Just A Little Game
There’s flowers on your window.
Your friends all plead with you to stay.
The steady beep of the cardiograph. The labored breathing of my last friend, slowly slipping away from me. The next beep of the cardiograph. My own silent breathes, rising and falling. The steps of the nurses in the hallway. The tick of the clock, counting away the seconds. A falter in the cardiograph. His breath seizing up.
I raise my head. Please don’t let this be the end. Please.
“Water,” he rasps. I immediately get up, fill a cup with water, and bring it to his mouth. He takes a short drink, before he’s consumed by a coughing fit. I lift the cup away. “Is that you, Vinyl?” he asks in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes, I’m here. How’s it going? Feeling better?” I ask, trying to give him a smile know that he opened his eyes.
My smile doesn’t fool him. “Vinyl, don’t. I know I’m dying, and I also know I won’t leave this room alive. I’m okay with that.”
“Yeah, maybe you're okay with leaving all of us behind, but maybe I’m not fine with being left alone,” I say.
His eyes shut. I think he falls asleep again.
“So how was your weekend?” he asks, surprising me in multiple ways.
“My weekend doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. What did you do? Do anything with your friends?”
“You know I don’t have any friends. I’ve been stuck with you my whole life” I say jokingly.
He manages to smile. “So what are you going to do tomorrow?”
“I don’t know...” We both know what I’ll be doing tomorrow, unless a miracle happens.
“Yeah, bad topic. So, what you want to talk about with these last moments of my life?”
“Don’t talk like that.”
He rolls his eyes. “So are we going to spend this day bickering, like always?”
“No, sorry. It’s just, I don’t want to think of you dying yet.”
“I know.” He looks up at me from the hospital bed. As always, I’m entranced by his bright green eyes, and how they contrast with his black coat.
“Did I ever tell you how sharp you look?” I ask, staring into his eyes.
“You do all the time.” He smiles back up at me. We stay that way for a blissful oblivion in this era of chaos, until he’s brought down by a coughing fit. I take a step back, waiting for the coughing to stop. Only it doesn’t. It gets worse.
He’s almost doubled over in bed, appearing to cough his lungs out. After a particularly violent cough, the sheets he’s doubled over are sprayed crimson.
“Nurse!” I scream.
A nurse rushes in, and and tries to administer an anaesthetic. She can't get the needle in due to the convulsions he’s gone in.
He locks eyes with me, trying to say something. The nurse backs off, knowing that there’s no chance of saving him any more. I get next to his bed. He’s stopped convulsing, but he’s still fading away pretty fast. We lock hooves. He tries to repeat what he said. I can’t hear him, so I lower my head, to catch what he’s saying. “I love you, Vinyl Scratch”
His head falls onto the pillow. His hoof slips out of mine.
“Alt? Stop kidding around, Alt?” He doesn’t respond. I shake his shoulder. “Come on, knock it off!”
The nurse walks up to me. “Ma’am, I.. I don’t think he’ll respond.”
“Of course he will. This is just one of his little games.” The cardiograph flatlines. His breathing stops. “Just”- my eyes water -”A little”- a tear rests on the corner of my eye, threatening to fall -”Game.” the tear falls, unleashing a flood of them. And once they start, they can’t stop. I’m crying all the way to the apartment we share.
Everything’s there, but instead of comforting me, it only makes me that much sadder. The smell of him on our bed. His shampoo in the shower. His cans of Mellow Yellow next to the bottles of my Mountain Dew. His side of the couch. His cds of alternate rock next to mine of industrial EDM.
I fall asleep on the couch, wrapped up in his black hoodie, dreaming of my lost friend, and how he was so much more than a friend. How he was everything to me, how he gave me a reason to drag myself out of bed, how he always cheered me up when my bouts of depression would strike, how he was my life, and my anchor to reality. About how I can’t make it without him.
I lay on the couch. I can feel the sunlight streaming in the open window, but it feels cold. I snuggle deeper into the hoodie, trying to find some warmth in it. Nothing. A small bubble of anger and frustration forms in the bottom of my heart, and grows the more I think of how unfair it is. Why my only friend, my Alt, should be taken away from me. It builds and builds, until it pops. I lay there for a moment, trying to contain the sudden, white hot anger that posses me. I can’t control it.
I stand up, shaking with rage. I take a deep breathe, like I’ve practiced to dissipate my anger at life. I stand there, breathing deeply through my nose, when someone knocks on the door.
“Who is it?” I ask shakily.
