Crimson Tides

Blood is fascinating. The way it rolls down the curve of the arm, the brilliance of it, the all too brief shudder of pleasure-pain it invokes as it forces its way out into the world. With every line, with every cut, the sense of power and of freedom grows. It’s like the wall between the realm of possibilities and reality is being torn down as the blood flows faster and faster.

Or so it seems, when lost in the happening. After, I wonder what I am doing.  I remember all of my ‘potential.’ How I can be anything. The speeches they made, the dreams they had for me. The blind hopes they imposed, the excitement they made me feel for my own life.

Everyone claims that teenagers believe they are immortal...but the truth is that they are simply idealistic. They see the world as a place of possibilities. But now, I see the truth. Idealism has returned to the fantastical world where it belongs. Those dreams are nothing than dreams. The questioning doesn’t happen as often anymore, and all it takes is a flash of that bloody room in my mind and I remember why I do it.

         Will. Will do it. Tonight. Now.
It is so distracting though, watching the blood. Watching it coagulate and flow, slowly form drops, and then fall, down to where it hits with terrible violence that destroys its delicate body, and splashes everything with red brilliance.

That color is forever etched into my mind. The dull crimson glow, winking accusingly in the florescent lights. I see it all again, like a horrible stuck record; it keeps playing. I remember walking into the bathroom, seeing him with the gun in his hand, and speaking those damning words:

“YOU want to kill yourself? Ha! You’ll never do it, you don’t have the guts. You arrogant nothing. You’re nothing.”

And then that defiant roar, and the blood everywhere.

I don’t remember letting go, but I’m falling now. The ground wells very close, but somehow, somehow it feels like it’s getting further and further away. Like I’m falling up, back to the darkness. It grows dim. I can sleep.


* * *

The double suicides on November 27th were a mystery never truly solved. The boys were best friends in life, and so the question of why they both would choose death on the same night pervaded the school and the surrounding community. Slowly, whispers started to circulate, and soon there was a story, an explanation.

As it went, Alex was in the bathroom with a gun, and before his friend’s horrified eyes, before Matthew even had a chance to react, Alex pulled the trigger and splattered his own blood all across the room. Matthew, filled with such noble virtue that he blamed himself, threw himself out of his second story window that night, in hope that he would see his beloved friend once more.

Or so the story went. However, as the years progressed, and new generations came to the school, it began to evolve, until it was classic, familiar to every person in every generation. Alex’s name was no longer remembered. It was only Matthew, who courageously gave his life in vain to save another.

He became the idol of the town, the one who died the way all teenage boys wish: a hero fighting against injustice.