5 posts tagged “death”
Ren was thrown back from the larger man, clutching his sword tightly as his feet skidded through the gravel. This wasn't good. He was out of breath, bleeding, and his arms were shaking ever so slightly.
"Please, not again!"
Those were the words that were used to describe this first dribble at my writing group this morning. I think the woman's exact phrasing was, "He's so damn adorable, and so totally deranged." A little background: our resident horror writer read something today where nobody died, no one was maimed, and there were no drooling creatures on the search for intestines. He actually read something that was more along the lines of a short-short romance. So, being as I didn't get my monthly fix of death/complete insanity, I told him, "You realize that since you failed to kill anyone, I now have to kill someone..." And then we got our little writing exercise. We were given three words and had to use them in a story. My three words were "Provoke," "Lie," and "Smile."
"There's something beautiful about it."
"About what?"
He nodded to a boy sitting on a park bench, crying. He took several steps closer and touched the air around him, closing his eyes and breathing in. "Can you feel it?"
"What are you feeling, Belial?" He paced closer to the other demon, looking curiously at the tears on the boy's cheeks.
"His pain. Heartbreak. His dejection."
He tilted his head. "This boy will die many times. Alone. With that same heartbreak."
Belial looked at the demon. "Will he?"
The older demon nodded, then knelt, looking up into the soggy blue eyes of the boy on the bench. "He will love, though. Each time."
"To be betrayed each time?"
"Not betrayed. Not every time. Several, though."
"Then..?"
"Missed opportunities. Closed doors. Mistakes." The demon smiled. "He will fall in love with a Fallen."
Belial's eyes went wide. "He chooses hard paths for himself."
"The harder the path, the greater the reward."
"If you make it to the end."
"You think?" The demon looked at the Fallen. "Not all rewards await at the end of the path. Some are scattered along the way."
"You speak in riddles."
The demon smiled again. "The future is quite a large riddle, Belial. To expect it to be anything less is a tremendous hubris. Come. There is work to be done."
Belial spared one last glance at the blond boy on the bench, then followed the elder demon away.
So, poor Tyler has been dying, because I gave him cancer. Well, I finally got around to writing his death. Originally, I was going to do two versions. This one, and then something else that wasn't quite as miserable, but the un-miserable one comes out sounding all fake and wrong inside my head, and I can only imagine what it would sound like on the page. So this is the one that's done so far. And it may need some tweaks, mainly because I ended up having to write from Al's perspective for a second, and we all know I'm not very good at that, but I think it came out okay. It is sad, though, because I've purposefully made his life suck slightly worse than mine to make myself feel better.
Tyler could feel it. He was dying. Really dying. Today. Now. In a few hours.
It'd been a year since he'd run away and then come back, and his health had held out for a while, but about three months ago, he'd take a turn for the worst. A month and a half ago, he could no longer deny it because he looked like he was dying. And now here he was. This morning. Fixing his coffee and wondering if he was even going to get to enjoy all of it. Well, that was no way to think. He liked coffee, and he was damn well going to drink it. If Death wanted, he could have a mug.
Didn't even break thirty. Damn. He looked at the calender. It didn't particularly matter what day it was, but he liked to know, anyway. He was three months shy of his thirtieth birthday. So close, and yet so far away.
He smiled to himself and sat down, watching the coffee pot as it brewed his caffeine. He was in pain. It was dull, throbbing, like it had been for a while now: months, it seemed. He was used to it, but he could feel it gaining in intensity. It hurt more, starting at his spine, clawing its way to his heart, his brain.
Ty downed two cups of coffee and then picked up his telephone. He wanted someone here. Someone around. He wanted to see his best friend.
He listened to the phone ringing. On the third ring, Sam answered.
"Hey, Sam. Can I talk to Al?" he was amazed that his voice sounded no worse (or better) than it had for the last couple weeks.
There was some grumbling, then the phone was passed off.
"Ty-boyo! How are you doing?"
