collection of poems and short stories

Mirage (Short story):

I am dazed to find myself in such a position. As for this, the scene was set within a small hotel room that had walls and carpet ageing with cigarette smoke, a dust-covered bed, dirtied with Siamese cat shed, rounds of cigarette burns on the wall, traced hangers of jackets and collared shirts. It was tolerable to say that my stay was uneasy. For one, I had been placed here with a dead man, a proclaimed dead man, and a gunshot wound pierced through his collar and upon his gullet that has been torn into the meshed fragments of tissue to diminish the vitality of breath. His body has leached the carpet, his face facing down as his torso and legs silently wilt. His skin was pale, soft, yet it felt as if he was so vulnerable, that his skin was air-drying, having an audible snap as if it were a screaming weed begging for remorse being pulled from the ground. For as his hands, they were open as if he were attempting to clench for an object of life, and his forearms had been battered and bruised, these bruises were sporadic and deafening; they were muting his skin and body, tormenting him and straining him into a position of death.
I drag myself to a nearby mirror. My fingers have seeped into the handle of a firearm, my neck has the slightest of bruises. A jacket covering my bare chest that had been stained with blood. I tread over the ageing and deteriorating carpet, paced by the hangers rowed of jackets and collared shirts, and find myself attempting to turn over this man, for blood is embracing his neck slowly dripping to his collar and choked gasps were exhausting out of his sombre mouth, yet his face, I cannot define. It was a mirage, his eyes were bleak lines, his mouth was folded in, and his facial structure was distorted beyond recognition. I was confused until I observed the room thoroughly; wailing lights had screamed red through frosted glass, there were hangers being accompanied by the same collared shirts that this man had owned and the same jacket I saw myself to be wearing. I stared at that man's body and I saw myself leaving his vessel. I sat ill as the phone rang, watching a Siamese cat sleep lightly upon a cushioned chair.
I found myself staring outside the frosted glass, I could only see the outline of trees that could not speak, the trees do not know. I am waiting to live, waiting to die. As I declare nothing, it was just a waiting. No matter how impatient the abstract openings of my death were, it was waiting. Waiting for the silent screaming weeds to be pulled from the ground. Before, I saw my body being pulled away by a screaming crowd of dispatchers, my fingers reached out to an unresponsive god of life.
I walked myself back to the mirror, and stared at my pale, blood-stained body. My mind began to question what happened. I died, but how? Am I really dead? As I recollected my thoughts, another question came into my mind. What am I? What the hell am I?
"You're your own being." A womanly voice muttered.
"You already know what you are, you're looking into the mirror, aren't you?" She continued.
I scanned the room to identify the source of this voice. Everything seemed normal, the hangers and coats, the dust-covered bed. As I continued to scan the room, I met eyes with an awake Siamese cat.
"Are you speaking to me?" I asked
"Yes, I am, you're dead now, aren't you aware that cats are able to communicate with those who've passed?" She responded
"No, I did not know that. However, I'm sure that I am now officially dead. I'm able to communicate with cats now, I don't think a living person could possess such a trait."
The cat lifted herself and sat upright beside me.
"Of course. Living humans cannot possess this trait, humans possess and acquire traits that are comprehensible to their own circumstances."
It began to dwell on me that I was no longer human. Not just by the means of this interaction, but by the reflection of myself in the mirror. Just like the man on the floor, my face is now a mirage of distortion and lines. Yet, I felt so bothered to ask.
"So, am I still human?"
"Well, both of us just witnessed your deceased body being dragged away, you seemed pretty human back there."
"Right." I responded.
"Now, you're just a being and nothing more."
"What does that mean?!" I shouted.
"Am I just a metaphysical ghost or something? Like some pale-white bodied, blood-stained, piece of non-existent flesh?"
"You very well could be. Although, You're not non-existent, I can acknowledge you and see you
clearly. You can ought to be anything now, you're dead. No one's watching you."
I began to feel feigned and distraught. This is what I am, nothing more than just a being. This is me. However, these cat's words. They erupted something within me. A sense of peace, something that I've strangely longed for.
"How did I die? Was this my doing?"
"From what I saw, I'd say so but it's not entirely your doing."
"What do you mean?"
"You came into this hotel room, distressed and disoriented. You stood near the edge of the bed. Mostly silent and it seemed that you were deep within your thoughts. Perhaps, something significant turned into a source of detachment and pain. Something that's once made you feel at ease had consumed you for a living. You stood there for awhile, and walked toward the front of the bed, reached out and clenched to your firearm, and shot yourself. Your conciseness bled, and you ran out of patience with life, it felt like you were waiting for something. Something grand to come back to you."
There was a silence between us, a pondering silence. The cat was right. She was right. I ran out of patience within my life, I began to harp upon the comfort of sustained memories. Memories that once fueled my body. Memories that I called for in hopes for a response. I suppose there was a day of which... I was unable to bare a response, or didn't receive a response back.
"Are you able to feel what I'm feeling? You stated my emotions and thoughts correctly."
"No, I cannot feel what you're feeling."
"I can only describe it to you, because I was able to follow your thoughts as you walked into the
room. A part of you, had already given up. A part of you, had already decided to pass-away." She continued.
I began to feel an excruciating weight in my being. I came to the realization that I had made my life into an obsession of memories. Wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to relieve the tension and pain. The Siamese cat made her way to the chair, and positioned herself to sleep.