Άννα Ελφρίντε Παναγιωτίδου Β5

He was a monster, not a human. He was sure about that. He didn?t consider himself a human being and didn?t believe he deserved to be treated like one.

Loathe
Abominate
Hate
Dislike
Abhor
Despise
Detest

It was so interesting. There were so many words to describe the way he felt about himself and the others about him. He tapped his pen on the paper in front of him. With his other hand he was pulling his lip nervously.

It had been 3 years since he left his home. Since then, he lived like a lone wolf. Alone, and approaching other people only when he had to feed his inner demons. They had been hunting them. They were the screams inside his mind, the voices in the dark, and the silhouettes in the fog.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips at the realization that he was alone even now that everything was about to end. It was hilarious. He was about to die and he had nothing to write to those who would find his filthy corpse, if anyone found it anyway. Maybe the fat lady who was his landlord and lived in the apartment over his own would start noticing the smell of rotten skin, but that would take a lot of time.

No one would search for him. No one would realize he was gone. The moment he screamed ?I hate you? at life itself, was the moment life laughed at him and let him fall in a hole he dug himself.

I, Dan Burrows, am writing this note to inform that I?m freaking dead. Laugh. Why did he even have to write a suicide note? Was he obliged to tell anyone that he was dead, or the reasons he did it? No. 

If anyone felt sad about his death, that would only be his mother. He could imagine her, just sitting on their expensive couch, with her expensive dress and perfect hair, having an emotionless expression on her face and looking out of the window. That was something that always bothered him since he was little, the fact that when she was sad, she wouldn?t cry or scream or anything, she would just sit there and stare at nowhere.

And then, of course, when she would declare to herself that the source of her sadness was something she couldn?t change, she would act like she had been hit by a wave of panic. She would fall into other people?s hugs and sob like there was no tomorrow. If anything, she loved attention. And people would see her and feel bad for her, and think ?Oh look at her, poor, poor Melissa! ? . But Dan knew. He knew she wasn?t sad at those times and she didn?t really need their comfort. She just needed their attention. And when he would be dead, she would do the same thing and everyone will think ?Her son had been gone for so many years and now he is dead and she still cares about him! What an angel she is!?

And then they would start. Those rumors. Those whispers.

I heard he had mental problems?

I heard he was a criminal?

I heard he was a junkie?

I heard he had brought so many problems to his family?

I heard he had tried to kill his own parents?

Fake. Fake. Fake. They were all fake dolls in perfect houses. They would all smile and judge anyone and anything, but the truth was they were all worse than him.  They were like the voices in his head, full of words and orders, but in the end, they were empty.

Dan put the pen down on his desk carefully, like it was fragile. He crossed his arms on his desk and released a breath he hadn?t realized he had been holding. The room smelled like mold and cannabis and a hint of something dead. Maybe a mouse that was trapped in that apartment he considered his own hole of death. He didn?t care anyway.

He ran his hand through his dark brown hair and looked at the trembling white fluorescent lamp on the ceiling. A black cockroach ran by the lamp and got lost in a dark corner.

?Ruth, where do people go when they die??

?To heaven, of course, dear.?

That was what his long gone grandma had told him, when 9-year old Dan had asked her. And ironically, a few months after that question, she died. Something wrong with her heart, that was what they told him. But Dan knew, she was just sick of everyone around her. She felt like she couldn?t breathe anymore, like he felt now. His grandma was one of the few people that he actually liked. He remembered she smelled like cookies and that smell that old people have. She insisted he and his sister would call her with her name, Ruth.

If he could characterize her, he would say she was the ultimate badass. Unfortunately, his dad never took after her.

His gaze travelled on the little furniture he had in that room, apart from the chair he was sitting on and the table in front of him. There was a cupboard at the corner. Dan smiled.

He could feel the existence of a box of pills in the cupboard. It was one way, if you think about it. He could just drink them all at once and then lie on his bed, and then just wait until his stomach starts to hurt. Then his eyes will get blurry and he will drown in a sea of slow pain.

Perfect for a person like him, if you ask him.

He stood up slowly trying to move his legs. He scratched his chin and stared at the paper on the desk. Unfortunately, inspiration never came to Daniel that day, imagined some tale-telling kind of voice slowly narrating, while on in the screen would be his cartoon-figure, a black and white ghost.

Dan groaned, his eye twitched. A wave of unsatisfied need filled his brain and he made his way out of the room with slow steps.

It was weird. He didn?t know how, but he managed to be the same useless person he had always been, even now that he was about to put an end in it. What was he supposed to write in suicide note? Or better what was he supposed to be thinking at a time like this? Because, seriously, the only thing he cared about was his drink.

The corridor out of his room was about three meters long and led to a small kitchen, whose walls had the color of hospital green. That terrible shade of gray that people tend to put on the hospital walls and nowadays not only there- schools, hotels. That horrible color was spreading on that world like a disease.

Hospital green takes over the world, Dan imagined the headline in the news while people would be crying over how terrible everything was. He grinned and moved to the medium sized fridge, and took out a bottle of Jack Danniels?.

The liquid ran in his throat, burning it all the way down, making him feel alive. He tried to focus on his surroundings. The soft sound of his throat gulping and the calming sound of the fridge was the only thing that he could hear inside the house, while the excellent sound insulation of the house ?die  fat lady- was giving him the amazing opportunity of enjoying the car sounds from outside.

He left the bottle on the kitchen table, while the kitchen light trembled, a notice that the lamp needed to be changed somehow. His green eyes wandered around the closed window with curtains that was positioned on the opposite of the fridge and the table. If he were in the countryside, he would be able to see the stars now. But the light pollution of his city was killing that chance too.

That city was killing everything around him in the end, including his too in the end. He walked to the window and looked down at the road. He could see a few people passing by. It was an hour after midnight wasn?t it. A prostitute was luring over a passenger. A junkie was taking his fix behind a tree.

Good neighborhood to live in right? Right.

It?s good to have someone to call when you need help, right? His grandma used to say that. Or wasn?t she? His memory was playing with him.

And then something lit in his eyes and he smirked slowly, like when you realize that everything is going the way you want them to.

No, it wasn?t Ruth. It was another voice,that was echoing in his mind like a scream in a volcano.

Dan closed his eyes. He shouldn?t be thinking this kind of things now. He had a suicide note to write.