For Buttons, Who Made The Nightmares Go Away.
Day 1 He sat alone on his bed, wearing nothing but his track pants. He pulled on the cigarette without much ceremony, with complete abandon, until the smoke tasted bitter in his mouth as the filter started to singe. There was a knock on the door that he paid no attention to as he lit another cigarette, not because he wanted to, not because he needed to, but because it gave him something to do. A minute escape from the overwhelming misery pulling at his guts, tearing him apart from the inside. Again, there was a knock on the door. This time it swung open slowly. From the corner of his eye he saw his mother's tear stained face for a second and then she stood aside and let his friends enter the room. There were no greetings. Not a word was spoken as they sat around him. He felt an arm on his shoulder for a couple of seconds, then felt it slide down his arm in a gesture of futility. Thats what it was, he thought, a futile gesture to ease his pain. Pain. He could discern their's as they looked at him and then at the ashtray which, filled to overflowing, was spewing cigarette butts onto the carpet. Their pain was for him, not for his plight. That made their visit useless. They started to speak, he could see their faces floating in front of him. What they were saying, he could not tell. A million disjointed voices emanating from the far reaches of the universe, making their wasted journies across planets, galaxies and stardust to reach his ears as an endless torrent of static. He ground out his last cigarette and leaned back against the wall to close his eyes. It had been eons since he had slept. He slept.
He opened his eyes and found it was dark now. It was as if he had never been asleep. He would have sold his soul to the devil for a few seconds of forgetfulness. A few seconds where he would have no recollection of yesterday while he figured out why he was sleeping against the wall and why there so much cigarette smoke in his room. Oh the holy, blessed comfort it would bring. As it was, everything came rushing back the very instant he arose out of his dreamless stupour. Through half opened eyes he could make out his oldest friend. he was sitting in front of the bed. keeping watch. The one person he could be with right now. An unopened pack of cigarettes lay on the table next to the chair. he had expected as much from somebody he had shared all his joys and sorrows with for the past 8 years. He opened his eyes fully and reached out for the cigarettes. The pack was opened for him and two cigarettes lit. One was passed over and they smoked in complete silence. He tried to speak now, to break this vow of silence he had taken on, to convey how much it meant to him that the dearest of all his friends had stayed back but he was silenced by a shake of the head which, he knew, meant that he did not have to speak. He was grateful for their complete understanding of one another. They finished their cigarettes and his friend rose to leave. Through drooping eyelids he saw the door open and his friend exit with heavy steps. He closed his eyes. Again, he slept
Day 2
The harsh morning sunlight stabbed at his eyes until he was forced to open them. Total and complete despair creeped up his veins in an instant and once again he was overwhelmed. He had half risen out of bed and he fell back onto it. The window seemed miles away and he no longer possessed the will to get up and draw the curtains across to cut off the sunlight. With his arm across his eyes, he lay there for a couple of minutes until he felt strong enough to get himself out of bed. With great effort he swung his legs off the edge and got to his feet. Immediately his head began to twirl like a spinning top out of control. He reached an arm out to where he thought the head of his bed was, only to grasp at thin air. He went down on one knee to avoid a fall and he stayed like that until it passed. Again he got up, scooping up his T shirt off the floor and putting it on slowly, oblivious to the smell of his own vomit staining it's front. His mind flashed back to that awful moment in time when he received the phonecall. He saw the phone slip from his trembling fingers, he felt it bounce off his toes and clatter onto the floor where it lay still. He saw the tremble spread from his fingers to all of his body as his knees gave way and he fell to the floor. he could taste the bile at the back of his throat. It surged forward with ominous force as he regurgitated the salad he had eaten earlier at dinner. The vomit ran in a dozen little rivulets from his shirt to the floor. Abruptly he shook his head to clear it of the memories and as an afterthought, bent down to retrieve the phone. A look at the screen revealed 22 messages and 12 missed calls. It would have surprised him if all this had come from more than four people. Groggily and in a haze, he made his way out of his room. he didnt bother to wash his face and shuffled straight into the lounge. It was not his appearance that made his mother gasp out and break into another bout of crying, but the look on his face and the emptiness in his eyes. They were drained of colour and bloodshot. The thin red veins stood out against the pale white of his pupils like mineral trails of rubies in a well lit mine. Silently, he tried to make it to his mother's embrace but he fell just short as his head began to spin again and this time he fell to the floor. His mother was quickly at his side and on the ground and with another herculean effort, he managed to get his head onto her lap as she gathered the broken remains of her youngest, most beloved, son into her arms.
He did not know how long he had lain there when he opened his eyes again. Yesterday had taken it's toll on his body. His nerves were stretched to a breaking point, the smoking had caused his sinuses to block up and neither morsel nor water had passed his lips since the day before yesterday. He was vaguely aware of him being alone now. He reached under his head and found a cushion from the couch. His weary eyes locked onto the clock on the far wall. 3:30 in the afternoon. No wonder. His mother was on call at the hospital. That meant he had been lying there for little less than an hour considering he had woken up at around 2:30 and his mother went to the hospital at 3:00. He tried to get up and found it was easier now. He made his way to the referigerator on steady legs and fished out a water bottle. He drank it down to the last drop and bent down again to pick out the meagre ingredients for a simple cheese sandwhich. He closed the referigerator door and carried his provisions to the kitchen where he proceeded to put the kettle on for a cup of tea while he stared putting the sandwhich together. The tears were already streaming down his face by now and he was beginning to realize how tragedy on such an enormous scale affected all in it's path. Choking the life out of all that lived and breathed. Making everything so hard. Even the making of a cheese sandwhich.
