Ellen sighed.
“Alright,” she said. “After they put Jason’s picture up, there were some rumors that started going around.”
“Rumors? What rumors?”
“Some girls said some things about Jason assaulting them. And then more girls started to come forward. The police looked into it, Danny. They’re saying…”
“They’re saying what?”
“They’re saying his DNA ties back to open rape cases a couple years back.”
“What!?”
“I’m sorry, Danny. I know he was your friend.”
It felt like all the air had rushed out of the room. There was no way it could be true. Jason had always been a bit of a chauvinist, but he was no rapist. Was he?
***
A few weeks later the dust had settled and the truth had come out about Jason. It felt like he had died a second time. All of my good memories of him were now replaced by some sick feeling I couldn’t even begin to untangle. Seventeen women. And those were just the ones who had come forward. The school took down the picture and got rid of the flowers people had left. Some people were saying they were glad he was dead. Those were the same people that gave me dirty looks when I passed them in the hallways. Whatever. It didn’t matter. I didn’t know what had really happened with the painting, but I decided to just let it go. Thinking about it hurt, anyway. I eventually went back to the gallery owner to apologize for my outburst. I found her near the painting of the blue-eyed woman. She smiled and told me I had a good heart. As I was leaving I could hear the faint sounds of her talking with someone.
“You seem to really like it,” she said. “Why don’t you take it home with you?”
11
Parasitic
Sometimes when I’m lying in bed at night and staring up at the ceiling, an overwhelming feeling of sadness begins to break over my body in crushing waves.
I think about my past relationships, the girls I never asked out, the friends I let drift away; all the roads I could’ve gone down but didn’t, and my heart throbs with a keen awareness of every loss.
It’s a sad thing to put to paper, but the only friend I have left now is regret, the familiar misery of its embrace strangely comforting as it crushes me more and more each day.
Yet however trying they are, it is in these moments of deep sadness that I feel most like myself. I’ve hurt for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be happy; my pain has swallowed me; it has become me.
These feelings are my humanity, the essence of my being, but I am certainly not human. I may talk like a human, look like a human, even feel like a human. But my insides are ugly and rotted, and the things that sustain living creatures are poison to me.
Light, food, water.
The base comforts of a warm day, a full belly and a quenched thirst are denied me as the price of immortality. My sunshine is darkness, my food hunger, and my water thirst.
Like a vampire, I feed on people.
But I have no fangs to sink into your neck; just a touch of the hand or a brush on the cheek is enough for me to steal away what I need. Another few years of life, and another bad memory to add to the carousel that revolves in my head as I lie awake each night.
My last victim was just sixteen years old. I met her down a dark alley, living under a cardboard box. She had run away from home, and now she had nowhere left to go.
We talked for a long time that night. I asked her why she ran away, and she said she didn’t have a reason. Her parents were good to her, she had friends at school; her life should’ve been perfect.
But there was pain on the inside that pulled her down like a weight inside her chest, a pain that refused to go away. She had thought that if she could just run far enough away, maybe she could escape her pain.
But it had followed her here, never losing sight of her for a moment.
I smiled at her sadly and asked her to take my hand.
“Where are we going?” she asked, a small note of hope in her voice.
“Somewhere happy,” I replied.
As she grasped my hand I felt the familiar cold flowing through my fingertips and up my arm as I stole her humanity from her.
I sank to my knees as all her pain, her insecurities, and her bad memories became my own, flowing throughout my body like a cold river of misery.
When it was over, I lay on the ground, weak and broken. She regarded me with some confusion and then smiled down at me.
“Did you trip or something?” she asked, her voice noticably upbeat.
“Yes… I… I tripped.” I did my best to smile back at her.
“Thank you so much for listening to me,” she said. “I guess I needed to talk. It really feels like a weight has been lifted off me.”
I smiled silently back at her as my heart ached with all her pain.
“I uh… think I need to go home,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied, “I think you do too.”
12
Fight Me, Fuck Me, BURN ME
Some relationships are sustained by nothing more than the fact that at any given moment it’s easier to make up, have sex and go to sleep than to tear your life apart.
That’s how it was with me and Marla. We met at a bar, fucked all night, and she never left. And because of her, I’m gonna die.
I said she never left, but it’s more like she wouldn’t leave. I was surprised when I woke up in the morning and she was still there. Usually they skip out on me during the night. I guess I’m not really anyone’s idea of Mr. Right, more of a Mr. Right Now. And that’s only after a lot of drinks.
I wrote it off and figured I’d let her sleep in and she’d be gone when I got home from work that evening. Nope. I got home and there she was, just staring at me like, “Where’ve you been?”
That’s when I realized that there was something seriously wrong with her.
I ate in silence, and she just stared at me, wide-eyed, unblinking. Her gaze made me feel like there were bugs under my skin.
