Journal Entry #__
As I write, I take a gasp of
fresh air in. Why does the world seem… lighter?
For the longest time, I’ve felt
my problems crashing into me again and again, and I’ve half expected one of
them to be the death of me. But, at last, I’ve met someone who understands me,
sees me for who I am. Lucy… writing her very name gives me a feeling of warmth.
Is this… hope, perhaps? … I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this before. When I
feel lonely or unsure, I sometimes hear her voice calling out to me repeatedly.
It’s comforting in moments of coldness and fear.
I’m thinking of clipping my
nails. A big step, I know. But I’m hesitant because they feel so… me. So
natural. I dunno. Maybe this is me growing into a different me. Or maybe I’m
just being stupid. These nails have always been here to protect me, things I
could rely on. Never would they betray me, yell in my face, throw me against a
wall. But do I need them, now that I have a real friend? … I’m not sure yet.
This may be the last entry for a
while. These moments for writing have gotten me through much, but I don’t want
to have to rely on them. And I can’t think of a better time than now to test
this theory. Hopefully, the rest of these pages can remain blank while my words
feel free to be spoken and fill my life. What I feel for Lucy can’t be
contained by just this book and longer. I think I’ll tell her just how I feel
about us next time I see her. I would talk to someone else about it first, and
make sure I’m doing the right thing, but who else is there for me to talk to?
She’s all I need now. Not my family, not all the assholes as school, not
this stupid journal.
Just her.
Officer Victor Bowers had been walking this beat for seventeen years, too
long if you asked him, and he was tired. No, not that kind of tired that you
feel when you wake early in the morning, hours before you should, only to lie
in bed for what feels like days, staring at the ceiling without a thought in
your head until you’re finally forced to drag yourself from the soft cushions
that had caressed your aching body and had kept you warm through the cold and
heartless night to drive to your cold and heartless job to sit for hours on end
without a thought in your head or a soft pillow to snuggle with. This is the
kind of tired that comes from doing this every day for seventeen year, from the
pain of watching partners come and go, watching victims live and die, criminals
shout and laugh, and days pass by but never truly feel different.
Victor had seen himself wither in the mirror, the result of a thankless
job in a thankless world full of the dead that narrate the lives of the living.
That’s how Victor had comes to see it anyway; a poor shmuck or another would
get shot in the back or stabbed in the throat or jammed into the trunk of a car
that was sent thundering off the edge of a cliff, and he would find himself following
the bloody bread crumbs left behind, like a twisted game of marco polo, except
there would only be one scream and Victor would never hear it.
And he would find that this night would be no different.
Victor’s feet felt the familiar rhythmic beat of his sullen shoes, if
they could even be called that anymore, slapping against the path that had been
paved and repaved every four years, yet would always feel just as harsh and
gruff, a retired war veteran sitting uncomfortably at attention in the uniform
of just another civilian, giving everyone around him intense and awkward
stares, unsure of how he was to interact with a world he could no longer
understand, no longer connect to, as if his travels made him a different
nationality altogether, belonging now to No Man’s Land, where Shell Shock and
Strife held the positions of power, where Poison Gas whispered secrets into the
ears of the unsuspecting, and where the only export was stories of sorrow,
often swapped between the dead as they made their ways to their respective
lives after life.
The officer felt sympathy for the stony geezer, knowing what it was like to
be trod on by every person that would enter his life. From his frigid ex-wife,
stealing his emotions out from under the sheets and leaving him with the child
she never wanted, to Chief Arnold Suttmann, better known to Victor and his
co-workers as Arnold “Soot-Hands”, breathing down his neck to catch the
criminals that the Chief was suspected to have created in the first place. Even
his son, Thomas, saw his father as nothing more than a means of getting out of
this godforsaken town one day. At the thought, Victor’s eyes trailed up to the
sky, as he wondered if The Big Man even bothered to look in the direction of
his rundown town anymore.