“Just your little ol’ Alt,” comes his voice.
I gasp as if I’ve been dumped in cold water. It can’t be him, that’s impossible. I walk to the door, and there he is. Same midnight black coat, same bright, enchanting, lovely green eyes. “How are you here?” I ask, not willing to believe my own eyes.
“Well, I”- I cut him off.
“That doesn’t matter. You’re here now, and you're okay. That’s what matters, right?” Even if he’s not real, it doesn’t matter. I have my Alt back, and that’s all I really want.
“Yeah, I guess you're right,” He smiles, “You lil’ thief! That’s my hoodie!” He shouts in mock anger. He lets out a playful growl, and then runs toward me.
I run away, staying slow enough to stay only a few steps ahead of him. “If you want it back, you’ll have to catch me first!”
I run down the hallway into the living room, him right behind me. I run into a corner, and stand there, back to the corner, trying to catch my breath.
“I got you know,” He pants. His voice sounds off, but I don’t pay attention to it.
“Oh, do you?” I try and edge around him, but he blocks me. I try the other way, but he blocks me that way too. He slowly starts closing in towards me. I lower myself down to the ground, and then tackle him playfully. He shouts in surprise. We roll over each other due to my momentum, and come to a rest at the bottom of the couch. “Not much of a fighter, anymore, are you?”
He coughs before responding. “Nah, I’m feeling a little under the weather.”
“That’s one way to put it. I swear I just say you die in the hospital.”
A dark look crosses his face. “Vinyl, I have to tell you something.” He hesitates.
I look at him expectantly. “And what might that be?”
The dark look leaves his face. He gets up, and reclines on the sofa. I get up, and curl up on his side. He kisses me on the cheek. “Only that I love you very, very much.”
“How sweet of you,” I say.
He coughs again, more forcefully.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks at me. The dark look returns to his face again. “Vinyl, I’m not real.”
“What? Of course you’re real.” I lightly punch him with my hoof. “See? I made contact.”
The dark look is replaced with one of pure misery. “You only think you did. Vinyl, you saw me die. When I ‘came’ back, you didn’t question my appearance. I’m just a figment of your imagination.”
I stand up. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t “Be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be-” He interrupts my repetition by putting a hoof on my muzzle.
“Think, Vinyl. You know I’m fake.”
We stare into each other's face. His seems to flicker in my vision.
"But how?"
"I already told you."
"I don't believe you. This is just a little joke of yours."
"No, Vinyl. This isn't one of his jokes. I'm not him."
"Seriously knock it off."
"Vinyl, this is just you trying to cope with his death."
"Alt, I'm not kidding. This isn't funny anymore."
"And I'm not kidding."
"You know how annoying you can be sometimes?" We stare at each other. My red hot glare versus his green, calm gaze. The fact that he can be so calm looking, more than anything else, is what pisses me off. The constant anger that boils beneath my surface rages up. I hit him once, hard, on the shoulder. "Is that fake?!" I shout at him.
He looks at me with his sad eyes. "Yes, it is."
I scream, and rain a flurry of blows on him, determined to hurt him, make him cut off his little game. He does nothing to stop me, he just takes everything I throw.
I continue trying to hurt him until I'm out of breathe. "Vinyl, think for a moment. I died in your hooves. You know I'm not real. Ignore the emotions that spring so readily to you, and look at the logic." At the end of his sentence, he breaks into a coughing fit.
I try to ignore him, but I know he's right. I stand there, the rage giving way to grief. "How will I get through without you?"
"I don't know Vinyl. After all, I'm just you little imaginary friend. But he'll always be with you, in your memory's."
This rubs me the wrong way. "Your full of shit, as always. You know what, get out of my house," I tell him, fed up with his games.
He just sighs, and vanishes. Even by obeying me, he proved his point. He's gone.
I can't cope with that fact. I lay on the couch, for minutes, hours, possibly even days after I accept the fact. I don't cry any more. I'm not sad I'm...empty. Empty of everything that used to give life meaning.
What is there to do now? How do I move on? I can't, I don't. I fall asleep. I dream of him. I wake up, find real life unsatisfactory, and slip back to dream land, just to see his face. Soon, though, he doesn't visit my dreams anymore. There's only one way I can see him again.
I walk into the garage, and grab what I need. I carry it up to the attic. I tie the knot, slip the necklace around my neck. And I jump. My weight and the strength of the rope snap my neck. And the noose suffocates what little life remains.
Sometimes endings aren't that simple
Sometimes goodbye's the only way