Toby

I awoke one morning in spring, the birds outside were singing some song what they conspired together when they were in their eggs, probably. I remember thinking that I was going to die, not because I have a fatal disease or anything. It’s just that I’ve seen so much death; everywhere I go I hear of someone dying. Last week the girl at the flower shop died, she was only fifteen. The village all say that it was tragic how it happened, and I guess I agree. She had just finished all of her exams, and before had decided to go out with her boyfriend and his friends who were all a lot older than she was. The news report said her boyfriend had been smoking cannabis when the car crashed. She didn’t die straight away though, it was hours until they were found, then when they did they found her trapped in the front seat of the crushed car. Her boyfriend lived, but only to kill himself days later… He was a successful student when he was at school, apparently he was a straight A student. He played all the sports he could, and was a good person. After she died he could no longer live with what he had done, he had hung himself in the village forest when his parents found him. Imagine that, walking the walk of death, every step what you take, knowing what you’re about to do. Could it be possible to have rational thoughts before you kill yourself? I always thought I would never do anything like that. It’d take a lot of guts anyway. Well I think I could do it if I was inches from death, or if it meant saving someone else’s life and I guess if I took some one elses I would as well. I stepped out of bed awaiting for the Grim Reaper because I figured if they could die, I could. People die so easily as well, it’s not like you know you’re going to die either, it can be like poof*, “I’m dead”. Then you’re dead.

I walked into the bathroom and there was a spider on the floor, which I stepped on, accidentally! It just goes to show how quick death comes to some, I’m just lucky that spiders can’t get revenge. I’m sure when they evolve they’ll kill us all, which wouldn’t be a great party for us. I bet they would be having a great time though, ‘Hey! We’ve got some ears here, anyone like ears?’ I’ve got school in an hour, I hate school, and the teachers are heinous and too formal. They’re all idiots who do as they are told. I don’t mean idiot as in they must have done really badly in their exams, but idiot as in creative idiot. They have no personality or charisma, how is anybody suppose to learn from someone who speaks like a corpse, if corpses could speak! Infact I bet if a corpse could speak and live, again, I bet they would be able to teach things a lot more interestingly than an academic teacher. You’ll probably wouldn’t be able to understand them if they did, but at least you’d have that novel fact that a dead guy’s talking to you. The bus ride to school is a horrific experience, least the guy who drives it is. I think he passed his driving test in a hurricane, but I will say this about Phil, he at least makes things interesting! That morning when I arrived at school, the headmaster cornered me, and this isn’t as common as you may think. He took me aside and spoke to me about a girl named Charlie, an Irish girl who started here last September. I had made friends with her before school started when she was at the local youth acoustic night. She was probably the most interesting girl I’d met in a long time. She spoke of things like I would, with a rational sense of morbidity. When he asked me about her I couldn’t help but notice that something must have happened. And then he told me about everything.

He told me that she went missing last week, and no one has seen her, but more freakishly no one had even reported her missing, not even her parents. I guess that he just wanted me to know first hand, but that’s why I hate teachers, any time they talk to you, you immediately feel like you’ve done something wrong. My mind wondered off for what must have been hours because when I lost my train of thought about Charlie it was six o Clock. I must have been in a trance when I was being talked to, either that or they finally admit they should just leave me be. I went to her house that night, and unsurprisingly no one was home. I did try and knock on her window to see if anyone was home, then I broke in. Partly because I wanted some answers and partly because I couldn’t care what would happen to me. I mean like I said, I could die in a minute, you never know. I went straight to her room, and everything in it was like I last saw it, her shelves were full of books on death and morbid fictional characters and stories, Frankenstein being my favorite. I relate to Frankenstein’s monster, a creation made to be a miracle, then neglected by its creator. A harmless being what through society’s ignorance turns evil, that’s why I love that book. The monster is a monster not because of how he was made, but through society, society’s monstrous creation. Makes me laugh, especially seeing it on her shelf, it was her that said that to me. It made me feel like I had something in common with her. I left the house a little furious, knowing that I’d not found anything what could help me, but what really made me curious was the whereabouts of her parents. I mean how do they not know she’s missing, better yet, do they even know she’s missing now?

