Chapter Two
Why are we here? Why were we made? Why do we act as we act, and do as we do? Eric's thoughts were always erratic, frantic and frenzied. He questioned anything and everything, to the point that he started to panic. He had panic attacks ever since he could remember, but lately they had been getting worse. He could feel his chest get tight, and his heart beat erratically. Pain. The world would blur around him, and he would see tunnels and tunnels, soar through them at sickening pace. Shapes and colors he couldn't describe. And, the scariest thing, was he could feel himself dying. The scarier part was that he thought that maybe he already was.
Eric never did anything to harm anybody. He was mostly a pacifist, only fighting when he was oppressed. Which he never understood. The fact that he WAS oppressed. He was so nice to other people... he went out of his way to act civilized and polite. Even this one girl in his English class. She was obese and unattractive.And annoying to an extent that Eric even admitted to himself was over the top. But he never said it out loud. He never joined in those savage insults aimed at her. He never tried to be friends with her, but whenever he did talk to her, he was nice. He even ignored her quirks. The fact that he could be nice to a girl so admittedly odd surely proved he was good at heart! So why? Why did people go so far out of their way to be mean to him?
He had long since decided why. And it had nothing to do with his own self-worth. Eric didn't find himself repulsive. He found everyone else in the world to be repulsive. There were good people, some. But it seemed like good people were always dragged down by everyone else, overshadowed by them, or simply targeted and bullied. People were close-minded and bigoted, believing in their beliefs and only those, and any other beliefs were to be shunned. Well, Eric was an atheist, and a stoner. But nobody ever bothered to ask why he didn't believe in God, or why he smoked weed. They seemed to put the two together, that since he was an atheist, he must be a bad person, and that's why he did drugs. That was hardly the case. Sadly, nobody cared. Sadly, everyone had already set their opinions on atheists and stoners. Sadly, they were too close-minded to ever be proven wrong.
Eric read the whole bible. Twice, actually, of his own free will. And most "Christians," namely the Christian boys who looked down on him as if they had any right to be proud, probably only ever touch one if they happened to be at church, when they even bothered to go to church, as their religion commands them to do. Not that they ever followed the rules of their religion they so proudly boast about. Not that they ever followed the rules of their own religion that they judge other people for NOT following. Eric read the bible, not once, but twice. And it was in his opinion that the bible had way too many holes to believe in. There was too much unexplained, and too many things that conflicted with scientific foundings of today. Regardless of WHY he didn't believe in the bible, it was his choosing to. His opinion. He had a right to his opinion, no different than people had the right to their opinion that God is real. So why? Why was his opinion wrong?
Eric knew many things. He was smart, almost at a genius level. He was neither ignorant, nor incompetent. And he knew many things. He knew, for example, that one did not need a religion to have good morals. Ironically, Eric held his own morals higher than most of the Christians he knew at school. He basically followed the ten commandments, or at least the ones that didn't pertain to God. They were simply common sense. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't hate. Greed is bad, lust is bad. Did people REALLY need a god to know right from wrong? Obviously people needed more because they weren't going anywhere WITH a god. It made Eric bitter, bitter that people could judge him when they were no better than himself, and that they could be proud about it. They could take their pride and shove it up their asses.
Eric was bitter. So very, very bitter. Lately it made him cynical, and caustic. He often entertained thoughts of reprisal, of bringing all these bigots down from their high horse. They needed to learn to walk with everyone else, he thought. They needed to be cut down in size. But he bit his tongue. He clenched his fists. It wasn't worth it. None of it was...
He placed the final bullet into the chamber and spun it round. He held in his hands a .38 special. He was just tired. He didn't hate himself. He didn't think he was worthless. That was the frustrating part, knowing that he wasn't a bad person, and yet being condemned as one for his own opinions. He was tired of being oppressed, and he was tired of his life. What would he amount to? It seemed like the only thing that made him happy anymore was smoking marijuana. And people misunderstood that, too. They didn't realize that he did it for his pain. They didn't realize he did it to escape the memories of his past. They didn't recognize that despite his drug use, he was still smarter than all of them, and they didn't seem to care that he wasn't hurting anybody when he smoked in the confines of his own home. People didn't realize he couldn't handle it anymore.
Gory images ran through his head. He was having another panic attack, caused this time by a flashback. "Why, Micheal?" he moaned into the air. "Why did you do it?" But he knew why. If Micheal felt anything like Eric did now, it was quite obvious why. Eric was tired. Tired of the panic attacks. Tired of the flashbacks. Tired of neglegence and oppression, tired of never amounting to anything. He was sick of feeling such acrimony towards the world. He simply did not want to continue.
He wasn't playing around, either. He hated hearing about people's "attempted" suicides. He had a very cynical mindset, and he figured if you really wanted to die, you wouldn't fool around with knives and pills. If you really wanted to die, there would be no attempt. Only succes. He knew the way he thought was twisted, which was why he kept it inside. But he hated those kind of people, the cutters and emo types. He thought cutting was stupid, and that the people who did it were idiotic. But who was he to judge, when in his hands he held a .38 special?
Too much thinking. He was tired of thinking. Did he want to die, or didn't he?
"Of course I don't," he muttered. "Nobody wants to die..." But it was the ultamite goal, was it not? No matter what you do, you will die in the end. Death was always the final destination. Why? Why were people created, if only to live a short life and die? Why was he so bitter, and the people who made him bitter so happy? Why were humans so advanced, and why were animals so primal? Weren't humans like animals? We would revert to anamalistic behavior whenever we were in danger. People will all but leave their humanity behind to survive. Wasn't that how society worked? People seemed to leave themselves behind in favor of appealing to the vast majority. Maybe Eric should have done the same. Instead, he was cut off from the pack. Why? Why? Why?
So many questions. So little answers. So much pain, but no relief from it all. So much stress, so little fun. Why? Why should he live?
He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
