Prologue
Guilt consumes, intoxicatingly so. It’s never ending, never tiring, never ceasing. It follows a lineage like an inherited crime, a pitiful song and a hallowed tune, but most of all, guilt was faceless. It had no identity, no temperament, no nature, just a relentless emotion, but now it has a face. It now holds many identities, the faces of every victim of its purpose. Guilt is the child that died unfulfilled.
That child, died today, my best friend, died today, and his murderers I hold in court. His murderers who had kind wishes on their lips and venom in their hearts, as their gaze scrutinized ours. His murderers who know nothing of him, his favourite music, nor his darkest secrets. His murderers, who mocked him, are his murderers who now cry.
They cry because of their guilt, because they ignored his desperate cries, dismissing it like a common fall of rain, light, conventional, and more than likely to happen again. But it didn’t. In the place of his innocence, he took his life. The grass not as green and wild as it had been in its youth, and though the willow tree stood strong in its rooting, the carvings of friendship in its trunk had faded. The merry-go-round was much the same as it always was, block colours of red and yellow, the handle bars only slightly chipped in their red paint. The two swings which he used to struggle to push himself on had now sat disconsolate and remote, only teetering in the sway of the air, and the laughter that had once rung in his ears, was replaced with an eerie silence. From the edge of the park boundaries he could just about see the beginnings of his street, and the house that he had once called home which he would never embrace again; he was only left with the small pleasures now.
The park used to be teeming with children, when he himself had much shorter cropped brown hair, and constant scuffs on his knees from his adventures, mirroring the cuts of a girl that had often been mistaken for his sister. They’d climb up the trees in the park, despite their height, and hang upside from the climbing frame after clambering up it, their small hands red and clammy from the constant contact with the metal. They’d fallen, tripped and collided into things many times, but they always got back up, with a smile, a dusting off, and a tease to the other saying they’d do it again. But this time he didn’t do it again, this time he didn’t have anyone to tell him to dust himself off, he didn’t have the sun’s warmth tantalising his face, reminding him there would be good times again, and he didn’t see his name carved in that seemingly ancient willow tree.
With winter’s breath the park was desolate most times of the day, and as the sky began to darken, the distant streetlights threatening to flicker on he worked fast, unravelling the thick rope he had stowed away in his bag. He tentatively climbed up the tree, the scratching bark, soothing to his aching hands, and perched on a branch he tied a tight knot around it, and the other end he wore like the famous red tie he was known for, he kissed the pendant of a chain he had been given long ago, and just before his first tear escaped, he slid himself off the edge and let go.
Another child dies unfulfilled.
