Death Has Wings

I Was Glad He Was Gone

An hour had passed and I was calmed down. I was in the park, sitting on the swing. It was getting dark so I decided to head home. I got up and left. I pulled up my hood and shoved my hands into my pockets. Images of John leaving mother crossed my mind. They were so vivid. It was like I was there, watching John pack his things and slamming the car door behind him, with mother crying in the driveway, begging him not to leave. I dismissed it. I'd recently been having these...visions as some people would call them.

I mean, I knew Mr Rogers had committed suicide. I saw it. I saw him swallow every single pill in his house. I saw the relief in his eyes as his life slipped away from him. He died smiling on his bathroom floor. I thought it was actually quite nice, seeing someone die happy for once instead of witnessing all the rape-murders and having to sit through hours of screaming and boredom. Boredom for me that is. I used to be fascinated by murder and all that stuff, but lately it's become very repetitive. There's no time to enjoy the pain that they're going through because they just die too quickly. Look at me, talking about what's happening in the present. I'll stop.

I knew that John was going to leave mother a month after their wedding. John only wanted to marry mother because of the money. The money that father left us when he went to America and never came back. Because of John, that money is gone. He spent it on alcohol and gambling. Mother knew what he was doing but she did nothing about it. All that was happening just a month after their marriage. It had been six years that John had been with us. Six years of torture for me and Mother.

I was over that. He was gone. I was fine with not having a father. I was used to it. I was smiling the whole way home and it grew when I saw that John's car wasn't in the driveway. I got to the front door and saw it was open a bit. I pushed it open wide and nothing had changed apart from that John wasn't there. I sighed and went in, closing and locking the door behind me.

"Mother?" I shouted as I took off my hoodie and put it over the banister.

"Clark, come here please." Mother was in her room. She sounded so vulnerable and quiet. I went upstairs and into to her room. She was sitting on the bed, everything a mess and all of John's stuff gone. She patted the bed next to her and I sat down. She tried hard to hold back the tears. Her breathing was shaky and her bottom lip quivered.

"John...John is...John is gone. He left..." The tears were streaming down her face. "He left ten minutes...before you got here..." She was sobbing hysterically now, head down, clutching the bed sheets so much that her knuckles were white. I didn't know how to deal with this. I was overjoyed that John was gone but I didn't want to see mother like this. She didn't need anymore pain.

Just put her out of her misery already!

The thought had come from nowhere. I was shocked that I could even think of that. She was my mother, I couldn't kill her. Never. Not even if it was to save myself. I could never kill my mother. She was still sobbing, her shoulders heaving. I couldn't stay in the room. I had to leave.

"I'm sorry Mother...I just can't stay here." There was no point in lying to her. I got up and left her in her room, tears staining her face and the bed sheets. I went downstairs again and into the kitchen. I could still hear her.

Do it! Take her away from all this pain!

I didn't know what was wrong with me. I leaned against the counter, waiting for her to stop. I couldn't take this kind of thing happening. I couldn't cope with this amount of crying. I was beginning to get a headache. It surged through my head like a bolt of electricity. I had to tell mother to stop being pathetic, that John was gone and no amount of tears could bring him back. I had to tell mother the truth.