Hope you enjoy. Here goes nothing.
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“There’s nothing we can do,” said a quiet voice.
One word echoed in my head, rebounding off the inside of my skull, a clap of thunder in the sky.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Tears stung in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I stared angrily at the floor as if it were the source of all my troubles. Ignoring the slow pulsing beeps, whirrs emitted by various devices and soft voices that seemed to be apologizing, I felt only a tension in my chest that threatened to burst in a violent explosion. Tearing away from outstretched arms that tried to grasp me, I ran from the oppressive room, my sneakers squeaking on the shiny white tile floor.
Nothing.
Nothing.
I stumbled into the cold metal of a supply cart that contained various vials and bags of fluids that shone red in the harsh fluorescent light. A tall, heavy-set black woman glanced at me with an expression of mixed anger and bewilderment. She said something in a soft voice, but I was already running away, the cold air that rushed by my face snatching away her words.
Nothing…
I spotted the buffed chrome of the elevator doors, jabbing the button repeatedly with my thumb.
When the car opened, I threw myself inside, neverminding the fact that two people already occupied it.
I punched the “Down” button, panting heavily with shaky breaths. More soft words followed, uttered by someone I didn’t care to see.
When the doors opened, I bolted out into a throng. I crashed between people, simply running. From what, I didn’t know or care. I stopped only when I smashed into a plate glass window.
Reeling away from the site of impact, I realized I had come to an exit to a garden courtyard. A bit to my left was the door. I snatched it open and fled towards a Japanese maple that towered over the shrubs.
I stepped right into the mulch and began to tear at the bark with my fingers, heaving myself upwards on the swaying limbs as if to climb to heaven. I felt as if I reached the top, perhaps I could ask the ultimate question: Why?
“Why are you taking him! Why! Justin is mine.” I shouted at the pale blue slivers of sky that peered through crimson leaves.
I began to sob heavily, tears running in rivers down my face, landing softly on the folds of my sweatshirt.
Why? He was dying. The doctors had said there was nothing they could do… I looked angrily at the clouds, wondering if there was something really up there. And if there was something there, why did they need Justin? I needed him. He was mine. No one else’s. And now, he was almost gone. There was no hope. I was going to be Dante Steel who had no brother.
…………..
Darkness surrounded me, a dull ache in my mind, a dull ache in my soul. I felt a fluttery pounding somewhere inside me, weak but persistent. My eyes were too heavy to open, and I lay still, a sensation of weakness pressing heavily on my heart.
Still, stiff, seconds ticked by, a stagnant taste just as the air I swallowed. A sensation of tightness in my throat made me want to grasp at my neck, but I was simply too exhausted. Thoughts crawled about in the darkness of my mind. Endless time passed, drifting in and out of a stupor that paralyzed the brain.
All was quiet, still, but a sense of apprehension came through in the dimness.
In and out, I drifted on seas of tasteless, colorless nothing. It was neither warm nor cold, with no feeling of pain or security, no sensation at all. I was suspended in a liquid which slowed time itself to a bare crawl.
I didn’t care where I was. I didn’t have the energy to care. Lapping waves of waters that didn’t exist lulled me to sleep, calm, still, no fear or pain. Just stillness. That was all.
…………….
“Miss! Miss, you must climb out of this tree,” called a voice. A deep voice, firm, a hint of anger in the tone…
I ignored it. The orders of a voice far below me were insignificant. I didn’t care anymore. There was no reason to anything. Justin was dying. Life would never be the same.
He was the brother who sang songs to me late at night when I’d had a bad dream.
The guy who fussed at me over letting the dog pee on Mom’s fake palm tree.
The boy who was supposed to get engaged with Lily.
Lily would never-
“Miss! Come down the tree at once!” The voice was a man’s, whose tennis shoes I saw from between the branches.
“Whadya want? Go to hell!” I screamed, anger making me glare at the disembodied tennis shoes that belonged to one inconsiderate jerk.
“Come down the tree, now!” he repeated.
