It was another dream. It was the same dream.
I was screaming and screaming at the side of the building, my hands grappling with the open air above Third Avenue.
My eyes moved from the heavens to the city below and I watched Brett's body descend peacefully through the sky.
He was falling again.
I was screaming again.
I could never stop it.
Paul covered my mouth to stop the sound…
"Jake." The sound of my name rang through my pounding head, bouncing off the inside of my skull. I was already awake – I had been for hours – but I didn't want my girlfriend to know that. Not this morning. I needed this morning by myself.
So I pretended to be asleep.
She whispered my name once more but I made no response. My carefully regulated breathing lied to her and she left my side, pulling her robe from the chair next to our bed and shuffling out of the room. As soon as she'd closed the door I let my eyes flutter open. My eyelids peeled themselves back until my eyes were as wide as they could get. I wanted no chance to relive the dream in my waking hours.
I lay in bed for God knows how long before she came back.
"Jake," she said again, her voice firmer this time, "are you just going to lie in bed all day? It's already one o'clock."
I didn't answer her. I wanted her to go away.
"Jake," she demanded. "Jake."
"What, Corinne?" I asked in resignation. I turned my face away from her and focused my eyes on the wall as a long pause settled between us.
"You dreamt about him again?"
I shrugged. I was reluctant to admit that Brett still plagued my thoughts. When my friend had first died I'd had nightmares about reliving his death several times a night. Now, eight years later, I still dreamt about him every other night without fail. It was always the same dream: I was screaming, Paul was covering my mouth, and Brett was falling.
"Maybe you should see a doctor," Corinne said, suddenly breaking through my reverie. She knew better than anyone about the dreams I had. It was a shame she couldn't figure out how not to annoy me. Between my lack of sleep and the constant thoughts of my dead friend, I was one step away from kicking her to the curb. It didn't help that she always second guessed any decision I made about myself.
Sometimes, I got the feeling that she thought I was incompetent.
I sat up in bed and whipped my head around to stare her in the eyes.
"And what would happen then, huh?" I snarled at her. "I know what'd happen. They'd ask me to get a bunch of useless tests done and I'd probably have to do about six sleep studies and all that would come out of it is a box of prescription sleeping pills that I'd have to take for months and that I'd probably become addicted to. Christ, Corinne, do you want me to end up like Paul?" My girlfriend looked sheepishly away from me and for a moment I felt guilty for attacking her, but then I didn't care. She was irritating and I was angry. I hadn't slept in a decade and it was all because my asshole friend had to trip off a roof.
I was pissed. I was hurt.
I was fucking broken.
I buried my face in my hands and drew my knees to my chest as all these realizations swept over me at once. Before I could stop myself, I was wracked with sobs. My body quivered with the force of my sorrow and I lost myself at once. I barely felt Corinne's touch on my back as she tried to comfort me. All I could think about was my lack of sleep and Brett.
Then, all at once, I became aware of everything that was touching me, everything that was around me. I was so hypersensitive to my surroundings I thought I was going to explode and the final trigger was Corinne's nails on the back of my neck. She was trying to soothe me but it felt as though she'd touched my final trigger.
In an instant, I swung out my right arm and backhanded her. The force of the blow struck her so hard that she was turned away from me and fell gasping to the floor, the bedsheets tangled around her waist. She lay there on her stomach, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her. For a moment I was so shocked at myself that I couldn't even move.
Then I felt rage.
I leapt off the bed and grabbed one of Corinne's legs. I pulled her body toward mine with such anger and force that I surprised myself, but the boiling heat of my fury was cleansing. I could feel the anger slowly burning out all the debris that Brett's death had left within my heart and soul. I grabbed Corinne's arm, giving no thought to her safety, and flipped her over onto her back.
"Jake, I'm sorry. Jake, stop," she demanded, her voice wavering with fear. Hearing her terrified words only incensed me further and I pulled back my right arm before letting my fist fly.
I punched her as hard as I could in the face.
"Jake, no! Please stop! Jake!" she screamed but I kept punching her over and over again, feeling her high cheekbones and perfect forehead slowly give way to my knuckles. The more I punched her the more the raging fire in me burned and the purer I felt, so I punched and punched until the human head beneath my hand was reduced to a pile of bloody brainy mush.
