Poetic Tragedy

A young man, attending school like any normal person his age, on the cusp of life in the real world, and no true direction was waiting to see an academic advisor to gain some direction on his life.  He had thoughts of being; a chef, paramedic, doctor, lawyer, writer, research psychologist, astronomer, archeologist, as well as a marine biologist.  His options were limitless and he was stuck.  “What to do, what to do?” he thought as he sat in the office of the academic advisor.  He stares at his watch, wondering when the man would appear.  “He’s over 30 minutes late.  I wonder what could have happened.”  Then, all of a sudden, he heard an explosion coming from inside the office and the door flew open.  An open hole remained where the office once stood.  He looked around, and edged in, where the found the advisor, or what was left of him huddling under his desk.  The ideas of what could have happened were racing through his mind as he asked the advisor what happened. 

“The less you know the better. Now get out of here!” But it was too late, and a large crowd of people were gathering around.  The boy decided to run, but where to?  He went back through the blasted open door, sprinted out the lobby door and into the hallway.  The hallway was filled with screaming people, he had to get out.  He ran to the elevator, and it was off. Duh. It’s an emergency, he thought to himself and almost let out a little laugh. The crowd was growing frantic, it was slowly becoming every man for himself and that was unacceptable.  This brave young man, albeit terrified, shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Everybody stay calm! Help is on the way and all of you will be perfectly fine, just make sure you keep each other safe.”  As he looked around the room, he could see the unfortunate, helpless people strewn about as if they were a bloody, gruesome second layer of carpet.  A chill went down his spine, and he thought of all the families who had just lost a mother, or father, child, or a sibling.  A tear dropped, down his cheek, into his mouth and he could taste the salt he’d come to associate with pain and despair.  “This is my calling, this is what I need to do for the rest of my life, but what am I doing?”  This so-called calling truly gave him no answers as his despair and worry about the history of his, and the worlds future grew to enormous levels. 

Once the small academic building was evacuated, the authorities and the students in the building were cheering him, and the most beautiful girl he had seen gave him a very long, wet kiss in her gratitude.  The next person to approach was a police officer, questioning him on how everything happened.  How he got into the office, if he’d been in there before or if he had a vendetta against the professor.  On the contrary, this particular professor happened to be one of his favorites, and he was looking forward to nothing more than this meeting that never happened.  The boy longed to hear from the professor, to get answers.  This whole situation seemed a little off, like there was something bigger than a room exploding in motion. The true question was what, and who would want to harm this small university in the middle of Michigan.

The police officer, for some reason seemed strange too, he was very much built and very muscular.  This is much different from the usual officers walking around campus, with their Tasers and batons because they could not carry actual weapons.  He not only had a pistol on each side of his suit coat, as well as in a holster on his waist.  The boy began to realize this was no officer, maybe not even a detective.  Something big was going on, and he knows the explosion had something to do with it.  “Why had the professor chosen me to have an appointment when he was on the verge of death?  He became very frustrated, and decided to leave the area, now.

Running, the boy ran off campus to the city the school was in.  The city even seemed to be deserted.  The usual bustle of people visiting the shops and restaurants were not even open, he didn’t know what to do.  The answer came quickly and he ran to the police station.  Living on campus most definitely had its perks, like the police station being very close.  He got there and tried to open the door; “Locked!”  He begins to slam the windows and no one answers, around the back he could see that a door was ajar.  This was odd for a usually locked police station so he decided to go in.  The thoughts in the back of his head nagged, and nagged. “What was happening, why the school so full, but the town was not.  He decided to call 911 and they answered.  The sound on the other side was very foreign.  It almost sounded like a fax machine or a type of artificial communication.  This boy became terrified and had no idea why or how these things were happening. 

Before today, he was just a normal boy, dreaming of the perfect life in America; great job, beautiful wife, with intelligent, athletic kids. But that would all change.  He left the police station and went back to campus, or where the campus once stood.  This was unreal, was he dreaming? He pinched himself over and over, trying to wake up, but nothing.  This seemed to be real and was beginning to make the boy worried.  Where were his friends, his family?  It seemed he was the only person, only thing left on the planet.  Over minutes the world, piece by piece slowly disappeared.  This was really freaking him out, the world seemed to be ending and the only people he could see were faceless bodies in grey jumpsuits, slowly walking around aimlessly, clumsily.  He tried to talk to one of the impersonal drones and was immediately struck across the face.  Stunned at this action, he retaliated and hit the being back.  Upon contact, the thing melted into nothing more than a puddle and the blandest jumpsuit he had ever seen. 

This jumpsuit was very unordinary, he was expecting some zippers, buttons, or even arm and leg wholes to put the outfit on but there were none, and it was a solid piece of fabric.  “What is this place? Why am I here?”  He asked out loud.  As the seconds flew by, they felt like hours, days, he could not explain this new foreign land that was void of individuality, and communication.  The boy had been working over fifteen years to get out into the real world and start his life, the American Dream.  And now, in an instant he was thrown into what he felt to be an alternate universe.  This place full of grey and faceless people and no color whatsoever seemed to be his new permanent home and he had to live with it.