A blotchy hand, covered in freckles and thin, white hair, brushed the
sweat from his old and withered brow, his eyes having enough trouble seeing
through his cheap glasses without having droplets running across the lenses
like slugs, leaving a think and unsightly residue behind. Victor pulled the
optics from his face, his aging eyes blinking rapidly in the twilight as he
cleaned the glass on the front of his pristine, yet ill-fitting, uniform, much
too big for him, making him look like a child playing at being a man. As he
returned the glasses to his hooked nose, his blue opals magnified in the newly
cleaned clarity. He stretched his knobby knees, thankful for the brief respite
from the strenuous strides he knew by heart. Running his hands through his
bristly hair, a tall, grey broom of a buzz cut, he sneezed, flecks of snot and
saliva getting caught in his modest mustache that reached out to touch the
corners of his face but could not even graze the tips of his lips, a thin line
drawn neatly at the middle of his face, his frown wrapping around a small and
simple chin.
Recovering himself, Victor reluctantly strode on, his muscles moving and
flexing with every motion, a rippling tide just beneath his sea blue shirt. For
though he grew older, Victor would never allow himself to let go of the body he
built for dark and troubled nights such as these; how could he expect himself
to be a proper cop with the physique of a twig? Exercise had become a part of
his daily routine, something that he would not only set aside time for but do
every spare chance he got, whether it be on the subway or in a doctor’s waiting
room.
Civilians made room for Victor, knowing him on sight, not because of his
uniform, but rather his face. He was respected in this neck of the woods, a
grey angel that flitted about amongst the blue devils whom called themselves
his brothers. People knew to come to him when the going got tough so it would
be the injustice and villainy that was sent packing rather than the frightened
novices, freshly picked from a neighboring town without an inkling of an idea
of what a hard day’s work is, babied by their simple desk jobs, the nurses of
an infantile incoming crowd of so-called “five-oh”, taking cues from fantasies
flashing in front of their faces rather than the rough reality, to ragged for
their minds to wrap around. Victor feared a future quickly approaching when
children are handed guns and sent frolicking through the streets to play their foolish
games of cowboys and idiots, except everyone’s on the latter team, though they
may try and convince themselves otherwise.
The fresh smell of hotdogs, a combination of undercooked meat and
scorched grease, filled his nostrils as he passed the mom and pop stand. Though
he never bought the slimy excuse for a meal, Travis tossed whatever change he
had in his pocket into the tip jar every time he walked by. February twenty
third. The date was forever imprinted in his memory. The ear piercing screams,
the ice shattering sobs, and the stark contrast between the white snow and red
blood. This family had been through enough because of him; this eternal burden
on his back made him feel that a debt needed to be paid, but never truly could
be.
Victor felt a chill creep into his shirt like a lost puppy that has
returned to its master a savage beast of the wilderness. This villainous
creature had been making daily visits for the last three years or so, reminding
him of his growing frailty, a fact that he would fight against with every fiber
in his body. Yet how was he to battle an invisible and natural foe that grew
within? He hated himself for his weakness, a vat of anger boiling in his
stomach, clashing against his cold skin. But this chill was something more than
what he usually felt filling his old bones; it was the frigidness of sullen
alertness, sad alarm, a solemn knowledge. Victor shook himself, as if trying to
throw the feeling off his back, a weighty leech sucking at his strength for
dear life, teeth desperately plunged into his back, a violent sedative. A scowl
crossed his faced as the cold refused to let go, matching the street’s cross
stare as Victor strode briskly across it to reach the path of the adjacent
side.
Looking up from his frustrated predicament, the officer noticed a young
boy staring at the hardship written all over Victor’s face, a depressing
article with a sorrowful black and white picture to go along with it, as they
walked past one another. Victor didn’t take much notice of him, as he had his
own boy at home to look forward to seeing and felt no need to observe every
civilian that passed. Yet, despite his indifference, something strange caught
his eye, something he had not seen in all his days working in the tired town.
Hope, personified in a crooked grin sloppily spread over the youth’s face.
A few steps later, that smile was wiped from the world with a blood
stained Sedan screaming to a halt, crying out for the boy that no longer could.
