Brief Separation
Brief Separation
I had been standing on the chair for nearly thirty minutes.
The wood beneath my feet groaned with an uneasy creak, and the rope around my neck was rough.
Fabric that had once been a blanket. Coarse, pitifully humble.
A slight lift of the foot, a kick of the chair — and it would all be over.
Far cleaner than scattering pieces of myself across the room, anyway.
A draft slipping through the window crack brushed my cheek.
Somewhere in the air, I thought I caught a faint trace of lilac, maybe the sweet scent of peaches.
Only then did my mind quiet enough to feel capable of anything at all.
The orange wash of sunset and the cool slip of the breeze had loosened the tension.
I took a deep breath.
In, out. In, out.
I pushed the air from my lungs as far as it would go and closed my eyes.
Then I kicked the chair away.
My eyes flew open against my will.
There was no sound.
Only my body suspended in the air, swaying faintly for a moment like a pendulum.
That was all.
The world surged upward for an instant, then pitched violently down.
My feet groped at empty space.
The solid bite of the wooden chair I should have felt beneath my toes was gone.
I stared at my own legs thrashing where the chair had been, my gaze soaked in resentment.
The sensation of the noose cinching my throat was far sharper than I had expected, and far more repellent.
Coarse fibers grinding into the skin.
The airway narrowing to a pinprick.
Pressure mounting as blood hammered into my skull.
A choked noise.
Something like a frog being crushed deep in my throat.
The agony was so blinding that I clawed at the rope holding me up.
'Fuck, I should've just jumped.'
My legs kicked at the air without my permission.
The instinct to live — or at least to escape this pain — thrashing through my limbs.
But the harder I struggled, the tighter the noose bit down.
The mirror by the front door caught my reflection.
A face flooded with blood, streaked with tears.
Saliva and snot mingling as they slithered down my chin.
Hardly a dignified sight for a necktie. Pathetic garbage.
My tongue thrust out grotesquely as I twisted and clawed at the rope, fingers sliding off, again and again.
Hideous.
Utterly hideous.
I could not breathe.
My lungs burned like they were on fire.
What a farce.
This isn't how it's supposed to go.
Wasn't death meant to carry some solemnity — some stillness?
At least when some Mexican with a chainsaw or a knife wasn't on screen.
Especially in novels, movies, comics.
This isn't real.
There should be a quiet swell of music, a slow-motion drift, the wistful internal monologue of a dying man.
Even without the artistic staging, I didn't think death was supposed to look this ugly.
But right now, I looked like a fish flopping on a vendor's slab, seconds from being sold for pocket change.
An ugly one, at that. All bones. The kind nobody bothers to buy.
Who would look at this and see tragedy?
Just a scene from a low-budget comedy where a third-rate villain dies like a punchline.
If I weren't the one dangling from the ceiling, I might've laughed at the reflection.
No bullet, so I should've just thrown myself off a high place. What kind of spectacle is this?
That old spire would've done fine. Hell, the Academy Clock Tower would've sufficed if I'd wanted to paint my brain across the pavement in front of all those fine, upstanding students.
A head-first drop. Clean. No time for this idle chatter burning through my skull.
Was it really scarier than this?
The height? Or that brief, crushing moment of falling?
No matter how I turned it over, it would've been better than dangling here with a shredded blanket knotted around my throat, twitching like a fool.
Maybe, buried somewhere in the deepest unconscious, I'd been hoping after all.
Wishing for someone to kick the door down, scream, yank me down. A shabby little fantasy.
The lowest form of attention-begging: 'Look how much I hurt. Please, just look at me.'
That thing, you know.
The kind of stunt pulled by kids drowning in puberty or the love-starved, the deeply mentally ill.
Which, now that I thought of it — 'Ravin Edelgard' was exactly that. A broken, affection-starved wreck of a boy.
No other explanation for how he'd contaminated even the mind of the soul possessing him.
That fucker. Not once.
Not once since I opened my eyes here has he left anything intact.
If he had talent, he buried it. If he didn't, he could've at least lived decently. If Levina was the problem, he should've just died. Killed himself.
