Only A Memory

A young adult speaks narrates what he is thinking in his final moments of life after he has been killed and left for dead.

Only a Memory

I wasn’t always so pale.

Actually I was, but at least I had a farmer’s tan and some rose color to my cheeks.

There I was laying in the cold festering leaves of the forest on that cold and rainy dusk. I forgot how long I had been there but I wasn’t even sure of what had happened. My memory was grey. Hell, my skin was grey.

I could hear dogs barking. I saw faint lights moving and I heard my name whaled out about a hundred yards away. Or was it miles? Everything started to fade. I could still feel the hole in my lower back. It had stopped bleeding because there was no more blood to bleed really. “How did this night end this way?” I wondered. Then I heard them talking.

“S**t! What did you do man?”

“I don’t know, I was drunk and everything turned to red and stuff just got weird and, I don’t know man! You just have to help me hide his body! I can’t. I mean I just can’t! Berkeley, Yale, Harvard, Jail!. Everything is just hitting me in the face man!”

“Just leave him, someone else will figure everything out! We have lives to live!”

I wasn’t crying. In fact I just felt numb. I felt like it had happened and now I need to face what’s next. “how would people remember me?” I wondered. I also began to think of all of the writing I had been doing and how everything was saved on my computer. I also began to ponder about the life that I was about to miss out on. They would go to school and meet the love of their lives, and create a family. They would live a life of happy memories. But me? I would only become one of those memories.

Life isn’t fair and I get that. But why me? Why was I destined to walk into this fate that I refer to as the forest floor? My life had meaning and purpose. I was creative and talented and full of feelings. I loved nature and all of its creatures. Including the wilted rose bush that stood directly to the right of my body. Like that rose bush I would be remembered as something beautiful. 

As I laid there looking back on my life, I started to accept that I am no longer there anymore. The world as I knew it was about to change, I think. Looking up the stars were shining brightly through the wispy grey clouds of the night sky. I could still here them looking for me and it sadden me that I might not be here to see that my body is found. 

“Why isn’t anything happening?” I began to ask myself. Then remembered that my friend, Aiden and I had jokingly planned our funerals one night when we were staying in New York. 

We had gone to new York because we were looking at schools to attend and while we were staying at The Waldorf, Aiden and I decided to drink the night away. I began joking about how I wanted a traditional New Orleans Jazz funeral. And Aiden joked about having a rock band perform at his. The night went on and on and I thought that Aiden would eventually mean more to me, which in fact he did. Eventually, we decided to start dating after we told each other that we liked each other as more than just friends. 

After thinking of New York, I started to cry. Tears didn’t run from my eyes and my chest didn’t begin to expand, and I couldn’t get the sniffles. Never did I wish that I could be more human. Never did I wish that I could feel the physical pain of something so much. I knew that once Aiden found out that I was gone, he would have a hard time. I wished that we would have never met that day back in Kindergarten. Lying there lifeless, I feared that I would hurt him the most.

As things got darker and life seemed to slip away more and more, I started to remember how this happened. You see, I was leaving the big bonfire party that all of us had in the woods every May. I hugged Aiden and began walking toward my house. As I walked home on the dark path, I came across two guys that I knew from school. They were both football jocks and though they had never bullied me, they had always made tasteless remarks and comments against my life “choices”. I looked at them and kept walking. I could tell that they had been drinking heavily and as I looked down, one of the guys got angry.

“Why don’t you have your little boyfriend walk you home?” yelled the one jock.

I began to run and the other guys, laughing and shouting, started kicking me. I pulled the one guys leg and as he fell the other guy started kicking me. I got off of the ground and jumped on the other guy and then that’s where I felt a sharp pain in my lower back and everything went white as I fell to the ground.

So here I am. Dead. I hear the voices of the search party getting closer and closer. There is a deer watching my lifeless body. And as I hear the wind blowing I smell the sweet decay of the forest floor.its bittersweet to think that if my body is not found, I will become a tree, or yet another rose bush.

it's been a couple hours now and I can't hear the search party any more. I don't know If it is because I have died or if it is because they have stopped looking.

I don't know which is worse.

Morning is here and there is a gorgeous sunrise. I always loved to stay up all night and just watch the sun rise so the fact that I get one final sunrise is really special for me. I wish you could see it. It has hues of pink, yellow, orange, and sky blue. It's probably the best I have I have ever seen. But may be I think that because it's probably the last I will ever see. I see more deer and the sound of birds chirping is heaven to me. I've actually always loved the forest so maybe this is my heaven. At least for now.

You know I'm not mad at the two guys that did this to me.

I can't be mad at them because I feel pity for them. They will always have this guilt carried with them for their entire Ives and honestly, I know they'll eventually find my body. I've always done the right thing and being a realist, I don't expect others to always know how to do that

Whether I lay here for five days or five decades, I know that though my body will decays and become one with the forest floor, I will live on forever. Whenever people remember me they will remember me as a kind and loving person. The feeling that my memory evokes might be sad, happy, excitement, guilt, and love. But whether I live on as a feeling of comfort or uneasiness, the point is that I will live on.

Only as a memory.

I hear two sets of footsteps quickly rustling through the leave and as they are approaching, everything fades to black. Finally, I'm gone.

alexborderie

Author's Note

Please feel free to comment!
I originally wrote this as a school assignment.