I was silent, leaning weakly over a branch. I was so tired. Crying had worn welts into my cheeks where the salty water of tears had flowed.
“Alright then. I’m calling for backup. This is your last chance. I will arrest you.” He sounded thoroughly annoyed.
What right did some jerk have to invade the privacy of the grieving?
I swore under my breath.
Apparently, he heard me.
“You will have additional charges for resisting arrest and harassing an officer.”
What, he’s reading me my Miranda Rights? I was dumbstruck. Silence followed.
“It’s your choice to comply. If you do, it will be easier.”
I ignored him. What a jerk. He was making my hellish life even worse.
I wasn’t going to do what he wanted. To gratify him was saying I meek, that I was frail.
I thought the red leaves of the tree turned a shade brighter.
What a fat pig of a jerk…
Suddenly I felt guilty for getting angry. I should be mourning, sitting at my brother’s bedside as he lay dying, an IV drip of morphine in his arm in case his nerve endings were still capable of transmitting pain. Somehow I knew they weren’t. He was already gone.
I sat, staring at the leaves and the ground for a few endless minutes, deep in melancholy. There was not a hint of bliss to be found anywhere.
I was aroused by the sound of footsteps on concrete, more deep male voices commanding me to exit the tree. Why did I care? I didn’t know. But they had no right to harass me. I ignored them.
“We will have to go up and get you, then,” someone called.
“Okay, Bill, let’s do it.” One man said.
Looking down, I realized there were three of them, one young, the other two middle-age.
The oldest man was Bill, who had grey hair and and hard grey eyes that held little mercy for what he saw as a defiant juvenile delinquent.
The other two guys, the first man who had yelled at me, had sandy hair and large shoulders connected to arms that looked sufficiently strong to tackle me. The other man was a black dude who wore a police uniform.
One man I saw trying to climb up the tree behind me, but I certainly wasn’t going to let them arrest me. I hadn’t even done anything!
This was the sort of thing Justin would have explained to someone… Saying something about his “little sister”, who has impulses to do irrational things. As I remembered him saying once,
“She’s got OCD. Instead of cleaning, she goes up. She feels like if she can get away from her troubles, say, rise above them, she literally goes upwards… Don’t bother her about it, it’s just her thing.”
Rise above it. Rise above it… I continued to climb upwards.
Life was over. Justin…Justin was my twin. We were born together, and as far as I had planned, I thought if I had to die, I’d want to die with him. Be side by side with him for eternity.
The security guards shouted and began to follow me more quickly. Now two of the guys, Sandy and Bill, were halfway up to where I was.
And closing in.
Now Sandy was just feet from grabbing my leg, inches from forcing me down.
I looked up frantically for more branches to grasp, wanting to go every higher- but there were none.
I was at the top. There was nowhere to go. But how? I wasn’t going to be wrangled in by police officers. What would my mom think? My family didn’t need to know that I had been arrested! Justin was dying rapidly. I needed to get back to him as soon as I could.
I had to be there in time to say goodbye.
There was nowhere but down. So I jumped.
The ground rushed up, air hissing as I fell. Prickling leaves and thorny twigs poked me in the face.
The officers were on top of me.
“Oh, God, why can’t I just die?” I moaned.
My arm hurt particularly badly, but I barely felt the pain, didn’t even feel the trickle of warm blood that oozed from my wounds.
Sandy grabbed me by the shoulders and picked me up from the rosebush. A rosebush, I thought. No wonder it hurt so badly.
Someone pushed my hands behind my back, and I screamed in pain.
“Kill me, just kill me! Stop! Or I’ll just do it myself! I wish I were dead. Shoot me while you’re at it!”
I had no more tears to cry. The well of grief and anger, pain and injustice swallowed me up. I couldn’t take it any longer. It felt as if my arm were on fire. Everything went black as I shrieked again in utter agony.
……………………
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I don't do many fundamentally sad stories. This is my attempt at a sort of tragic/ironic thing...
