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climatic excerpts. short stories. creative writings. poetry. narrorative essays. and what have you. love: it feels wrong to say i miss you already. the steady tick of the timex is outdone only by the even steadier whir of the ceiling fan. i lay alone, remembering the day i held you here. if i tried hard enough, i could pretend that i still smell you in the sheets. in the pillow we shared. but your scent, as it seems, isn't the only thing that's faded. and every time i find another strand of your hair, i could pretend that i'm satisfied with all the smiles i keep forgetting to forget about. but memory, as it seems, isn't the only thing that could be malicious. i said i never wanted to forget you. i meant that i knew i never could. words, as it seems, aren't the only things that can be misleading. i'd throw my watch across the room to try to bury the incessant sound of more seconds without you, but hundreds of tries have shown that i'd just hear it again after a few minutes alone to my thoughts. a few more minutes without you. i'd tear the fan off it's mount to forget the way the breeze caressed my face with your hair, but i installed it myself. it's the only source of pride i have left in this place. my only source of pride, without you. companionship is overrated. love is a curse. understanding: The faint smell of pine tinged the crisp night air that he gulped through a gaping, open mouth. Teeth bared in a snarl, he looked at the prize of the hunt. Strangely, he didn't see any fear in her eyes. "You said you understood me," he barked. "You said you knew!" She blinked at him, and took a deep breath. "You said you would ALWAYS understand. ALWAYS understand me! ALWAYS!" With the sigh that escaped her lips, he drew the Glock he had been hoping he didn't have to use, and pressed the barrel to her temple. "Do you understand me now?" he whispered. "Do you understand? Why I have to do this? Do you still understand me? Do you understand this?" Pushing the barrel hard against her head, he drew his face down so that his nose was almost touching hers, punctuating each word. "Do you understand?" He heard a sudden, faint clicking sound, and the feel of a gun against his own head. "Yes," she whispered back, and pulled the trigger she had been hoping she didn't have to use. justice: He rubbed his hands in the grass, and watched as the blessed rain carried the blood off in a thin stream, to never be seen by any man's eyes ever again, then stood and held her to him as his vision blurred. He roughly scrubbed his arm across his face, scraping away tears like knives. This was not his pain, yet he shared it gladly. He wanted to take it all, and never give it back. His tears only did just that; they gave back pain he knew he had to keep inside if he was going to pull this off. If he was going to live up to be her comfort in the cold and the...the rain. He laughed softly as he shifted his feet in his boots. The squelch was sickeningly sweet. He wondered in cruel, satisfied curiosity how much of it was really just water. He raised his eyes and looked over her head cradled against his chest lovingly. Raised his eyes, and looked through the pouring rain at the freshly-turned dirt, now melting into mud. The small tree they had planted there shook it's tiny branches in the rain, as if revolting against the very memory of what it was rooting itself upon. As if trying to uproot itself and shift over just a few feet. Just enough to be removed from what it was there to conceal. He could feel the bile rising in his throat, and swallowed hard, but couldn't keep the twisted glare from spreading across his face. He could survive this. He could commiserate, empathize, and rejoice that it was finally over. For him, it was over. Buried six feet beneath the fresh dirt lay everything he hated, and that beast would never rear it's head from the ground again. But for the tree, it had just begun. It shivered as if realizing that it would have to embrace, even if in it's decay, the body it was planted to hide. As if realizing everything that body did in it's short life; as if reliving it all. As if wishing it's roots were knives to cut deep, and slowly tatter more and more for all eternity. He wished it luck in it's battle, and carried her to his car, down by the road. "It's over," he whispered. "It's finally over." reflection (the woes of self hatred): It was all a reflection through his eyes. He had seen it all before. But this time, it was different. This time, he was the third party. This time, he wasn't the receiving end. And this time, all the hatred he normally reserved for himself had a new outlet. "Watch," he commanded. "Watch the fruits of your labor withering to dust. Watch." He could almost feel his subject's face growing pinched and broken. He could feel the pain his commands were causing. He knew their sting well. But it wasn't enough. "I hate myself for doing what you did, and God help me, you will too." "I already do," his victim said. "I already do." He ground his teeth, set his jaw, and fixed his thoughts. "Not enough," he whispered. "Not nearly enough." helplessness: She couldn't move. Couldn't lift a finger, couldn't turn her head, couldn't even avert her eyes. It was as if something had caught her and frozen her in time, her eyes focused on his body, curled in a heap across the floor, kneeling on the tile. "I hate you," he whispered fiercely. "I hate you. I hate you." Over and over and over. For hours, she stood motionless, helpless, staring at his broken, weeping body. Listening to the sound of pure, unadultered