When I was finally able to stop myself, Corinne was unrecognizable. She had ceased flailing long ago but I had continued my assault just to keep the fire within me alive. I had finally found a way to forever kill the remains of Brett that had lodged within me.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
He Fell Off
My name is Ace Brigham.
I'd like to tell you a story.
In 2002, while I was attending college at NYU, something kind of terrible and kind of great happened all in one shot. It was about four o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday and I'd spent the night drinking with the same friends I'd had since freshman year. We were getting drunker and more rowdy by the second and, to avoid being caught by campus police, we took our party up to the roof of our dorm. I still don't remember how we got there.
We were all having a grand time stumbling around until my friend Brett got too close to the edge. I literally turned around and he was gone. The only thing that clued us in to his location was the sickening thud of his body hitting the ground. I froze as my remaining three friends ran to the ledge and looked over, one of them yelling Brett's name as another clamped his hand across the screaming friend's mouth.
"Dude, shut the fuck up!" he whispered loudly. I can't remember his name now.
"Brett just fell off the fucking roof!" the screaming friend whispered back. "What the fuck do you want me to do?! How the fuck am I supposed to react?!"
"Both of you shut the fuck up!" the third of them said. "We have to get all the beer and shit and get off the roof. Someone must've fucking heard that!" The screaming friend stared at the third friend with a frightened look before all three of them ran towards me, gathering up our empty beer bottles as they went.
"Ace, let's fucking go!" the screaming friend whispered to me. His whispers sounded like screams.
"What the fuck, Ace?! We've got to go!" the third friend said, grabbing my forearm and trying to drag me along behind them, but I couldn't move. I could just stare at the spot where Brett had been.
I wonder what he looks like down there. A third-year bio-chem student, my fascination with the human body had manifested at an early age.
Now it was taking me over.
"Fuck him, let's go!" the second friend said. He grabbed the screaming friend and they all took off at a dead run across the roof. They left me.
I was alone.
Images of Brett flooded through my mind as I stood on the roof, staring where he'd stood only moments before. A single thought penetrated my being: I'll bet his body's all broken.
I stayed on the roof for a few moments more before reality hit me full force. My friend was dead at the bottom of my dorm and I could be held responsible, but that didn't concern me. All that concerned me was that I wanted to see him lying there, dead, blood leaking from places it should leak from and limbs twisted in directions they shouldn't normally twist in. I thought of his head, probably crushed flat from the fall, and the impact his body might've made on the cement sidewalk.
Then I freaked out. The terrifying thought came that someone might get to his body before me and then they'd call the police, who would come and put the body in an ambulance and take it to the morgue.
Then I'd never get the chance to really look at truly broken corpse.
In about fifteen seconds, I was across the top of Third Avenue North, looking desperately for any way in which I could descend the roof. My eyes lighted on the door to a service stairwell, hidden far in the corner of the building, and I ran to it, throwing myself down the stairs. I burst out of a heavy metal door inside the dorm that bore a sign announcing "Employees Only" and booked it to the elevator, where I jabbed the down button several times until the doors slid open. I threw myself into the empty elevator car and hit the button for the first floor. That elevator ride seemed to take years.
When the doors finally slid open to show the first floor lobby, I had to collect myself enough to walk calmly by the security cameras. No one was in the lobby – all the RAs were asleep and the night guard was thankfully missing. Still, I wasn't stupid. It would look suspicious enough later when they played back the tapes and saw me leaving the building right around the time Brett disappeared. I didn't want them to see me rushing.
After I cleared the front doors I let go of my cool. The street was eerily silent and as calm as a ghost town. I paused for a moment to take in the creepiness of a completely empty New York street – this was something I'd never witnessed in the three years I'd lived in the city. The sounds of traffic and people from surrounding blocks told me the thriving metropolis was still alive, but it was like this single block on Third Avenue was a necrotic lesion on the great urban body. I involuntarily shivered from both the wind and a sense of eeriness before I turned and let my eyes fall on Brett.
His body lay prone on the sidewalk, dribbling blood just like I'd imagined he would. Everything about him was flattened and crushed, like God had painted a vision from my dreams.
"Oh." That single, orgasmic word escaped my mouth and a smile unknowingly crept onto my face. I was happy. I was excited.
