One October Evening

For whomever has hit rock bottom...

One October Evening

By LS

            It was a quiet afternoon in October. The lush, green leaves that once sheltered the singing sparrows were all but gone, replaced by crooked, desolate branches. The sun, old and decrepit, had already been losing its summertime strength. A pile of gray and red that once was a cat lay on the side of the road, and a crow watched the scene from its ominous perch. A boy started from his house and approached the roadside. In his hand was a plastic bag, the kind that turtles sometimes mistake for food. Carefully, the boy scooped the furry, red pancake into the bag, piece by piece.

            One, two, three… 20. He counted the number of seconds he could evade the putrid stench of death before he would have to breathe in again, to allow the toxicity of his surroundings to fill his body like an idling car in a garage.

I wonder, he began, in the split second before the impact, did the cat regret stepping into the street? Did it let out one last, fearful scream, or did it face its back to the oncoming car, unaware of the mortal danger? He tied up the opening of the bag, careful not to leave a hole where the toxicity might spill out; then he gazed at a peculiar sight in the yard.

Hanging from the fence were seven small animals--a vole, two rabbits, and four unrecognizable masses--mutilated. Flies buzzed around and dotted the fence like blackheads, each desperate to feed and lay eggs, the dead giving life to the living. The boy knew his neighbor; he knew he was terminally ill, knew his wife had passed four years ago to this day, knew he was sick of the invaders terrorizing his garden. The neighbor was making a statement, telling the world, “I can’t take it anymore.”

The boy returned to the house and threw the plastic bag into a bin outside his back door. He ran his fingers across the glass surface of a table as he made his way through the living room. He glanced at a photo, framed and resting on the mantle, and smiled at two faces that beamed back at him. They were so simple, so carefree. One of them looked a lot like himself, only younger. No, that’s not me, he refuted, not anymore. The other was the face of a girl, whose look of sheer happiness put his smile to shame. He tried to recollect the key events, but it was like trying to remember a beautiful dream from the night before, and the memories slipped through his hands like sand in an hourglass.

He had skeet practice today, so he picked up a shotgun that leaned against the wall. He lifted his ammunition bag and scoffed in frustration when he noticed the absence of heaviness. To the basement, he sighed.

Before the door, the smiling images of a mother, father, son, and daughter were detained behind a glass wall, confining them to a two-dimensional world of the past. Perhaps it would have done him well if they were not there. Then he would believe that life had always been like this, and he wouldn’t have longed for things to be the way they once were. As he descended, the light at the top of the stairs grew fainter and fainter, like the people who stood on the dock and bade the Titanic farewell.

And then he hit the bottom. His cold, bare feet sunk into the carpet as if it were quicksand, devouring him with no hope of escape, no illusion of freedom. He set his gun on the couch and loaded seven boxes of shells into his bag. 93 out of 100, he recalled, I missed a few last practice. Today, he would not miss.

A pen and a receipt lay on the table next to him. Strawberries--$7.77, read the receipt. He pictured the red, juicy, goodness in his mouth. Red, juicy goodness spilling everywhere--all over his mouth, clothes, and face. His mind raced back to when he stood next to his mother and helped her prepare a fruit salad.

“Ew,” he complained, “This strawberry has brown on it.”

He threw it into the trash.

“No, don’t do that!” she scolded him, and he asked her why.

“You’re not always going to have a perfect strawberry,” she explained, “sometimes, you’ll have some brown. And when that happens, you can’t just throw away the whole thing; you’ll ignore all the good parts and waste them.”

She picked up another strawberry and cut off the brown.

He lifted the pen and turned over the receipt. As he scribbled in his sloppy, teenage handwriting, people flashed past him as if he were falling, descending the levels of a building that contained everyone he loved in life. Faster, faster, and faster he fell, until he kissed the ground and dropped the pen with a thud. Running his finger across the paper, he made sure that there were no mistakes. No, he frowned, no more mistakes. The paper gleamed with tiny droplets of wetness; they tasted like salt.

He limped back to the couch.

“Tickets, please,” a conductor smiled.

Her cheeriness was comforting, as if he’d stepped into a warm cabin after trudging through a blizzard. Taking one look at her, he realized that everything would be all right. He placed his ticket in her hand.

“A one-way ticket?” she smiled empathetically, “Why? What made you want to leave?”

“You know what,” the boy replied.

“Well, I’m sorry you feel this way,” she consoled, “Maybe this will assuage you.”

Her fingers closed around the ticket.

“A good, long nap always works wonders,” she suggested, “So close your eyes, and enjoy the ride.”

He did as he was told, and a wave of tranquility soothed his soul. All anxieties were washed away, and all worries receded. His once-tense muscles eased.

“One, two, three!”