I should have asked the headmaster whilst he was being so gentlemanly kind. It’s too late for all that now, I know he’ll be interrogating me about my grades soon enough. I started to feel abit lost after all the breaking and entering, so I did the only thing what seemed to be a good idea to me at that time, look at the place where the flower girl’s boyfriend hung himself. I carried on passed her cobble driveway, pass the expressionless faced gnomes. Pass the surreally parked cars, they are too parallel! The puzzle to me was the courage behind it, I know saying suicide takes courage is abit of a backwards thing to say, but it must have taking guts, a lot of them. After an hours walk, the sun started to set, the pollution in the air gave the sky a color of orange and red, like a water paint picture. I hate the contradiction of beautiful pollution I guess it’s an oxymoron as well. Usually when I walk to the forest I have a feeling of natural wonderment, I guess this time it just makes me feel unsettled and nervous. I take it step by step paving down the tall and narrow trees, knowing that somewhere in here there might be a dead rope. One what was used recently, one that was used willingly to discard a life they chose wasn’t worth living. I look up high and I wonder if he used a tree that was easy to climb, or if he brought a ladder. Imagine having to think about all this before committing your own execution. The leaves in the trees blocked out the sun, and only small rays of light echoed through the top of the forests maze. I start to walk faster knowing it’ll soon be dark, and knowing that after I find his death plot I’ll have to walk back home for at least an hour. Then suddenly I saw it, a heavy hanging rope, vacant, hollow. Used, and needed no longer, a token for all the suicidal.

A wave of remorse flows though my blood, and I have no other urge than to climb the tree. The rope was hung high, and I struggled to climb for a while until in the bushes layed an abandoned ladder. The police have obviously not been here, something I thought was bizarre, as this isn’t that recent. Whoever took his body left the evidence, but for what reason? I levitate the ladder and position it by the tree. It isn’t long till I’m inches from the dangling rope. I touch it with a grip what I would imagine Death using, and I loosen the knot what had been carefully fastened. I hastily climb back down to head out of the forests other exit. I step out to the final light of the sun catching a reflection on the rivers surface. I stumble upon an old bag, which I can only guess must have been his. I tuck the rope in the bag and throw it into the river. Tears fell, I couldn’t help myself. The thought overwhelmed me and I couldn’t find the word for the emotion I was feeling. Death is a tragedy and a comedy, to be in a state of mind where you feel like throwing your life away must be terrifying. But I can’t really know, nor do I think I will ever really experience it, for the better in some eyes. I begin to loose myself in thought, asking questions to answer questions. Did he have someone to talk to? Did he want to talk? What did they say if he did talk to them? Did he speak in third person? Was he alone through all of this? Did he want to be alone or did he want company but couldn’t find any? I walk home the lights of the streets slowly fade on.

I feel I’m fading myself, out of myself into a surreal environment where we observe ourselves. I did right I think, I didn’t want his rope haunting the forest, his ghost would entertain people for years anyway, I doubt he’ll need it. I step up to my home, and it looks as if my parents didn’t want to wait up for me; they must know about Charlie. I think about her as I fall asleep, hoping that I’ll have some answers and as I fall to slumber my mind is so absorbed with death I begin to dream about it, like a friend and a nemesis. The dream depicts me walking with the empty Reaper, talking with him like a student to teacher. I remember him trying to tell me something, as soon as he started to talk with his wheezy and dark voice I waken. That morning I felt like a chip what was cooked on the outside but frozen in the middle. I ignore my mum’s plea to stay in bed I was too concerned with Charlie to lie lazily in bed all day. I savage through my pictures to find a picture that was taken when I was eight it was in the cemetery that Halloween. I lived next door to one for years, until a group of prisoners escaped. My parents were scared as most were in prison for rape and murder, my father didn’t waste time to move house. Since I moved to the village things have been so tame, eerily so. I thought I could find things to occupy my life, but the only thing here is dry life and death. After paper cuts and pictures blotted with blood, I could feel myself becoming obsessed. Then there it was; the picture I was looking for. It was winter the windows behind me and Charlie were frozen over and looked like mirrors. She was smiling whimsically and looked comfortable next to me. I was looking at some bird falling in the distance my eyes looking pass the camera. I sank into my chair, looking pointlessly at the photo of us. I take a deep breath and try to think where she might be, and it came to me like a flash of light in a storm. She must have been kidnapped, it’s the only explanation. I usually think that someone’s dead if they’re missing, but not Charlie. I go around the town looking for someone who will know something, and the only person I could think of was the Headmaster Mr. Welsh.

