Clouds To Mask The Ground {J.H.S}

~~~12~~~

When we were 24 you were home. I should've been happy, but you were a walking time bomb. You kept to yourself, your nose always stuffed in that notebook of yours and your hands stained with the ink of the pen you used in the notebook.

~

I sat down in the big leather chair in your doctor's office. He sighed when he sat down across from me, folding his hands on the wooden desk he sat behind.

"You want him back here?" the doctor asked.

"He needs to be somewhere where I feel I'm not gonna walk in on him hanging from the ceiling," I said, shaking my head.

"I agree, but isolating him could make it worse."

"It can't get worse."

I went home to tell you what I had just done. I felt weighed down by the guilt, but what else could I do? With my tired feet and heart in my stomach, I twisted our front door handle. 

I called out to you, telling you I was home. When I got no answer I thought you were sleeping. I sat on the couch, deciding to let you sleep and enjoy your own bed before you were sleeping once again on the small beds in a mental facility.

 I laughed and smiled at the show as I watching, letting me forget about the guilt that weighed me down. It became late and my eyelids became heavy. I turned off the TV and sleepily walked to our bedroom, ready to crawl into bed with you. I opened the door, looking straight into the room.

You dangled in front of me. You hung from a tie I had gotten you for a birthday of yours. Your eyes stared back into mine and it almost seemed like you blamed me. Your dead stare seemed to tell me that it was my fault. 

A piercing scream left my lips, cutting through the silence of the night. I didn't hesitate to pull you down. I laid your head on my lap, but I couldn't bare to look at you. 

My voice was shaking as I explained what had happened to the 911 operator. 

"Is he breathing?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Can you check, please?" 

I closed my eyes as I checked. I didn't want to meet your accusing stare.

"No."

The paramedics ran in with adrenaline pumping through their veins to save yet another person, but as their eyes landed on you the alert look on their faces switched to solemn and apologetic. They had seen too many dead people to not know that you were long gone. They approached slowly and cautiously. They picked you up and wheeled you away.

Blinking lights now illuminated our front yard as neighbors came to spectate and police, firemen, and paramedics stayed on standby. One of the police draped a blanket over my shoulders as I watched the ambulance that held you drive away. It drove away without its lights on because the truth that I was failing to comprehend and accept was that there was no emergency because you were already dead.