Fabricated Hope

THE REMNANTS OF HER PERFUME

I have a friend. Well, I had a friend. I had a friend until yesterday. She wasn’t just a friend though, she was the best, you know. She was my friend, my best friend. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. But somehow it did. Somehow it always did. No matter what she did, she matter how hard she tried, it always ended up the same way- in death, despair or destruction.

I went to her apartment.
I opened the door.
And then I saw her.

She lay sandwiched like a slab of salami between her bedroom floor and the splinters on the base of her bed. Each deep laboured breath she inhaled caused the prominent peaks of her breasts to raise the wooden slats below her mattress ever so slightly, so slightly that you’d never notice the blankets shifting; and if the old ragged teddy bear hadn’t tumbled to the floor, I’d never have found her below the bed. I’d never have found her clutching the rusted razor blade, her hacked wrists smeared with the scarlet life which oozed slowly from the gashes. The nicks in her neck drooled blood which collected in the gutters of her emaciated shoulders. I dragged her by her ankles into the middle of her bedroom floor, and before casting the teddy into the corner I stared gratefully into his lustrous unseeing eyes and kissed him on his hard black nose, the same nose that had once been chewed religiously by the shivering, bloodied girl who lay curled up on the carpet, gasping for life. I turned to her as her breath faded to shallow, pulsating wheezes. Her body convulsed as I cried out for help, the trembling slackened and the palpitations of her heart grew ever fainter.

They came to take her away and as they pounded on her chest, propelling their own breath into her wilting body, I clutched the teddy with the lustrous unseeing eyes. My inner soul wept yet I let no dewdrop of sorrow dampen my cheeks as I sat alone on her bed, staring at the walls which were dappled a dreary black. She was taken to the ambulance and as I heaved myself to my feet, stepping across the crimson stain on the carpet, I spied her journal. Overwhelmed by anguish, I tucked it under my arm, daring myself to expose her deepest secrets.

I went with her in the ambulance.
I waited in the waiting room.
And finally I was brought to see her.

I arrived at the door with dishevelled hair and a grey jumper strewn across my shoulders. My glasses had fingerprints on the lenses, but it didn’t matter as the night was already more than slightly hazy. I didn’t knock. I didn’t speak, but I suppose that was okay because she needed to do the talking. We had spent hours of our lives consumed by idle chatter but in that moment, when it mattered the most, we were both lost for words and time was finally running out.

-I’m dying.

Yet even without the bandages, bruises and stitches that would have been painfully obvious. For our entire lives I had glazed everything with a mystical lustre that glimmered with sweet sentiments of fabricated hope, but in that instance none of my fabled words could distort reality. I could have lied and made her believe that she would see one final morning, but let’s face it, she was going to figure me out sooner or later. Sooner, not later- there was never again going to be a later. I still didn’t say anything. I wish I had.

Tears were glistening in her eyes. I had rarely seen her cry, and for that I was grateful. With wobbly legs, I found a chair and dragged it across the floor to her bedside, to her pillow-side. I pulled it up so close that my knees pressed into the mattress, so close that I could smell the remnants of her perfume. Wow, that brought back memories. I ran my fingers through her hair, not saying anything but listening to the silence, listening to the love.

I wanted to know what had happened- not that night, but in her life.
I wanted to know what had happened- what had happened to drive her to such desperation.

I wanted to know what had happened to her but it was irrelevant. She might as well have been dying of the common cold because she wasn’t going to see the next day. The doctors thought that she might have lasted the night but not much longer after that. All I knew was that she wasn’t going to make it to her next birthday…but at least she hit eighteen.

The doctor came in, busying himself with medical notes. He saw people die everyday so he wasn’t allowed to care. But he looked at me with compassionate brown eyes before increasing her pain relief. She didn’t feel anything at least. As he left the room she focused her eyes on my as best she could.

-He’s pretty cute isn’t he? You should get his number! I would but I think that goes against the whole patient-doctor thing.

I couldn’t help but smile. Even with death clawing at her she was the most persistent flirt I knew. But the grin quickly faded.

-You’re the only one who knows. Not just about this, but about everything…

I wish I could have asked her more, if only to make it easier for me.

-You’ll tell the others for me though, won’t you? Just so they know.

I nodded slowly. Finally understanding that she was really going to leave me.

-Tell them…tell them…tell them that they don’t have to remember me. I don’t want anyone to be burdened by me.

She paused momentarily, stuttering when she spoke again.

-But you’ll remember me, right? It’d be nice to have one person remember me.

I nodded slowly for a second time and pulled my grey jumper closer around my neck.

-Will you bury me with my half of our bracelets? That way I’ll always have mine.

