The Nameless

The Nameless

September third, two thousand-three

Elizabeth Anne Macdonald

I came to the party on a mission, what it was, is not relevant anymore. But I’m getting ahead of myself….. I saw the girl as I came in; I paused for a moment and felt something, something very small but I felt it.
Could it be…?
She was smashed and I felt sorry for her but more than sorrow, almost pity.
She lay on the kitchen tile, pale as ice, eyes wide and glazed over, her long red hair matted around her, her own vomit covering the front of what was once a white shirt with pink feathers but now resembled a dead, smelly, and funny colored bird. If you looked closer you could see it crusted into her cleavage. But I chose to ignore the oddvious, and did nothing to help her; I had more important things to do.
So important.
I did what I had come here to do, unawares of the drama unfolding behind me as the young girl stopped breathing.
Frustrated with my own troubles, I ganked a glass of baccardi razz out of a teen boys hand. He promptly fell over and joined the many anonymous on the floor.
Alone.
As I drank, the girl behind me turned blue, but no one cared, no one saw.
They say everyone dies alone, and she was alone even with so many around her, she was alone. Three hours later someone realized that the nameless girl was dead.
I lay on the couch, to drunk to move, watching it unfold before my eyes. Paramedics rushed around, calming hysterical people, trying to make everything better. Then I realized, It will never be better for her, the beautiful nameless.
She is dead.
Such strong words, they cut me to the deep, that morning, when I swore I would go sober the rest of my life. They carried her away on a stretcher, covering her face with a sheet.
Gone in one moment.
Soon I too was loaded onto a stretcher, but I was to live and she was not.
I didn’t understand.
I wanted her to live, because she deserved it more than me. I puzzled over fuzzy questions as the paramedics hooked me to IVs.


On the second day I woke up to find that I would be released from the hospital in 3 hours and my parents had come to get me.
I cried when they asked me if I had known her, the girl that had died, then I begged them to find out when and where her funeral would be.
If only I had known her!
They took me to it, already in progress; there stood a priest, men to carry the casket, and an overseer. I cried again and again as they lowered her into the ground.
Anonymous.
The priest’s voice carried through my sobs.
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
He was done and I was the only one there to pay her tribute, she had truly died alone.
I stood there waiting for someone to appear, someone who loved her, even knew her but none appeared.
I stood watching them toss dirt on her grave.
As the nameless child disappeared from this world, a sudden anger gripped me.
It shouldn’t be this way!
I think, as I grasp the black rose I hold in my hand. The thorns prick me and in reaction I drop it. As I walk away, there still lays, on the top of her grave,
A bloodied black rose.