When The Lights Go Out

His name was Jacob Matherson. He lived, he loved, he smoked, he drank, he partied. He did everything there was to be done in the teenage stereotype of the “good life”. He never had responsibilities, and quite honestly, he didn’t give a shit.

Terrible citizen? Probably.

Happy individual? In every possible way.

With average grades in school, no one expected him to be anything more than the guy who served you food at restaurants, or the guy that sat behind a desk doing busy work. Everyone had expectations of him that he swore he would never live up to. His parents wanted him to go into a profession that would pay well, such as the medical field or the scientific field or even the astronomical field, something extravagant. They asked him what he wanted to be when he was six years old and he told them he wanted to be a garbage man. Not once did he pretend to be someone that he was not.

In his teens, and all through-out high school, Jacob did what he wanted and seldom showed up to any of his classes on time. Which only infuriated the teachers when he somehow managed to pass tests and turn in what little homework they gave. He wasn’t a stupid kid, he was just lazy. And when his parents told him to live a life that he wanted, they had hoped it would be a life that was socially acceptable. Not one that eventually got him thrown out of their house by age seventeen. The constant pot smoking and drinking turned him into a person they believed they couldn’t love anymore.

However, the rough patch between transferring out of a comfortable house to the streets of the city was a short lived one. Say what people might about Jacob, he had street smarts over anything else. However, on several occasions, Jacob woke up wondering where he was. But he only smiled on such occasions and said to himself, “What the fuck did I do last night?”

No matter how much trouble he got into, Jacob always found a way out, whether it be with a winning smile in his repertoire of expressions, or the sharp tongue that he kept in his arrogant head. But he was arrogant for a reason. He had been blessed with his father’s good looks, and his mother’s quick wit. There wasn’t a thing in the world that Jacob couldn’t do if he tried. As it turned out though, there wasn’t a lot that he actually wanted to do. He wanted to do what made him happy, and what made him happy was to drink and smoke until his teeth changed color and his liver gave out. The way he lived, it was a miracle if he lived passed the age of twenty-five.

But that was only the exterior that people saw. Seldom did anyone actually talk to Jacob and find out what his dreams were, what he thought about certain topics, what were his thoughts on why the sky was blue. People hardly stopped to ask him what his favorite color was. He wasn’t a great guy, in retrospect, since he only cared about what it was that he wanted. But he wasn’t a bad guy either. He was content with himself even with all of his flaws. He was defined by what he looked like, and no one took the time to look past his actions, because they took the phrase “actions speak louder than words” far too seriously.”

Miranda Cortez took a deep breath and blinked hard several times, straining valiantly to keep the tears at bay. As much as she wanted to cry at that moment, she couldn’t do so in front of the people sitting before her. She lifted her chin and pressed on, her brown eyes flashing defiantly at the men and women staring at her.

“Jacob was many things that people would consider undesirable, but he was more than some partying, irresponsible boy without goals. He was Jacob Matherson, and he is the reason that we’re all here today. He was an individual that I will never forget, and although he made many choices that made absolutely no sense to me, those were things I could forgive, things that he could surely fix if he wished to do so.

When he messed up and didn’t pay his rent. I gave him a place to stay. When he needed someone just to talk to him, I made myself the person that would listen. When he laid awake in the middle of the night and counted the sounds of his own breathing just to stop thinking and fall asleep, I pretended not to notice. When I would fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning to find him gone, I would act like it didn’t hurt. When he said that I was too good to him, I didn’t believe him.”

Miranda’s voice shook ever-so-slightly at the memories. But she promptly corrected herself and continued to speak.

“Despite all that I have been through with Jacob, on this day, I find it hard to forgive him for bringing us together in such a morbid way. Because he finally made a choice that he couldn’t recover from. And for that, I refuse to forgive him.”

The crowd shuffled uncomfortably, these hadn’t been the words of comfort and mourning that they had all expected. And, much like Jacob Matherson himself, it was unconventional, and therefore fit perfectly into the ceremony of his funeral.

“So, on this day in September, on behalf of everyone here, I would like to say a formal farewell to Jacob Matherson. Son, friend, brother, and several other things. He will be missed, that much has never been a doubt in anyone’s mind,” Miranda finished and stepped away from the podium, and down onto the grass.

Although she would have liked to stay for the rest of the funeral, she knew that she couldn’t do so without losing her composure.

So she left. Got into her car, turned the key in the ignition and drove away without looking back. It was an open casket ceremony, even if Jacob had always said that he had wanted to be cremated. Not that that was the reasoning behind her leaving.

She had already seen him dead once. Turned face down in a pool of his own blood in a dirty alley near his dingy apartment. Normally green eyes glazed over and wide with shock and pain, pale face unnaturally white even compared to his usual skin tone. For the funeral they had cleaned him up of course and put him into a suit. Still, Miranda had no wish to see the boy that she had loved like that again.

However, if there was one thing that Miranda had learned from him. It was to never regret what she had done in her life. And so she continued to drive away from the place where Jacob was to be buried, without a single regret in her heart.

Life is far too short to do what is asked of you, but it’s even shorter if you only do what you want to.