Tyler smiled. He wasn't exactly sure why Al even asked anymore, but he always did. Ty wasn't about to tell Al the truth. No, he wasn't going to come out and tell the zombie that he'd be dead in a few hours. He didn't want to worry him, and he certainly didn't want Al doing anything stupid.
"I'm good enough," he told him, figuring that was close enough to the truth because, for the moment, he was still alive. "I was calling to see if you could come over and hang out for a while. I know it's short notice...."
Al came over a lot as it was, more often once Ty had been unable to deny the fact that he really was dying. It wasn't unusual for them to spend four or five days a week at one or the other's houses, sometimes with Sam, sometimes without. Sam was civil now, and Ty was at ease with him if only because he was the only person who couldn't really see how horrible he looked.
"O'course! I'm about to give Sammy some lunch so he can take his pills, then I'll be over in a jiff."
"Great. Thanks a lot." Ty hung up the phone and moved to get some strawberry tea ready for the two of them.
Al finished off making lunch and slid it onto the table with Sam's pills. "I'm goin' over ta visit with Ty fer a bit, do ye wanna come?"
"Nah, I've got some shit ta do."
"All right, but be sure ta take yer pills."
Al grabbed his jacket out of the closet and was about to leave, when the phone rang again. He picked it up. "Yeh?"
He listened, his frown growing deeper. "They did what?" He closed his eyes. "A knife fight? In the halls? Was anyone hurt?" He sighed. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
"'Ey! Sammy! Yer bros just got expelled. I'm goin' ta pick 'em up! Try an' find another school fer 'em, eh?"
Tyler sat on his sofa. It didn't take this long, not usually. Ten minutes? Less sometimes when Al was in a good mood. It'd been thirty.
Then an hour.
Then longer.
Ty felt the sickness spreading. The pain throbbed all through him until it hurt to move. He'd taken up a seat on the sofa, their glasses of tea on the coffee table in front of him. His blue eyes trained on the door. Any second, he expected to see the bubbly, smiling-in-front-of-the-worry, redhead bound into his living room.
The longer it took, the worse things got. He hurt. But more than that, he was starting to get scared. Terrified, really. What did he know about death? About dying? Sure, he'd known that he was going to die. He even knew it would be soon. But now Death was sitting on the easy-chair across the room from him and he was stressed out.
He wanted someone here. Someone that knew Death, who understood it. He wanted Al to smile at him the way he always did when Tyler got stressed out or worried. But more than any of that... he just didn't want to be alone.
Tyler swallowed down a wave of bile and then shivered as a chill crept over him. He grabbed the blanket off of the back of the sofa and pulled it over himself, trying to push Death back just by shoving away the cold. I'm not cold. It's downright balmy in here. Think warm thoughts. He'll be here soon.
The clock's ticking got louder. He could feel his heart, slow and steady, but slowing down. He bit his lip and focused his eyes on the door. Any second. Any minute.
Ty grabbed a post-it note and jotted a quick note on it, then stuck it on Al's glass. Just in case. I won't need it. He'll make it. But just in case.
His fear got worse as the clock's ticking reminded him of how very alone he was right now. How cold. How tired. How... by himself. His stomach knotted. His eyes started to close, but he didn't want to go to sleep, because he knew he wasn't going to wake up. And he wasn't ready. Not until he saw that smile. Saw his best friend pretending not to be worried sick.
Tears slipped down his cheek. I'm going to die alone. And all I'm leaving him is a post-it note.
He felt the urge to add another. Just a quick apology for not being able to wait. Death was getting impatient.
His eyelids got heavier. He only saw half the door. A quarter. An eighth. Then just the impression of light on the other side of his eyelids.
Exhaustion took over and the cold melted away, the pain stopped, and the light faded.
"Hey, Ty! Sorry it took so long! Ye wouldn't believe wha' the monsters did this time!" Al announced as he burst into the room. He looked at Ty, asleep on the sofa, and the tea in front of him. "Sorry I didn't call..."
The redhead stepped forward and the light from the door fell across Ty's face, outlining the dry path of the tears.
"Boyo? Yo, wake up!"
