Chapter XVI: Just a Tragedy

Dreams of my past swarmed my sleep that night. I knew they weren’t just dreams I fantasized to be my own, they were mine. It was awkward when I awoke at first. I sat straight up in the bed and looked around the room, dim in the morning light. I wondered what I was doing in that hotel room hundreds of miles away from home. But I knew. I was discovering myself. And there I was.

I walked out onto the balcony feeling a light breeze scrape my skin. The sun was up in the clear blue sky. It was almost too perfect to be real, like those paintings you see in museums. They don’t look real, but one day, you look up in the sky, and there’s the painting. I always thought my paintings to be too fake, but in reality, nature was just as deceiving.

My eyes averted from the sky to the ground. It was one long drop to the white cement below. No one was around, the back of the building meant solely for storing the hotel’s garbage.

I leaned against the railing, the only thing keeping me from plummeting to the ground, dirtying the pretty white cement. I bent myself, my waist pressed up against the bar, my hands letting go of the iron. I stared down, bending closer to the ground as I felt the blood start to rush to my head. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t really know what I was thinking, but it probably wasn’t much at all. A high-pitching ringing screamed into my ears as I stood up straight and stumbled slightly away from the railing.

I entered the hotel room once again. Zane slept on the floor atop the fluffy comforter that once graced the bed that Steph adorned. I looked at see that it was only eight-thirty. Steph had set the alarm clock for ten. I sat myself on the bed again and grabbed the remote. I clicked the television on and quickly muted the noise. Surfing through the channels, I felt like I was in a daze.

I felt so overwhelmed. My mind wasn’t empty anymore. I wasn’t covered by the void of nothingness that stabbed and poked and pierced at my thoughts, knowing that the space there should have been filled with something. Finally, that abyss had been filled up with now meaningless memories to me.

All memories are meaningless. Perhaps they’d supply you with some sort of cushion in your darkest hour as you held that shiny pistol up to your forehead, but could it really stop you from pulling the trigger? Are memories really that powerful? Are emotions really capable of physically pulling you back to becoming once again in a sane mind? I closed my mind, still pressing the buttons on the remote.

Something was missing.

I clicked the television off and grabbed my shoes from under the bed. I didn’t bother to lace them up as I grabbed the key card and left the room. The hallway was seemingly empty, so the elevator was right there waiting to pick me up. I pressed the button to take me to the roof. The doors closed and up I went. I leaned against the cool, mirrored walls of the elevator box, seeing myself, cut in half by the bindings that split the door into two. My body wasn’t even properly aligned in the reflection. I felt broken.

I really didn’t know what I was doing in that elevator, making my way up to the top of the twelve-story hotel building. I closed my dry eyes and rested my head against the wall as the door opened up with a soft ‘ding’. I waited for a moment, feeling the air rush up to me unexpectedly. I stepped out as the doors began to close, barely missing to pinch my body together.

The rooftop was a dining area. Tabletops graced with lace clothes were scattered atop the roof, naked bulbs stringed above the tables. I walked through the tables, feeling the lace brush against my exposed arms, tickling me. The sky was still in its prime of the brightest of blues, the sun’s light shimmering against the few fluffy white clouds that were floating above me. I made my way to the edge of the rooftop.

I sat on the edge of the roof; the structured guardrail was about six inches thick, and four feet above the floor. I dangled my feet off the edge like a little child. I felt like a child. I felt so small sitting atop the world.

I looked down at the people from in between my feet. Walking around like meaningless little insects. What did their memory mean to them? Memories dear to them were nothing of the nature that should have been. They coveted the memory to remember where they parked their car, when his birthday would be, what she might like for Christmas. The memory that held the information to pass the next test, promote the next product, make the next move.

I didn’t know what memories of mine should have been important. Nothing but family vacations and clips of students in the halls graced my mind. Was that what was important? Was that what was supposed to be important to me?

Do you ever wonder why you’re you? What makes you so special, what makes your meaning so important? What makes your meaning so useless? What makes you so much better than the next guy? Why are you even here? What do you do for the rest of society? If the rest of the world thought that way, would there even be a society to contribute to? Would it even matter?

What makes you so great?

What made me so great? I couldn’t even remember who I was one year ago. I had to make something of myself to remember the next year. And if I forgot, what a wasted year it would have been. What a useless life I would have led.

I was thinking too much. I was thinking too hard. I swung my legs back onto the floor of the roof and walked back to the opening of the elevator. I pressed the button to go down for there was no button to go up any further. It took about a minute for the elevator car to come up my way. The doors opened up and I stepped into the mirrored confinement and pressed the floor of my desire. I pulled the key card out from my back pocket once I was on my floor and stepped out of the elevator. I walked down the carpeted floor and got to my room.

