'I Don't Care If You're Contagious' BoyxBoy

'I Don't Care If You're Contagious' 1

The world through Ash's eyes looked faded, an ugly, vomit like color. Everything looked so putrid and painstakingly horrible, different since he died. It all just seemed so overwhelming; he couldn't quite wrap his mind around it.

It all started on November 24th, the day of his birth...the day of his death. He should have seen it coming.  He should have been paying attention to the road, instead of attempting to open the lid of his Starbucks coffee. But no, his stupid, small hands decided to slip and falter, and then his car seemed to - almost magically - want to veer into oncoming traffic. To top off the whole disastrous situation, a damned mini van carrying a mother and her kids, decided to collide into his car.

Ash closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the cold December air, leaning over the thin balcony railing 32 floors from the ground.

If only the mini van carrying that pregnant mother and kid hadn't collided with his car, if only he'd died and not them. There were too many "if onlys'', too much regret.  The bitter throbbing pain seemed to dig deep into his heart and eat at him every time he took a breath.

He remembered the impact of the crash. It felt like a fright train had collided with his car at over 200 miles an hour.  He heard a scream that quickly dwindled away, followed by a crunch of metal, the skeleton of the car being crushed. He felt his body give way to the violent impact that sent him flying out his front windshield, and over the top of the mini van. He remembered the feeling of hitting the pavement with a sickening thud; he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. Then came the sirens, and the crunch of glass being stepped on by paramedics.

He felt something wet on his forehead, blood, it dripped down his fingers... it covered him. The iron like scent burned his nose; the taste of it filled his throat. Then came the worst pain imaginable, he felt it all over his body, a warm throbbing stabbing pain. He remembered trying to get up, but he could only shift one of his arms; he could hear the glass impaled in his arm scrap across the pavement. It was all over him, shards of glass and scraps of metal stabbed him and buried deep into his body, painful to the point of almost becoming a numbing sensation.

Ash crouched, two feet planted firmly on the icy, metal railing, cold hands holding onto either side of his fade Chuck Taylors.  He took a deep breath and leaned over more, feeling the bitter cold wind attack his hair and stab at his face.

He remembered more of that day, of not being able to move, of becoming sleepy and numb all over. The sirens around him seemed to dim down to a far away ring, in his mind he knew he was dying, but he couldn't bring himself to move or to even mumble, "Help me, I'm alive." So he just lay there letting the process of death creep into him and steal his breath away, he could feel the bitter coldness of his blood leaving his veins to coat the pavement. The coldness of death made its way to his heart and it slowed significantly. The usually steady, strong beat became only a murmur. After the process was complete, he couldn't hear or see anything. An empty void filled with regret and pain clouded all that surrounded him.  It was better then knowing that he'd killed that family... that he'd become a killer.

Ash placed one long leg over the cold railing, and then the other, he sat on the balcony looking down at the traffic below.

"So tiny," he mumbled.

People must have thought that he was damn grateful for Paul, the paramedic who had saved his life. Truth was he hated the guy.  He truly and honestly hated him. "He should have just left me alone on the dirty pavement to bleed out and die," Ash thought, "He should've left me for the coyotes to feast on, before the rats in the gutter got the last remaining bits."

 But no, Paul decided to give him CPR. He decided to shock Ash full of electricity until his skin began to burn beneath the slick pads, until the smell of human flesh rose up to the paramedic's nose.  Until he could get a steady heartbeat from Ash's nearly lifeless body, it worked.  The damned guy saved his life, and now Ash lived with a big "Fuck You World" sign above his head.