And like that, Victor’s senses were alert, his heart steaming hot,
pumping molten energy, pushing an old body back to its former youth, yanking
time backwards and wrestling it, holding it in a bear hug, if only for a brief
moment so as to allow the body to remember a long lost past that should no
longer be possible, yet rears its head, groggy from a sleep that was never
supposed to end. His eyes were search lights, shining out of his head as he
swiftly spun himself around to assess the situation.
Nothing could have prepared him for such a sight. He stumbled a little;
Victor reassured himself that this was not his faltering body at work, but
rather the shock of such a dismal view making him feel like that car had hit
him, sending him careening to his hands and knees, mind fading to nothing more
than a distant siren, calling out in desperation, a car frightened that its
driver has suddenly disappeared from the front seat, screeching in hopes that
he may find his way back to the wheel. Red droplets of life dripped
rhythmically form the bumper hovering over the boy’s head, making him look like
he had a twisted case of chicken pox. Victor looked up to see the shocked face
of a sixteen year old boy, his face pocked and pimply, filled with horror and
self-doubt, seeing what he had done, knowing in his heart that there was no
taking it back. But he would try to back his way out of the situation, putting
his car in reverse, revving the gas as quickly as he could without getting more
blood on his hands. Victor acted without hesitation, shooting the three tires
that were in his sigh. He was rewarded with the crack of his pistol, the
backlash of each shot, and a satisfying pop only moments later. The vehicle
cried out with each shot, feeling its legs being cut out from under him,
leaving him to hobble to a pitiful sounding stop only a few feet from where it
was previously, whining softly as it slumped into place, red tears running from
the headlights.
Satisfied, Victor slipped his gun into his holster, moving towards the
perpetrator, fury shining in his eyes, but not mimicked in his steps, his
actions calm and practiced, a dance he had partaken in many a time before, although
most of his partners fell before it was over, leaving him to waltz through the
motions alone. This boy was going nowhere, quite the example of a deer caught
in headlights, his body shuddering in his self-made prison, penned in by the
onlookers around him and the fear within, chaining him to his crime.
And yet, the rest of the world looking in seemed nonplussed, as if this
was just… what happens, as if this was okay by any stretch of the imagination.
Most just kept walking, averting eyes and pretending to hear the birds chirping
as always. Other, crueler folk were cracking jokes, studying the collapsed
child, yet making no moves to get help, an action of kindness that was far
beneath them, having already given up this life for lost.
Suddenly, a car started honking at the limp body as if to say “Get out of
the way!”, expecting this ragdoll to somehow become animate again and stride
away, completely fine and full of vigor. Closer and closer the impatient car
drew, closing an already considerably small gap between the sorry arm and
strong rubber that threatened to crush its opposition, not deterred by the putrid
implications its actions suggested.
A rage overtook Victor for just a moment, but that’s all he needed. With
a burst of speed, the elderly man charged headlong out into the street,
spreading his legs over the silent victim like a ribbon holding the shattered
remains together, hoping to piece back the broken bits into something
resembling a someone. His lungs inflated with a passion, expanding into his
throat, clogging up his insides with emotion, only to let it all out in a
single burst, shouting at the driver, “Get your goddamned bumper out of this
boy’s ass!!!” The woman, in her mid-forties, stopped all she was doing, stunned
by the officer’s sudden appearance. Slowing the car to a stop, she raised her
hands in the air as if she was under arrest, a look of pure terror and utter
bewilderment plastered on her face like a crooked ad someone plastered along
the walls of just another rundown building, tattered and worn from the
weathered day. Sighing to himself out of frustration and relief, Victor
returned to his slowed gait, making his way over to the front seat. When all
the woman did was stare out at him out of confusion and fear, the officer
tapped on the window, gently but with an authority to it that reflected his
anger.
As the clear drawbridge that separated the pair began to lower, Victor’s
mind went into a mode all its own, as if a switch had been clicked in the back
of his head; he was now a robot, the police force’s machine programed with all
the answers, the laws, the by-the-book responses that were drilled in his mind
years ago after straight weeks of non-stop studying every last bloody word in
all his textbooks. It was a rude awakening to watch the sentences he
painstakingly memorized being trampled every passing day by the hypocrites who
wrote them.
