Watch Your Back

Chapter 27

Aaron didn't wake up. He didn't hear his parents calling him for ten minutes from his room. He didn't hear their subtle yet worried feet running up the stairs. He didn't feel his mom shaking his shoulder, trying to wake him up so they could talk about the man Aaron had killed. Aaron didn't hear his mom's voice getting more desperate with every time she shook him. He didn't see his dad pick up the prescription drugs that were neatly placed on the desk next to his bed. He didn't see his dad shake out the pills, to find only two, rather than ten. Aaron didn't feel his dad checking in vain to find a heartbeat on his son. He didn't hear his dad scream and his mom start to cry. He didn't see his dad try to catch his mom, who had collapsed on the floor, holding her over-sized stomach. He didn't hear his mom say He's never going to know his big brother. So the baby was a boy. Just like Aaron. He didn't see his parents crying into each other's arms as they mourned the death of their son. And he didn't hear the sirens slowly approaching the house in which he lay dead.

Days passed. Then weeks. 

Aaron didn't feel the mysterious people dressing him up. What was he being dressed up for, anyway? It wasn't his birthday. It wasn't a special occasion. He didn't feel the black tie being tightened around his cold neck. He didn't feel the people lifting him up, and laying him into a bed or box. It felt comfy. But Aaron couldn't feel that. He couldn't feel the box being moved, the doors opening. He couldn't hear the drizzle of rain softly pattering down on the sleek black box in which he lay. Rain. Aaron couldn't smell the rain, and he couldn't remember the man who had smelled like the very weather in which he lay. He couldn't hear the quiet shuffle of people walking in grass.  He couldn't hear the booming voice of the preacher reciting a verse from a small bible. Aaron couldn't hear the sniffles of his mom crying. He couldn't see the black attire she was dressed in, the only splash of color was on the tiny infant in his mother's eyes. His clothes were periwinkle. He couldn't hear his mom whispering Shh Kellin shhh... His name was Kellin. But Aaron never got to know that. He couldn't hear the silence of the crowd, then the departing of feet and condoling whispers. And he didn't see the man in all black, standing by the old tree, quiet, silent.

A few more weeks passed. 

                                                                                    ~~~~~

Dr. Harrison slowly walked in the rain-soaked grass to the grey slab of stone that represented the son of a pair of grieving parents. He knelled down in the grass near the tombstone, the dew and rain soaking the knees of his pants. He outstretched his hand to place it on the name that was engraved in the stone. His sleeve slipped down, revealing horrendous, red slashes on his wrists that reached up to his elbows and cut deeply into his palm. All the scars blended in with the cuts to make a messy, insane, disastrous masterpiece that no artist could perfect. Harrison smiled at the grave. A tear rolled out of his tired, sleepy eyes and onto his cheek, landing on the white lab coat he was wearing. He began to quietly cry, increasing in volume and anxiety as every second passed. And then he began to laugh. Dr. Harrison laughed a loud, insane laugh that rang all across the dark cemetery. And Dr. Harrison laughed. He laughed until his stomach hurt and he was out of breath and his throat was cut and burning from all the insane acts he had been up to all those years. Then he kept on laughing.

And didn't stop.

                                                                                               The End