[ jude ]
i watch as snow falls into ten-inch whiteness and turns gray as soon as it reaches the muddy earth.
everything always turns gray once it touches the earth, once it falls into the callous hands of reality.
life ruins everything.
i kick the snow and grumble to myself, walking down the crooked street. it's fucking freezing and i literally cannot stand the below degrees weather. my jacket is old and worn, making it impossible to keep warm. all that i can seem to do is fight against the icyness by picking out all the god awful things i see on my way back home.
it doesn't take a genius to see that the horrible, sickly things outnumber those rare, almost impossible perfections.
the dilapidated buildings lining the streets look tired with their foundations slowly sagging. their windows are either shattered or x-ed out with black paint; their doors are chipped, scratched, dirtied, or entirely missing; and their once lovely paint job is now ruined by the natural elements and the rowdy gangs that spray paint profanity and secret art on the walls.
the street below my worn down converse is cracked, the breaks in the concrete now make the path look very, very old as if every single memory this walkway has had has been forever buried into all of its broken pieces.
god, and as if it couldn't get anymore depressing, this area is loitered with the poor, the lower class, the lost and the damned. kids with duct tape as shoes run around throwing muddy snowballs and homeless men and women scrounge around trash cans and dark alleyways in search for a hope that could help their souls.
it's no wonder i tried to kill myself.
this world is just not worth living in if this continues to happen in our lives.
while immensely rich and spoiled families get what they want and waste it, there are those who have barely anything to provide themselves.
the very fact that this world has such a harsh disparity between the social classes makes me sick.
so sick in fact that the very awful feeling becomes tangible. i stumble into an alleyway and vomit.
when i have finally finished puking, calmed my breathing and stopped my trembling, i look up from the mess i have just made.
there's this kid, a boy, possibly ten, watching me a few feet away in the alley i stopped in. he's flithy, smudged with dirt all over. his forehead and cheekbones are covered with alleyway dust and he's all angles from his knobby knees and protruding elbows. he's barely wearing clothes, a thin cloth shirt and baggy, probably goodwill cargo shorts attempt to protect him from the world, but even i know he must be cold. the weather here can drop down to the negatives. in his hands are a bottle of distilled water and a bag of three apples.
i stare at him as the kid warily approaches me.
i think that he might rob me because, despite appearances, little kids in this area have been known to be aggressive if it means being able to score something out of it. instead, he tilts his head as if to inspect me and then hands me his water bottle.
my eyes widen at the sudden kindness and i look him straight in the eyes. he nods and i gently take the water bottle out of his grasp. i try to not drink a lot of it but i can't help it. throwing up your guts leads to immediate parchness.
i drink half the bottle and feel awful when i hand it back to him. he takes it without hesistation and starts walking away. from here, i can see how really emaciated he is, as his shirt is thinner than a piece of paper. his backbones literally protrude from his skin.
"wait!" i call out and my voice startles the silence in the area.
the boy turns back around and above him a murder of crows squawk and fly up into the sky, obviously irritated by my voice echoing off the walls.
i go after him and dig into my pocket. i hand him $50. the boy's blue eyes are as big as plates as i fold the bill into his hand and whisper, "thank you."
turning back around, i walk out of the alleyway. before i fully leave, however, i turn back around to say something to the boy but then see he's gone.
************************
i arrive at my home late into the night.
after my encounter with the little boy, i took the even longer way home. i walked through our city's prestigious parks, treaded a path up and down the boulevards, and even stopped by several shops, barely even seeing what i was pretending to be interested in.
louis opens the door for me and politely takes my falling-apart jacket away from me, "hello, sir, welcome back home. your mother is awaiting you in the dining room and asks of your prescene immediately."
i slip off my worn converse and look up the old man that has taken care of me ever since i was child, "very well, louis, tell her i'm coming."
louis nods and walks away as i watch his straight stature disappear down one of our many hallways. sighing, i climb my home's polished wooden spiral staircase, taking two steps at a time. i pass my hand through the chandeliers as i ascent, inspecting the glint the crystals pass over my fingertips. finally at the top, i turn to my left and enter the bathroom.
my mother despises this bathroom. she hates the mustard yellow coloring of the walls and the "absolutely shitty" array of flowers that create the room's theme. she hates the wooden flooring, constantly complaining that it gets scratched too easily. most of all, she hates the long mirror, bordered by a cherrywood frame because, and i quote, the glass of the mirror makes her features "maimed and distorted."
i suppose that is why i attempted suicide in this bathroom.
i throw water into my face and rub my eyes quickly, washing away all the memories of today, and stare into my reflection.
i loathe myself, i loathe my mother, i loathe the world,
i loathe every goddamn thing.
"jude, love, dinner's getting cold! maria worked hard on making this tonight, come down here and eat it now, please!" my mother's annoying voice penetrates through the pristinely cleaned bathroom door.
i stare into my blue-green eyes and try not to notice, in my peripheral vision, that my blood from my last attempt has stained the yellow walls. i clench my jaw and tighten my fists.
i loathe every goddamn thing.
"jude!"
breathing in one last time, i open the door and call out, "i'm coming! hold on!"
i turn and inspect the dried blood on the wall. it has made this mustard colored wall more of a dark maroon, looking ghastly against the backdrop of this unreal world.
i loathe every goddamn thing.
"jude halloway, goddammit, come down now!"
i calmly swallow three pills from the medicine cabinet my mother thought she oh so cleverly hid from me without any water and, before turning off the light, i spit on the dried blood.
