Monday, October 24, 2011

Chapter 18

18: The world goes on without me, but I'm still here.  From here I can see my own body.  Only, it doesn't look like me.  Why are my fingers bent that way?  And where's my other hand?  I used to cut myself.  I usually liked to cut my hands.  I knew that it would always heal, but it won't now.  Even the smallest scratch on a severed hand will never heal.  That's the story of my life.  Disconnected from the rest of humanity.  Nothing's different now.  All my cuts still bleed and I suppose they always will.  Without scars we would just keep bleeding and never heal.  I would rather be scarred for life than bleed to death.  Healing feels better than never hurting.  I cut myself because I wanted to feel something.  Now I can't feel anything.  What's changed?
  Why is there blood all over my clothes?  These wounds are much too massive to sustain.  I cannot deny the truth.  I have died.  If that is the case then why do I still remain on this earth?  I guess what hurts the most isn't that I'm dead, but that I realize I was never really alive.  Try that on for size.  I have a post-mortem depression.  All I can do now is watch people.  I never took the time to just stand back and observe my surroundings before.  Well, let's see what we can see.
  I watch in horror as some of the living leave their elderly, the sick and the injured to die.  They would only slow them down.  They've been reduced to a liability.  Those of us who have died are men, women and children. We are old, young, sick, and healthy.  Some have arms or legs missing, but we all work together as one for a common purpose.  Age, gender, race and economic status have been taken out of the equation.  Death is the great equalizer, but why wait?  I used to hate everyone equally, now I indiscriminately eat them.  Me, Viveca Jones, a goddamn cannibal!
  Ironically, in life I was bulimic.  I died of starvation and I woke up ravenous.  Looking at me from the outside, I can't believe I ever thought I was fat.  Controlling my body was the only way I felt that I had any power over my life.  My mother's entire life was dedicated to feeding me, which only led to my inevitable purge.  She thought she was helping me, but she only enabled my sickness.  Now I have a new disease.  I'm no stranger to my huge appetite, but must I now eat the living?  I can only watch in horror as my body commits such atrocities.  It is not in my control any more or any less than it was before.  My poor mother cowers before me as I rip her to pieces.  She will feed me one last time, but this time I will not purge.
  My mother didn't deserve to die like that.  When she had nothing more to give, she gave me the only thing she had left, which was her life.  I know she loved me.  She did the best she could and that's all anyone can do.  More than I ever did.  Now that my mother's spirit has left its body, I see her walking toward me.  We look upon the husks of our former selves a final time, then embrace each other.  Tears, but just a few.  There is a light up ahead.  We know it's time to go home.  This is the first thing we'll truly do together.  Hand in hand we walk toward the light to cross over to the Other Side.  Perhaps in my next life, I will appreciate my mother more and maybe even love myself.

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