The Vultures in Disneyland

The Crave

Standing on the edge of the road, the detective was looking at her car. He walked to the car, opened the door and started gathering her stuff. It reminded of his own little girl and perhaps he couldn't tolerate the fact the someone just like his daughter committed suicide. He couldn't resist calling his daughter but her phone went to voicemail.

Grayson looked and analysed everything that was in the car, not because he was a detective but to try and make sense of events. He had a long night ahead of him, the hardest part being to tell Sara's family about her death. And the fact that he knew her was not making it any easier.

It was around seven, 5 hours he had been there. For an hour or two, the detective would think of ways to tell her parents about her. He went through it over and over again within his mind, but there was no hope for his heart not to be heavy and certainly none for the dead girl. But he had to call, even if the place wasn't among the ones which encountered tragedies, he was a detective, the only one in his town. Amidst the civil war between his thoughts, Grayson was able to call and ask them to come.

"It is about your daughter and it's an emergency." His exact words in the phone.

Her family arrived. No matter how much a person wants to believe that we live in a world of hope and optimism, their mind always anticipates the worst thing that can happen. And her family was no different. They had a clue as she attempted it twice before but knowing doesn't make it easier either. Her mom, Gita, walked straight to the detective. She noticed her daughter's car thrashed like a used can.

"Where is my girl?" She asked with a voice of saddness and desperation. Her voice was breaking, her lungs were craving for air, gasping. She had realised something, that she would never see her daughter again.

"We found her car," he sighed. "It hit the electric pole. " It was hard for him to say it, like he wasn't talking to a family that lost everything. For the first time in a long time, Grayson hated his job. But what he hated more was the fact that he was feeling light hearted already. It wasn't her death that was eating him, he was scared to be the informant of death. He felt relieved, surprisingly. It instated a guilt in him, he felt like his humanity was just a show of selfishness. How people amaze themselves in such pushed circumstances.

Back in his home with his daughter, he was imagining a scenario of her daughter's death, suicide precisely. He was testing himself, his humanity, whether or so he would feel pain. Grayson wanted to feel pain for Sara's family but once he delivered the news his pain was done, just like his job. He knew he wasn't obliged to show his pain to anyone but the guy was trying so hard to prove himself that he was a good person. And he was failing repeatedly that he hated it.

A person's identity is not what he shows to the world but what he hides within himself. And Grayson knew this, he would try to make himself feel better by showing the world that he was suffering but he wasn't. At least, he did before. But it didn't last long. It is surprising how people hold themselves so high in morale, their conscience and actions donot match their imagination. The same happened to Grayson. For the last 15 years, he served for the town he loved more than anything. He had not come across even a single suicide before and it was hard for him not to feel as much as he expected himself to feel.

"How am I okay after sharing the news to her family? Why am I not suffering? She was someone I knew, even gave her a ride home once. She texted me before driving to that electric pole." There was a fact that he hid from Sara's parents, with all good intentions. He didn't want them to hurt more but maybe it was just him running from his demons. The girl texted him the address just before she hit the pole, that's how he could confirm it a suicide without any evaluation.

Earlier when he found out her car wrecked in the electric pole, the detective was broken. He couldn't process his emotions, all shattered into tiny pieces. As the day grew older, he gathered his pieces of emotions and transformed them into pain. He had never felt like that before, that excruciating pain which paralysed his heart for a moment. But that pain was gone, swayed away by those words he spoke when Sara's mother was in front of him. But was he evil? That evil not to feel anything after carrying a body out of the car, a dead body? The one who was of his daughter's age, the one who informed him about her suicide.

As of now, he is sitting on the couch, his insomnia is in the high but it is not the worst problem he is having. His daughter, who he has been holding on to since he arrived, has fallen asleep in his lap. He doesn't want to let her go. Can't. Looking at her he thinks, "What if it was my daughter? How much pain I would feel then? But why can't I emphatize Sara's family? Am I a shadow in reality? A darkness that harbors manipultive light to people." In the matrix of thoughts like these, his inner demons are making way towards the open.

Once again, he stares at his daughter, keeps starring and pushes her hair strands away from her left eye. She is asleep. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, his world, his everything. Grayson can't help but wonder what it's like to lose her, the pain of losing someone who means the world to it.

"I am better," he says. "I can feel things. I am not evil who only suffers during fear." His arm, which is around his daughter's neck slowly starts to grip tighter. He trembles a little but the arm is in full throttle across her neck now. Grayson applies the pressure, uses his other wrists to hold his arm.

"I am better. I can feel pain." He shouts, yells, cries.

She is awake now, struggling against her father's arm. She tries to loose his grip, throws her legs but the grasp is not getting any loose. Grayson is looking at her daughter's eyes, that are so desperately begging to live. Watching her like this, his heart is starting to give up, he is in utmost agony but he loves it. He is getting there, to the level of morale he counts himself in suffering. The pain is like a thousands of rock bottoms but he doesn't stop. The detective is in the verge of proving himself right, that he is not a devil that doesn't feel pain. Tragedy.

"I am a better man! I feel pain!"

His daughter has given in to his grasp, she wants an easy death but Grayson doesn't. He is redeeming himself of the feeling of relief he felt when he gave news of Sara's suicide. And in his jurisdiction, the punishment must fit the crime. So what he can't feel the pain of someone's else's loss? Or show empathy to people who are suffering? But what he can do is to suffer along with them, preserve his humanity. "My daughter may be the best thing in my life but how good's a life if I live like a satan." He thinks.

The monsters inside him are hurting him. They are torturing him to stop but little do they know he wants to be punished, he wants to be tortured. The world, physically is a nasty place, but with your mind you can make it better or worse. Because no demons or angels are above people's thoughts. And so are suffering and humanity. He is humane until and unless he feels, shows compassion and empathy. But in the verge of the discovery of their own self, people need to give up the things they love. Everyone has a darkside but it's not the fear that drives them away from it, it's the unconscious temptation; that once you get in the vicinity of it, there is no going back to the world of light. The addiction of it is the ultimate pleasure mankind craves.

The thoughts went from crazy to insane, his eyes filled with tears unlike with Sara's loss. He is crying in an absolute agony that he decides to let go. He loosens his grip and the monsters go away. But feeling his daughter's consciousness, he feels void along with it. Grayson already misses the feeling of being able to feel so he tightens the grip, inviting the demons to initiate the unending misery. He has no choice, there's no coming back for him but what he can do is increase the intensity of it's depth.

"I am suffering! I am human!" He cries.

There will always be darkness inside of him, he knows it. But the fact that he will be paying for it for the rest of his life clouds his love for his daughter. Grayson realizes his arm going dead due to the pressure but it's not the only thing. His daughter is no longer breathing; she hasn't been breathing for a few minutes now. But the demons are still poking his gut, still hurting him like hell. Finally, he is hurting. Seeing his daughter lying dead in the couch, he has witnessed pain like never before and the fact that he killed her has installed the guilt for eternity. After all, what's a human if not guilt and suffering?

He rushes outside his house and starts shouting. It's past midnight already so most of the lights in neighborhood have gone off.

"Help! Help!"
"It's my daughter. Someone help!"

Grayson runs across the street, stumbles and falls. Still crying for help, he is splashing and striking himself against the gravel road. The way his insanity has revealed it's true colors, causing the enormous amount of excruciation, mumbles and tumbles within his heart, body, soul. But he's happy; happy that after all, he doesn't have to fake it anymore. So that he can finally embrace the ultimate humanity; that he can finally accept himself for what he is, a human.