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Cold. Every damn bone hurts already, but it didn’t need to be this bloody cold too, did it? Or is it just me, I… can’t tell anymore. I feel a sharp sting on my back as I sit on the nasty wet floor. I dare not check it, It’ll just cause it to hurt even worse. I know damn well what it is, they were all over me.
I’m tired, like I’ve never been. My hands refuse to rise, begging me to rest on top of my legs for a while longer. As for my legs, hah… It’s no good. The body’s frail, always have been. Made to rot, take everything else with it. Your plans, your chances, opportunities… Hearts of others within you sinks all the same… I’d know.
I’m a geezer, get breathy off of just strolling nowadays. And yet, this feels different. Sure, I can’t move a muscle but I’d still push myself to. I’d get mad for not being able to, but this… This is my noggin’. It whispers “Why bother anymore.”, and my body’s abiding. Maybe it’s the bite’s doing, or maybe I was long overdue.
I look at both the ends of this armpit of a sewer I’ve crashed in. Faint gurgles, but nothing else. Hah… Life has a funny way of giving you respite when you need it the least, I suppose.
It ain’t the bite, I end up coming to. No use blaming that for what I’ve delayed my whole life.
I still can’t get his damn face out of me. The way his spit casted all over himself and his vermin-like stache every damn day I jarred him ever so slightly. His business, and his seventh mistress at the time was all he ever cared enough to sacrifice anything out of himself for. That rotten money of his dictated him till his last breath. And his arrogance drew my mother’s, whose warmth I could never recall… And he wanted me to be a part of it all, like a sickening joke. A kid of thirteen who was little more than a dumpster bin that he could stuff his morbid curse he called legacy into.
A side of me is happy that he hasn't shown his face to me after I left, but… I still regret what it cost.
She was dazzling, defying all the sparkles of life from stars to sea. I’d get dizzy looking at her, let alone speak. I would’ve never guessed she’d be a lunatic enough to be enticed by me and all-honest thirty quid I had. But she minded none of it. Only me, and what I wanted to be. My own man, by my own way. She saw to it too. Hell, did a better job of it than I could ever aspire to. Helped me to my feet everyday, worked tooth to nail to shape up something we could call home from four rickety walls. She was a miracle.
She was dazzling… And delicate. On the day we both were meant to be the happiest, she was enveloped in a hellish fever instead. For days I watched her… Barely able to gape her eyes, embrace the one good thing she said she had ever made. She burned, alongside her only lie I ever heard her utter. Burned so much that I couldn’t dare touch her. Afraid that she’d crumble like a scorched ember… For days… we watched her wither away.
Everything about Jasmine always reminded me of her dearest mother. At first, I was afraid of ending up hating her because of that. Despite my most solicitous efforts, she never put on much weight. A pair of auburn eyes she had, so striking that you could swear their gaze pierce right through your heart strings, no matter the size. Her dark hair grew to fall elegantly beside her cheeks, complimenting the warmest smile I’d never witness the likes of. She was like the Sun. Every day, everything started and ended with her. I just revolved around helplessly, glad that I could have her warmth shine upon me. She was so… too much like her.
“...Poisoning her blood…” I remember the doctor said, after a bunch of mumbo-jumbo I couldn’t comprehend even if I tried to. “...No cure.”
And there I was, for the longest time cursing my fate for making us go through what her mother did. For just a couple of days. Oblivious to how thick-headed I was… Oblivious to the worse…
Two years… She got even more frail, skin glued to her bones. Her sallow eyes, when they were occasionally open, would recklessly fail to shine along with her ever-so-strained smile. Her lovely hair losing its grasp bit by bit till her head was nothing but bare… All the while she’d say she’s alright, wanting to spend time together going to places I promised her, play and be merry. All the care, the medicines, tools… Everything I’ve spent my all for…
Didn’t matter a dime.
Before I knew it, there were the domes. Black as the midnight sky, surrounding me. They resonated dismal thoughts, reflecting the people carrying them. All looking at a fresh little jasmine I’ve put, in front of the slab of stone. The ferocious rain was trying to beat the delicate flower back to the mound, if not for my naked head towering over it. I’ve just waited till it stopped, and some stuck around.
Most were friends, some business related, some neighbors. One was a kid who I always saw grinning on my way back from the postal office. He was the littlest son of the general store I’d get my everything from. He’d sneak some more goodies into my bag whenever he could help it. Most likely to impress me, and distract me from the fact that he grew fond of my daughter, little rascal. Noone would have convinced me if I didn’t see it for myself that he could don the most sullen frown and cry like he did that day. And even a soul as cheerful as him did…
Then why didn’t I?