hatred that paused only for him to take a breath. She couldn't say anything, couldn't even make a sound. She watched him caressing the knife's blade, double-edged and balanced for throwing. And sharp. She watched him press the tip to his forehead as he rocked forward and backwards, never abating in his deluge of self-hatred. They came faster now, closer together, and punctuated with strangled growls. Suddenly, he froze, and ever-so-slowly, lowered the knife to the ground. Blood began to bead where the knife had been. As if forcing every inch, he raised his eyes, and met hers with a fierce determination. "You don't understand," he stated. A matter of fact, as if he would never expect her to understand, ever, yet laced with disgust. A startled gasp came out as a hollow, quiet gurgle from her throat. She tried in vain to lift her hand, to take a step, to say just one word to him. There had to be something she could do. She couldn't even cry. It was as if something was holding her tears back. "You do not understand how much I hate myself," he whispered, then dropped his eyes. "I hate you," he mumbled, then more fiercely, and more. His fist gripped the knife, and he raised it to his neck, white-knuckled hand shaking. She screamed, but nothing came out. He raised his other hand, and clasped the knife in both. She tried to look away, to close her eyes, to do anything but watch what was happening in complete and utter silence. "I love you," she thought. And her thoughts died in her throat. He began his reticence again; "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." For every whisper, her thoughts screamed; every whisper felt like her life was leaving her, as if the knife was held to her throat instead of his. His fists tightened, and the knife plunged home. "I love you!" Her eyes shouted what her voice couldn't, but he wouldn't ever meet her eyes again. truth (someone to blame): The scars on his arm were healing. They had been for months. "After all," he thought, "that's what time does. It heals wounds." He blinked blearily, and swallowed hard. Memory after memory flooded his mind, as they always did when he thought about the scars. Hurt. Betrayal. Confusion. He had done what he knew was right. He had been honest. He had told the truth, at any expense. What he hadn't realized was that some truth doesn't need to be told. Omission, sometimes, is more tact than fallacy. The most vivid of all the memories was that of her body, lying naked and broken on the floor, dried blood making a halo around her too-pale face. Lesser was that of his body, crumpled across the room as if it had been thrown there, his dried blood making impressionistic art on the far wall. Lesser was his face, more mangled hole than anything else. That, he had heard, is what a .45 to the head will do. Far less than her. The coroner had said she was raped. The stab wound had pierced her right eye. The cuts all along her once-beautiful body, however, did not clot. He had called them "post-mortem." Murder-suicide. The memories came harder every time he thought about it. Every time, he cut deeper, to try to forget. But it only made things worse. Fresh cuts crisscrossed scars all over his body. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was responsible. That somehow, it was all his fault. So every day, the routine continued, and every day, the cuts got deeper. And deeper. They started spreading all over his once-beautiful body. And one night, his roommate woke to find him laying on the floor, naked, bruised, and slashed, with a knife protruding from his right eye. The blood was dried, the wounds were clotted. He had only done what was right. mercy: It was like flipping a light switch. He never thought it could be that easy. The room was dark, the only light coming from a solitary, monochrome-green display that he watched with a vigor unbecoming of such an act. Shadows were cast harshly, making her face seem sharp and angular. Angry. As if to say, "What right have you?" Fitting that her final words were a lasting, silent criticism. And so he sat there, watching, waiting. Into the night, he observed his vigil, and through, until the pre-dawn murky glimmer started to show through the slits in the blinds over the window in the corner. Watching the screen. Watching her life tick away, counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds. Measuring how long her face could scream, "How could you?" As night slowly seeped into day, her features softened with the morning light. The scream had faded into a murmur, and at long last, melted into a pallid shade of apathetic gray as the display turned irratic, and then, as sudden as it had begun, vanished. He leaned over, gently thumbing her eyelids closed, and brushed her cheek with a single, caressing finger. "I just wanted to be alone," he whispered in her ear, then turned, and walked away forever. murder (release): He stands over her long-gone-cold figure, reveling in the marvelous silence. No breath save his own. No heartbeat, save his own. No single solitary whisper, save that of his own extatic panting in the cold night's air. It is as if the entire world had drawn a collective gasp, and has yet to release it. His hollow laugh seems to mockingly shatter the hauntingly placid silence. His eyes rake her motionless form, caressing the harsh shadows of her too-pale features. Bending down, he presses the barrel to her temple once more. "Smile for me," he croaks softly. And with a slight up-turned lip, and the murderous joy in his eyes already fading, he pulls the trigger one last time. all works are © 2001-2002 luke pederson |