Luckily or not I know where he lives, he’s been my parent’s friend for the past five years and he might talk to me if I ask him nice enough. I head over to his house which is right next to the school, I always figured that he liked to keep an eye on the place even if he wasn’t working; some people need to get a life, right? When I knocked on his door it felt like a cannon ball had just been dropped in my stomach. Was I really going to ask him about Charlie, would he give me detention for asking? Silly thoughts for a serious time, I guess that’s my way. He answers in his dressing gown, but looks like he’s been up for at least a few hours, he hasn’t shaven, and gives me a look like he’s been expecting me. He welcomes me inside and tells me to take a seat. I look around his house to see if he’s has dull as I always thought he would be. On his walls are maps of the globe and countries with pins in places I can only assume he’s been to or he’s just sad. His fireplace his open, and looks as though it’s been used recently, the wood is black but warmth still emits from it. He moves over to the couch the other side of my own he looks like he’s waiting for me to start talking but suddenly asks if I want a drink. I let him know that I don’t like caffeine but if he has any milk I wouldn’t say no. He drops it down by the side of my seat with a cookie and confronts me. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” I hate that question, it’s just so patronising, typical teacher attitude, know it all. I forget my issues with authority and begin to let him know my theory on Charlie, he listens and I keep talking. A couple of hours later he lets out a sigh, and tells me something I wasn’t expecting. He moves closer to me and looks me in the eyes and tells me that there’s nothing he can do, and that he doesn’t have any idea where Charlie could be either, and that he wouldn’t be surprised if she had been kidnapped. This doesn’t comfort me in the least, but he went on to say that he would look out for any new news, and I’d be the first person he tells. Great bloody comfort that is, I leave his house no wiser. The only other place I could carry myself now is back to Charlie’s; maybe I missed something?

Her home seemed more barren and disserted than yesterday, like it has lost hope on anyone coming back. I look to the floor and find to find the cracks on the pavement outside her house, reminding me of the games we use to play. Charlie was deeply against superstition, but highly encouraged spreading them as if they were real. She convinced the neighborhood that stepping on a crack broke your mothers back, but truly set standards when she invented her own. Like when she told the year elevens that if you spoke the headmasters name he would appear from nowhere and they believed her like a religion. Funny times, times what I may never have again with her, I never admitted how close I felt to her. Especially not to her face, she would probably laugh and give me a dead arm. I’m not a massive fan of pain, so I avoided doing that for good causes. I bring myself to fall away from her home, her empty home… As I did I saw a swarm of scurrying spiders rush passed my legs, I jumped like a coward; you would as well, trust me. They looked as if they were on a mission, walking with an aim, a higher plan. I’d never seen so many at once before, I could only assume that they were going back to their mother. I hate spiders. They remind me of death, I suppose it’s true as well of insects at least. Imagine seeing a spider and thinking, ‘oh I’m about to die’, it wouldn’t be a great experience. However I got curious and I followed them. My theory is if a picture won’t help, nor a Headmaster, these have probably got as good of a chance of helping as much as they did. They were faster than I thought and I didn’t realise spiders could jump either. They jumped with agility and speed it was a nightmare to watch. I was only glad to know that I was bigger than they were, and able to squash them if they try to kill me, which is always a possibility with spiders. It’s not Australia or anything I’m just not prepared to take risks with those athletic critters.

They led to a farm covered with high branches of corn and an empty field next to it. As soon as they went through the corn I took a minute to decide whether or not this would be a smart move, and I think that it is, so I went in. The corn field was far scarier than the forest, the light was nearly blacked out completely and I had no idea where they would lead me. I’m sure I heard shouting but the sound of myself brushing pass the corn made it almost indistinguishable to deceiver. I practically lost all of the spiders as soon as I went in I only knew where they could have gone. As quickly as I turn a spider catches my eye so I took chase. Those idiotic arachnids won’t slip through my fingers this time I throw my feet forward treading carefully not to squash the miniature beast. I reach an end to the corn field to find the rest of the swarm hurrying for an abandoned house. As I stepped further towards the derelict house a large hand gripped me on my shoulder. A stupid farmer, probably machinating against me with the spiders, I’m sure I’m not being paranoid. He tells me to leave his farm, and I feel disinclined to do so, but have to, I guess. I thought about hitting him in the groan, then to make a run for the house but I surmise that he’ll just catch me before I reach the house, he’s lucky, this time. As soon as his grip loosened from my shoulder I ran as fast as I could, but this time I chose to avoid the Minotaur’s maze of a corn a field. I could feel the sweat passing off my forehead on to my eyes, the salty sweat burning dripping pass my brow on to my pupils making it impossible to see clearly.

