Drip, drop, drip. Spring rain splattered against me. It was so warm, so welcoming. It wasn't any of that cold early spring rain that felt like Frosty the Snowman's sweat. No, it was warm like a nice shower. Warm enough for me to pull my skin off. You ever had that feeling? Maybe while in the shower, or maybe in a warm pool, but just the feeling where you start thinking what it would feel like to have water press against nothing but flesh and bone. No skin. No outer layer to block the fresh pain. Maybe fresh enjoyment. Just pure water, against pure flesh and nerves. That need, the curiosity, it was killing me. I had to know what this rejuvenating sensation felt like away from my skin!
I reached into the pocket of my dark blue jeans, feeling around the rough polyester bag that was my pocket. I pulled one of my favorite knives out of it. Just a small, brown pocket knife, but it was more than enough to do what I needed from it. I lifted it to my face, pulling the blade from the crevice of it's holder. I held it in front of my eyes, watching the rain smash against the shiny metal, breaking off or sticking to it. It was a fun thing to watch, but my flesh still cried out to me to feel the rain.
I pressed the blade against my cheek, blood coming out like lava, the nerves in my skin screaming out to me to stop. But the ones in my flesh screamed louder. I dug the knife until I felt skin instead of flesh, and started to carve myself from there. I was my own jack-o-lantern. I carved half my face, as if in honor of the Batman villain Two-Face. And then my face sang. It sang in agony as the rain mixed with the hotter, thicker blood. It sang in joy as it felt the cooling water the skin above it had stolen before. The rest of my body cried out in jealousy though. It wanted to feel it too!
I couldn't imagine what someone would have seen if anyone was there. A boy, the side of his face covered completely in blood. The flesh under it pulsing, trying to feed itself more, more! More!
I brought the knife to the other side to carve once more. Maybe like Professor Zasz instead, continuously carving into myself. I saw the pale white skin fall to the ground, two piles of it at my feet, blood flowing down onto them. A crimson waterfall onto dying rocks. Oh how my flesh sang! It screamed, like this is what it felt to go to hell! Painful beyond imagination, but so good!
I thought of where to cut next. Not my throat, or up my arms. I didn't want to kill myself too quickly. It had to be slow so my whole body could feel the amazing agony. I took a step back from the dead rocks, and moved the waterfall with me. I sat down and put the knife down in the grass that still had the green of being freshly cut. It felt soft but stubby. Not soft and stubby enough to distract me from my crying flesh though. It still cried for more rain.
I reached over and took my cracking shoes off my feet. The brown mixed in with the green grass and the crimson stained grass. Next the simple cloth that served as my socks. I crumpled up into a little textile baseball and flung it at the skin that laid, dead on the ground.
I picked my knife back up and brought it back to my feet. The metal was still shining from the rain tipped grass. I changed that quickly. Two fresh piles of pale rocks, two fresh crimson waterfalls. The grass sticking to my sickly feet like dead men clawing their last hope of living. Two more parts of the body screaming in an agonizing symphony, just like the men before death. A symphony of pulsing blood and dying muscles. A symphony from my own mouth that pierced the night. Maybe not a symphony, but one shrill note of enjoyment. The knife sang its own quiet melody, a soft, tempting melody.
Maybe this is what sailors heard in those legends about sirens. Except I couldn't hear these sirens, I felt them. These sirens called to me, not to lure me into waters, but to slowly kill myself. And I answered to it, just like the sailors answered their sirens. I craved it so badly, and so I fed myself with the knife. Fed myself the rain. It fed me lies of pleasure, it fed me false feelings of happiness. It also fed me the truth of agony and hell. I loved it. And that love just kept killing me. It bled me. It bled me to the ground, and the ground welcomed me, with death opening his arms, waiting.
I smiled at him and wagged my knife,"Not yet. I still want more." And so he waited in the ground, while I sat on the Earth, taunting him. I smiled, I had experienced the most beautiful agony for the first and last time in my life. I brought the knife to my attention again. The final act was almost there.
So I brought my little pleasure tool to the fingers on my left hand. I stopped for a moment, and stared at the tendons that moved in eagerness under my skin. They were like little worms, moving in sync with my fingers. My grin could only get wider. I was about to see the very things that moved my fingers. And then my knife worked once again. Not a symphony, but a pure howl came from me. I had become to embodiment of pleasure in pain! The tendons fell across the back of my hand and drooped. I stared at my hand as the fingers on it refused to move, simply drooping like the tendons that had just controlled it moments ago.
Then I screamed to the heavens and the Hells. They burned! My tendons they burned! My tendons! They hung there, flaming in the rain. And the rain burnt worse than any Hell! My fingers cried to the rain for more like the rest of my body, but my tendons cried for the rain to stop its torture, or to just kill them. The pain was just too much! I looked at the ground for Death, and I could've sworn his skulled face was grinning at me. He knew my tears were no longer of happiness. He knew I was wanting Hell. I reached out to him, and this time, he refused me. He simply shook his head and put up one of his boney fingers, telling me to wait. I stared at the white of that finger, then my own. And I solved my tendon problem. It was so simple. All I had to do, was cut to the bone. So much flesh and blood was on the ground at that point, how was I not with Death yet?
"No! Stop it!" I plunged my knife through my fingers, cutting tendon and flesh. I didn't scream though. The flesh fell, and there was no feeling. No rain on bones, no flesh in pain, no bleeding. Just, nothing. It was beyond numb. The bone was simply there. I watched as Death reached up and grabbed my fingers, then as he retreated into the ground, and the bone fell after him. I no longer had fingers.... No ringers. Just the right ones. Five fingers. FIVE FINGERS.
I just started laughing. I was a five fingered person! A five fingered freak! I was just laughing, bringing the knife up to my shoulder and just peeling from there. Five fingers, could you believe it! A peeled shoulder, skinless foot, and missing face sure, but five fingers?! No, no, no! I couldn't have that! You either lost your hand, or a few of your fingers, but not all five and keeping your hand!
I didn't even notice that my hand was slowing, that Death was starting to come put of the ground. But how could I?! Two palms and only five fingers?! He reached out and grabbed me, his touch seeming to just stop my blood. I looked up at him, he was grinning at me. At the ponds of blood below and around me. At the piles of flesh throughout them. He grabbed me by my wrists, making me drop the knife.
He leaned close to me, his voice barely even a whisper,"Only five fingers will mean nothing in Hell." He brought his head back. His skull still smiling at me. The bones that were his hands reached out and grabbed my wrists. The touch was so cold, so numbing. I watched as my knife fell to the ground, but didn't feel my hand release it.
He starting fading back into the ground, pulling me with him,"Come, sleep. Hell is just this way." And so I went with him. Funny thing. Hell is completely black. No lava, no giant fiery pits. There's simply nothing. There's simply a searing red glow then nothing but black as Death makes your face come in contact with the ground. I noticed something though, right before I hit the ground. A little girl with the most horrified look on her face. If I wasn't with Death, I probably could've recognized it, but oh well. Dying is dying. So, here I am, telling you my story in the darkness. But if I can tell you this story, that means you're in the blackness too, and that something other than me and Death is here. What a shame. You're here, so you're dead like me. At least you don't have to see my face.
I hope Death gave you some great enjoyment before you died though. It's only right for a person. After all, enjoying yourself is the greatest way to die. No use dying sad. A knife, a bottle of whiskey, it doesn't matter, as long as you're laughing your head off when Death decides to grab you. Just make sure you don't cut off five of your fingers. Especially in the rain. Now go, tell your story to someone. After all, the darkness is full of people who have stories to hear and tell. And you've heard the important part of mine. So leave, before I start cutting you up too.
