The Things We Don't Know

Love Lasts Forever

A week later my father fell very ill. The doctors gave him a month to live, he made it a week. My mother and I went back to the depressingly empty house the night he passed. I wanted to look through my computer at pictures of my father, but I couldn't. I remembered I had it all saved on a hard drive, but as I went to grab it, I remembered it had been stolen too. I screamed and cursed. I cursed the men to had taken my and my families sense of safety. I cursed God and the universe for taking my best friend. And I cursed that wretched thing, for taking the last piece I had left of him.I waited up for nights on end waiting for it to appear. I was going to kill it, torture it, force it to talk. I know it sounds extreme, but it's the only thing I had to take my anger out on. It never showed up.

I moved out of the house and in with a friend. My aunt came to stay with my mother until she was able to regain herself.A year and a half later my mom was in a car crash. She was in critical condition and doctors weren't sure if she'd make it. I stayed at the hospital as long as I could but we all have to move on with life. She passed away two months later. I returned to my childhood home.

Those days alone at the house began to wear on me. Cleaning and sorting my parents belongings to be given away or to be taken by me. Still, no pictures or evidence of their existence aside from clothing and material items. On the fifth day I couldn't do it anymore. I tied a rope to my ceiling fan, and wrapped it around my neck. As I began to feel the life leave my body, the fan fell.I woke up surrounded by rubble with the rope still around my neck. I went to the liquor store and counted the Vicodin pills I'd saved from a previous injury. I figured I'd have enough to get job done with some help from some liquid courage. I downed a fifth of whiskey and made my way to the medicine cabinet. When I opened it, I found my hard drive. Shocked, stunned, and drunk I grabbed it. I held it as if it was an ancient artifact, not believing it was in my grasp. I sat against the wall, hard drive in hand, tears down my face, and tried to breathe.

I came to the next day, slightly hungover but more tired than anything. I stood up and made my way downstairs, as a toasted the single piece of bread I had left, I remembered that my hard drive was still in the bathroom. I ran upstairs like the flash and bolted through the bathroom door. I found the hard drive and decided I have to go hide it in my room, before I lose it or someone steals it again. When I reached my room I came upon the pile of dry wall and fan and the gaping hole in my ceiling. I didn't feel like cleaning it up, but I also didn't feel like spending another day feeling like a worthless bag of shit. So I hid the drive and began to sweep. I grabbed a ladder and a few grocery bags I figured I'd duct tape over the old until I could get it properly fixed. As I climbed the ladder, I caught a split second glimpse of what seemed to be glass. I stuck my head through the hole to find my computer sitting open, in the ceiling. I pressed the space button to see if was on but it was clearly dead. I grabbed it and came down the ladder. I ran to the local Target to get a new charger for it and waited the agonizing unquantified amount of minutes before it would finally turn on. When it started back up, it asked me if I'd like to reopen what I'd had open before. I clicked yes and my music programs started to load. I got up to grab the hard drive as they were loading. When I came back, the Word icon was jumping up and down. I watched as a document opened, titled 'document 1'.