. I have been this whole time. If I’m not honest now, I never will be. And someone has to know, you know? Like carrying on a legend. Bet they’ll make it into a book, or a movie. They make those still, I think. Those dark and twisty movies that are both a drama and horror, but not gory and overly sexualized. I hope so. Haven’t seen a movie in years.

I really haven’t seen anyone in years. Maybe I’ll get to, tonight. I don’t know if anything outside this hell exists. I don’t know if there’s a heaven, or if I’d get to go there. I don’t know if I’m worthy. He’d say I’m not, my Aunt might say differently if she’d ever email back. I wonder what heaven would be like. Is it all fluffy in pink and white clouds, or is like your own personal paradise. I’ve always wondered that. I’ve dreamt of it when the nightmares permitted me to. It’s been a wish of mine, for a long time now. I don’t wish for friends anymore, or for the perfect body, or a dad that loves me. I don’t wish for my mom. I don’t wish for my Aunt anymore either. I don’t wish for money or fame. I wish for heaven.

God forgive me..

I’ve sinned while in the palm of the Devil.

Forgive me. And I beg for serenity.. After this one last act.

The bottle is ready, with a chipped glass of milky water. They sit beside the laptop, where my emails are open, and none from my Aunt. After years of emails from spamming sites for dating, surgery and vacation deals, one sticks out. It’s titled paradise, the ultimate heaven. It’s ironic, that I see it, during my darkest hour, on the darkest night, of the darkest day. I chuckle under my breath, in a semi psychotic way, I admit, and click the email. It requires my bank information, in order for them to wire the money I need for the all expense-paid vacation. You know what, fudge it. Why not. It’s heaven, my personal, preferable destination. So I plug my information in and send it. As a toast to my new lowest point, I grab the glass, the bottle, down one and then the other. It’s only a matter of time now, before my vision blurs. Ill stip bein abkle to write, becausef my mind will be goinfg going gonne. The worldl go dark, and ill be in heavn..

:|:

Slumping back, Valerie’s head collides with the ripped cushion of her couch. Tears in her murky blue eyes, black rain falls after the storm and drips over flushed cheeks, to drizzle onto grey cotton. Having gone limp, one hand rests on wood with an orange bottle resting on the open palm. An identical hand rests beside the chipped glass, still trying to hold it. Slowly, her chest rises, and falls. There’s a long pause in between the painful throbs, making her breaths shallow and far apart. Her eyes remained closed, still glassed over behind her smudged eyelids. Pale lips had fallen apart, just a little. In a way she looks peaceful. Like a fallen angel. All is quiet, all is still.

There’s a thud. It’s loud, and rattles the broken picture on the wall. It rattles Valerie, making her jump a little. She groans, her head turns the other way, and she grumbles. Beads of salted water drip down from her crown, and spread out over her body. Breathing heavy then, she heaves with a rough cough, and groans louder. She mumbles again, as a dull ache radiates throughout her body. Both dread and toxins in her blood boil over, igniting her sense in a hellish inferno. As if she’s being burned alive, from the inside out, she smacks her lips lightly, and takes a deep, struggle breath. More than groggy, her eyes open, and tsunamis peer over at the black screen of her laptop. In her dull reflection, through blurred eyes, she sees no hope, no end. All she sees is misery and pain. It’s all she’s ever seen, all she’s ever known or felt. In an attempt to end it all, she managed to make it worse, rather than snipping it here and now. In a cruel way life laughs in her face, her tragically beautiful face. It was the bottle, or the gat. She chose the easy one, her first mistake. Life isn’t easy. It never is. She should have known better.

So with a growling rumble, she forces her lead-like body to slouch forwards. A hand lazily lifts to steady her by slapping the laptop’s pad. Her other hand reaches beyond the laptop, to behind it, where the gat sat, locked and loaded. The bottle had sat next to it for the longest time. Days had been spent sitting in front of the couch, crying and writing, writhing and talking to herself. When she wrote she sounded her strongest. On paper, and on digital sticky notes, she lay out her sanity, or what was left of it. She told her story, wrote it deep into the night’s hour. From dusk til dawn she wrote. When dawn would come again, it’d be her rent’s due date. She couldn’t go through that again. She couldn’t trudge her way to work again. She couldn’t look in the mirror again. She just couldn’t. Not anymore. Enough was enough, and she thought she picked the right one. As a cruel twist of fate life made one more jab at her, and she went beyond desperate. Now, Valerie just wanted quiet. This would give her it. She didn’t care if she went to hell, or heaven. Anything was better than this. Anything else would do.

When she slumped back against the couch the gat was dragged back in her grasp. The hand on the laptop dragged as well, making the screen spark to life once more.

Lips trembling, she lifts the heavy metal up, finger positioned, barrel to her jugular. She stares forwards, eyes glazed over, rain pouring from clouded depths. Staring at nothing, there’s a click. Her sight focuses on the emails one last time, and there’s one new one. It says something’s ready. Yes, she’s ready. She has been, for a long time now. But then her eyes glance up to the next tab, where the bank balance shows. There’s ten million dollars displayed.

Is it worth it, she wonders. Is this hell worth the money. Is it fake, she has to question. It could be too good to be true. It could land her in more trouble, or it could save her from it all. Can one buy heaven? Can it buy sanity, and happiness? With the gat flush against her throbbing pulse, her grip wavers, and her finger slips. It falls off the trigger gingerly, and there’s silence. Sobbing, Valerie drops the pistol and cries.She cries herself to sleep.

The screen fades back to black.

Author's Note

Please enjoy, leave a review and don't forget to follow me @sskaitlyn.

Reviews

[keith]

WOW! ... i am exhausted in a good way.
could not stop reading
could not stop reading
it read faster and faster and faster and faster
never slowing ever flowing
you have a special gift ... the gift of honest connection without all the bullshit attachments

let me catch my breath ... ok, bring on the next great one! bring it on!

[Lynaelee]

Well done on capturing depression in a clear light! It's hard to write about, even harder to describe and you did so wonderfully. Keep writing, hun. It can be therapeutic. Such a beautifully dark piece. Kudos

[SSKaitlyn]

Thank you so much for your review, and understanding. I'll definitely be cranking out more stories, and I hope you enjoy those as well.

[Lynaelee]

I look forward to reading them. Good work. :)