Monday 20th February, the day I died. My heart shattered into minute fragments which now lie at the bottom of my chest. I can feel myself sinking lower and lower towards the immense heat of the 10th level of hell; slowly parts of me will melt into the nothingness of which my life has become. To her, I had now become a gradual silhouette poised upon the horizon, rapidly getting smaller and smaller. I’m now just a distant memory. Perhaps it was all a dream? No, it couldn’t have been, the bitter truth pinched me and cut through my skin and woke me up in time to react to the news, and now I face the toiling chains of sorrow attached to my ankles.
Before this all started, before the sinking, empty, hollow feeling that currently occupies my chest, I used to feel. Not always good feelings, but feelings and memories all the same. The last thing I remember was not a happy thing, it was not a hug from my girlfriend or a phone call of goodwill. The last thing I remember was the transition, the transition between light and dark, good and evil. If I had known then, what I know now, I wonder if I would be here. I certainly wouldn't have taken anything for granted. People used to tell me to take each day as it comes. To live life to the full. But a cynical fool like me used to laugh at such bohemian ways. I felt one had to have a life plan. To know what is going to happen next. I think that's why it was such a shock for me, this journey. It was not on my calendar, in my organiser, or even in my sub-conscious. It happened. And it is still happening. And I don't know why.
After everything i did, all the gestures, the gifts that i gave 'just because'. Maybe it all became too clichéd? Perhaps she was getting too tired of it all; she wanted something different, which explains why she was exchanging saliva with that 6 foot 2 jock. If she didn’t like something, why didn’t she tell me? The only reason I am annoyed, is because she didn’t tell me anything. She was having me on all that time but really she didn’t want anything, now that I look back, I think of how much of a fool I was. I have to move on, there is no way I will sit here like a lemon and wallow in self pity for no apparent reason. As one man said, “We must not mourn over our mistakes, but only learn from then and move on.”
I guess god is just a comedian playing for an audience that is too scared to laugh, and if I don’t do anything to change that, I’m just going to end up like this for the rest of my life. As I venture round my room scavenging for any remnants which may resemble her in any way possible, I begin to wonder what she is doing now, maybe she is out with him- no, stop it! I’ve got to stop thinking about her. I place the various items in a shoe box and conceal the box into the deep corners of my cupboard, never to be found again. I close the door and turn around, only to find the painting she did last week for me, a quiet panoramic view of the woods upon which we first met and fell in love straight away. As I glared at the different colours in the painting, they all seemed to merge into each other, and then I realised that I had started to cry. I wiped my eyes, picked up my trainers and went for a run.
My feet thudding one after the other at a solid pace that matched the beat of the music I was listening to and as I listened to the beat of the music, I envisaged myself running through the labyrinth of my mind. I remembered promising her that she would never find a way to annoy me or upset me……….I guess she did.
Four miles later, and "our" song comes on. I am hit with a memory. A concert, her and I. Because she is by my side, I feel not only invincible, but also sure I am the luckiest man in the arena. She grabs my hand. It is a bitter November evening but the throng of bodies gyrating to the music ensures nobody can feel the cold tonight.
"Andy," she yells, and we run forward with the crowd. We dance, we sing, and we whoop, until our eyes are swollen and our tracheas hurt. Still, to me, she is beautiful. The song rises into the final beats and she pulls me to her. At that moment I could have felt her breath on my neck. Then, the song is gone, leaving me. Faced with reality, a hole in a heart and a lump in my throat, I realise how pointless this run is. The flood of memories caused a lag in my normal thinking and I had run far off my normal route. I am exhausted and a long way from home. If I turn around now, and jog back, I will over-exert myself. If I walk, it will take me hours to get home and the clouds seem to darken as each minute passes. I bite the bullet and run.
I awake in what seems to be a hospital bed, the smell of disinfectant and grapes rushes up my nose, the beeping of the life support machine next to me sounds like the incoherent siren of a police car by the time it reaches my ears, it’s almost like I have tinnitus. The life support machine wasn’t for me, thankfully, it was for the person in the bed next to me. I close my eyes, think about what I last remember doing and open my eyes. What I pictured in my head, was pretty much what appeared before my eyes when I opened them. She stood there, half behind the curtains, looking as innocent as ever. Her smile was sweeter than flowers dipped in honey, yet at every glance I took at her, there was sharp pain pinging in my chest. I looked away only to see my mum beside me. She was sitting on the chair, crying. Dad was nowhere to be found, he was like that, and I knew he wouldn’t come. I bet he is getting angry at this very moment, despite that fact that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I decided to forget about dad, forget about her and turned to talk to mum.
“What happened?” as I turned my whole body to the left, I felt another sharp pain, but this time, around my waist. I lifted the cover to find a shallow cut across my hip, any other time, and it would’ve seemed like nothing, but because I didn’t know what happened, I was ever so slightly worried.
“You were found unconscious in the park near your old school. Andy, what were you d...do...doing?” Mum had managed to hold back the tears momentarily but as she finished off the sentence, they returned and I could tell, regardless of how much she tried to hide them from me.
“I don’t remember-I can’t remember. The last thing I remember was going for a run.” Then it clicked, I had wandered off ‘my route’, I must have run so much that I had fainted.
“Okay Andy, we have run a few tests overnight, and I am glad to say that all is fine and you are free to go now.” The doctor gave a reassuring smile, that’s what I like about doctors; they have that smile which makes you feel safe under their command. Leanne had left now, yes her name is Leanne. She obviously established that I didn’t want to really know her anymore and had left, part of me was happy, but some of me wasn’t I wanted to talk to her about what happened, I felt that talking to her would help me get over her quicker/easier.
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