Status: Warnings: Swearing, sexual content, character death.
Forever In His Arms
I want to live forever in his arms.
Flash forward forty years from now. Your house a casket. Your only company the stale air that inhabits it. Not that you’d know. Not that you’d care. The funeral was minutes and hours and days and months and years ago. People have moved on but you’re still lying all by yourself in that cheap, knock-off coffin. Not that you’d know. Not that you’d care.
Flash back to now. Sitting alone in my room. My parents know, but they don’t care. Sitting alone in my room with a cigarette in my hand. A stream of swirling smoke floats through the middle of the room like a river’s soft current on a summer’s day. I bring it to my lips. Inhale. Exhale. Close my eyes. Remember to breathe. Remember to breathe Brendon.
Flash forward again to the grave where one solitary figure sits down next to it. Cigarette in one hand, other hand brought up to his face to catch the tears. The flowers beside him are roses. What a decorative touch to my grave. Blood red roses. He falls back, laying directly on top of where my carcass, now simply decays, once laid.
By that time I’d been dead thirty years. Every Friday he sits there. He lies there. He cries. He mourns. He leaves. He moves on.
Flash back to now. Sitting alone in my room with that cigarette, now just the filter, still balancing delicately between my index and middle finger. I’m thinking about my death. I’m thinking about how I’d like it to be soon. Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Soon. I’m certainly not going to be alive for another year. Not ten. Not a lifetime. Soon.
I sit there smoking my life away, willing my death that little bit closer, while my parents have a nice family dinner with nice family food and drinks, and nice family conversation. I smoke. They eat. I smoke. They drink. I cry. They laugh. Just another day. Just another day I’m alive and not rotting underground where I belong. Not yet. Soon.
My mind wanders to Ryan, the one person I know will visit my grave when the day comes. I bet he’s sitting alone in his room too. Not that his dad knows. Not that his dad cares. He’ll be smoking too and thinking of me.
I hear a noise at my window. I look. Ryan’s there. I open the window. Ryan’s in my room. Not that my parents know. Oh, but my parents would care.
He lifts the newly lit cigarette from between my fingers and brings it to his lips. Inhale. Exhale. Remember to breathe Ryan.
“Hey.” He says.
“Hey.” I repeat. A million words I want to say. A billion words on the tip of my tongue, longing to get out. Any combination would do but I simply say hey. That’s all we need.
“So.” He says. I hate that. He knows I hate that. When people can’t think of anything to say, so they try and open you up to say something first. As if I could. As if those trillion words ready to break out would ever escape my lips. I just smile. A smile says more than my words ever could.
Flash forward fifteen years to Ryan sitting on my grave crying. Me lying dead in that casket unaware of his presence. Sometimes I like to think I would know, because then I would care, I would care so much. All I’d want to do is for him to kiss me and breathe life back into me so I could tell him one more time how much I loved him. All wasted wishes though. I’m dead. I couldn’t possibly know, let alone care.
Back to me and Ryan sitting alone in my room. His hand brushing innocently against my leg every now and again. My heart racing. His face suddenly just inches from mine. My heart rate rapidly increasing.
Accidental touches swiftly change to his body on top of mine, the heat radiating through me. His lips on top of mine. Moving in unison.
This is one of those moments where I don’t want to die. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Not in ten years. Not ever. This is the moment I want to live forever in his arms. I want to wake up and see him next to me every morning, make him breakfast and watch him giggle as he notices I aligned his bacon to look like a smiley face. I want all that and more. All the moments that make you smile, the ones that make you cry, the ones that make you cringe. I want all that. I want all that with him.
Flash forward to Ryan walking away from my grave every Friday wiping those drenches eyes. I’m alone again. Not that I’d know. Not that I’d care. I’m dead and gone and all those teenage wishes came true.
Back to Ryan’s hands snaking their way down my body, below my waistband, into my boxers. I hear my heartbeat in my ears and the adrenaline shoots round my veins, encompassing every inch of me till I feel my pulse in my neck and my fingers and my stomach and my-
“Brendon?” Ryan whispers.
“Yeah?” I manage to spit out, all breathy with anticipation.
“Take off your trousers.” He orders.
“Ok then.”
Flash forty-five years to a wrinkled, hunched over Ryan still coming to visit my grave. It’s sad. Not in the way that wants to make me cry. In the way that makes me wonder why he never moved on. Why everyone else did and he’s still visiting that grave, not just Fridays anymore, but everyday. Why couldn’t he just move on like everybody else? It’s sad.