I run into the blurred distance unsure of where I’m heading, uncertain of what I had just seen. My body pulsed my heart beat rapid my thoughts sporadic, my next destination unknown. I fell to my knees in tears, my hope slowly fades and I’ve no idea where I’ll be able to find her. My only idea now is to go back to the farm where those spiders led me, I’m sure I missed something. Walking my skin feels dry and dull, the air breezing pass my body was a mock of nature, teasing my desperation. I was only feet away from where the farmer had grabbed me by my shoulder, but for whatever reason he had, he left. I stumble to the abandoned house, looking for answers and maybe even Charlie. It’s a bad sign when you’re looking for a missing person in an abandoned house, not very hopeful anyway. The house is old and looks like it could fall into itself, the wide door opens with an unwelcome ease. I walk inside and see spider web after spider web which coats the house like an interior decorators nightmare. I felt lucky because I had remembered to bring my jacket, which right now is substituting as a shield against tiny spiders and the thick webs. The stairway looks decayed and rotten, but I decided against my better judgment and climb anyway. The walls are white with webs, with spots of black where insects lay waiting for their death. The house is empty and so are my feelings of any clue to her whereabouts. I coughed and coughed with the lapse of air, the small confinement made me feel nauseous and weak. I give up on finding anything so I make my way outside, only to reach the door. As I open the door a figure stands at the entrance that I recognised as the farmer who I only remembered through his sheer size. Before I know what has happened I pass out through the lack of oxygen. When I awoke I found myself in a wooden Victorian bed that looks as though it hasn’t been taken care of for many years. I try to look around but my vision is blurred, I struggle to make sense of anything what isn’t straight in front of me. Then a large shadow loams over me with a long knife and for the first time in my life I’m ready to die.
As soon as the knife falls I could only take a deep breath and let myself be taken. My body and mind weren’t strong enough to defend any part of myself. I felt like an enfant, needing to rely on another for basic life essentials. Not having the capability to stand for myself so having to sacrifice myself to deaths touch. It was when the knife fell that I realised I was safe, for the knife was merely there to cut bred, the farmer handed me a few big slices on a surprisingly clean plate. I felt to weak to ask any questions but I was starting to become suspicious, questions were brewing in my head. Not that I was going to ask them anytime soon, but as soon as I was ready to fall back asleep he woke me with a rough shake to the arm. I did my best to make a conversation, and it was dire. I was lucky to find that he had already worked me out, he spent a good few hours looking after me and talking to me where I was conscious. I was shocked to later find that the spider house was the farmer’s extermination plot. He used a chemical to attract the insects of the area to the house then let the spiders kill them. Except when I got there he was about to kill the spiders so sent a deadly chemical through the desolate house. And if I had stayed there much longer I would have died, strange how being so close to death prepares you for it. He had let my parents know what had happened they seemed indifferent to my mess and let the farmer take care of me.

I am use to getting myself in these situations though so I can hardly blame them. I remember waking up the next day feeling like I had a mission to finish, Charlie. I asked the farmer now that we seemed to have come to a silent truce. He knew her, and to my bewilderment her parents knew him. And he had said that they moved away when their other daughter went missing on holiday, they were looking for her. The shocking truth is that I didn’t ever realise she had a sister, regardless my heart raced the marathon of a life time as he told me that she stayed behind. A town not too far from here…As soon as he told me I leapt from my bed, and I ran. The town was an hour walk away I got there in thirty minutes. I looked for the hostel the farmer spoke of, a home more to the like, one that was situated by a river bank. Everything seemed like a painted over picture, and I all the weakness I was feeling slipped away. Then there in the distance was the river bank, I ran like never before. I arrived at the door, and knocked like a hammer on a nail. The women who answered was young, but looked weary. I realised my haste, and tried to sound relaxed. As soon as I asked about Charlie she became skeptical, and I was beginning to wonder if this was all a big mistake.