I nodded for a third time as she forced a meek smile. On my lap I ran my fingers across the silver links on my best friend bracelet. I had gotten them as a birthday present for her. One for her and one for me… forever to be friends for all eternity.

-And you’ll put a picture by my side? I don’t want to be alone. It will be too dark to be all alone.

And then she panicked. An eighteen year old shouldn’t panic about death, least of all their own.

-What if this is it and I just don’t exist anymore? What if my memories just disappear and I’m alone forever. I don’t want to be alone. Don’t let it happen…keep me here with you. I’ll do anything, anything at all, just don’t let them take me. It’s too soon. I don’t want to go with them. Let me stay! Keep me here with you!

The alarms rang shrilly around the small hospital room, and as the cute doctor with compassionate brown eyes played with syringes and tubes I backed against the wall. It was my turn to panic.

She feebly stretched out a limp arm.
I clung tightly to her hand as though I could keep her soul with me.
I clung tightly to her hand as though the harder I squeezed the further from the cusp of death I was pulling her.

I clung tightly to her hand as she spluttered her final words in between short raspy breaths.

-Remember everything for the both of us. Remember all my memories because all this can’t have been for nothing. I love you.
-I love you too.

WE CAN'T ALL LIVE IN FAIRYTALES

I tried not to cry, I tried so hard to be strong for her but I couldn’t stop the tears. Her hand went cold, her skin slightly blue. Her lips looked parched, her body bruised. Her hair was spread across the pillow except for a single curl which rested on her temple, a single black lock.

I was led to a private room by the doctor with compassionate brown eyes. He handed me a tissue, and then the box, before leaving me in solitude. I slid to the ground clutching the tattered journal. Slumped against the wall, I found her final entry. I read her final inscribed words, her final thoughts, her final expressions of life.

“Somewhere over the rainbow is a path in the light
That I heard of once
Once in a lullaby”

"But where is this path? Have I strayed from the gravelled twists to the grassy verges? I have no idea what to believe as I listen to the dulcet tones drifting through the air, wisdom from beyond the grave that speaks louder than any voice within me. I may be a wilting petal, a dying ember, but I’m not a cadaver until these final sparks are extinguished. They have grown dim, though occasionally they surge high, bright and vivid. However, the occasions are rare, seldom occurrences but cherished- a flickering hope which emerges from beneath these layers; an internal, personal perseverance to walk a little further, to aim a little higher.

"More recently though the internal sparks darken in quicker succession, each one destined to a lifeless eternity just as I am fated to a mere existence. My skin hasn’t acquired a waxy ashen tone yet my soul is starved and my spirit is weak as it lags somewhere near the tip of my smallest toe- a minimal space for a fleeting strength. I feel consumed by the pity, obsession and indulgence that accompany this discontent- snapping terriers that never roam far from my ankles which are already gnawed and bloodied. I wish I could articulate even a word of my pain but I can’t, at least not without tears veiling my eyes and a lump disengaging my voice. I am unsure of where to begin, how to express myself for I don’t know from where these feelings source, when they will end or of what they’re composed. I’m clutching to my final sparks so tightly that they’re being smothered, but I can’t release my grip for fear they’ll be quenched by life, or living death, as have been my experiences of late.

"Detachment. One word springs forth in my mind, resonant. It seems to epitomise these sentiments in my soul, the throbs which I continually tried to bury beneath facades, futile attempts to ease the pain of breathing, of feeling, of everything. My prevailing light is vanquished and the internal strife which hollows my heart will claim my soul if I don’t conclude this journey soon. All I needed was somebody to care, anybody to hold my head above these waters of peril and tides of woe. I trusted in my memories and I prayed on every star that mottled the gloomy black sky that these ebbs of depression and flashes of hell would cease their torture of my heart; but life’s now a grotesque infliction of guilt and hurt, a sucking leech which has left me drained. Allow me to drift into a still deep slumber- I want to sleep, forever just sleep…"

Her words faded out half way along a crinkled page soaked with dead tears. The lifeless emotion, mixed with my fluid pain, obscured her writing from my eyes. I drifted into a dreamless slumber to wake only to bid farewell to scarred and damaged friend. Venturing to the edge of her bed, I kissed her pale placid face, composed serenity. I held her hand in mine and kissed the wrists from which her vitality seeped. I kissed the lips that exhaled her last breath of life. I kissed her forehead that encased the tortured and tormented mind and turning slowly away I let them bear her from me so that she may pass in unhindered peace.

I wish I could say that she lived a happy life. I wish I could say that she lived a full life. But that would be lying- we can’t all live in fairytales. I just wanted her to know that she was everything to me. She taught me to love my life as I tried to teach her to love hers.

People always say that life is short, but I didn’t realise just how short her's would be.

We were supposed to be friends forever, but I suppose forever is only eighteen years.