Flash back to naked teenagers under batman bed covers on a school night. My parents are downstairs, blissfully ignorant to the acts of us horny, fucked up delinquents in my room. This is another moment that makes me think that maybe dying tomorrow isn’t such a great idea. Only because, if I do, I’d never feel this again. Skin on skin. Lips on lips. Heart on heart. Honest, passionate fucking. I’d miss that. I’d miss him. Too much.
Flash forwards fifty years and Ryan doesn’t visit anymore. This is sad. Not in the way it was before.
If I wasn’t dead in that casket I’d probably be crying. I’d be visiting his grave every day. Ryan is buried next to me. Red roses laid next to the dead ones morbidly decorating my grave.
Flash back to an orgasm that makes my whole body shake like never before and three words to sweeten the deal.
“I love you too.” I breathe into his neck.
Flash forward ten years.
Flash forward to the day I die.
A hospital bed garnished with flowers and bread baskets and more shit I don’t need. All I needed was him. He was my means of survival. Not the IV or the drip. Ryan was my life support machine and he left me. Said it was too much. Said he couldn’t do it anymore. Said all these things and I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to understand.
So I did it. I finally took control and brought that day forwards. Took the pills. Everything was black. I remember the stairs, and then nothing.
I remember waking up here and realising I’d failed again. Wires going in and out of my skin and a stale taste in my mouth and I’m still alive.
Then he’s here and the beeping gets faster and my head spins. He’s standing over me and he’s handing me more flowers and I bat them out of his hand. They lay broken on the floor while I lay broken in the bed. My heart fluttering, the beats getting more erratic, more chaotic.
“I did this to you,” He whispers.
I can’t say anything. My throat has closed up. I can’t even breathe. I simply stare at the man I love. The man that killed me. I’m just a ghost of what I once was.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears spill down his cheeks and if I had enough energy to roll my eyes I would have. “I didn’t know.”
I still keep my mouth shut, staring into his eyes, drilling into his mind. He looks uncomfortable and I snort, pain shooting around my body at the movement, but I don’t care. If he didn’t want to be here he didn’t have to come and you can tell we thought that at the same time because he drops a small box and runs out the door.
The box is on the floor and open and I see the ring but I drift away.
Flash forward five days and Ryan is standing over my casket being lowered into the ground. His tears mix with the soil being thrown over it.
“I’m so sorry.” He wails.
Not that I know.
Not that I care.
Flash back to now. Sitting alone in my room. My parents know, but they don’t care. Sitting alone in my room with a cigarette in my hand. A stream of swirling smoke floats through the middle of the room like a river’s soft current on a summer’s day. I bring it to my lips. Inhale. Exhale. Close my eyes. Remember to breathe. Remember to breathe Brendon.
Flash forward again to the grave where one solitary figure sits down next to it. Cigarette in one hand, other hand brought up to his face to catch the tears. The flowers beside him are roses. What a decorative touch to my grave. Blood red roses. He falls back, laying directly on top of where my carcass, now simply decays, once laid.
By that time I’d been dead thirty years. Every Friday he sits there. He lies there. He cries. He mourns. He leaves. He moves on.
Flash back to now. Sitting alone in my room with that cigarette, now just the filter, still balancing delicately between my index and middle finger. I’m thinking about my death. I’m thinking about how I’d like it to be soon. Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Soon. I’m certainly not going to be alive for another year. Not ten. Not a lifetime. Soon.
I sit there smoking my life away, willing my death that little bit closer, while my parents have a nice family dinner with nice family food and drinks, and nice family conversation. I smoke. They eat. I smoke. They drink. I cry. They laugh. Just another day. Just another day I’m alive and not rotting underground where I belong. Not yet. Soon.
My mind wanders to Ryan, the one person I know will visit my grave when the day comes. I bet he’s sitting alone in his room too. Not that his dad knows. Not that his dad cares. He’ll be smoking too and thinking of me.
I hear a noise at my window. I look. Ryan’s there. I open the window. Ryan’s in my room. Not that my parents know. Oh, but my parents would care.
He lifts the newly lit cigarette from between my fingers and brings it to his lips. Inhale. Exhale. Remember to breathe Ryan.
“Hey.” He says.
“Hey.” I repeat. A million words I want to say. A billion words on the tip of my tongue, longing to get out. Any combination would do but I simply say hey. That’s all we need.
