Campfire

My best friend said so much to me in the moments before his death. His eyes glistened in the campfires light, staring blankly into something I might never see. I thought I saw specks of epiphany hiding behind an otherwise blank stare. Immediately the top of his head erupted with a bright flash. His head suddenly had a hole blown out of it from below, petals of skull opened above him, revealing the bright flash of the blast from the inside of his skull. His jaw swung agape, dropping down more loose than should be possible, left in a silent limbo as I heard, all around me, a strong ringing. It pulsated so deep in my ears I felt it scratched my brain. I looked to his eyes, one numbly staring to the ground, the other halfway popped out and swollen. Both hanging from a section of what was his forehead, now bulging and dropping forward lazily, the force had sent cracks down most of his skull. His whole face looked bloated, like someone inflated his head as you would a balloon until he popped, now lazily handing from the base of his skull. I sat, stunned, absorbed, but in the worst possible way. My throat felt tight, I had to raise all my focus to do nothing but take a staggered breath. I have no idea how much time has passed before the ringing began to fade but as it left I could steadily hear more and more of something I had heard before countless times. I heard a nostalgic sound, one from my childhood. A faint memory played in front of me, a happy one. A picturesque memory of feeding our dog Jessie dinner leftovers. The sound of me sneakily dropping whatever I didn't finish of dinner down onto the scuffed laminate floor below. I was sure this was the sound until I heard it happen again and again, in front of me then again behind me and then once more to my right. Until I felt something hit me, raining down from above. It wetly slapped against my right shoulder, hitting the side of my face with a warm splatter before falling to my leg. I looked down to see a piece of skull, skin, and hair remained, yet barely attached. Globbing the hair up was a dark red, nearly black, viscous glob of what could only be blood and brain matter which reflected the light of the campfire as the flames danced and flickered in front of it. I felt, once again, a wet, hot sensation from above; this time on my left hand. My arm was frozen, unable to move, yet my fingers, along with my toes, curled up tighter than they ever had before. I felt as though recoiling was all I could do. I looked upwards, seeing the same flicker of reflection in a mist above me for only a second before fading into obscurity. The image of Jessie eating dinner scraps came forcefully to mind as the revolting sound of chucks of this... the limp bits of flesh... fell down across the dry leaves in front of me. On me. A year-long second passed in the moment he drew the barrel of his shotgun to his head, yet the rest happened at full speed. I wish I knew what he was looking at. I begin to tear up thinking about it. What, through those darkened eyes, he was gazing upon. But now that I look back at it, a realization comes to mind. That spark of epiphany must have been the same reflected flickering that I saw in the sky.

I still dream he saw something.

Not while I sleep

But in the cold confines of momentary solitude.

The bathroom at work.

The silent ride back home, radio stolen.

The seconds, minutes,

Hours.

That I spent after being awoken.

Doing nothing but simply being awake.

Losing time as I think

Of the ways I could have helped

Something I could have noticed

Troubled looks in his eyes I ignored

I could have looked inside him, before having to see inside him. I should have put some time into making sure he was okay. I can't help but blame myself, I was all he really had. Our old friends hated him, he tried to make it up to them but they couldn't see past it. I try not to blame them, to understand. But if I can't blame them I blame myself. They won't even talk to me now. They avoid eye contact with me on campus. He invited them on that trip to the woods. I was the only one who came. It's been a whole year yet when I sit on this log I still shake. My fingers tremble, they want to curl up. A fire I built burns in the same place as it did then, though the logs are stacked like a Jenga tower now. I wanted to try out something other than just making them a pyramid, it still feels the same. The sensation in the air is exactly like that of his night. The moon shines weakly, my fire lighting up the woods around us. I looked towards where he sat and felt something. A feeling emanated from his direction. I felt, viscerally, a somber and forlorn melancholy that washed over me like a gentle, warm stream of water. It began at my head, washing through every strand of hair. Continued down over my ears, covering everything entirely as it went down over me. It streamed down my shoulders, and my sides, soaking me entirely in a welcoming embrace. It coddled me relentlessly, taking me in, I felt like I was one with it. It provided me with solace, sanctuary, a quiet I had not known since his night. Every breath felt heavy and my focus, now weighing a ton, dropped to the fire. My head and my shoulders slouched, feeling the emotions warm embrace wrap tighter and tighter around me; smothering me with a calm touch. Its arms wrapped around me in a suffocatingly tight acceptance. I looked deeper into the fire, staring purposefully, searching for something I am not sure exists. I gripped his shotgun in my hands, feeling the corroded barrel's cold metal against my fingers. I looked, almost desperately, for something. Anything. I dug with my eyes into every detail until suddenly, the fire popped. A crack and rush of air came out from one of the logs that lay on top of the pile as it broke and crumbled, falling down into the ashes below. The ashes were thrown in every direction, spewed out from the burned log. I stared into the still-burning embers of the fallen chunk. One by one they flickered and burnt out. I watched, fascinated, as the entire blackened log lost its flame until only a few embers remained. Two suddenly went, then another, another. One remained, at the end of the tired log. It burnt for a few seconds, giving out once but sparking back up triumphantly before going out for good. I stared at the lonely log, purposeless, laying in ash and wallowing. The cracks and pops of the fire sounded out along the whispering of leaves in the gentle breeze above. I asked myself why the log was even still there. I realized something at that moment. I felt an epiphany.