+ Never Forget +

I remember the first time I felt it.

There was rain that day, too – just like this one, only the streets were emptier, and there were halos cast around the streetlights from the fog. There was the far-off rumble of thunder, and the lightning flickered only occasionally, just to remind us that it was there. My only companion had been the water trickling beneath my body in the gutter, stained red with something wicked and tainted as it fled into the sewers. Even the mice had fled from the garbage bags beneath my back, hiding safe and warm in some crevice in the brick wall supporting what would be my last bed.

I found it so hard to believe that there was no one around, no one returning from work beneath their umbrella or traversing the nighttime streets with a long-lost friend. No one could see my body sprawled amongst the garbage if they looked out their windows; the stout walls flanking the thin road and sidewalk made sure of that.

So there I was, stranded and alone, unable to call for help or crawl away to find some on my own. No one was going to come looking for me; I certainly couldn’t move to look for them. I’d resigned what felt like hours ago, lying amongst my bed of garbage and sluggishly blinking the rain out of my hazy eyes.

I remember thinking at the time that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. I didn’t really have anything to live for. My parents hated me, I had no friends; it was almost guaranteed that I wouldn’t graduate or enter into a secondary education. Oh hell no. If I couldn’t make it through high school, there was no way I would even dare to consider college. I had quit my job mere days before, and left myself without a means to pay for the only home I had left, even if it was a trashy little apartment festering with roaches.

I was going to end up on the street, anyways. I forced myself to acknowledge that years ago. I just hadn’t expected to end up there so soon, and I certainly hadn’t been expecting to find myself lying in the garbage with a couple of knife wounds in my gut.

It was artistic in a tragic kind of way, now that I think about it. If I’d had the chance and the supplies, I would have looked down at my own body, limply braced against torn, fetid trash bags, and I would have turned it into a painting. I would have carefully smudged the face black beneath sopping strings of dark hair, created a shadow of charcoal beneath the lip of the hood of a ragged sweatshirt three sizes too big. I would have paid careful attention to the way the rain collided with the puddles around me against a dismal blue-gray backdrop, the crimson stain in the gutter; I would have made the plastic of my death-bed crisp and glistening, the light from the lamp overhead sickly and yellow, faded and ethereal in the damp moisture of the fog.

I’d draw in the skinned flesh of the kneecaps with red pencil, blurring it with water as the wounds peeked out of the torn knees of dirty jeans. The soles of tattered converse shoes were pocked with tiny holes, and an especially large one at the tip of the right foot. I’d always hated how wet my feet got because of that hole. I guess I wouldn’t have to worry about it for much longer.

However, I was too busy watching the rain fall into my face to notice now the chill that had settled into my toes; I could barely even feel them anymore. Every raindrop was different to my eyes as it landed gently on my skin. Every one of them was unique before they were batted away by my lashes and left to eventually rejoin their kin in the sewers. I was too preoccupied with the ominous sensations dancing through my body to care about how cold I was, or how I hadn’t eaten anything for what felt like weeks. I was thirsty, and yet I couldn’t swallow the rain that slipped past my chapped lips.

My abdomen was warm, burning almost. The fount of it all blazed as if it were a white-hot blade pressed against my flesh, only the sensation stretched much deeper than that. I could feel it in my organs, lodged there amongst the gory remains of what had once digested my food and rejected the lingering lead ball of alcohol the morning after a party. But it didn’t hurt. That was the funny thing about it all.

Nothing hurt.

There was a flash of lightning, dancing amongst the gray stomachs of the clouds. Thunder hotly followed on its brother’s heels, anxious to follow him in everything he did and not be left alone – as I was. Maybe the thunder had been laughing at me, then, with the way it was rumbling up there in the sky. Maybe it had been taunting me and rubbing my face in the fact that no matter what, it would never be alone. Its daring kin slashed through the sky first, bright and fast as quicksilver, leaving a tense moment of silence only for the thunder to come booming in, its throaty chuckle a deep and eternal noise.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to apologize to my family for taking advantage of the things I’d been given in my life…

I knew my fingers had touched themselves to the gashes in my stomach, idly toying with shredded edges of my shirt, gently pressing against the wounds. It began to seem surreal, that I was really there, that this was really my body withering away in the gutter, that it was my blood spilling into the sewers.

In that instant, my breath had stopped misting the air, and I could only watch as the gloomy gray sky was engulfed by fog. The tears that I wanted to shed never came; it was the rain that cried for me.

That was the first time it happened; I remember the first time I died.

-x-

Soo, like it? Hate it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Leave me a review and tell me all about it! C’mon, don’t be shy now – I wanna know everything::maniacal laughter::

Hmm… you know, I don’t really know where this came from. I’ve been kind of compelled to just write short little blurbs like this lately. Most of ‘em suck, to be perfectly honest, but for some reason I like this one. I’ve got more of an idea to go along with it, but I don’t know if I should expand it or not. Hrm… Considering how horrid I’ve been with handling other updates, probably not::embarrassed laugh:: But I thought I’d update something just to let everyone know that I haven’t upped and died.