Chronology of Death – Unfinished.

This was going to be my “masterpiece” but I never did finish it and the inspiration I once had to write it is now gone.  I thought I would just post it anyway – cryptic and unfinished.  Enjoy!

 

 

Chronology of Death

8pm:  Why didn’t you call?  You never call.  The phone sits silently.  I stare at it for a minute.  No one ever calls.

My eye twitches as I converge into tears.

9pm:  Stay… or go?  I debate that persistent voice that only I can hear.  It doesn’t matter.  In the end, nothing ever really matters.  

Voice (death):  No one cares.  Go.  Have fun.  He hasn’t called; he doesn’t care.

Me:  Should I really?  He’s just busy.  He’ll call.  He cares.  (I always tell myself that.)  

Voice (death):  Don’t be a pussy.  Have some balls for once.  Have fun tonight and do what makes you feel good.

I leave in reckless abandonment all that I know to be right as I enter the dimly lit kitchen.

10pm:  You are always here for me.  I mix a concoction of juice and liquor.  No matter what, I can always count on you.  I listen to each tick.  I await the signal of the clock to indicate the time has arrived for me to go.  Death is imminent, although I don’t quite feel it yet.  

10 15pm:  I’ve half finished my god awful drink and hesitantly light a cigarette.   This is not the first cigarette I’ve smoked since I quit.  Why don’t you ever call me?  If you would ever show me you care then I wouldn’t need such vices in my life.  I always qualified my behavior.  In that way, it isn’t my fault.  It never is my fault.  Addiction knows no rationality.  I put the cigarette out after only being half smoked.  It’s ok to smoke if you only smoke half of it.  I live my life basing it on contradictions such as these.

10 30pm:  Shit.  I nearly lose my balance as I lean on the back two legs of my chair.  My glass is still half empty.  I had filled it to the top a few minutes earlier.  If I never drink a full glass then I’m not really drinking that much.  I take a sip.

11pm:  Call me, damn it.  I just want to hear your voice is all.  I just want to know you’re thinking of me.  Call me, damn it.  The alcohol is clearly having it’s affect on me.  I’m going.  You don’t give a damn about me so I’ll show you.

I stagger out the door.

Midnight:  Fucking asshole.  I yell at the bus as it races past me without hesitation.  I stand here, alone and helpless, thinking the world has forgotten me.  He still hasn’t called.  I still miss him terribly.  Why do I go on living in a world as uncaring as this?  I speak to the pigeons as if they care to hear my troubles.  Deep down I desire death, when death is not around.  Deep down I desire death, when death is no where to be found.  I can still wait half an hour longer.  You’ll keep me company, right?  The pigeons coo in unison.    

1am:  $5?  Sure.  I would have spent any amount to gain entry into this den of decadence and iniquity.  The lights are strobing; the music is pounding.  People sway together as they are all lumped into a sea perpetual rhythm.  Death is imminent, although I don’t quite feel it yet. 

Are you sleeping?  I text him this one and only time, partly to ease my conscience and partly out of loneliness.  He doesn’t respond.  My mind becomes set in thinking he hates me.  My mind becomes set in thinking I’m alone.  I walk from the front of the bar to the back.  I smile at some, wink at others.  Stupid faggots… why don’t they notice me?  I convince myself that I just need another drink.  I need to free myself from the shackles of shyness.  

2am:  Gin and tonic, please.  The bartender stares at me for a minute.  I can tell he knows I’ve had one too many drinks yet still he pours.  I glance down at my phone.  Asshole.  No… no, not you.  It’s… my boyfr-…oh, forget it.  It doesn’t matter.  He walks away.  I stumble backwards.  

4am:  I venture out into uncharted waters this lonely god-forsaken night, jumping over water puddles, letting the curls of my hair mop up the drops of rainwater hitting my blushed face, all without the protection of the thin fabric of that small umbrella.  It’s liberating.  I’m free.  And most importantly of all, it’s fun.  At this moment, nothing else matters.  At this moment, it is pure fun.     

9 am:  I awake with a headache, nauseas, and confused.  What the fuck did I do?  Lying there beside the bed, just as it had the night before and the night before that is a small dresser with a shiny brass handle.  My eyes are still sleepy.  “Do you want some juice?”  He was in the other room when he asked.  He only asked to be polite.  And I imagine he doesn’t even have any juice.    

I glance down at the dresser again.  No thanks, I’m not thirsty.  I could still taste the remnants of the half juice half gin from the night before.   Again, I glance down.  There on that shiny brass handle I can see my name inscribed, the contents of which I know without even opening. 

