short stories with tragic endings

untitled (for a friend)

The words you are about to read were not requested - this is not what is required. This is no comparative analysis, and there are neither secondary sources, nor even primary sources. What lays ahead is the story, a lost child, in search of something so meaningful and so great that he forgets about everything else; he forges what he is looking for and even his own name. So, forgive one's impulse, for he believes these words hold more transcendental value, and are more personal, than any assignment's framework can hold. More truth - raw, unadulterated truth.

Life really never made sense to him. Everyone wants a reason for everything, and he is no different. It is his lack of defense that causes this absence, always looking for something to blame; but it must hurt for a reason. Fixated on a remedy, and so he starts writing it down. In poems, in stories - the pages of everything to self-examine.

But a temporary relief, no doubt. Until one night, after his brother and his mother were in a long argument during the day, and he finds his brother deep in the woods of their back property. A dome lined of trees encircled a fire flicking and casting ghosts about the scene. The brother plays the guitar somewhat somberly, but still confident and calm. Air like a funeral, like a wake, he opens his guitar case as he sits down. His brother hands him a small plastic red bottle. "Robitussin" it reads. Confused, but trusting, he fights the gag and takes the drink. Suddenly, it is 1970, and the world is no longer a mystery.

But that is what shut him out from everything; friends and family, from having fun, and his own ambitions. He just shut off from everything. Yes, he knew it is self-defeating, but at the time he does not care; because some things happen and you cannot do anything. Plus, he is the only one who deals with it anyway. So he wishes everyone would do him a favor and just leave him alone - keep their fingers down and mouths shut. How selfish of himself to always say that it was more than he could take, like it was the pain he could not break. The truth is that it is sorrow that he made and he would not face. See, he keeps falling for the future after tripping on the past; and he is always tearing sutures out to make the anguish last. Like it defines him, and reminds him that he finds comfort in suffering and uncertainty in happiness and death. But he wants everyone to know that he is not angry - he promises. He just knows he did this to himself and he must deal with it accordingly. And he does not need opinions from those never a part of it, he does not need them pointing out his problems – they are his.

Yeah, he knows he should be finding another way, out seeking for a substitute. Forgetting never made sense to him; so he has not. He is no forgiver, forgetter. Makes him feel embarrassed about it, you probably would too. Knowing he should have moved on ages ago, knowing he should be happy by now, but it has never really been that easy for him; or maybe it was him that made it so hard. Only trying a hand full of times to sever this thing torturing him, it never got him anywhere, with anyone. No friendships or hobby, or no lover's bed worked. Now looking back, maybe he did not try hard enough. Maybe he never tried at all.

Night fell on him writing this, and he ran out of paper; crossing the name out at the top of the page. He is not sure why he is writing this, but it feels right. Guess that makes him sound crazy, not like he is hearing voices or anything, but that normal kind – thinking too much about death. Maybe you know what he is talking about, or maybe you would have known, or had known. Is it once knew? He does not know what tense to use. He never used to feel this way, not always thinking about death or hearing voices - used to feel like everything was perfectly in order, a normal life, until there came a departure.

All the doctors wanted to fix his heart - pill after pill. Yeah, it is true, he is shallow and scared; but it is cool. Only fourteen years old and thinking about existence and unaccepting fate - even then he knew time was going to catch him. Sits still in his room while sifting through some pictures of the child that he once was and the sense of hope they framed - it is a shame. Now he talks to himself late at night; or he tries to connect with the soul who his is best friend; his brother, his accomplice, another writer, his future best man. In the summer of 2003, moving from the city to the country - his first true love left him. He did not know what to do. So he moved to the country and thought he found the truth: a pint glass full of whiskey and pills one should never chew - he swore the drugs were going to kill him. In the summer of 2005, he attempted suicide. For everyone that knew, he still has not apologized - he never meant to make his mother cry. But his friends are the reason he is alive, they make everyday worth living in this ribbon called time. He knows he is a lucky guy, with family and friends by his side - a brother who is there and who cares.

An older brother, with wisdom and knows all answers - or at least knows the right questions to ask. For questions only bring more questions; and this is one of those life lessons. His brother tells him how his story goes - how he suffers. The brother shows him his bruises, and says everybody wears them. They broadcast the pain - how you hurt. The brother reads it in stories, in a class, as a child, how cruel the whole world can be. He tells him everything. Tells him what his purpose is, who put him here and why. And all the necessities - like how to deal with tragedy and pain; there is only one way to know how. But he is not sure if he is ready to find out the hard way, how strong he is, what he is made of. He is not sure if he is ready to walk through the fire, he does not think he can handle it. The brother tells him what his worst fears are - they look a lot like his. He tells him what he thinks about when he cannot fall asleep at night. That he is struggling and is terrified of life. It is hard not to think of death sometimes. He tells him how she left, how he lost everything that he had, and she is never coming back. Tells him about God, about love, and it is in all of the above. He is not the only one who thinks of everything in fear. Everyone in the world succumbs at some point to suffering; he wonders when he will. Everyone is out searching for someone or something; he wonders what he will find. He wonders.

He will never forget it - the peace and the comfort you displayed through a pain that one can only imagine. The loss of a brother to the torture of cancer. Help him. Because he can only imagine how you recovered, kept your faith and held the brightness of life inside the smile of a brother you had to bury. And he will never forget him, or your steadfast faith. No, he will never forget you. Not ten or twenty years later. Though he is devoid of all faith. He is empty of comfort and he is weary of waiting. Though he has felt nowhere what you have, and he sees nothing at all. He has learned one thing: we live amidst a violent storm; leaves us unsatisfied at best. So, fill your heart with what is important, and be done with all the rest.

It is in the people you see at work every day, in the people in the streets, or in homes. It is in his girlfriend on the phone, in her bed at night. It is in your students, in the halls at school. And if we are lucky to have met them and have something to share. We get so wrapped up in timing, location, and what is fair. You love it or you hate it - it is somewhat the same. You are living and dying, like everything, everyday. We have problems; we have cancer. We lose our girlfriends, our mothers, our brothers. Then we gain some friends and we love them for them. Our hearts are little clocks screaming: "Tick-tock, tick-tock!"

At times he shouts out unprovoked at the world, just to see if the people around him react. Sometimes he thinks they are all acting, at times he is scared that he is acting too. He feels he has been taking emotional cues from a script he wrote at sixteen. Maybe he just thinks about it all too much, that the fear stays close to all the ghosts in him. It makes him questions if it was love or just lust - blood or old rust. We remember all the moments we remember the best which are framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains. The cycle of pain and disdain for the past works exactly the same.

It is just as much about what comes our way as it is how we react. Just as much about the things that we still have as it is about the things we lack. We will not always keep around those we feel we need- some are fading in frames, some were born to leave - but if we are still here, and we still breathe; we still have time to figure it out. To know what to do, how to feel and to know what is real. If his heart just stops, pack his memories in it. He wants to know all the love he has. And if his heart just stops, keep him alive for a minute - he wants to know if a curtain drops.