I persevered, and told her I was a friend. As soon as I did the long black haired Charlie turned her head round a door, my life held still. I shouted her name but she vanished from my sight, the women abruptly closed the door and I was lost. I’m sure it was her, and I can’t understand why she wouldn’t want to speak to me… I had come too far to go back home, so I waited for her. I didn’t want to call out for her again as I had already gained the impression I was unwelcome, I didn’t want to tarnish my visit much further. It was hours until anyone made a noise in that house, I became uneasy as the minutes passed. It was as sudden as anything I could have imagined around the back of the house I saw her move to the edge of the river with paint and paper. I sneaked through to the back and spoke to her whilst I was close enough for her not to make an escape. She looked furious she asked me why I had come, why now. I said I cared about her and that I loved her. She confronted me with a blood red face, almost spitting out her words. She said that she never had any real feelings for me, and that I didn’t know what I was saying and that I didn’t even know her. I told her who really knows anybody? She wasn’t impressed with my response, and I could hardly understand what was happening. I thought she would have wanted to see me I was wrong, dead wrong. I wasn’t coping well with the news at all and I started to wish I had died back in the abandoned house. And then it strikes me, this is the logic I’ve missed.

This is what makes suicide logical, to be the only alternative. To love someone to be rejected, to fall into a million pieces from war destroying words. I spend nights and nights thinking about alternatives, life goes on they’re other girls in the world… But it all sounds too cliché for me, and I chose to end life. I think for days about the best way, to hang myself, to slit my wrist, to take poison, over dose… A decision like this is only a dark thought for the soul who has life to live. Mine was over with her I loved her, so much. I decided to throw my self of a bridge into the river, the same in which she killed my heart. I fill my bag with stones and tape it to my body I don’t want to survive this time. I climb to the edge, thinking about everything I’m leaving, my parents my friends my dreams. If I was religious I’d be praying right now, but alas I’ve not been able to stomach faith. I leap and after five minutes I pass out, I tried to break myself free after two minutes, but it was too late. I wonder if this is what the by thought about a second before he died? Did he have second thoughts? Life is never appreciated, especially to those who have a lot. To them it’s a not a gift worth cherishing, but a choir. To me it was that’s why I thought it was mine to take away. It was with haste that I killed myself, and it isn’t a decision I’d recommend. My greatest shock was the blackness of death, is this what I face for taking my own life or is something what happens whether a sinner or a follower of the morals in the bible. It was only weeks after I killed myself that Charlie did the same thing, she felt responsible, and she was depressed that her sister was missing. She slit her wrists and bled to death next to the river. She wrote a note and left it on my grave before she died. I guess it’s how I know now. She said she loved me and that she was sorry, the last line said that she would see me soon. I’ve been waiting a long time I think nearly fifty years now, I still can’t find her. I know I’ll see her again, I know if I keep waiting. We’re two souls that are meant to be together, in life and in death.





CHARLIE





I moved to Gorges village when I was thirteen, I had to. Back in Dublin I was bullied for being different, well non conformist. I was beaten up by the girls in my year and my sister wasn’t getting any favors from it. She’s only eleven and really shy it’s a real shame that she got bullied because of me. It’s not like I could stop being me, it defied the whole point. My parents were concerned for her well fare, and mine I can only figure. Their plan was to move us out to a really small village where no one would be so cruel and obtuse. They found it by a leaflet the churches were handing out, my parents are very religious. Too religious for my likes, I hate believing that some prophet is ominous and everywhere, I leave that for the British government. And I never understood why they thought Britain would be a charming place to go. It’s not like they are loads better than us Irish, but I never had a say in what they did. When I first moved there I felt more secluded than ever before. I hated to think that I had to spend at least the next five years here studying. I noticed the one disturbing thing about my village, it’s the morbid culture they have here. I love morbidity, I love Edgar Allen Poe, I love Mary Shelly I love darkness. But here is something else the caretaker of the cemetery is like a walking statue. He spends everyday looking at the passers by like he knows when they are going to die, especially me. It’s a look of time, a look of a sand clock, peering into his eyes it felt like I could see an hour glass dropping sand, then the sand being used as the first bit of debris for my grave. I had to walk pass this cemetery every day for school, it wasn’t until I met this boy that everything started to look bright. His name was Toby I liked him because of his attitude to life.