I reach for door two or door three… or four… or five, as if playing a 70s game show.  I groggily realize the full implications of my actions.  There is no other door, there is no alternative, no choice.  My final destination has been chosen already, chosen by me and that always half empty concoction of mistakes.  I slowly pull open that dresser drawer of death.  My fingers crawl there way to that small white bottle.  My lips form the letters of the word that will forever define the life sentence placed upon me.  Oh God, why me?  

Oh fuck, 

                       oh FUCK, 

                                                    OH FUCK.  

I scream aloud yet no one hears.  I clutch that big overstuffed pillow as if it is a life preserver, as if it is my small white bottle.  

On second thought, I think I will have that glass of juice.  I speak to him calmly.  I speak to him as if the sky were the bluest of blue, as if songbirds perpetually sing, as if the grass is always green, and the streets are lined with pearls.  I stand there, my skin a façade, my heart a racehorse, my stomach a punching bag.  Juice… you asked me if I wanted a glass of juice earlier… may I have some?

 

A story.

It was a normal day, or so I thought. It began in the most usual and predictable of ways. I woke up at 7am, just as I had done the day before and the day before that. I then proceeded to eat breakfast which included bacon, eggs, toast, juice, and coffee. I decided to drink my coffee without cream that morning for some reason unknown to me. It had a bitter taste to it. I could hear the dog barking as the taste of black coffee wetted my parched palette. The dog barked in a manner I had never heard before. It struck me unusual. I continued to eat my breakfast but still the dog barked.

After I finished breakfast, I put on my typical Monday morning suit. It was a black suit that I always wore a blue tie with but for some reason this morning I wore it with a red tie. I finished getting dressed and proceeded to the garage to drive to work. I got in my very expensive car and started it up. The gas tank showed it almost empty which was odd because I remembered filling it up the night before. I shrugged it off with indifference. I just thought maybe I had filled it up the day before and was just confusing my days.

I took the highway I always took but this time was different. Mine was the only car on the highway that morning when normally the cars were bumper to bumper. I wondered what was going on. As I approached downtown I noticed that none of the buildings were standing. There was nothing but bare earth. Everything had vanished. It was as if I was suddenly transported into a time warp. Was I dreaming? Had a bomb been detonated? I frantically began calling my parents, friends… anyone. There was no answer from anyone.

I continued to make my way through the city. It was difficult to distinguish the street from the ground. I drove the best I could. I made my way through the path I normally took to work until I arrived to where my building would normally be standing. It was strange to me that such a behemoth of a building had suddenly vanished. I got out of my car and walked around a little. I noticed something sticking out of the ground. I walked over and stooped down to read it: “Don’t worry. This is all for your own good.”

For my own good?!!! How could such a thing be true? Who had done this? This is NOT for my own good. You don’t even know me! I was confused and bewildered.
But most of all, I was afraid. Was this an act of terrorism? I didn’t know what to do so I just got back in my car and waited for someone… or something.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is seeing small droplets hitting my windshield. They began to hit with more frequency. The droplets grew in size and before I realized it, my windshield was solid red. My windshield was covered in blood-red liquid. In fact, it WAS blood! But whose blood? And where did it come from? My day seemed to be getting stranger and stranger. Now I was REALLY scared. Was I next to die?

Before I realized it, a great army had surrounded my car and demanded I exit. With hesitation I slowly opened the door, put one foot on the ground and then the other. I had only been outside for less than a minute and was already covered in that thick, almost suffocating blood that was falling from the sky.

I suddenly hit the ground. Everything was a blur. The sky began to turn black. The soldiers approached me and prodded me with their guns. I’d been hit and was slowly drifting into unconsciousness.

For my own good? This is how they were helping me? I shouldn’t worry?

Untitled.

Our eyes meet as the hypnotic lights flash from you to me. You look down at me from upon that pedestal above that sea of inhibitions gone awry. Your flesh sways to each pulse of the music like the slender body of a cobra being charmed.

Dare I come close?

Dare I stay away?

You glide across the floor with the gait of a ballet dancer. You make the music yours, each note, each beat, each rhythm transforming to match each step of your foot. You grab my hand, caressing it slowly, pulling me towards you.

Dare I take the fall?

Dare I dance alone?

I reach out grasping a hand not knowing whether it be yours or mine as our bodies converge into a single mass of emotion. This moment it is right. This moment is ours. I needn’t look into your sweet expressions of innocence to know that you are the one, even if only for tonight. I pull your delicate body close to mine as the night melds into a euphoric blur.

