I wipe the razor blade off, and wedge it into the frame of the dirty medicine cabinet mirror, where I’ll be able to see it every time I look at myself, a constant reminder of my purpose in life. How sad that the sole light in my world is the tool that will end it. I wash the blood away, and stare at the wound, a tiny red slash against the alabaster of my skin. I jump into the shower, and think of all the things that have led me to this moment. Images from my childhood play against my closed eyelids as the too hot water pounds unmercifully on my back. I remember beatings at the hand of my father for reasons that I never knew and my mother screaming that she hated me…white strands of spittle clinging to her lips, making her seem rabid in her loathing. Most of all, I remember my sister. Incapable of doing wrong, the perfect child, the standard to which I am held. She never understood how hard she made my life, simply because of her exalted existence.
I stop the replay before I can remember times spent with her, as flashbacks of happiness are not exactly congruent with my current state of mind. I emerge from the shower, and pull on my uniform, tattered and torn jeans and one black tee shirt or another, and head for the coffee shop down the street. A triple dose of caffeine is just the thing to get the creative juices flowing. I bring a notebook with me, intending to fill it with prose sufficiently dark and rambling to pave my way out of here.
The girl at the counter merely glances at me as I walk through the door, and begins making my standard drink. I lay a five on the counter, and head for my usual spot. To my left, a table full of other regular patrons laugh and play games. For one moment, I long to pull my chair up to their table and lose myself in the business of being a Normal human being. The feeling passes quickly. I pull the notebook out of my bag, and prepare to write. I stare at the blank pages with their eternally perky blue lines, and I cannot think.
The barrista comes by and sets my cup of coffee in front of me. I make an effort to smile at her, but fall short. I take a few sips, and sit back and observe the table next to me again. We are usually here around the same times, drinking the same coffee and smoking the same cigarettes, but there seems to be a gulf between their table and mine that I am incapable of crossing. I have watched people come and go in the past two years, couples form and drift apart, new friends join the group and make it grow, and old friends return from war.
My attention is drawn to the redhead sitting furthest from me, as it often is. She seems to be the center of the clan, the star around which their small planet revolves. Until recently, she always arrived with a busty blonde on her arm, but I can’t remember seeing her in the last month or so. She glances my way and I hurriedly turn my head. I find myself sitting straighter; wielding my pen as if at any moment I will begin composing sonnets to rival Shakespeare at his best. I set my attention on my notebook once more, trying to figure out where to begin. I pull together the jumble of thoughts, emotions, and mental scars that makes me uniquely myself.
I decide to begin in the most obvious place…the beginning. How can someone understand everything that I am without knowing how my life began? I start with my entrance into the world. The unexpected, unwanted, and ultimately unloved product of a tryst, the cause of a loveless marriage. My grandparents were strong believers in weddings before children, and my parents choose a lifetime of anger and hate over financial loss. When I was four, they overcame their loathing for long enough to create another child, and Julie came along. She became the light in their worlds. For some reason, she was able to bring them together…to give them something that they could share. She was the perfect baby. She never cried, slept through the night, and did something unique every damn day. I was fascinated. And I hated her. It seemed that after she was born, I was lost. They found me when it was time to vent pent up anger, but the rest of the time I was fucking invisible.
I pour myself into the story, watching scenes from my life unfold as though they where the chronicles of someone else’s blighted existence, knowing that I had only to get it all onto paper and I could be done. Half an hour passes and my coffee grows cold. I walk up to the counter and order another, and as I head back to my chair, I notice the redhead staring at me. There was a time when I would have flashed her a grin and slowly dismantled her with boyish charm, but I am not even tempted. My mind drifts to the razor decorating my bathroom mirror, and I consider going home. I glance at my wrist again once I reach the safety of my seat. I am fascinated by the idea of finishing what I started this morning. Just a little bit deeper, and I no longer exist.
When I look up from my musings, she is sitting across the table from me, taking a sip of the drink that was apparently dropped off while I was in my own little world. I look at her for a moment as though she were merely a figment of my imagination. I cannot think of one reason for her to be sitting there, staring at me as though I were the one to approach her. Waiting for something brilliant to make it over my tongue and past my lips. I am speechless. She tells me that she sees me here a lot. I reply that it’s really close to home and shrug, hoping that she’ll figure out that I’m not exactly in a conversational mood. She doesn’t. She asks me if I’m “the writer,” and I tell her that I am. I ask her if she has a book that she wants me to sign, hoping that this is the reason for her rather rude interruption of my soliloquy. She looks at me for a moment, and says that she is sorry about my wife, and then walks away.
I feel as though my heart has been ripped out again. My mind flashes images of a dark ally. Screaming. Kim covered in blood. Running down the alley. Trying to find help. Discovering only cold stares and turned backs. I am sure that I have broken into a cold sweat, that my distress is obvious to anyone who sees me, but everyone around me behaves as they always do.