He was always so apathetic but he knew about this town, he had moved here recently as well. I think you had to come from away to realise the feeling of haunt this village emits. The school was friendly and I wasn’t bullied like before. I guess I only really like one lesson and that’s English. I can never find anything else as fascinating enough to keep my interest going. I guess I have a concentration problem it’s not that I refuse to find things interesting it’s just that I can’t help but find things dull. Death to me is simple it comes at random, no one chooses death and no one wants it in their lives or happening to them, suicidal cases or obviously a different case. Suicide to me is a rational choice; look at Romeo and Juliet… They both took their own lives out of love. And then there is that boy who was raped in the juvenile prison in that movie. Who killed himself after getting shafted up his cheeks, I’d hate that to happen to me, and I’m a girl! Dirty beggars I tell you, my friend was tormented for weeks by all her friends because her boyfriend did the dirty deed on her when she was drunk. He started by slipping in his fingers and she let him carry on, she never lived it down. It makes me sick though the flesh and bone. What son of a bitch would do that to his girlfriend it’s so repulsive, it makes me furious!

There’s only one thing worse than rape to me and that’s violence and rape. There was a big story in Ireland about a girl who was on trail because she killed her boyfriend. Now murder is something what everyone sees as an ultimately wrong thing. It was this case where I felt sorry for her, she killed him intentionally but only because he beat her up nearly everyday and had sex with her even though she didn’t want to. If anyone was a victim it wasn’t him it was her, it was his parents who called the police and put her on trail. The verdict sentenced her to death, that’s after rotting in a prison for so many decades. It was five years later that she took her life, and it she was inches from being saved as well, if she wanted it. She knew what she was going to do and how she was going to do it…She started shouting randomly and biting the guards to plea for insanity I think, but she only did for one day. Which makes me think that she did it so they wouldn’t check on her when she cut her self open, she must have screamed so load imagine being ignored like that. I think she liked the idea of going sooner than later, and avoid the punishment of prison which must be like a worsened version of my old school. A competition of gangs and hierarchy, those who are lower rank are victims for the hierarchy of the food chain. I don’t know, when did the world become a coolness competition? I decided long ago that I wouldn’t do anything just because another was doing it, a mature choice for a five year old, if I say so myself. I think my sister was scared for life when she moved here, not from here but form our old school, she was always shy but she would always talk to me, but now she won’t talk to anyone not even me.

It hurts sometimes, I love her loads and it just feels like I’m watching her drift further and further away from reality. Like she’s on a ship of insanity and I’ve just sent her from the island of rational thought. Something like that anyway, I can only use these as an example to how I’m feeling. Its heart breaking to watch someone so close fall so easily through your finger tips and their own. In comparison this village if not spooky is at least welcoming, to an extent at least. The only thing I’m worried about is people asking questions about my family, I don’t want to lie to anyone. At the same time I don’t want to advertise that my sister is losing touch of her reality. And most of all I hate to admit that she is it makes me feel like I’m losing touch of my own sense of self. Like everything I do is from a subjective point of view, as if I’m out of myself. The worst happened to me a month ago…My sister headed for the worst so we had to put her in the local metal institution, but while she was there she was kidnapped by an escaping resident. She wasn’t completely out of it, and she can defend herself, but she didn’t. My parents threw a fit when they heard and the second they did they bought a caravan and started traveling the country to look for her. Me however my education is far too important to look for her, according to my parents’ that is.