“Ma’am, what in the world were you thinking?” Victor queried, taking the
approach of a baffled yet un-amused officer, hiding the hatred lying just under
his skin, threatening to grab his hand, if only to wring her throat for a
paltry moment so she might see for a brief moment in her self-centered life
that the world did not revolve around her.
“I just… officer, you gotta understand, I was… I was running late for-“
“For what, ma’am? What was so bloody important that you decided this boy’s life was well beyond your concern?”
“For what, ma’am? What was so bloody important that you decided this boy’s life was well beyond your concern?”
“Well, I… I just thought he was resting is all. Figured if I rolled up
close enough to him-”
“Please, ma’am, just stop. I’ll need you to talk with the head of my department when he comes ‘round to take care of things here.”
“Please, ma’am, just stop. I’ll need you to talk with the head of my department when he comes ‘round to take care of things here.”
“Surely you can’t be serious!” The appalled look on her face made Victor
want to vomit with disgust. “I simply must be on my way, sir, I-”
“Ma’am, please make this easier on yourself. If that boy bleeding out on
the street needs to wait, you sure as hell do as well.”
The cop cars
painted red and blue blotches across Victor’s face, mixing with the graying
ones that came naturally. Radios squawked, sirens squealed, orders were barked
with as much authority as could be mustered, but at this point there didn’t
seem to be much point left to most. The boy was going to die, that much seem to
be clear to the majority. The pricks, unable to give a moment’s hard work if
only to save a life. Victor’s head hung low, embarrassed to be a part of this
rag-tag rabble, nothing more than children playing at dress up and seeing how
much candy they can get from the world.
Chief Suttmann was at his
finest, leaning against the woman’s car provocatively as he questioned her of
what had happened, where she lived, if she was single, if they could have a
follow-up discussion of the evening at her quarters, etc. etc. This was what
Victor had come to expect. It saddened him deeply, beyond explanation, that
this could possibly be the norm, the commonplace shit he would have to trudge
through in his sneakers day after day.
Meanwhile, the perpetrator was
yelling up and down the street like a bloody banshee that was having its limbs
removed one by one. “It was only a joke!!!” he would cry, “I only meant to
scare him!!!” he would plead. He would try to justify that he knew the kid from
school, they were supposed friends; he was just “roughing him up” as the idiot
put it. The sorrowful shouts of a guilty conscious; Victor had heard them too
many times to count, most often in his sleep.
Slowly, Victor moved to the back
of the ambulance, where they were loading the boy like you would a tire,
roughly shoving it in before it could try and roll off the edge. As the medics
moved away, Victor approached, like a shy kitten slowly sidling up to the first
playmate it had ever met, unsure of what to do, how to react, or the courtesies
involved.
Victor took a damn good look,
forcing every last aspect of this child into his mind. From his short brown
hair, barely broaching his forehead, sad curls flopped against his head, to his
rotund ears, fans poking out of the sides of his head, certain to keep the heat
away from any summer’s day. His teeth looked rather pearly beneath the running
ruby red that flowed from his face. Cuts were pocked all across his cheeks,
sending Christmas ribbons sweeping over his pale skin, a sopping wet sheet of
paper. His clothes were tattered, but not from the incident; this boy had
probably never seen a set of clothes all his own in his entire life. His ragged
hands were accentuated by gleaming nails, freshly cut, as if straight from a
pedicure commercial. A pair of sturdy legs stuck from his underneath his skinny
torso, two toothpicks jammed in a carrot. Victor moved his hand over the boy’s
eyelids. He just wanted to see what was beneath, nothing more-
He leaped back, a sudden chill
running down his back. Those piercing blue eyes… The saw right through him,
looked into his soul, and shot through his past, all the way back to… February
twenty third. He could see the ice in his eyes as his brain froze over, never
to show life again. He dropped to his knees out of sheer disbelief that he had
let this happen again, slammed his fists against the ground out of complete
frustration. He let burst a scream of agony, one that he had held back for much
too long. All the hatred for his unfulfilled hope, all the pain caused by such
putrid people, all the sadness these sorry souls had to endure… It was just too
much now, much too much to bare.
