the Blissfully Dead

Belladonna lilies

Did you ever tell me what your favorite flower was? I suppose it wasn’t anything you’d tell a person. I mean you didn’t plan on dying and leaving me to tend your grave. There’s something dark and yet so purely innocent about these belladonna lilies. I mean belladonna is like poison ivy right? These aren’t the same thing but doesn’t it make these innocent looking flowers just seem the more dangerous? I’m going to shed his blood on your grave, taint those pure lilies with his blood, until then I will not rest. After all no person should have to watch while they lowered their brother’s casket into the cold ground.
It’s raining. Can you feel the soft droplets fall? I can hear his footsteps nearing. Feel his anticipation rising with every wasted breath. A gun held close to my heart, a prayer muttered but unheard, my tears lost in the rain.
He looks at me and pulls out his handgun, I pull out mine. I look and see, he’s crying as well. Freeze. It was as though we were just daring the other to shoot, the rain just kept getting worse. You could smell the dead all around you. You could smell the mixed aroma of stinking flowers their loved ones left behind. Graveyards always smelled of cheap flowers and cheap tears.
“Why?” I asked him as he looked at the gun, his hand quivering with…fear.
“Why not.” He replied as I felt my face grew hot.
“Why!” I screamed my finger so close to the trigger, so ready to pull.
“What would you have me say? My life is lived in paranoia.”
“Why…just tell me why.”
He sighs, takes a deep breath wipes his face off with his sleeve. Even if the sleeve is wet and it was raining. “You wake up remembering nothing, never remembered coming home, going to sleep. You then learn to match your blackouts with the killings. You don’t want to believe, you don’t believe, but there in the back of your mind you know you did it,” he said as he gripped the gun, his voice cracking and pausing with adolescent whimpering, “You watch the news, see the damage you have done, and you can’t accept it. You know that you are the monster, the killer, but you won’t accept it. You want justice, you want someone to wake you up from this nightmare, end it all. Do I even have a right to choose how I am to die?” he screamed at me as I looked away, looked away from this disgusting man that stands before me.
The lilies look beautiful when the rain falls onto its delicate petals. The grass glistens and everything seemed so alive in that moment, so green. You would then look up at the sky and see gray, there was no blue in sight, and it was better that way. My hand was stilled. If not for revenge let me kill him out of pity, pity for him, for his future victims. How alive everything was in that moment.
“You’re lucky. I will grant this wish for you. Let me end this quickly and hopefully it will be painless.” I said to him. Was that a look of relief that flashed by?
The gun was ready to fire, my finger signaling the death warrant. I…just…have… to...pull.
He is a murderer, a killer, He killed my twin brother, avenge his death!
You knew this man, not only did you know this man but he was your friend, your confidant. How could you kill this man?
The blood of brothers runs thicker than that of friends.
How so?
He was my brother and Dethro killed him. I must avenge his death!
Why?
Because it is my duty.
You’re just ashamed to face Orson when you yourself die. You are selfish, you only care for yourself. You’re afraid that Orson will hate you and he should. Everyone should hate you. You are a spineless, gutless, coward.
Why not…why can I not avenge my brother?
You are just ashamed. Don’t let your own issues kill the only person who cares about you. Why else would he have done it?
Pull the f***ing trigger. Kill that bastard that killed your brother, kill the bastard that killed eleven others.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as I looked up not even realizing he was still there.
“I…

I…” I stuttered as the gun in my hand was shaking and my grip so hard that my knuckles were white and my nails painfully digging into the butt of the gun.
“What are you waiting for? Don’t you want this? Don’t you want to kill me?”
“I…”
I heard a shot…did I shoot him? My mind was racing, did I even get him? I fell to the floor, was I shot? I looked up, it was still f***ing raining.
I looked and the earth that lay over his resting body was indeed soaked in blood, whose blood is that? Memories fly through my mind, a memory for every tear, a memory for every rain drop.
How could anyone taint those lilies, how is it that red is dripping from its petals... I leave in a land of death and flowers.
In a way I feel happy. My death is beautiful and so very green. I am dying surrounded by flowers, how beautiful. Maybe I will always look back on my death with a smile on my face. What death is more beautiful than a bullet that was well meant? What death is more beautiful than being killed by the one you love? Can we both die? Can we both forget the lies? Can we forget that he is the assailant and the rest of the world his victims? Can we forget that we are men, that we are human beings and just live? Can we forget hatred, sorrow, and pain? That even a monster has the right to choose his own demise?