Save Me

The alarm rang, an electric chirruping being forced into Ash’s skull, alleviating the darkness in his mind, only to be replaced by the true darkness of an early morning. He peered over at the alarm clock- as one usually does with a measurable amount of distaste –and processed the ominous red numbers: 5:05 AM. He pressed his palm to the snooze button, knowing well that he wouldn’t be going back to sleep this morning, but pushed the button none the less out of sheer habit. He retracted his hand lazily from the clock and rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and index finger, then hauled himself up from the bed and blindly made his way to the light switch, knowing of its location because of-once again- habit.
The harsh, false light flashed through the room, making Ash tip his head down and cover his eyes, denying the light. It was too early, much too early. Anytime was too early for this kind of light, Ash turned the lights back off and sunk comfortably into the darkness. He was at home when he couldn’t see a thing but the little apathetic numbers glowing solemnly in the depthless space.
Ash stood on one spot on the carpet for a while, watching the sun’s form begin to poke itself up over the windowsill, slowly dimming the red numbers on the alarm clock and illuminating the dust moats that swam languidly between the patches of light framing the diamond pattern on the carpet. He retreated to the bathroom as soon as the sun’s rays had reached his bare toes.
Ash stared at the bottles lined up on top of the toilet and around the edges of the sink throwing their little orange shadows around the room. They were reminders of the pain. They were reminders of a girl. A very, very special girl. The girl that had stolen his heart without permission and had crushed it up in her pretty hands and had let it fall away with the wind. Like a crushed can of Coke rolling along the highway on a windy day that shall never be picked up and have the metal creases smoothed away. It was more violent though, not so poetic. It was more like being dropped off a cliff intentionally and left to drown in a sea of cyanide that never touches the skin, but only the metaphorical heart, dissolving it up into a curdled mess that’s identifiable with Tabasco and cottage cheese.
He looked at himself in the mirror for only a spit second to see if he could find what he was looking for. And he didn’t see it, so he backed out of the bathroom, the sunlight slashing across his back. He squinted as he turned to scour the room for a pair of jeans. He picked up the first ones he saw- balled up in a corner near the plastic hamper- and sniffed them briefly, then slipped them on. He lifted his backpack off of the floor, slung it over his back and left his room.
Ash entered the hallway. It was clean, dark, empty. Not even a family photo marked their presence in the house. No one in the house was stirring. His parents were still asleep because they had nightshifts at their works. His mother was an RN and his father worked at the local Walgreens. The usually woke up sometime before Ash got home from school.
He moved his way into the kitchen silently and looked around for a while and decided against eating anything. What was the point? He would die eventually.
But then again, even trying to eat made him nauseous. The last time he ate was three days ago and even that, chicken and steamed broccoli, ended up in the toilet.
He left his house. It was still early and the sidewalks were still wet from the sprinklers the night before. The walk to school was about a mile and a half, about twenty five minutes walking fast.
As he walked, he thought about nothing. But nothing wasn’t really nothing. Ash’s definition of nothing was anything that wasn’t her or even remotely related to her. So what was left was what he thought about.
Ash thought about the trees that were placed in various spots in the cemetery he always cut through. The trees were old- at least they seemed to be that way. The deep folds in the damp, dark trunk appeared to be liked tired wrinkles and the branches were bony and split off into thinning sections that held sparse tufts of pine needles.
The sun cast long morning shadows through the trees that hung proudly, yet wearily over the gravestones. The trees knew the troubles of death and were well aware of pain and had seen it many times.
Ash moved more quickly now, no time to think. He had checked his internal clock and it said it was time to move. So he sped up into a fast walk and came upon the fence he hopped most every day. So he clambered up over the iron bars and dropped down onto the sidewalk parallel to a local cornfield that had tall, bright green stalks, glistening with the morning dew.
Ash continued to walk down the sidewalk. He passed a couple of stoners from his school huddled by a tall fence.
They didn’t notice him.