I wanted her gone; but I was too weak to stick up for myself. That night we wound up fucking again. When the sun came up and I was still inside her, reality set in and I felt disgusted with myself. How could anyone be so weak?
I promised I’d make sure she was gone by the time I got back from work next day.
Of course when I got home that day she was still there. She was just lying in bed with the TV on, and she smelled like she hadn’t showered in three days.
She didn’t even look away from the TV when I came in. I didn’t bother asking her to leave; I knew she’d just ignore me.
We had one of those relationships where your partner is just a better version of your right hand. We didn’t talk, we had no connection, we just fucked.
We fucked on the counter, on the bathroom floor, on the dining room table, wherever there was space, we fucked. Our sex started getting violent, and that’s when I first noticed the puddles.
I came home from work one day and there it was; a puddle of milky yellow fluid right in the middle of the living room floor. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it smelled like rotting fruit.
I was too tired to clean it up, told Marla she might as well do something to help out. We fought about it, fucked about it, and then we slept. Same as always.
The next day there was another puddle.
Things went on like this for a while, every day a new fight, a new fuck and a new puddle. I started pouring bleach on them and pushing them into the yard with a mop, but the house still reeked. I had nightmares about drowning in a giant puddle that smelled like rotting fruit.
Then it took an even more drastic turn for the worse. One night while I was inside Marla I heard her whisper in my ear.
“Burn me.”
“What?” I sputtered.
“Burn me.“
I fumbled around in my pockets and pulled out my lighter, flicking it on an inch from her skin.
“Like this?”
I looked at her for approva
l, but she just stared, her wide, black eyes unblinking.
“Don’t just hurt me, she hissed, “burn me.”
I moved the lighter closer and watched as her skin began to melt like wax.
“More,” she whispered.
“M-more?”
“More.” She looked up at the bottle of Everclear on top of the fridge.
“M-Marla I don’t think that—”
“MORE!” She screamed at me and I tumbled off the bed and ran to the fridge to grab the bottle.
I poured some on her arm, but spilled out way too much on the bed as my hands violently shook.
I held the lighter to her skin, flicked it and—
“SHIT!”
I hit the ground as a column of flame shot up and licked the ceiling. Marla just lay there moaning like I’d never heard her moan before.
I ran to the sink and yanked out the miniature fire extinguisher, praying it still worked.
I emptied out the whole thing before the fire was finally out. Marla’s arm was a mangled mess of scorched bone and melted flesh.
“Good job,” she whispered.
She seemed pretty pleased with me as I climbed weakly back into bed with her.
“Daniel?” she whispered.
“Yes Marla?”
“Burn me more.”
“To…tomorrow I will. Just let me sleep.”
“Do you promise?”
“Y-yes… I promise…”
But I broke my promise. When I got off work the next day I went to a hotel. I didn’t even want to look at Marla, and I was sure she would be there waiting for me when I got home.
It took two bottles of whisky from the minibar for me to start feeling drowsy that night. It wasn’t until three in the morning that I finally started to drift off. Then I heard her voice.
“Burn me, Daniel. Like you promised.”
I sat bolt upright. I knew I’d imagined her voice, but I had the sudden feeling that I wasn’t alone in the room.
And then I smelled it. Rotting fruit.
“Wh-where are you?” I whispered into the darkness.
“You know where I am, Daniel.”
“I-I just want to go home,” I pleaded.
“So do I. But I need you to burn me first.”
There was nothing for it. I knew what I had to do. I got up, got dressed and drove home.
I pulled into the driveway, popped open the trunk and grabbed the can of spare gasoline I kept for emergencies.
I went inside to the bedroom and emptied it all over Marla, along with the bottle of Everclear. She didn’t move. She just stared at me, looking pleased with herself. Then I went to the kitchen drawer for matches. No way was I getting close enough to use my lighter.
I tossed the match, and the bed burst into flames, turning the whole room into a glowing orange inferno.
“Thank you,” Marla whispered as she burned.
“I’m sorry Marla,” I said. “The first night we met…. I’d never choked someone during sex before. I didn’t mean to do it so hard. I didn’t mean to kill you.”
“I know,” Marla whispered as her face melted, and the maggots popped in the flames like overgrown, pus-filled pimples.
“I just need one more thing before I can leave you alone, Daniel.”
“Y-yes?”
I thought I could see the barest trace of a smile steal over her face.
“Burn with me.”
13
Death's Advice
The cold steel barrel of the gun wobbled against my skin as I pressed it to the underside of my chin.
You can do this, I thought.
I closed my eyes tight, and clenched my jaw hard, trying to work up the courage to pull the trigger.
It’s not even going to hurt.