A crowd of medics came rushing
over to see what was the matter, only to look on awkwardly as Victor cried to
himself, curled in a ball of helplessness; for once he could see the absurdity
in trying to help this lost cause any longer. The Chief rushed over, a look of
bewilderment and shiftiness stretched across his face. He looked about him
uncertainly as he bent over to whisper in Victor’s ear. “Cummon, officer, get
up off yer ass! I’ve got a date-umm-I-mean-interview to go to in five minutes,
and I’m sure as hell not leaving you in charge if yer sobbing behind some
goddamned ambulance!”
Victor rose to his feet slowly,
straightened his uniform, rubbed the tears from his eyes, and looked square in
the Chief’s face. “You won’t have to, Soot-Hands.” Tossing his badge on the
ground, Victor turned on one heel and walked away from it all. His ears were
deaf to the shouts of outrage crashing about the air behind him, blind to the
stunned onlookers as he unlocked the shackles from himself, freed this aging
body from the hurt he could bear no longer.
“Don’t think yer getting this
back if yah come in tomorrow, no sir!” Suttmann barked to no one in particular,
mostly for his own benefit.
Victor wondered just how long he
could bear simply lying in bed for hours on end. He imagined it, a half-smile
slowly creeping up his cheek.
William
Milton found himself dazed slumped in front of his desk as he stared at pile
upon disheartening pile of supposedly “important” papers. He often discovered
himself like this when he left his mind for a brief romp in his thoughts of
disconnection. Lack of sleep tended to act like a portal, bringing him to a
completely new world, a Narnia all his own, except he was the only resident and
it looked a damn lot like the shithole he came from. He didn’t find the frequency
of these visits to his other realm terribly surprising though; insomnia, he
found, had that effect on people.
He had seen many of a case of
this disorder while working at Saint Peter’s Hospital; when working from eight
in the morning until ten at night with only a ten minute lunch break, one has
the chance to see many different patients. One also gets the chance to pick up
many of these ailments; William could list off the coworkers who had bitten the
dust from working in this pit if he used both his fingers and toes. He had
feared that he was next for the longest time, yet more and more of his
acquaintances perished while he simply festered in the dark corner of the
hospital, if it could honestly be called that. A cemetery was more like it.
Saint Peter’s housed more corpses than it did patients on a daily basis;
William had to wonder what sick sort of necromancy Peter must have been a saint
of.
The doctor wasn’t anything that could be considered a religious man, but
rather a self-proclaimed apathetic. That is to say, he didn’t mind if there was
a god out there watching over him, but he didn’t have the drive or any real
motivation to find out one way or another, nor did he care. What did it matter
if there is or isn’t some powerful deity watching over us? We don’t know until
we’re dead, nor will we be affected by it, so why care until our deaths come?
Come… come to think of it, when was that last time someone came into my
office? William had to ponder in his distant outlandish mind that circled
about his body like a UFO searching for the perfect test subject. For his mind
clearly had no intention of settling on one topic, but rather bounce from idea
to concept to absurd fantasy to his day ended, or rather began as he would make
his slow journey back home only to sit in his armchair for hours on end and do
the exact same thing until his alarm informed him that it was time to return
for another hard day of pondering.
Some might say this would be a
lonely life, but William didn’t see it that way, nor did he mind if it was. So
many people had disappeared from the life presented to him that he figured that
this was just the way of the world and you never truly had anyone else but
yourself. He would sometimes create a second persona to talk to, his two selves
conversing for hours on end until they eventually became the same person in a
natural connection of like-minded individuals. His mind process, over time,
became so fluid that he would create his own lives to watch and take part in as
he saw fit, a personal cinema flashing behind his eyes, except occasionally
members of the audience were asked to take part in the film. William figured
this was the result of months of practice in simply thinking for hours and
hours on end, strengthening his mind’s eye until it was the only thing that
stared out from his head, his eyes permanently glazed with a mindless apathy
that harkened back to the sightless opals of the blind.