Steph and Zane were still sleeping once I returned. Zane’s body was tangled awkwardly amongst the sheets and Steph was sprawled out across the entire bed, her arms outstretched. I smiled softly to myself as I sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed the remote. I turned the television on and turned up the volume only slightly. Enough so if I strained a bit, I could hear. I didn’t want to wake them up. It was only nine o’clock. They still had an hour to sleep.

I watched the news until the alarm clock went off at ten-oh-one. Steph groaned, rolling over to stop the ominous beeping. She sat up groggily soon after that and flipped her hair out of her face. "Good morning." She said sleepily to me. I grinned.

"Morning." I responded. She rolled out of the bed and went into the bathroom. Zane sat up himself after that. He rubbed his eyes childishly, blinking to adjust to the light.

Before long, we were in the lobby once again. Steph returned the key card back to the woman behind the counter who sent for a man to return the jeep to us. We waited outside as a man pulled up with the car. He parked it in front of us and handed the keys to Zane.

"Wanna drive?" Zane asked, looking at me.

I looked at the shiny keys dangling in between his fingers before I snatched them. I sat down in the driver’s seat and looked at the familiar picture of the steering wheel. I pressed my foot down on the brake, shifted the car, and off we went. I was still a little rusty in the driving department, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. We went to a small café to get breakfast.

The day went on as though nothing had happened. As though things had always been that way, and I loved every minute of it. My memory was still fresh to the idea of holding all that information, but it was all vital to me. I needed every piece of memory to stay with me, lest I forgot who I was once again.

It was early evening when Zane dropped me off at home. The sight of my house was no longer some haunting imagine of a structure I should have remembered. I walked up to the door and pushed it open. The foyer was familiar to me once again; memories cascaded back to me. I shut the door and heard feet shuffling against the marble tile.

"Oh, Tarin," my mother sighed as she saw me standing in front of the door. She came over to me and embraced me so tightly I thought she’d never let go. "I was so worried about you. Echo said you left; she didn’t know where you went. I’m so glad you’re all right."

"Of course I’m all right." I said quietly into her shoulder. She let go of me, but cupped my face in her hands. She looked me over with a trained eye.

"I was so worried." She repeated herself, hugging me once again. I had only been gone for one day, but I suppose leaving without saying so did give her a right to be worried. At that moment though, I knew she would have been worried. She always worried like that. "Where did you go?"

"It doesn’t matter." I shook my head. "I’m okay, though. You don’t need to worry about me."

She smiled, nodding her head. "I know, I know." She spoke softly. "Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Will you be joining us? Your father has company over again tonight."

"Sure." I said without hesitation, smelling the food from the kitchen. I left the foyer and went to the staircase that led to the attic. I heard my father bellow my name before I made it to the door. I turned around to see him standing at the bottom of the staircase. I walked back down the steps.

"Yes?" I acknowledged him.

"Why did you leave like that?" He asked me. "Just leave without telling anyone."

"I told Echo." I defended myself.

"You didn’t tell her where you were going-" He cut himself off. "You make your mother worry." He finally said. "Think next time."

"I will." I said curtly. My father nodded his head and I thought that I saw a smile on his face. Maybe not. He patted my shoulder softly and told me that dinner would be ready shortly, and not to go far. I nodded to him before I trotted back up the steps. I opened the door and saw the room in the same state it had been before.

I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes. I felt my hands start to throb again as I remember back to that night. The painting I had done was leaning against the wall next to the television. I had been disgusted with it, so I slashed my hands to no end. I told myself I shouldn’t have been allowed to paint such hideous things. I didn’t even remember it when I awoke the next morning, but everything was coming back to me, including my own self-mutilation. Right after I had done it, I fell asleep, telling myself that if I bled to death in my sleep, so be it. But I awoke, barely any blood spilled, shocked to see my hands cut open so ruthlessly.

I picked up the painting that had upset me so and bent it in half. I walked over to the window and opened up the glass. I dropped the canvas down the three floors onto the ground in the flowery dirty. I pulled the window shut again and closed my eyes in satisfaction and disgust. I couldn’t believe I had done that to myself, hurt myself like I had, but I did. And I was never going to do it again.

I pulled my stand and a virgin canvas over to the window and opened it once again. I dragged the stool over and a sheet of paints and brushes and sat down. The sky looked so fake in its baby blue glory, the sun sprouting every color from red to purple. I began to paint quickly and carelessly, staring at the scene before me. In twenty minutes, someone called me downstairs for dinner. I stood up and looked at my art. It looked like those paintings you see in art museums. It didn’t look real, but one day, you’ll look up at the sky and that’s what you’ll see. And I’d never forget it.

A/N: And there’s another story finished. I like the ending to this, so this is the last chapter/epilogue. I hope you all enjoyed the story, as much as I did, and as much as I didn’t. It feels good to finish something you start. Thank you all for reviewing my work. Please don’t stop reading.