Decipher | Watty's 2017

LXXX. Carphology

Carphology

/kärˈfäləjē/

noun

describing the action of picking or grasping at imaginary objects

It had been a few weeks after Michael's death and funeral, and I was nowhere near fully healed. Something about the loss of our mutual friend brought Luke and I together, causing us to allow our commitment issues to resolve themselves and our heated arguments to cease completely. However, with that came the overwhelming pain of recognizing everything Michael cared for and reminding ourselves that he was gone, which was like a knife carving in my dark and twisted heart.

Days after my breakdown at Michael's burial, I had decided to get the only thing that I thought was beautiful enough to commemorate him and our friendship tattooed on my arm. The beautiful calligraphy was a shock to Luke when I showed him, but he grew to enjoy staring at it and tracing the shape of the words 'and back' on my upper arm during the midnight hours when he couldn't sleep.

All the while, Calum and I had been bonding over these weeks, even going as far as to have a sleep over, which Luke crashed after he heard our drunken shouts in the middle of the night and opened the door to find us both lying beside each other on the ground, laughing at nothing with rum bottles surrounding our figures. Since then, Luke had not trusted Calum and I alone with alcohol, which was a fair assessment.

Luke was currently lying beside me in bed, my mind racing as I stared at his sleeping figure, which appeared to be at peace, and wondered what I could've done differently to prevent Michael's demise, but no amount of guilt or rethinking would bring him back. The doctor had said that it wasn't a matter of time on my part and that I had probably even helped him by thinking quickly, but the amount of blood that seeped from his wound was greater than seventy-five percent of his blood volume, essentially meaning that he was going to die either way.

As I thought about the continual questions, I felt the movement of Luke beside me as he began reaching out with one arm while the other thrashed in the air, creating a movement of the bed as he whimpered slightly beside me. I couldn't make out the words, but I knew that I had to stop his thrashing before he hurt himself, and more importantly, I had to wake him up from his nightmare.

Luke's POV

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Everything was fine at the beginning of the night, but as my sleep wore on, I began to envision the alleyway that almost every nightmare I had was located within: the alleyway Cynthia died. At first I thought nothing of it, the image of Cynthia's dying body lying on the concrete as she struggled to gasp for air mere seconds before going still. Yes, the image still caused me to have anger and my body to become still from helplessness, but the feeling of shock was gone due to the dreams regular occurrence since Michael's death.

Cynthia's blonde hair remained pasted to her forehead, blonde locks entwined in her blood as I stroked her hair, hoping that she had found solace in her final moments despite my inability to care for her when she needed me most.

"Luke!" a voice shouted at the end of the alleyway. I turned on my heel quickly to find Melissa's figure standing at one end of the alley. My feet moved towards her beautiful form, but the sound of Cynthia's voice on the other side stopped me, making me pause in the middle of the expanse of the alleyway.

"This was my problem too," I heard the third voice say. My head turned to come face to face with Michael, shivering slightly at the look of him. The last time I had seen him, he was an inhumane pale that I never wanted to see again; however, now he appeared to be completely healed, the normal color of his face returned to him. "It was my mom instead of Cynthia though," he continued, shrugging his shoulders as if it didn't matter.