I hated it, I was away from Toby and he has no idea where I am or where any of my family is either. I told his Mum to tell him to meet me today as well, but I think she knows. I think the whole village knows except him. That village thinks it knows it all, they think they are doing well by lying to people. They sugar coat everything, ‘we don’t have a high death rate, just a high pace life’ bollocks. It went too far with that one there were loads of quotes like that in the village newspaper. We had national coverage once when that girl at the flower shop passed away. Poor girl, I knew her as well, she always defended the weaker students at costs to her own reputation. It’s a real disappointment that she had to go the way she did, worse still was her boyfriend, talk about having a guilty conscience. He hung himself, the story spread up and down the country for a long time. It was like a black label across Gorges, the mayor did what he could to help the reputation of the village and resulted in lie after lie. He rolled lies about the poor boy like he was a machine, he would say he was mental, he had issues, he was a drug taker there was no hope for him anyway. The truth was that he never took drugs once I know he spoke to me. His car was checked badly by the local garage and the breaks faulted as he was turning a sharp bend… He did kill himself but I can’t hold it against him, you would if you lived here. He wasn’t sympathized with at all they all believed him to be a pot smoker, nothing more.

There was a call for him to be arrested, that night he came round to mine. I let him hide in my parent’s basement if I didn’t help him who would, that’s what I say. It was in vain anyhow, he stole a rope and one of my papa’s wooded ladders during the night. He was stone cold sober, he knew what he was doing, and he had planned to steal them from the second he walked up to the door. I thought by just being there it would help him enough but I was wrong. That was abit before my sister broke down and I moved, which was a terrifying experience. I didn’t know where to go with myself, for ages I drew with water colors dark and bleak things, a dead rose, a black sun, the grave digger who haunted anyone who gazed into his eyes. It was when Toby cam along that life started to make sense it said that I made him feel like he mattered, I can say the same thing for him. We shared a connection which is hard to replace with anyone or anything and I wish I had someway to get in touch with him. Although if I did I’d know I would be treat without mercy by my parents, their fear of anyone knowing about my sister would be a death sentence. The house I was settled onto was run by a lady in her forties a woman who’s live has been obsessed with raising her children and their grandchildren. I feel sorry for her, she’s lived a life totally selflessly, I can’t imagine how she finds time to find herself. Then it comes to me, a lot of life isn’t about looking for yourself it’s about looking for that other person, the other people. Life isn’t selfish, people are, least that’s the way it’s going for me…I can’t help but think about Toby, he was wonderful, and everything I needed, and by being ere and being quiet I’m letting him down. Though the days pass and I feel worse and worse about my sister still not returning. Phil my cousin said he’d keep an eye on Toby for me, it’s a shame he’ll never know I’m looking out for him. Yet the more I think about it the more I think that my emotions for him are plain and false a teenage angst. I look at myself form another point of view and try to out him behind me, I need to grow out of him, I won’t see him again, ever, I need to face facts. It was a sudden and cold feeling, and I know I mustn’t change my mind. Days later there was a knock on my door, Miranda the lady who runs the house answers. And I could have sworn my eyes popped out of their sockets, it was him Toby!

I freeze, I was not prepared for him this soon. So rather than going to talk to the guy I’ve just burned form my life I hide and suggest that she shut the door. Miranda had no idea who the boy was, I told her he was a stupid boy with a crush, poor Toby. It wasn’t till late afternoon that I did the unforgivable thing. He was only trying to be nice and I was so cold to him. He only wanted to see me, to know but I told him to go away. I told him that I didn’t and never liked him, that he never knew me I never thought he would do what he did. I never realised he loved me like I loved him. He said it, he said he loved me… it felt like my life was a sink emptying its water down the drain. He killed himself, on the river bank where we last talked. I was empty and had nothing left to give, the police had just rang to let me know my parents had been killed by the mad man who had taken my sister. I had no other option but to take my life, to be with Toby to be with my family. I spend the night writing a last letter to Toby, to tell him everything to apologise. I wrote how I was going to die it felt calming I felt ready.

I stayed awake all night looking at the sun set and sun rise. I painted and cried, the tears smudging the paint. I freeze my wrist and take deep breaths I take the knife and vertically cut my arms. It hurt more than I thought it would, the blood dripped into the river I was ready to see Toby again. I pass out all I saw was blackness. I’d been asleep for months, I’d put myself in a coma, I lived. I could only see it as a sign I was meant to do something with me life, for Toby for my family. Sixty years on and I’m still writing, this story is my last one. It’s short as I didn’t want to mourn too much on Toby, I have grandchildren now and I live very much like Miranda. My Irish accents faded and everyday what goes by I think about Toby, I promise I’ll be with you one day Toby. I promise I’ve live for both of us, I send you my love my darling may you rest happily in piece.