With a quick glance at my surroundings, I walked to Brett and grabbed his body under the arms. I began to drag him from the shattered pavement where he had first landed. Blood quickly covered my hands and I felt a chill run over my skin at the pleasure of it – it felt good and right. I wanted to bathe in its warmth and thickness. I wanted its coppery scent to surround me as I descended into its vitality.
I shook myself from my dream and focused back on Brett. As I heaved his body upward to get it over a short hedge, I felt everything in him give way and become soft. It was like someone had taken my friend and put him through a meat grinder before pouring him back into his own skin.
He was a human sausage.
In a matter of seconds, Brett's ribs disintegrated. I quickly lost my grip on his arms as his already-thin shoulders shattered further and collapsed into his own chest. A sick gurgling noise came from his mouth and blood began to bubble up, spilling out to coat his neck and chin.
"Shit," I muttered, lunging to grab Brett's arm so I wouldn't drop him. My fingers clasped firmly around his forearm and there was no resistance – it felt like I'd sunk my hand into a pile of Play-Doh that'd been sitting in the sun. The sensation thrilled me but suddenly, I was deadened.
This was my friend. My friend who had recently died. He'd fallen off a roof. And I was playing with his body.
This was my dead friend.
"Dead," I whispered, the words out of my mouth before I realized it. "Shit, Brett."
Before I could stop myself, I turned and vomited in the hedge next to Third Avenue North. Just as I thought I'd finished, I vomited again and then a third time until my body felt wracked with grief and sickness. I feebly held myself above the bushes, my arms shaking from the force of my vomiting and the trauma of realization, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck. It's all I could think at the time. In just a few seconds my overwhelming curiosity and need to bathe in Brett's blood had been replaced by the terrible epiphany that he'd been my friend. Don't get me wrong, some part of me still wanted to open him up and explore every inch of his innards while he was still warm, but that part was quiet now. It was fearful of my violent emotions and the passion that I'd always felt for my friends. There was a greater beast raging in me now than curiosity and I vomited a fourth time just thinking about it.
He's dead, I thought, and all I can think about is examining him. Christ.
I took a minute to collect myself and looked back once at Brett. His face was beginning to bruise now and the lightening sky was illuminating just how pale he was. He'd lost so much blood… he would never be ruddy again, not like I remembered.
As another wave of nausea washed over me, I picked myself up and stumbled out of the hedges.
I ran.
I'd like to tell you a story.
In 2002, while I was attending college at NYU, something kind of terrible and kind of great happened all in one shot. It was about four o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday and I'd spent the night drinking with the same friends I'd had since freshman year. We were getting drunker and more rowdy by the second and, to avoid being caught by campus police, we took our party up to the roof of our dorm. I still don't remember how we got there.
We were all having a grand time stumbling around until my friend Brett got too close to the edge. I literally turned around and he was gone. The only thing that clued us in to his location was the sickening thud of his body hitting the ground. I froze as my remaining three friends ran to the ledge and looked over, one of them yelling Brett's name as another clamped his hand across the screaming friend's mouth.
"Dude, shut the fuck up!" he whispered loudly. I can't remember his name now.
"Brett just fell off the fucking roof!" the screaming friend whispered back. "What the fuck do you want me to do?! How the fuck am I supposed to react?!"
"Both of you shut the fuck up!" the third of them said. "We have to get all the beer and shit and get off the roof. Someone must've fucking heard that!" The screaming friend stared at the third friend with a frightened look before all three of them ran towards me, gathering up our empty beer bottles as they went.
"Ace, let's fucking go!" the screaming friend whispered to me. His whispers sounded like screams.
"What the fuck, Ace?! We've got to go!" the third friend said, grabbing my forearm and trying to drag me along behind them, but I couldn't move. I could just stare at the spot where Brett had been.
I wonder what he looks like down there. A third-year bio-chem student, my fascination with the human body had manifested at an early age.
Now it was taking me over.
"Fuck him, let's go!" the second friend said. He grabbed the screaming friend and they all took off at a dead run across the roof. They left me.
I was alone.
Images of Brett flooded through my mind as I stood on the roof, staring where he'd stood only moments before. A single thought penetrated my being: I'll bet his body's all broken.
I stayed on the roof for a few moments more before reality hit me full force. My friend was dead at the bottom of my dorm and I could be held responsible, but that didn't concern me. All that concerned me was that I wanted to see him lying there, dead, blood leaking from places it should leak from and limbs twisted in directions they shouldn't normally twist in. I thought of his head, probably crushed flat from the fall, and the impact his body might've made on the cement sidewalk.