Ash was early getting to school and there were hardly any students in the building and no one but he was in the math classroom. Ash was settled into his plastic chair at the back of the cold room, trying to read a book, Fahrenheit 451, for LA next hour. He hadn’t read it at home because he hadn’t been conscious from what he could recall. But he couldn’t read, not then. The lights were too bright. It was too quiet. He tried to make up excuses that weren’t true. He knew what wouldn’t let him read, but he didn’t trust himself enough. He had become like a stranger to himself, someone he could stare down, gawk at, maybe listen to sometimes. But he was not friends with this stranger. He could not tell this stranger the truth, because then the truth might be told and the truth was not meant to be told. The truth would result in things he wouldn’t dare deal with. No. He was fine with letting the truth not be known to the stranger. Only he knew, the new Ash. The Ash that hadn’t been born yet. The old Ash is a normal teenage boy who happens to be quieter than the other students and has an inability to make friends and can’t hold down a job, let alone food. The old Ash upsets his family. The old Ash doesn’t kiss his mother goodnight. The old Ash doesn’t get on the honor role though he is a ‘bright but troubled boy’. The old Ash claims that there is nothing wrong with him and blames everything on his father’s alcoholism and says that he has a scar on his back from being slammed into the sink by his drunken daddy. The old Ash has no scar. The old Ash lies and hurts… And now he is quiet. Dormant. Waiting to escape from wherever he is. Waiting to blow a gasket and fuck up real bad and then die. The old Ash is Ash. The new Ash is not Ash.
And then he stopped thinking. This was what thinking lead to. His head on the desk, thinking too much. Hearing the fluorescent lights above zinging in his ears likes it’s been lodged into his brain. Thinking makes him clutch his thighs real tight until he feels them go numb. And then, the bell rung, right inside his head. And he stopped thinking and lifted his head up and smoothed out his jeans, running his hands fast up and down the denim until his palms burn, making them itch. So he itched his palms and muttered to himself about nothing. He knew he was sweating like a pig. His hair was damp so he pushed back his greasy/sweaty brown mop and itched his sweaty/itchy hands again. No one noticed what he was doing. Class started and he was alone in the back row of the classroom itching his hands and rubbing is thighs and thinking about nothing and then it wass hot under the lights and he started to sweat even more. So he payed attention to the teacher and stops itching. It’s time to learn he mouthed.
Ms. Denbough was talking about the weekend. She’s asking students what they did and really caring. She was nice. She liked kids. She cared about her students, or seemed to. Ms. Denbough’s gaze trailed over to Ash. “Ash. Can you tell me what you did this weekend?” She paused for Ash to answer her and kids turned around in their seats, wondering who this ‘Ash’ kid is. Then they realized who he was and their faces floaedt back to the board.
Ash couldn’t make the words come out. They piled up against his clamped lips. They seemed to be held tight like a vice from the wood shop classroom downstairs. Like a big, metal vice was his lips and no one could turn the handle so the words would come undone. Ms. Denbough continued to look at Ash for a few seconds. He couldn’t even shake his head. She was looking at him like she cares and it hurts because he knows he can only disappoint her. She shook her head a little when she knew he wasn’t going to answer and turned her attention to the board, starting the lesson.
During class she looked back. Once, only once. And her face looked so sad. So sad. Her blue eyes darkened and yet lightened. Her pretty features downshifted into a scrunch and then she whipped around and began to write on the board again with her red Expo marker. She wiped her face a couple times before she turned back to the class with a withering smile that somehow never faded.

And this made Ash sink a little more. Made him soften a little more. And then made him harden his heart, whatever it was. He didn’t want it. It hurt him too much. So he made it tougher. So no one could go past the tough skin and get somewhere. And the walls of the ‘heart’ had been broken and so with that look, he stitched it back up in the back of the math classroom and hardened it like beef jerky so even that look could never hurt him. The pity would not ever hurt him again. He would never hurt again. No one could be let in. So he couldn’t be hurt. And yet, he was hurting himself, just by saying he couldn’t be.