Two Dead Sparrows

author's note: Ok, I edited this again and realized what a horrible editing job I did the first time.This has a bit of vulgar language at the end but we can handle it right? AlsoI rewrote the ending for the eightieth time, but I think I got it this time.

1

Todd Whittaker

I read my name over and over again a million times. I analyzed every letter. The shapes, the curves, and the over all structure of every line burned itself into my mind. I read the return address one more time. Z. Ryan, in the handwriting of my best friend Zack. The ink was tear-stained. I felt horrible about ruining it, it must have taken him some time to write it. I couldn’t open it and further destroy it any further. It was so beautifully decorated and I wasn’t worthy.

I put it on my bedside table and threw myself face down onto the pillow. I pressed my face farther and farther into the pillow hoping I would suffocate. My mind was everywhere and nowhere. I just wanted to die. Tears welled up as my mind found a time when I was once happy.

2

Zack stood on top of a large rock in the middle of our woods. It was cold and frosty, a typical Massachusetts mid-winter day. We didn’t really care. We were other people in our own world. We were just kids, perhaps not acting as mature as we should have been. Our souls were untainted and whole. We were free of the everyday persecution for being so close. We were perfect.

We were playing secret agent. It wasn’t hard to find each other with our black trench coats on the white ankle deep snow. I shot him down and he fell down into the soft powder kicking up a light dust that turned his coat into the night sky we always would look up at together talking about boys or whatever. Then I stood over him and revealed to him that I was really a double agent for his side and my alternate personality who was working for the other side was taking over my body and to keep myself from killing him I had to kill myself. I proceeded in doing so and landed face down in the snow. The cold little snowflakes bit into my face in a rather undesirable manner leaving me with the only choice to lift my face up out of the snow to see Zack making a snow angel. I giggled.

“Having fun?”

“Yea,” he said in deep solemn thought.

“What’s on your mind?”

He paused for a moment and then rolled over on his side and looked at me. “Todd, would you really take a bullet for me?”

“Yes. Every time.” I looked into his eyes. They were full of fear and distress. He rolled back spread eagled in his snow angel and looked at the sky.

“So would I. For you, I mean. Anytime, anyplace.”

I tried making my own snow angel but Zack was in the way. I gave up and rolled into Zack’s snow angel and onto Zack himself. My face was inches from his. He reached up and brought it closer, kissing my lips as I kissed back.

Later on, as the sun set, we lay together in the snow looking at the thin tree limbs reaching up towards the sky. He had his head on my chest and I was warm despite the ever-dropping temperature. Just as I was wishing in my head that that moment would never end, he got up and said that we’d better get home before it got to late and his mother got mad. We got up and looked at the snow angels we made.

“They aren’t very good,” He said.

“I guess we’re fallen angels,” I answered with a smirk.

He smiled and said, “They look more like two dead sparrows.” Then he turned and started back home. I ran after him and grabbed his arm.I saw that his smile had faded again. I hugged him as we continued to walk.

“Never leave me,” he said as he held on to me tighter. “Never go away.”

“I won’t. I promise,” I said leaning on him the rest of the way.

3

More tears filled my eyes as I had wished I asked him to promise the same. If only I had. This never would have happened. I put my face back into my pillow and kept wishing. Zack, never leave me. Never leave me...

4

Todd and I walked out of the forest holding hands. We walked like that for most of the way to my house, be we had to break once we got within sight of my house. My parents couldn’t know I was gay. They wouldn’t understand.

We went to my room and I took the tattered board game out from under my bed. It was Life, our favorite game since it took so long to play so when my mom told us it was time to bring Todd home, we could beg her to let us finish the game. Sometimes depending on how far we were in on the game, he’d have to stay for dinner.

My mom wasn’t “in the mood” for our antics today though. She wouldn’t let us finish. I almost wanted to cry, but I just sighed and packed up the game. I told Todd it was his turn to take the game because I was supposed to go over his house that weekend and it would make a good excuse for a sleep over or something.

When we go to Todd’s house I walked him to the door and out of sight of my mother’s car so she wouldn’t see me give Todd a small kiss on the cheek good-bye and hug him for a minute. I said I’d see him later as I was leaving his porch and walking towards the car. I got into the car and shivered a little form the cold. It was going to be a very cold winter this year. I put my cold hand on my hot forehead to try and soothe my headache.

5

I stared at the computer screen. My head was pounding. I was wishing he would sign on so I could talk to him, even though it depressed me every time I did because he wasn’t so happy nowadays in the colder weather and he barely talked back. Sometimes I kind of even felt like he didn't even like me anymore. I put my head on the keyboard. An alert popped up saying he had just signed on. I instant messaged him and he instant messaged me back and we talked about this and that. I asked him if he wanted to do something that Saturday and he said he already had plans. I said that was ok, maybe some other time. I wanted to talk to him more but he had to go. I closed the instant message window and was faced with my unfinished science report. I slammed my head on the desk. I was sick of all that school shit. I was never going to make it through. My stomach felt like it was going to liquefy into an acid and burn a hole thorough my body.

