The Black parade

I clamped my hands over my ears again, the parade kept screaming "DEAD!" over and over. I buckled to my knees, pressing my cold hands harder against the even colder flesh of my ears.

Virgil silenced his parade with a sweep of his arm, he knelt down and lifted me to my feet.

"Now that your heart as stopped beating, you can get what you deserve. And if you want to get to heaven, you have to get what you deserve, here in hell my boy!" he said, lifting me to my feet with little effort.

I was so cold because I was a walking talking corpse. My hair was still gone, my skin was mottled and Grey, I must have only weighed 85 pounds by the way Virgil lifted me. I felt sick and wanted to vomit, but only dry heaved instead.

"Come now, we have much to see and do! Where shall we start?!" Virgil cried out to the parade.

Everyone started screaming different things all at once, but the majority of the crowd cried out for "Death! His death!" chanting it to the rhythm of the beating bass drums.

"And so it shall be!" Virgil announced, the crowd going wild over his ruling.

I was so tired, I just wanted to collapse and rest in peace, like a dead man is supposed to.

"Chin up my boy! The march begins!" Virgil said in his cheerful voice as he started up the black parade again.

I was so weak, I could barely walk, so Virgil had to guide me with is right bony hand, pushing me along like a puppy on a leash.

We seemed to march for hours, passing burnt out cars, rusty abandoned baby strollers, piles of refuse and garbage. Virgil had the band playing a rather upbeat song, I couldn't help but tap my feet to it.

Virgil slowed down the pace as we started to pass what looked like surgeons and doctors dressed in all black garb, working on what appeared to be broken bleeding bodies on gurneys.

"What are they doing?" I asked.

"Why making sure those people don't revive, that they stay dead! They will fight a good fight, but they will end up dead in the end!" Virgil explained with a grin.

"Where are we?" I asked as we came to a stop in front of a light bluish green curtain.

"You'll recognize this one!" Virgil said as he pulled back the curtain.

There I saw myself, not quite dead, nor alive, in a coma. I was in the hospital, laying in a coma. My mother was at my side, as well as my teenage younger brother, and my two younger sisters. At the foot of the bed was Grace, my former lover. My mother, brother, and younger sisters were weeping, but Grace kept her composure, almost as if she was harboring feelings other than grief. As I watched the scene unfold, Virgil looked over at me.

"These are the last moments of your life! Watch and see how they unfolded!"

Suddenly the cardiograph started to beep wildly, I could see a look of panic and straining on my face in the bed, as I struggled to breathe and to keep my heart pumping. My mother started to wail madly, turning away. My brother started to cry even harder, and ran out of the room. Grace stood there, tight lipped, her beautiful blue eyes narrowed coldly.

"Grace.." I muttered as I stared hard at her.

"I hate you, you are getting what you deserve. Your heart couldn't take this. It couldn't take us." I heard her whisper softly to the dying body in front of her.

I gasped in disbelief! How could Grace say such a horrid thing to me as I died not even a foot away from her!

"Why is she saying that? What is going on here?! Why are you showing me this?!" I demanded.

"Simply for the reasoning that you need to see what the outcome was of your life. How all the things you did leading to this moment, caused this to happen!" Virgil explained.

"I can't control cancer!!" I screamed at him.

"I know that! But what you do to others and yourself is cause-and-effect factor! Tell me now, did you love this Grace like you should have? Like you said you would?"

I was lost for words, speechless. Virgil already knew the answer as much as I did.

"No. Am I wrong? You pushed her away, you pushed your entire family away when you found out you were dying. So you died alone, you died a lonely death that was suitable for a person like you. Grace is right, you are getting what you deserve my boy!" Virgil said with a calm voice.

"Fuck this! I don't want to see this anymore!" I screamed at him.

"Oh well, tis a pity, but you must! And there are far worse things you will see and feel here as we continue our parade! Tell me something though, tell me what happened when the doctors and nurses told you that you were dying?"

I swallowed hard, my stomach twisting.

"Go on." Virgil said patiently.

"In my honest observation, during your operation. We found a complication in your heart. Now you've got maybe just 2 weeks to live."

Virgil clapped his hands loudly, the entire parade burst out into applause.

"Why are you celebrating that?! What is so amusing about all of this!?" I demanded.

Virgil simply shook his head, "Nothing at all my boy, nothing at all! Go on though, what else?"

"I told him that if life is just a joke, than why aren't we all laughing? " I said, looking down at my dirty feet.

"Exactly! Exactly! So all in all boyo, what have you realized just now? From all of this?" Virgil asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"That I'm getting...what..I deserve," I answered, choking on the last words.

"Yes! Isn't it great that this came out exactly as we planned? Isn't it great that we are all dead?!" Virgil addressed the parade.

The crowd cheered and clapped, the band started back up again.

"Come along now, we have much more to see. You must now see that without the love of your Grace and family, you simply...disappeared!" Virgil said, pushing me forward again with his hand.

"What?"

"Hm.. Go up to Grace over there, and tell her just that! Tell your mother that too!" Virgil said, pointing a finger at the scene in the hospital.

"Why?" I asked.

"Just do it so we can move on eh? You'll feel better about it, and you'll understand later!"

I reluctantly sauntered up to Grace and whispered gently in her ear, "Without you, is how I disappear."

"Your mother too right?!" Virgil instructed.

I nodded and plodded over to her still weeping form next to the bed, "Without you is how I disappear."

The crowd started cheering again madly.

"Good good! Shall we be off than? Our next stop is to show you why what you said is true!" Virgil said, ushering me along.