“So.” He says. I hate that. He knows I hate that. When people can’t think of anything to say, so they try and open you up to say something first. As if I could. As if those trillion words ready to break out would ever escape my lips. I just smile. A smile says more than my words ever could.
Flash forward fifteen years to Ryan sitting on my grave crying. Me lying dead in that casket unaware of his presence. Sometimes I like to think I would know, because then I would care, I would care so much. All I’d want to do is for him to kiss me and breathe life back into me so I could tell him one more time how much I loved him. All wasted wishes though. I’m dead. I couldn’t possibly know, let alone care.
Back to me and Ryan sitting alone in my room. His hand brushing innocently against my leg every now and again. My heart racing. His face suddenly just inches from mine. My heart rate rapidly increasing.
Accidental touches swiftly change to his body on top of mine, the heat radiating through me. His lips on top of mine. Moving in unison.
This is one of those moments where I don’t want to die. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Not in ten years. Not ever. This is the moment I want to live forever in his arms. I want to wake up and see him next to me every morning, make him breakfast and watch him giggle as he notices I aligned his bacon to look like a smiley face. I want all that and more. All the moments that make you smile, the ones that make you cry, the ones that make you cringe. I want all that. I want all that with him.
Flash forward to Ryan walking away from my grave every Friday wiping those drenches eyes. I’m alone again. Not that I’d know. Not that I’d care. I’m dead and gone and all those teenage wishes came true.
Back to Ryan’s hands snaking their way down my body, below my waistband, into my boxers. I hear my heartbeat in my ears and the adrenaline shoots round my veins, encompassing every inch of me till I feel my pulse in my neck and my fingers and my stomach and my-
“Brendon?” Ryan whispers.
“Yeah?” I manage to spit out, all breathy with anticipation.
“Take off your trousers.” He orders.
“Ok then.”
Flash forty-five years to a wrinkled, hunched over Ryan still coming to visit my grave. It’s sad. Not in the way that wants to make me cry. In the way that makes me wonder why he never moved on. Why everyone else did and he’s still visiting that grave, not just Fridays anymore, but everyday. Why couldn’t he just move on like everybody else? It’s sad.
Flash back to naked teenagers under batman bed covers on a school night. My parents are downstairs, blissfully ignorant to the acts of us horny, fucked up delinquents in my room. This is another moment that makes me think that maybe dying tomorrow isn’t such a great idea. Only because, if I do, I’d never feel this again. Skin on skin. Lips on lips. Heart on heart. Honest, passionate fucking. I’d miss that. I’d miss him. Too much.
Flash forwards fifty years and Ryan doesn’t visit anymore. This is sad. Not in the way it was before.
If I wasn’t dead in that casket I’d probably be crying. I’d be visiting his grave every day. Ryan is buried next to me. Red roses laid next to the dead ones morbidly decorating my grave.
Flash back to an orgasm that makes my whole body shake like never before and three words to sweeten the deal.
“I love you too.” I breathe into his neck.
Flash forward ten years.
Flash forward to the day I die.
A hospital bed garnished with flowers and bread baskets and more shit I don’t need. All I needed was him. He was my means of survival. Not the IV or the drip. Ryan was my life support machine and he left me. Said it was too much. Said he couldn’t do it anymore. Said all these things and I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to understand.
So I did it. I finally took control and brought that day forwards. Took the pills. Everything was black. I remember the stairs, and then nothing.
I remember waking up here and realising I’d failed again. Wires going in and out of my skin and a stale taste in my mouth and I’m still alive.
Then he’s here and the beeping gets faster and my head spins. He’s standing over me and he’s handing me more flowers and I bat them out of his hand. They lay broken on the floor while I lay broken in the bed. My heart fluttering, the beats getting more erratic, more chaotic.
“I did this to you,” He whispers.
I can’t say anything. My throat has closed up. I can’t even breathe. I simply stare at the man I love. The man that killed me. I’m just a ghost of what I once was.
“I’m so sorry.” Tears spill down his cheeks and if I had enough energy to roll my eyes I would have. “I didn’t know.”
I still keep my mouth shut, staring into his eyes, drilling into his mind. He looks uncomfortable and I snort, pain shooting around my body at the movement, but I don’t care. If he didn’t want to be here he didn’t have to come and you can tell we thought that at the same time because he drops a small box and runs out the door.
The box is on the floor and open and I see the ring but I drift away.
Flash forward five days and Ryan is standing over my casket being lowered into the ground. His tears mix with the soil being thrown over it.
“I’m so sorry.” He wails.
Not that I know.
Not that I care.