Then I freaked out. The terrifying thought came that someone might get to his body before me and then they'd call the police, who would come and put the body in an ambulance and take it to the morgue.
Then I'd never get the chance to really look at truly broken corpse.
In about fifteen seconds, I was across the top of Third Avenue North, looking desperately for any way in which I could descend the roof. My eyes lighted on the door to a service stairwell, hidden far in the corner of the building, and I ran to it, throwing myself down the stairs. I burst out of a heavy metal door inside the dorm that bore a sign announcing "Employees Only" and booked it to the elevator, where I jabbed the down button several times until the doors slid open. I threw myself into the empty elevator car and hit the button for the first floor. That elevator ride seemed to take years.
When the doors finally slid open to show the first floor lobby, I had to collect myself enough to walk calmly by the security cameras. No one was in the lobby – all the RAs were asleep and the night guard was thankfully missing. Still, I wasn't stupid. It would look suspicious enough later when they played back the tapes and saw me leaving the building right around the time Brett disappeared. I didn't want them to see me rushing.
After I cleared the front doors I let go of my cool. The street was eerily silent and as calm as a ghost town. I paused for a moment to take in the creepiness of a completely empty New York street – this was something I'd never witnessed in the three years I'd lived in the city. The sounds of traffic and people from surrounding blocks told me the thriving metropolis was still alive, but it was like this single block on Third Avenue was a necrotic lesion on the great urban body. I involuntarily shivered from both the wind and a sense of eeriness before I turned and let my eyes fall on Brett.
His body lay prone on the sidewalk, dribbling blood just like I'd imagined he would. Everything about him was flattened and crushed, like God had painted a vision from my dreams.
"Oh." That single, orgasmic word escaped my mouth and a smile unknowingly crept onto my face. I was happy. I was excited.
With a quick glance at my surroundings, I walked to Brett and grabbed his body under the arms. I began to drag him from the shattered pavement where he had first landed. Blood quickly covered my hands and I felt a chill run over my skin at the pleasure of it – it felt good and right. I wanted to bathe in its warmth and thickness. I wanted its coppery scent to surround me as I descended into its vitality.
I shook myself from my dream and focused back on Brett. As I heaved his body upward to get it over a short hedge, I felt everything in him give way and become soft. It was like someone had taken my friend and put him through a meat grinder before pouring him back into his own skin.
He was a human sausage.
In a matter of seconds, Brett's ribs disintegrated. I quickly lost my grip on his arms as his already-thin shoulders shattered further and collapsed into his own chest. A sick gurgling noise came from his mouth and blood began to bubble up, spilling out to coat his neck and chin.
"Shit," I muttered, lunging to grab Brett's arm so I wouldn't drop him. My fingers clasped firmly around his forearm and there was no resistance – it felt like I'd sunk my hand into a pile of Play-Doh that'd been sitting in the sun. The sensation thrilled me but suddenly, I was deadened.
This was my friend. My friend who had recently died. He'd fallen off a roof. And I was playing with his body.
This was my dead friend.
"Dead," I whispered, the words out of my mouth before I realized it. "Shit, Brett."
Before I could stop myself, I turned and vomited in the hedge next to Third Avenue North. Just as I thought I'd finished, I vomited again and then a third time until my body felt wracked with grief and sickness. I feebly held myself above the bushes, my arms shaking from the force of my vomiting and the trauma of realization, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck. It's all I could think at the time. In just a few seconds my overwhelming curiosity and need to bathe in Brett's blood had been replaced by the terrible epiphany that he'd been my friend. Don't get me wrong, some part of me still wanted to open him up and explore every inch of his innards while he was still warm, but that part was quiet now. It was fearful of my violent emotions and the passion that I'd always felt for my friends. There was a greater beast raging in me now than curiosity and I vomited a fourth time just thinking about it.
He's dead, I thought, and all I can think about is examining him. Christ.
I took a minute to collect myself and looked back once at Brett. His face was beginning to bruise now and the lightening sky was illuminating just how pale he was. He'd lost so much blood… he would never be ruddy again, not like I remembered.
As another wave of nausea washed over me, I picked myself up and stumbled out of the hedges.
I ran.
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