I ran down to the bathroom down stairs and groped in the darkness for the medicine cabinet. I turned on the light over it and opened it looking for the aspirin. God, I haven't the slightest clue how many things fell out. I felt like I was on an acid trip. Everything was melting around me and I couldn't balance. All I wanted was an aspirin. I tried to get two or three, but half the bottle poured out on to my hand.

Fuck it, I finally thought and put them all in my mouth and swallowed most of them in one gulp. It took a glass of water to get the rest down. That was that. No more heart breaks. No more nights alone wishing I had another guy holding me away from my fears and hiding me from my sorrows. Never again will I be subjected to the torture of my peers. No more soda shall be spilt on my head and I'll never hear the names that follow.

To hell with living under it, I'm going over the fucking rainbow...

I stumbled back to my room and fell into my bed face first into the pillow. At least that’s what I thought, but I’m not so sure.

I’m…

not…

so…

suuurrreee.

6

The sounds of bells rang out through the frozen rain. A mass of people adorned in black with black mascara tears sobbed into handkerchiefs. Friends and family of the deceased gathered around the casket of their loved one. He was well known throughout the town but no one knew him quite as well as the boy with the red tear stained face, who stood apart from everyone else because he wasn’t really like anyone in the church Zack’s parents decided to have his wake in. His name was Todd and he was Zack’s best friend. He alone knew the real and true Zack, the broken, fallen, shattered ex-perfection, who was now a dead sparrow on top of it all.

Todd was surprised at the turn out. A lot of people Todd and Zack didn’t think liked Zack at all came. I was enlightening in a way, the whole experience, but such enlightenment Todd would never wish on anyone. He slinked in the shadows as people rambled on in their eulogies. He refused the invitation to give one but all the people up there made him wish he hadn’t. He was relieved when the whole thing was over and hurried out of the church like he was in danger of contracting a dangerous disease. His mother picked him up and he felt temporary relief only to find himself wishing he was with Zack alone again.

When he got home, he pulled out the tattered board game his friend gave to him before he killed himself. He had just put it under his bed after he got home that day. He now opened it and started to set it up when he found and elaborately decorated envelope in the box.

7

I woke up with my face still buried in my pillow. I looked my alarm clock. I was an ungodly hour of the night. Still, I got up and got dressed in more comfortable clothes. I grabbed my little bag with my cute little cartoon character on it. I looked around trying to think of what to put into it. I saw the envelope on my table and took it.

I left my house and started walking. It was a long walk to where I was going so I stopped at the Doughnut Dude’s for a coffee to drink on the way. I tipped the clerk generously I always wanted to do that, but never really wanted to part with that much money. Tonight, it didn’t matter. I got my coffee and continued my walk.

My destination finally appeared in my sight and sooner than it felt, I was walking through the door of the church that held my best friend. It was significantly warmer as the door closed behind me. I wasn’t wearing a jacket and I regretted that decision fifteen minutes after I left, but I wasn’t going back. I opened the casket and looked at Zack again. I feared that I had almost forgotten his face. I kissed his cheek.

My bag sat on my lap. I was afraid to open it. I almost thought that maybe the contents had turned into a small three-headed monster that wanted to eat all my blood vessels like spaghetti. I mustered the courage to open it and reach inside. My hand survived and landed on the envelope. I ripped it out of my bag and stared at it. If you really want me to know this, you’re going to have to tell me in person. I stuck the corner of it in the flame of a candle near the alter, then dropped it and watched it burn on the stone floor.

The flaming mess held my interest until it stopped flaming and began to smoke. I then went exploring the church, procrastinating over saying my final goodbye to Zack. I eventually found a bottle of embalming fluid. I held in toast to Zack.

“So I can be like my dead lover. Two dead sparrows we were and now shall forever be,” I said out loud and then took a big gulp of the fluid. It burned my throat and made me feel woozy. I felt the need to lie down. Knowing I probably would never wake up again, I put the bottle down and stumbled over to the coffin that held Zack and climbed in. I held his hand and put my head on his chest and closed the cover down.

I’ll never leave you Zack. I promised.

8

I felt a hand rubbing my shoulder trying to wake me up. I open my eyes and saw Zack.

“Hey,” he said. “Wake up!”

The light around him was really bright and I didn’t recognize the place at all. I felt like I had spent my whole life in a morgue right then, yet, I felt like I was at home.

“Dude, aren’t you coming?” Zack asked impatiently.

We were other people in our own world. We were just kids, with souls that were untainted and whole. We were free of the everyday persectution for being in love. We were perfect.

We were free.

We were home.