Blood in Milk

Glen knelt down on the dirty white tiles of his room. He wondered who would wash the floor after he was taken out.
         “Well, it wouldn’t be my problem anymore, would it?” He said to himself, grating his teeth.
         He bent forward, supporting his body with his left hand and lowered his face to the bowl on the floor, a couple of inches away from the yellow liquid. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the hydrochloric acid that pricked his nose and made his eyes weep. He closed his eyes, pointed the nozzle of the .38 caliber pistol to his temple, then pulled the trigger.

         He opened his eyes and stared at the black ceiling for a long time. The thick phlegm, along with the heavy thumping on his chest, made him lightheaded; blotches of black clouds swirled in front of his eyes. The thumping continued for a minute or two, the black clouds dissipated and then there was only calmness.
         Just a dream, he thought, just a dream.
         Glen did not understand why for the past couple of weeks he kept dreaming of suicide.

The clock on the bedside table said 1:45 am; much too early to rise. He tried to get back to sleep, but thirty minutes later, he stood up and went out of his room.
         He sat silently on the dining table drinking his cold milk. He usually hurried up to finish his milk and run back to his room every time he woke up in the middle of the night, but tonight he decided to listen to the dark. The silence was more bearable than going back to sleep and dream of death.
         Halfway through his milk, Glen drowsed off.

He was standing on the front lawn holding his glass of milk. It was the middle of the day, but the sky was dark from the thick smoke coming from the house.
         He knew that he started the fire.
         He knew that the stove was still running when he left the candle in the kitchen floor.
         He knew that he locked every door in every room of the house before he went outside to finish his milk.
         He knew everybody was dead as he sipped his milk.

The sound of the breaking glass cracked the silence. Glen had slipped off the chair while holding the glass and was now on the floor drenched in blood and milk.
         This was new to him, his dream; he had never dreamt of killing anybody else except himself. He stood up and stared at the mess he made; the broken glass and the blood in milk.
         He wondered what it tastes like.

Glen went to the kitchen and took a knife. He walked through the dark hall, back to his room. He stared at his empty bed, imagining that he was still sleeping underneath the sheets, dreaming of his own death.
         He was not scared anymore.
         Why should he be?
         After all, he had been dreaming about this for two weeks. He knew what to do and how to do it.
         He knew how it would feel.

He stabbed his bed with the knife and as he did so, he felt pain in his stomach.          Blood began to drip down his legs. He held his belly, trying to suppress the sputtering blood.
         I should wake up now, he said.
         But he did not.
         He looked down his body, feeling the blood and the milk on his pajamas, I should wake up now, he repeated.

It was not long before Glen started to get dizzy. He had never felt this kind of pain before in his life or in his dreams. He injured his knee once when fell off his bike but that was a long time ago when he was just learning to ride. That kind of pain was nothing compare to this large gash in his stomach that was spewing blood everywhere.
         Glen was beginning to get scared now.
         Realizing that he would never wake up, Glen called out to his Mommy as his 8-year old body fell haplessly to the floor.

The End