Here's the deal; I've had a few dark short stories floating around in my brain for a while now, and since they're very depressing as you'll shortly see for yourself, I've decided to dump them all in one blog post because writing a separate blog post for each individual short story might actually make some people suicidal.
That said, if you believe yourself to be in a bad place, please don't read on.
It's difficult to pinpoint where it all went wrong.
That said, if you believe yourself to be in a bad place, please don't read on.
Seriously.
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Was it the moment he decided he'd actually get out of bed and try to be a productive member of society?
Was it the moment he tried to take a shower but slipped and almost broke his leg in the bathtub?
Was it the moment he got a nasty shock from his ancient microwave, which finally decided to blow a fuse and send his small, messy apartment back to the stone age as he stood there with his mouth half-full of cold, left-over pizza?
Or was it the moment he decided to ignore all these signs and get dressed for work anyway?
As he lay there; dazed, upside down and losing consciousness while his totaled car's cabin flooded with carbon monoxide, he had to wonder if it was all worth it.
His last memory was of her face; smiling and serene and angelic in the early morning sunlight.
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How long had they been there? They had no idea.
They just sat there, staring longingly into each others' eyes for what seemed like hours; mesmerized, love-drunk and more than a little frisky, yes... but also sad.
Sad because of how the word "love" paled to insignificance next to what they were both experiencing.
Sad because there were only so many ways to show someone you loved them; and they'd already exhausted them all.
Sad because they knew it would all end, much sooner than they both wanted.
Sad because they'd never get to grow old together and hold their own grandchildren.
When the moment came, he pulled her close and kissed her long and hard, subtly turning her around to face away from the window...
but not before she caught a glimpse of the dazzling flash and the distant, rising mushroom cloud.
She closed her eyes and kissed him back, fighting back her tears and bracing herself as the sirens started wailing.
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He'd always been dark and brooding.
As a child, whenever he felt unappreciated, he would find himself imagining scenarios where he died heroically and all his friends and family realized what a beautiful person they'd lost.
The irony is that he didn't even believe it himself.
He'd spend months working on himself; trying to get to a better place where he could start to be proud of who he was... but the smallest thing would happen, and it would completely demolish the fragile house of cards that was his sense of self-worth.
It cost him so much energy just to pretend to be normal, that he was left too drained to actually function. He would wake up in the morning, put on his smile and reluctantly face the world; all the while hiding the plethora of conflicting emotions battling for control of his mood that day.
Depression, anxiety and self-hate won, most days.
On one such particularly bad day, they found him lying on the floor of his room.
The note only said "I've had enough."
The nozzle of the gun in his limp right hand was still fuming.
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Her days were all the same.
Wake up, put on a brave face, receive people all day and thank them for visiting.
Every single day, the fun never stopped.
Some people would try to joke around with her to lighten the mood; others would speak stoically and offer her promises that her family would be taken care of; and some would even offer to get her booked in clinical trials that would at best give her a few more years of pain and misery.
It had been a few weeks since she'd officially run out of money to pay for her chemotherapy... not that it would have helped much, in any case... stage 3 metastatic pancreatic cancer was about as survivable as a tactical carpet bombing.
Every day, a few of her "friends" -to use the word liberally- would visit her... now that the news had got out; everyone she'd ever met wanted to make their peace and gain some of that sweet, sweet good karma by visiting a poor, dying cancer patient and offering their sympathy and nothing else.
Every day, she would put up with visits from tens of people whose names she could barely recall.
The days and weeks went by in a blur, and eventually she became old news and they stopped visiting.
When she finally felt it coming; in bed, alone and shivering uncontrollably under the weight of five heavy blankets, she reached for her phone and sent a final text message to the one person who never visited.
The one person who mattered.
When her clumsily typed "i love you" reached him, he glanced at his phone for one second...
Then he deleted the message and smiled at his date apologetically.
"Sorry about that... you were saying?"
***************************
He came to; not really understanding how it was even possible.
Dizzy and confused, he tried to sit up but his harnesses kept him in place.
He glanced to the left and saw his mother sleeping in her chair. His girlfriend was sprawled on the couch next to her, also asleep.
He tried to piece together what had happened; but his cognitive abilities weren't yet fully functional... he knew he'd definitely been in a car crash, and that it was serious enough that the deployed airbag knocked him out on impact. He also knew that it must have been a few days ago, since the itchy stubble covering half his face must have had some time to grow.
He remembered his last thought being "Yep. I'm going to die now".
How was he awake, then? He was in seven different types of pain and pumped so full of pain killers that his head was swimming and he wasn't thinking very clearly; but he was still very much alive. It just didn't make sense.
He suddenly became aware of a dull ache in his chest. A quick inspection revealed a vertical incision at least 7 inches-long. Something definitely wasn't right.
He glanced at the bed-side table on his right and saw a letter. With a sinking feeling, he reached out and grabbed it.
It was addressed: "To my only son; from a terrible father".
His hands shaking, he tore up the envelope and unfolded the letter.
"I tried to do one thing right... I'm sorry for everything I put you through.
Remember me fondly, son... and take good care of my old ticker"
His estranged abusive father had died to save his life, and he never even had a chance to say goodbye to him...
but the worst part was that he still couldn't forgive him.
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Retirement suited her well.
Her days were as similar as they were stereotypical; she would sit on the front porch with her husband of 50 years, knitting as he read the morning paper... then at noon, they would visit one of their friends for lunch and card games, and in the evening they would watch TV in the living room... and every night they would go to bed at 9, like clock-work.
It was perfectly normal for a couple that had been together for as long as they had to fall into a rut, she reasoned... especially as they both aged and had less and less energy to fight or try to spice things up... but deep down, she knew that was nonsense.
After all these years, she could still see him from the corner of her eye as they watched TV, looking at her with that bright twinkle in his eyes and the hint of a satisfied, loving smile on his lips. She could still tell that he loved her as much as he had 50 years ago when she agreed to marry him. In his mind, she knew there was no doubt whatsoever; she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Would that she felt the same about him.
For 50 years, she tried to love him, and for 50 years she failed... and every night, she would still go to sleep thinking about her real love; the one she still wondered about after all these years... the one she would have given everything she owned to see again, even once... the one she still cried over, sometimes.
But what her husband didn't know couldn't hurt him. She couldn't give him her love, but she would make sure he died thinking she loved him.
She owed him that, at least.
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I think that's enough for now. Now please google some cat videos for your own sanity.
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