My sweat covered fingers slipped, and time slowed to a crawl as I heard the shot, then felt the white-hot fire of the muzzle flare against my skin. For a moment everything was black, and a deep cold cut through my center. And then suddenly I was no longer in my own body, but looking down on my myself slumped over with the gun resting in my limp fingers. All I could think of was how sad I looked, dead and alone in the vacant, messy room. The cold in the room deepened, and a shadowy figure materialized next to my corpse and grabbed me by the chin, lifting my head up and staring into my now vacant eyes.
A long, spindly finger reached out and tapped my forehead, drawing out a silvery string of glowing light that became a ball as the shadow dropped it into a little glass vial.
The shadow motioned as if to leave, but then paused, turning its head towards me. As we locked eyes, it materialized fully as a young, gaunt looking woman. She was pale white, with bags under her eyes and a ragged black robe that hung limply off of her thin frame.
“Wh-what are you?” I heard myself ask.
The young woman eyed me suspiciously.
“You can see me,” she said. “You’re not supposed to be able to see me.”
She reached out as if to draw herself a chair, and as she did one materialized at her fingertips as if it had been painted on the air. She sat down and the chair rose up to the ceiling, so that she was sitting directly across from me. She crossed her legs and stared at me, resting her chin on outstretched intertwined fingers.
“I…”
“You’re dead,” she said unceremoniously.
“Yeah… are you Death, then?”
“Yes.”
“Did you…just now…did you take my soul?”
“I did,” she replied.
“Why?”
Death cocked her head to the side.
“Because I’m Death,” she said. “It’s my job.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Deliver it to the afterlife.”
“Oh…” I paused. A thought occurred.“Can you…. put it back?”
Death shook her head.
I averted my gaze from my body, its cold lifelessness like a searing white glare that burned my eyes.
“So…” I began, desperate to change the subject. “Will I go to heaven? Or hell?”
“No.”
I waited to see if Death would elaborate, but she didn’t.
“So, what? I’ll just disappear?” I asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
Death paused for a moment.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said thoughtfully.
I shrugged.
“Okay, sure,” I replied.
“Why did you kill yourself?”
“I uh…”
I paused. I’d never said it all out loud before.
“I guess I couldn’t stand being a loser.”
“Who told you that you were a loser?”
“Well, no one really. I just always felt like one.”
“Why?”
“I uh…I don’t know? I guess I always thought I would be someone special, you know? And when I was a kid I really believed it. But now that I’m grown up I’ve got to face the fact that I’m just average. Below average, actually. I work a crappy job for eight hours a day and go home to no one. I’ve got no one I care about and no one who cares about me. What’s the point?”
Death nodded silently.
“You wished you could be something other than what you were,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess so. But it’s not possible. Not for people like me anyway. I tried hiding from that in a lot of bottles and needles. But it caught up with me anyway, and here I am.”
Death stroked her chin.
“But that’s what I’ve never understood about your kind,” she said. “Why hide at all?”
“What?”
“Most people spend their lives trying to hide from pain,” she said. “They hide from it with alcohol, materialism, relationships… Why not just accept it? To be human is to suffer. You can’t hide from something that’s a part of you; you can’t run from something that is always with you.”
“What… just accept it, and let it swallow y
ou whole?”
“There’s a difference between accepting something as fact and letting it swallow you without a fight. You were never a loser because you were hurting; you were just a human.”
“Oh…so what’s the difference?”
Death paused for a moment. “Human thought is light,” she said. “It illuminates the truth that hides in the darkness of the world around you. But too much light, and a speck on the lens can cast a shadow over everything you see.”
“You’re saying I think too much?”
“Yes.”
“But thinking is what I do… It’s what makes us human. How can you stop thinking?”
“I suppose it must not be much different than stopping any other bad habit, like smoking. Keep trying until you get it right.”
“Trying is exhausting.”
“It is.”
We stopped for a moment and stared at each other.
“You’re Death,” I said after a moment, detecting a note of anger in my own voice. “You’ve been around for as long as people have—longer even. And your advice to stop being miserable is to just stop thinking too much? I figured you would have something better than that.”
Death shrugged, and pulled out the little glass bottle containing my soul.
“Do you know what this is?” She asked.
“You said it was my soul.”
“It is.”
“So?” I was beginning to grow impatient.
“A soul is the essence of life,” sShe said. “It’s a pure experience of the world that’s not filtered through things like self-doubt and disappointment. It sees things exactly for what they are, and experiences them with the whole of its being.”
“So… it’s what I would be like if I weren’t miserable?”
Death shook her head.
“A soul is not a person,” She said. “It’s the spark of life. It’s what drives human beings on… until they give it up.”
“And now?”
“And now it goes to someone else.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“What will happen to me?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
Death shrugged. “It’s not my job,” she said.
Death and Candy Page 5