He devoured his little snack in seconds and was about to gulp down the last of his tea when he heard the main door open and then close. He didnt pay it much attention until the furitive whispering reached his ears. He walked into the lounge and stopped short before a middle aged couple. The man was easily in his 50's, well dressed but pretty ordinary looking. His wife, he knew, was in her 40's, although she didnt look a day over 35. The woman's hands were trembling as she lit a cigarette and the man looked severely out of place. The man reached into his pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. His throat tightened as he took the paper from his hand. He had recognized the spidery scrawl and ice ran through his veins when he realized it was penned in blood. The tears fought their way up his eyes and he fought them back fiercely. Not before these two, he thought to himself. Must not break down in front of them. He regained control of his nerves and stared at the couple. Taking the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, he lit one with shaking fingers and sat heavily down on the sofa. He dragged on it for a couple of seconds and was just about to open the letter when the woman fidgeted. He looked at her with a deliberately questioning gaze. 'We're so sorry' the woman mouthed. This time the tears won, as they surged through and ran their course down the wrinkles in his cheeks. Wrinkles that had not been there just 2 days ago. Of these tears he was not ashamed, for they were tears of a pure homicidal rage. He was mature enough to know that it was his body's defense mechanism against the havoc he might otherwise wreak. For fear of doing damage, and because he still had an iota of respect left for these people, he threw the cigarette on the floor, ground it out with the sole of his bare foot and walked to his room, leaving them standing there. They walked out the same way they had come in. Uninvited.
Day 3
The razor blade he held in one hand, his phone, with its messages unread and its missed calls unheeded, in the other. The blood stained letter lay open by his side. Slowly he placed the razor blade at the junction of his wrist and palm, and drew it down with force, in a neat line, through the the veins and arteries lying in abundance just under the surface of the pale skin. Immediately a gushing torrent of blood rushed out through the incision and started to pool on the floor. He leaned back against the wall and put the phone down to light a cigarette. Definitely his last he thought and he broke into fits of manic laughter while dipping his fingers into the rapidly growing pool of blood by his other hand. Slowly he traced out the words, 'My very last cigarette hon. I’ve quit for good. Just like you always wanted :)'. It was the most ironic thing in the world to him. Pulling on the cigarette with utmost leisure, he finally stubbed it out in his own blood. He picked up the phone again and entered a number. The only one on his quick-dial list. The number he had called daily for 6 years without fail excepting the last 4 months. The tears started afresh as he recalled the last time they had spoken. His broken words of comfort ringing in his ear as she cried against the injustice. Of her parents, of society, of the world and of God. His own voice had cracked and the last thing he had said to her was 'You might be with someone else but you will always belong to me. We'll be together. You'll see. In other worlds than this hon. We'll be together. I love you.' and he had hung up and powered off his phone. Those were the last words he had spoken and he had been silent to this day. Now, from across the beyond, his beloved was asking one last thing of him. He pressed dial. the ringing tone seemed to be counting down to his end as he felt his strength start to ebb away with astonishing pace. Finally it was answered. It was the woman. He didn't let her say a word past her initial strained ‘hello?’, as he spoke out 'I forgive you', and he slumped sideways as the phone slipped through his fingers again, for good this time, and fell to the floor, splattered with his blood.
Day 1 T minus 20:12:22
She leaned back against the white-tiled wall of her immaculate bathroom. The bright red of her oozing blood was a stark contrast against the spotless floor. She was dipping her quill-pen into the blood and writing down her last words on a piece of paper. She was scribbling away furiously, racing against time. There was much to be said and not enough time. She stopped for a second, wishing she had never gone through with this, wishing she had his undying faith in them. Wishing she had believed in destiny and in lovers as stars against the canvas of the sky in twilight. There was no time for idle thought, she chastised herself and finished the letter. With the last of her faculties she picked up her phone and dialled the only number on her quick-dial list. It was answered immediately. There was much she wanted to say but all she managed was 'I'm sorry hon. I love you too. I always will' before she slumped sideways as the phone fell to the floor. The letter lay besides her. It read:
'What you seek is an explanation, a reason for this deed, but none is forthcoming. this is rather an admonishment. For driving your only daughter to her own death, but more importantly, for bringing misery and despair into the life of the one she loved. I love you yet but i cannot forgive you until he does and until he does, I shall wish damnation upon you. You, mother, were meant to nurture my dreams and you shattered them. You, father, were meant to spoil your baby girl, to take care of her and you delivered her into the hands of one who spoils her, yes, but only by night and only in places that no one else is allowed to see. A million times I screamed that it was wrong, and twices times that you assured me it was for my best, that the man I was going to marry was good and kind. He is not good and kind and if I am content now, it is only because he died of my hands and his corpse rots on the very bed where he made me his play toy. Remember now that the path to my forgiveness lies through him, and him only. If he finds it fit to redeem you, then and only then shall you find peace. As for my own, I shall find peace with him only. In other worlds than this'
