CHAPTER 8: NONCHALANCE

                                      

I woke up early next morning to a bruised hand. Now, this wasn’t any normal bruise. There were cuts across the knuckles and the knuckle of the middle finger was swollen as big as the finger itself. I looked around, and all of them were gone. All that remained was three unsmoked but lighted up cigarettes alongside the edges of the sofa.

Now, I would have actually thought of calling Jeffry for help and all, but today, I had a certain sense of clarity. I mean, there couldn’t really be another me! I was just going paranoid because I haven’t really slept that well. Also, I have seen a lot of movies like this. 

I picked up the cigarette pieces and put it in my pocket. If you like, just saw me, doing that, I assure you, you’d think I was one of those street plastic collectors. No offense to anyone but my dressing sense really. Like what the fuck is wrong with me? why can’t I like dress properly?

I headed back into my room and placed the cigarettes into my box, and my cellphone on the table. No one was going to call anyway. You are probably wandering what the box is? It’s you know the box we all have where we put secret things that we don’t want, I told you about this before as well didn't I?. I placed each one of them there carefully.

Just as I was having the realization that it was awfully quiet this morning a voice came from behind me. Before I head over to whatever is ahead, I have to tell you this, my vocabulary is the size of Jeffry’s dick. Its very small, insignificant and you wouldn’t even notice it if it was in the open. So, you might occasionally read words like behind me and be like “Why does this guy always phrase it like this. Like repeatedly!”. Well, the answer is, that’s the only way I know how to phrase it. Sorry! heavy literature enthusiasts I can’t do more than this!

So, I turned behind and there he was, this guy. Something about him just didn’t come across as healthy. He had this weird dull look of a tired, depressed person.

“Perhaps” He began talking. This dude’s voice though, was really sexy. Turns out emo men are sexy sometimes. There I said it!

“Perhaps the purest of love is the most toxic one” he said. “Or perhaps it’s not love at all”

“Hey buddy who are you talking to” I asked. I mean you probably know already that this idiot is going to be ignoring me like all the other idiots, but I feel its my duty to extend the word count of the chapter nonetheless.

“I read Romeo and Juliet as a child and I’ve always felt like they have had this connection of soul but then again when you look at it closely its just a mockery. A mockery of everything that we believe Love is. Perhaps, Shakespeare intended this whole story to be a mockery of love and my mind was not matured enough to understand it. The whole world takes Romeo and Juliet as a glorified example of true love while in reality their relationship was this sad, sad affair. Not to mention they fell in love within a few days and formed a connection in that deep a level within such a short time. Can’t possibly be real. All I see is that both of them tried to one up each other”

“Look bro I really don’t want to be a troll or anything, but seriously who the fuck asked?”

“She drank the poison because she thought he did too. Was it love? or the fact that she had to prove she was in love by giving her life? Does that make love just a farce? or does it mean that love can exist only with ridiculous sacrifices? Either way can someone normal ever fall in love? Does it even matter if someone feels like they are in love? Does anything matter at all?”

I looked at the guy visibly uncomfortable. His face was like a mucous volcano. If someone had a camera and took a picture, I tell you it’d go viral as a meme, like the one with Tobey McGuire crying, you know that one.

I walked up to him. The box was still in my hand. “Look buddy I understand you’re having like a serious identity crisis at the moment but like you got to stop cause its pissing me off, I already ..”

“I am a curse” he cried and leapt into my arms. Obviously, I backed away and he fell to the floor but that’s not the point really. “I couldn’t save uncle; I could have saved him I could have told mom and dad to bring him here but I didn’t! All I could do was satire his drinking that’s all I could do. I couldn’t even keep her with me I’ve been though all this and I am so alone, my one person is gone as well”

“Look buddy I don’t care. Just shut up” I said. I mean, what’s with this sentimental bullshit, she’s gonna be back, we’ve had break ups before. And uncle he, he died because of himself, I had nothing to do with it.

I pushed away the chair in which the guy was sitting and started heading out. Just then the angry bald guy from yesterday barged in through the door and pushed me against the wall. He held a belt in one of his hands and smacked me around my back side. I didn’t scream. There’s just this thing that, when you hit yourself you don’t often seem to feel the pain. Unless well you snub your toe, that shit hurts like a mother fucker.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked. Beside me appeared the smoker guy, who was now apparently putting out burning cigarettes onto his arm. Jeffry was beside him trying, persuading him to stop all the while holding the “kid me” in his arms, like he was his own child.

“This guy just told me you called me a piece of shit” roared the old man.

“Wait when?” I asked as he slammed the belt on my back a few more times. I didn’t dodge them nor did I flinch.

“Just then, when that sadist dude was giving his really boring speech” Jeffry added from the side. He was still trying to make the other guy stop burning his wrist. Each time Jeffry pulled away one cigarette the guy magically pulled out another. Among all of this ruckus the poor child was scared and cowering in his arms.

“Look guys I love the way you are distracting me but like I genuinely don’t give a fuck about yall and you guys shouldn’t give a fuck about me” I said and as I spoke, I grabbed the angry old man’s fists off of my neck. “And no, I didn’t call you a piece of shit”

The man let me go. I walked slowly out of his grasp and towards the door.

“Hey! Hey! you can’t just leave.” Jeffry shouted as he followed me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I turned around again. “Going out! ok! It’s been 2 weeks and all you guys ever do is irritate it, first it was just you and this, this bald uncle came along, and then there is this kid and then this depressed teen and that full on PTSD dude. I am tired! Ok! I am tired of the fucking lot of you so just Please let me go.”

Jeffry’s eyes widened. “Where's the guy!?”

“Who?” I looked around, just behind Jeffry on the bed. The PTSD guy from earlier had taken up the skipping rope and tied one end of it behind the grills of the window. The beaded rope went around his neck twice and the other end went behind the grill of the window. Just as I looked at him, he leaped off the window sill and hung off the rope by his neck.

My eyes blurred. Not the "I just woke up" blur. The kind of blur when you suffocate. Just then the phone rang, all our phone rang. Although my vision was getting blurry, I could still hear the unanimous tone of the five cellphones and slowly I could feel the rope against my neck tightening. The ringtone became one now and it only vibrated I could hear it on my table vibrating. I turned my head to the side and could hear the ends of the skipping rode screeching against the iron grill. It made a large sound and slipped off. I almost crashed my head on the edge of the bed, but fortunately was able to place my hand right before the bang.

My vision slowly started to return and my neck felt a bit more loosened. I looked around there was no one. No Jeffry, no old man no one. I looked at my bare back torn with belt marks and the entirety of my left hand burned with cigarettes. The phone on the table vibrated for a few more seconds before it stopped.

I threw off the rope from my neck. The marks remained.