His eyes slid to the tea, and the post-it note on one of the glasses. He knew, but his brain wasn't registering.
In the neat little scrawl that was Tyler's hand writing, the note read, Just in case: I love you, you idiot. Be good.
Al felt his heart clench and tears in his eyes.
"No... Ty, this ain' funny. Wake up, boyo... ye got me. I shoulda called..."
He knelt, touched Ty's cheek, feeling the almost sandy texture of the dry tears. He stared at his friend, at the quiet look on his face: a little sad, but calm. He couldn't see the doubt, the fear, the loneliness, but he knew. After all, Ty had told him, hadn't he? That he was scared of dying alone. He should have made the boy move in with them. Should have insisted. Should... should have done quite a lot of things, but that didn't help matters now. Tyler was gone, the damage was done, and all he had was a post-it note and a glass of tea.
"Oh, boyo, I'm sorry."
I don't know, this has been lurking in my head for a while. Poor Tyler.
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He sat on the windowsill of the dingy little apartment, staring out at the slowly darkening night. The only light came from the kitchen, behind the wall, passing vague shadows as it tried to creep out the door and into the main room.
The main room itself was a mess, but he just didn't have the desire to clean it. His couch was strewn with sleep-tossed blankets and a crumpled pair of sleeping pants. The television dark, for the moment, but he knew that when he laid down to sleep, it'd be turned on and the volume on low, just so that the apartment didn't seem so depressingly void of life. The table between was covered in books, some open, some stacked, all of them in various stages of disrepair. All the spines were cracked, the pages thick from being turned. Here and there lay a crumpled napkin, that at some point might have contained something he forced himself to eat, but were now empty.
He'd given up sleeping in his bed the second week here. It was one of those things that bothered him. Too large, too empty, far too depressing. He never really knew why single people bought anything larger than a twin, but he'd bought a full-sized bed, not understanding, and definitely not happy. So he'd moved to the couch, and that was where he'd stayed, in the comfort of the closed-in space that might almost feel as though he weren't so desperately alone.
When he was younger, he'd always wanted to see England. Now that he was here... he felt isolated. He felt like he was being punished. London was a beautiful, gray city. It was lively and excitable in a way that Tyler felt he could never be again.
A couple walked by below him, laughing, their arms looped together casually. How long had it been since he'd laughed at all? Let alone so loudly and freely.
The pain wasn't stopping. The guilt didn't go away. He had thought that, in coming to his friend, a weight would be lifted, and he could feel like himself again. But he had realized all too late that this was who he was now. He was always himself because now, those horrible things had made themselves a part of him. Nothing would bring those people back.
Maybe Greg had the right of it after all. Maybe the only possible atonement he could make was to offer up that which he'd taken. What right, after all, did he have to be here? No right. He had no right to the happiness he'd deprived so many people of. And what about those people? Many of whom would have probably done far more good for this world than he had ever, or would ever, do.
He closed his eyes, his face and collar wet with the tears he'd too often shed. At least he grieved for them. What little comfort that might offer the dead was all he could give, because he had made a promise some eleven years ago... and he couldn't bring himself to break the promise, though he regretted it now. How was he to know that one day, he would actually have a good reason to take his own life? Not just a stinted love affair, but a way he could make things right. He asked for catastrophes: a drunk driver, a bus without brakes, a bank robbery gone wrong while he was depositing his paycheck. But now that he no longer wanted it, he seemed to be living a charmed life. Nothing came close to hurting him, not anymore than the dull ache of existing always hurt him, anyway.
"How can I make it better?" he whispered to the empty rooms around him. "Please... please... I don't want to hurt like this. I'll do anything. Just, please... forgive me."
The room didn't answer. He hadn't thought that it would, but he had hoped that it would.
He staggered away from the window and fell onto the couch, clicking on the dull sounds of the television and burying his face into his pillow. If only he hadn't promised. If only he hadn't given his word. If only, if only...
Tyler let himself fall into the haunted dreams he'd come to expect, where countless numbers of faceless people accused him and he could not refute their anger and could not answer their questions.