So that I wouldn't have to become 'Ravin.'
Or maybe the problem's mine?
Am I so filthy a creature that I blame others, blame the world, even as I'm dying — still craving someone's pity?
What's so wrong with wanting to be loved?
The moment my eyes opened here, I inherited every wretched memory of that lunatic 'Ravin.' And still, I tried. I reached for love.
Thinking I'd get back whatever I gave.
That novelist famous for suicide — I'm sure the instant he kicked the chair away, he didn't think of anything profound. Just, 'Fuck, this really hurts.'
At least that man left words behind. What have I left?
Nothing. Not a single thing worth keeping in this world.
The only words I've heard since I arrived are the curses wishing I'd die by morning.
A rotting peach, a filthy room, and soon, a slab of cooling meat.
So pathetic as mementos go it's almost enough to make me weep.
What will Levina think when she sees me?
Probably, 'The family disgrace finally found its proper place.' She'll be pleased.
Sitting there, fuck, on Kyle's right, maybe murmuring some shit about how she's sad her brother is dead but maybe a little relieved too.
Serepina would be on the left.
I hate that. I really do. I don't want to see it while I'm alive.
Hell, I don't want to see it after I'm dead either.
My head runs this sharp even while I'm dying.
Guess I should be grateful — if I hadn't strung myself up, I never would've known.
Feels like my eyes are being pulled out of their sockets.
Right as my vision began to haze over, the door opened.
Creeeak.
A familiar sound.
The footsteps that came for me every morning.
Serepina walked in.
She was wearing a white apron, same as always.
A feather duster in her hand.
She didn't see me.
Her gaze went to the bed where I usually lay, to the sofa where I usually sat.
She took no interest in the figure dangling overhead.
Serepina scanned the room with practiced ease.
Right below where I hung, thrashing in the air, she knelt down and began wiping the dust from the floor.
'Serepina.'
No voice came out.
Only my mouth opened and closed, silent.
She didn't hear me.
She was humming softly, wiping the table.
The peach Estelle had left.
Her hand passed right over it.
It had rotted.
One side collapsed into black mush, fruit flies wreathed above it in a tiny, buzzing halo.
She picked up the cloth again and started cleaning around the chair I'd kicked away.
Then, staring toward the empty bed where no one lay, she spoke.
"The weather's nice today, Ravin."
Above her head, my shadow stretched long.
It swayed grotesquely, like a convict hung from the gallows.
"I should've opened the windows. Too much dust in here."
She walked to the window and threw it wide open.
The gray, hazy air outside seemed to push into the room.
"Kyle came by yesterday. Talked about you.
Asked if maybe you had some kind of hold over me. If I was being manipulated.
Said if anything was wrong, he'd help anytime."
And when Serepina righted the chair again, my feet found nothing.
Even when my toes brushed the seat, they just slipped past.
"So I just said you were a good person. Didn't seem like he believed me, though."
Of all the ways to go, I never figured I'd die listening to idle chatter.
Forget a life flashing before my eyes — my deathbed view was Serepina tidying my room.
My consciousness pulled further away.
The dark crept in from the edges of my sight.
After a point, I couldn't hear her anymore.
Even the pain grew distant.
My body was just a heavy piece of meat suspended in the air.
The corners of my vision bled black.
In a landscape narrowing like a tunnel, only Serepina's back remained clear.
She was looking out the window.
I couldn't tell at what.
Probably at that weather she'd said was so nice.
I should've just jumped from a high place.
It might've been a little frightening, but it wouldn't have been this miserable farce.
My thrashing legs went slack and dangled limp.
My arms, too.
The fingers that had been clawing at the noose loosened, strengthless.
There was nothing left I could do.
My lungs convulsed, starving for one last sip of air.
My heart raged against its end, then slowly began to slow.
Serepina seemed to turn around.
I couldn't be sure. The dark had nearly swallowed everything.
At least next time, I won't do this idiotic thing — hang myself like a fool.
The last thing I saw was the afternoon sunlight, dancing with dust.