If the man were to continue this life he would have needed to blend in, to dress, act and think the same way the rest of this unknown place did.  How to blend with these “things”, he did not know, he did know it was necessary.  He found the pile of goop that was once the being he encountered and attempted to put the hole-less, zipper-less suit on and, to his surprise it warped to his body.  The suit had a feeling to it, like it was trying to gain access to his face, to his mind, to his entire body.  The thoughts rushing into his mind were nothing but darkness, his personal thoughts, ambitions, and beliefs were being taken away, and he could feel it happening.  The old boy who was once a free-thinker, a believer and a future man to be in the history books, was disappearing in front of his eyes and he had no way of stopping it.  The world as he knew it was over and a new one began, one where all people are the same, and individuality are looked down upon.  The new world is bleak, and meaningless.  There is no art, no music, only bureaucracy and corruption and 1 percent of the population controls the rest.  The man could not believe his eyes and the world he saw.  It scared him, terrified him and he wanted to do something to help, but what was there?  The thought of living in this society with no individualism and expression, the freedoms people around the world used to take advantage of, like free speech and even deciding you’re career are over and the man couldn’t live with this corrupt, mindless society.

The man, now dressed in grey, unable to escape from the constraints of the suit was going mad, his face beginning to blur as he couldn’t think for himself, it was as if the suit was doing it for him.  He could not live with himself if this happened, and he started to run, run to find anything useful.  In his mind, he could no longer live, and he knew he must save as many souls in this bland, unimaginable world as he can.  He was not a violent man, he cringed when a girl made him kill a bug, but these were not human, he could not tell what they were.  All he knew was that he was putting them out of their misery.  He knew his old roommate always had a loaded shotgun under his bed, and he also knew the second a shot was fired, these mindless beings would be curious and check out the situation.  He had no clue how they would react, fight for each other or run, but he knew what he had to do, kill them, kill them all until he was taken down or out of bullets.  Knowing there was no outcome in this situation I which he would make it out alive, he stuck one final shell in his pocket, as he vowed to use it at the last possible situation he could in case by some miracle the situation in his area was not the norm, and his hopes rose as he thought of a helicopter or tank to take him from this god-forsaken place. 

Shotgun in hand, he stepped in to the street and opened fire, after being hit by anything these people, things, would melt to nothing.  He fired shot after shot and hundreds, maybe thousands of these creatures’ liquid remains, and plain grey suits littered the ground in the middle of the city.  He was being damaged, completely emotionally, for the things were never getting near him, most didn’t even know he was in existence.  They just carried on their monotonous grey tasks and occasionally glanced at the boy, only to be shot.  He knew these were unprovoked killings, and the tears he shed were more severe and lasted longer than he had ever known before.  Before this exact moment he had never ever struck another person, or anything other than an insect.  The toll of “dead” dead was rising and he had no means to keep track.  The street had over an inch of goo in it from the deceased things, and it showed no sign of stopping.  He couldn’t let these people live out their lives like this, they were going to be much happier than they are now.

He was going to be a hero. He just knew it.  Saving all those zombies and drones from the life no one could want to live.  The young man was excited almost hysterical, thinking of the good he had just done.  He saved hundreds, maybe even thousands from an emotionless, unfulfilling life.  But just then he heard sirens, and a lot of them.  He could hear cars screeching, and he thought he could hear a helicopter or two in the background, “Probably some reporters coming to congratulate me on a job well done. I just saved the city, the university and maybe even the world from those evil men and women, walking around in their grey, doing the exact same thing day in, day out, obviously miserable and now happy.”  He was ready, covered in blood as the authorities arrived.  They immediately put the content man in handcuffs and he was off. His mind began to race, “Those people, or things were not human, I know that, but since when has there been a law against killing the undead or whatever they were? I thought I did the city. Country and world and very big favor and maybe even deserve gratitude.”  This man had never been so happy in his life. He would finally make a name for himself as the man who saved the world and his parents would love him unconditionally for the rest of his life.  He was set, and could not wait to cash in on the heroism his fight or flight mechanism had brought him.

“The only gratitude you’ll be getting is a reach-around you sick freak,” one of the police officers said as he looked at the young boy, covered in blood, and reeking of gunpowder.  The boy instantly became confused and the whole thing came back to him.

About a month ago, he began taking a drug designed to aid in the quitting of smoking.  He took it for months, and had actually did quit, but at what cost.  He became different, depressed and just couldn’t have fun.  He proceeded the medicine and slowly but surely he began to smoke again.  He worked, and worked at school, worked and on quitting smoking, without the medication that caused major suicidal thoughts, lucid dreams and sometimes he even would dream in the daytime.  That is what scared him the most, because he could tell that was slowly happening.  He could be sitting on the couch watching T.V. and would see many strange things floating, crawling, and coming near him.  The medicine scared him but not nearly enough.

Handcuffed in the back of a police car, he was still unaware of the situation.  He could completely remember the rampage on the faceless, putty people of just minutes ago, but he could not explain the blood on his hands, or even the fingernail marks on his arms, back and chest.  He asked the police officer what had just happened and with that, the window between the front and back seats was slammed shut.  Lost in his own world, the boy who thought he was a hero, savior of thousands, was now thinking that he was a villain, a true psychopath. 

As the ride to the station got longer the pieces came together, he was afraid of the monotonous life of professional business, as well as most careers and could not stand it.  The chemical imbalance that was permanently caused by the supposed miracle quit-smoking drug, led him to massacre almost 80 people in the thought that they were mindless, corporate drones wearing the same clothes and thinking the same way.  This was mainly because the medicine made him feel as if he were dreaming and the people around him were not real. 

The boy in the story is now serving life in a psychiatric hospital at an undisclosed location due to the amount of people who were killed, or wounded in the Central Michigan Massacre.  His is currently seeking treatment, and over the past five years has tried to commit suicide due to the extent of his damages and the horrible things he’s done.  He will never feel anything but remorse and guilt for the rest of his life for the crimes he committed and works every day to make his peace with the lord, and all those whose families he destroyed.  He is deeply sorry.