Confessions of a Smoker

Written January 27, 2007

It was in that dark, flesh-filled bar that I entered into the world where habit dictates each move. I inhaled my first drag, not knowing that I had just become another number for the tobacco industry. I was now a statistic – No. 3,334,000,230. My friends call me 3.33 for short.

“No, I am not a smoker. I am not addicted,” I emphatically stated with a cigarette carefully nestled between my index and middle finger.

Weeks went by. Packs of cigarettes burned their way into my lungs. A friend, the one with whom I shared my first smoke with, reminded me each day of the phases of accepting an addiction. I still clutched to the delusion that I could never become addicted.

I knew the perils that face a lifetime of inhalations. Smoking kills and I of all people, having grown up around a grandmother with half a lung left, knew this. Cancer, bad skin, discolored teeth, the stench of your clothes. Yes, I knew all of this.

“It’s like kissing an ashtray,” they always said.

I had yet to have my first romantic kiss and I certainly didn’t want my first one to be marred by the taste of smoke. But he already smokes and so I kissed that ashtray! It wasn’t so bad, in fact, I hadn’t noticed it at all. So, I smoked… and I smoked some more.

All of this happened while I was in Ecuador. I was able to start discovering myself while I was there. It was an experience that forever changed my life and I still wonder what I would be and what I would be doing had I never gone.

I was afraid when I first came home, now being a smoker, to a house of staunch advocates of no smoking. I felt as if I was doing something so wrong that I couldn’t even tell them about it. There is nothing illegal or morally wrong with smoking but yet the stigma of it made me feel so dirty. I hid, or so thought I was, the fact that I now smoke. I would sneak outside under the guise of letting the dog out just so I could get a few drags in before someone saw me. Now that I look back, it was all really silly.

“I smoke now,” I quietly whispered to my mother one night.

We spoke for a while about a lot of different things. I had just returned from being away on my own for a while. It was different this time as we conversed, my mom and me. I was an adult now and the conversation that ensued emanated those feelings of independence associated with adulthood. I have always loved the freedom and independence my parents always willingly (and sometimes not so willingly) given me.

This was all in 2003 and now it is 2007. I have been smoking for almost four years. There have been many times when I wished I would quit, many times when I did quit, and many times when I desired the comfort of smoking. I have always found it odd how something so detrimental to ones life can be so satisfying.

At times, when depression sinks its unrelenting bite into you, it has been that small box of comfort that has kept me afloat. It was the nights I spent crying alone in bed that I most craved that oh so satisfying smoke. They have almost become like that close friend to whom you can tell your most secret of secrets to.

I still crave that companionship of smoke. If only there were something to fill that void…

Life.

Many times these thoughts ocurred in my mind.

“Am I capable of this,” I would often ask myself.

These small- soft- smooth hands, the very hands that have caressed, massaged… that have sculpted, molded… that have held life, nurtured babies – now lie soaked in an unwashable stain.

It was on a cold- dark- quiet night that my life irreversible changed. I took a few steps forward… legs shaking, hands quivering, heart pumping, mind focused on the task at hand. In a blue colored glass I took a drink of water – no ice. I sipped slowly, took my time. There was no rush. It had taken 24 years to reach this point and a few minutes longer would make no difference.

I walked in. There were no lights. Darkness consumed everything. I took that rope with the frayed ends and held it in those hands of mine. I paused- not to rethink the actions that were about to ensue but to look at the darkness and say a pray to God, to the God that I quietly put aside in the closet.

“The Lord is my shepard; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” I recited as the moment came closer.

I slowly took that frayed rope and placed it around that ever so delicate neck. There was no fight, no shouting, no arguing. The rope slowly tightened as that life giving breath slowly ran out.

I took one last look in the mirror before life disappeared forever.

Boom. Boom.

Our eyes met, his of surprise, mine of revenge. We stood there cheek to cheek waiting for the next move, each of us queens in a game soon to be unfolded. We moved in unison to the bombardment of music subjected to our minds.

Boom. Boom.

That metallic extension of my arm exploded into a fiery display of love gone wrong.

Boom. Boom.

All was silent.

Boom. Boom.

All was dead.

The music stopped. Flashes of green, visions of dolphins, outbursts of evil laughter. Chaos ensued.

Palpitations of my heart drowned everything out as my blood-stained hands lustfully clutched all my dreams, fears, and desires. We were destined from the beginning to be together and now, with the help of fate, we were. This wasn’t how it was suppose to be. The sounds of sirens were but background noise as we rocked back and forth. I devoured each minute I held you in my arms, feeding off your warm body next to mine. Feeding, yet still craving more. No one could take this moment from me.

I lost my love that day….and died a quiet death.

Boom. Boom.