Blind to the chaos occurring
outside, William continued exploring his formless world for the answers to
questions that had already faded. It was only when Henry Greenhill crashed into
his office like a tiger through a bedroom that William became aware of the
sirens howling outside the walls of his asylum. Like removing a pair of
headphones, William pulled himself together to allow himself to begin forming
coherent sentences aloud. He would have to if this kid was ever going to shut
up.
“William, what in God’s name do
you think you’re doing? Can you not hear the sirens outside??? We have to get
going if this boy is gonna survive, let me tell you, he looks pretty messed up,
and I dunno how much longer he’s gonna stick around with us living folks unless
we get our asses in gear! Now, pull yourself together quick-like, and let’s get
a move on! The kid’s got some serious internal bleeding, I’m surprised he’s
made it as far as the hospital and- OMIGOD, William!!! Do you even care that
this boy’s gonna die??? He’s barely sixteen for Christ’s sake, have some
compassion man!!! Or better yet, do your damn job, you lazy shit! How- DARE
–you ignore the silent pleas of a dying patient, let alone a child! And in such
bad condition too… How are we going to save his life? Do we even have a-”
“We don’t know until we try, now
do we?” William asked nonchalantly, rising slowly from his chair like a vampire
from its coffin, stretching his cold, pale limbs before reaching for his white
coat that lied behind him, a dead skin that would slink into now and again to
play the part of dutiful doctor.
“How can you be so calm?!?”
Henry asked incredulously, a naïve look of terror and frustration painted
across his face like a grotesque clown mask. William found this amusing, but
kept his thoughts to himself; he figured it would do him no good if he enraged
this yappy intern any further. So, he instead responded by saying, “You call
this calm?”
Henry was taken a little aback
by this, not suspecting that a question would be thrown back at him. He chewed on
this for a few moments, like a dog gnawing on its bone to see if there’s be
anything worthwhile inside, perhaps a few scraps caught in the cracks. And,
suddenly, a look of realization and disgust grew from his eyes, a thorny vine
that spread swiftly to the rest of his face, pain etched into his cheeks and
mouth with each little prick. He then looked up, and, lashing out with those
violent tendrils, he said, “No. That’s not calm. Its listlessness. A level of
disregard and insensibility so fierce that nothing bothers you anymore, does
it? You just don’t fucking care.”
William was undeterred by this,
rather familiar with this sort of response; he had to, or else be given a
reason to care. And he didn’t need that. He had built up such a suit of armor
around him over time, a mighty shield that encased him with an apathy so strong
that nothing could pierce such a tenacious metal. He didn’t want it be
destroyed with a simple statement, one that could be tossed about just as
carelessly as himself. Instead of bothering responding, he pushed past the
jumpy man, who remained rooted firmly in his place, his stare seemingly
determined to spray venom on him as he walked on, unfascinated, uncaring. But
he figured he needed to do something, or else why have this goddamned job in
the first place?
… Yes, why have this job at all?
This was a thought that had crossed William’s mind many a time. And yet,
despite his persistent strikes at the base of the matter, it had yet to topple
over and reveal the answer hidden underneath. But he knew, deep down in his
chest, that there was a reason, a reason that he needed to discover. Perhaps
this was why he made his way to the entrance of the hospital, past the dull
faces he saw day after day yet never bothered to match up with names or personalities
or wants or needs or cares or loves or hates or lives. He just piled them all
up in his mind, one on top of the other, in a huge bin that he labeled “The
Dead Who Cannot Rest”; he found it easier for him this way. A lot less strain
or time was necessary for such an approach.
As he approached the doors that
led outside, he heard a squeaky call from behind him. “Oh no you don’t!” Henry
scrambled at the speed of a cheetah just learning how to use its legs, fast but
moving at a stumbling gait. A long screech filled the room as his shoes skidded
to a halt in front of William, who hadn’t bothered moving anymore, knowing that
it would be so much easier just to deal with him now than allow the one-sided
chase to go on any further.
“You think you can just walk out
and leave this boy to rot? Oh no mister, I don’t think so!! You may not care
about the life of another, but I sure as hell do!!! Now cummon!!!” Grabbing a
handful of William’s pristine uniform
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