I just watched. Nodding at people stroking my shoulder as they went along with their lives, watching the rain show some mercy at the end. My whole life, I realized I just watched things happen. And as I watched my Jasmine, and how she withered right in front of me… There was nothing more to shed at the end.
For the first time in a long while, I entered the home freezing that day. Mortal reminders that were stained with my fool’s hope welcomed me in forms of numerous bills I had to kick the can further for. And only then, in the midst of the glacier I’ve carved up for myself, I managed to shed a tear. I gazed upon all my failures in the place I once wholeheartedly called home. Until my hands found the revolver I stole from my odious father, thinking I’d need it in whatever fate would have in store for me…
I guess my hunch had the hint, every bone in my body was telling me to do it. But I never would’ve thought I’d be glad to not have done it one day.
I couldn’t find the courage in me to stay within those four walls anymore. I was once again letting this frigid rill drag me wherever. Eventually there was this sanctuary of likely folk I ended up with. All battered, forsaken and lost; under a likewise bridge. Some were young who had nowhere else they could be, others were poor bastards that heeded the devil one too many times. One of’em was an old coot who’d give out the most bizarre serenades with a trusty guitar and its rusty copper wires of two. I still remember the scenery of his elated three teeth that were still hanging when I happened upon some more lines he could use.
Odd fellows, we were. Didn’t take more than some faint flame from a tin barrel to keep us close. It didn’t have four walls around it, but… It helped keep warm, till it couldn’t.
Creepy-crawlies, I kept calling’em. Reminds me of the old days when she was obsessed with painting those darned bug things I had to buy whenever she saw one on the storefront. Seeing how this pestilence was here to stay, I didn’t mind the nostalgia every now and again. It made it easier to deal, easier to cope with the living hell the world seemed to have turned itself into, I’d like to think.
They seemed like fine folk, the ones I stumbled upon. Family of three, some scrawny loner kid, a guy and a… another kid who I… didn’t like looking at too much. Not that anything was wrong with her, she…
Yeah… The resemblance I’d still cling to was there.
What made it worse was how lovely she was. First to notice me walking up, I scared the poor thing so some apologies had to be in order. Didn’t take long for’em to warm up to me after that. Never would’ve guessed…
And I was watching once again… The father came back from the forest, without his son and wife. The void he had for eyes… Even though I never liked looking into the mirror too much, they were familiar. Didn’t utter a word as he went back into the cab, couldn’t blame him. What had happened was all over their faces, let alone having heard one shot too many…
Heard the little girl walk on the other side of the boxcar, sit on the ledge shortly afterwards. On my longest gaze upon that sweet soul, I sensed the Sun darken itself. She seemed too smart for her sake, was trying so hard not to drop a tear. Within that darkness, my yearning took hold of me and I made out my Jasmine in her stead for a snap. The innocence, the delicateness was all I could see, so my macabre loaf obliged momentarily.
“Maybe it was for the best, she didn’t have to suffer through this.”
The forlorn girl noticed my silent stare, and I shared my mind.
“It’s someplace better, sweetheart. Don’t be sad, you’d like it there.”
…I still can’t figure out who exactly what I murmured was directed towards, but her dumbfounded eyes in response still haunt me all the same. What I believed to be something inevitable yet again, her gaze back at me repelled instantaneously. I spent decades accepting shit shoveled to my face as fate, kept suffering alongside it. What right did I have to assume others shall go through the same?
I couldn’t do anything other than remove myself in anger and shame.
And here I am. Still cold, still a fool. The only cinder I can feel within me is that I’m glad I stopped watching towards the end. Hardly matters what it ended up doing to me, for as long as I could remember, I don’t regret an act of mine. All I’ve got hope for now is that she proves this fool wrong.
Sounds are getting closer, just saw one of them turn the corner. I handle my revolver out, don’t even know how many shots it has left. Can’t be arsed to check neither, there is more coming behind it. No point in shooting now, I suppose. I drop my hand back down and peer at my fate as long as it lets me.
I swear, that damned hunch of mine has the crappiest sense of humor.
But why do I start feeling better? This comfort… This sudden warmth, it’s unnatural. Regardless, I let out the most pitiful chuckle as the barrel hits my skull.
“Let me burn, too.”