Oneshots

red

here's to you, elliott.  rest in peace.

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there's a bridge in the distance and it's covered in fog. every ten seconds or so, it becomes clear to you that its colour is red, right before it's sucked back into its blanket.

good, you think. the bridge has to be red. it has to be the colour of anger and pain and blood. it has to be the colour of all of the things you're looking to escape. those little red pills molly used to sell you in the back alley, even. everything red is evil in your eyes.

you feet seem to move without you even trying. you haven't really noticed where they go and you don't really have any need to. or any desire. the only thing you want is that bridge. that cold, metal bridge painted the colour of sin. of your sins. the bridge resembles all of those nights you spent panting on a unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar part of town.

you know you shouldn't feel bad about that, but you do. you know it's better you spent your life exploring the world from the insides of girls rather than the inside of a cell phone. it's better you got your hands dirty and wet and couldn't even use the damn thing anyway. the cell phone is evil. it has brought loneliness and depravity to mankind.

and you walk, you notice the path becomes more narrow until it's just a foot's-width of dirt along a cliff sloping to the sea. below, you can see the waves beating at the rocks. constantly beating. the rocks never give up and the sea is relentless. kind of like life, you think. how appropriate for this show to be playing below you as you find your escape.

you walk along the path until it opens into a foggy, grey parking lot. only half a dozen car nestle between their white lines. there is nobody on the overlook. there are no voices from the beach below. there is nobody around to own the empty cars waiting patiently to be turned back to life.

and there's a ball. a ratty, chewed on tennis ball that you kick around with your feet. it doesn't roll right anymore and one kick sends it flying over the edge of the cliff to the sand below.

you don't watch the ball fall. you don't want to hear the sound when it hits the ground. if you don't pay attention, then it won't make a noise.

that's what they taught you. if they don't pay attention, then you don't make a sound. they don't hear you ramming another line of white powder into your nose, they don't hear the click as you take the safety off. you never really said anything to the people you shot anyways. or shot up with. you were never really a person to them. you didn't have a cell phone and they saw you as nothing for it. they thought you were dirt poor trash and they saw you as dirt poor trash too.

you keep walking. as you walk, you can hear a child laugh. a dog splashes in and out of the safer side of waves. something about sand always made the ocean seem safer and more inviting. that was the dangerous part. there's nothing safe or inviting about the cold dead sea.

they're killing off all the animals with their cell phones. you've watched it happen in your eighteen years of life.

long black hair falls into your face. you brush it back out with the back of your hand and keep walking. the bridge is visible through the thick fog now, and it glows off the moisture in the air. glows red. looks like satan's grin you remember your friend saying so don't look at it during a trip. that's a bridge to hell.

funny how the colour of hell is the colour of all of those things that kept you alive. blood in little red sacks from the time you got beaten up over half a gram of coke in the parking lot behind safeway. warm tomato soup when your teeth were too sore to chew anything. lipstick left behind on your cheek from the one girl who really loved you. the one girl who's insides you only felt through her mouth. through the words that came out of it.

red watching her crumble to pieces and fall broken out of the car. red watching the taillights of the truck come to life and you being too drunk to know what to do. red glow from the passenger seatbelt light that neither of you paid any attention to anyway. red beer cans and fireball whiskey to pretend that you'd live forever.

funny how red becomes death as easily as it does life.

the toes of your shoes are at the edge of the bridge now. it's less red closeup, and you wonder if you've made the right decision. after all, red has been the colour of your life. it might as well be the colour of your death too. you could keep searching. die with a handful of red pills or liquid instead. watch red bubble out of your veins.

the bridge is orange, not red.

you walk along the narrow walkway without looking up. only one person passes you, his hands deep in his black sweatshirt trying to keep out the cold. you wish you could share with him the warmth in your fingertips and the pounding of blood in your ears. you want this, you think, and you don't want anybody else to get in the way. you've been invisible your whole life, so why change that now. invisibility is good. it's how you get away with not coming home all those nights when you couldn't see straight enough to say your own name.

you climb up onto the railing. the sea below pounds against the legs of the bridge, violently. it scares you. you don't want such a violent ending to such a violent life. you'd rather go peacefully in your sleep, old age and your family around you. too many people to hold all of their hands. a wife, daughter, maybe a son. someone you could teach to play catch and fix a car and keep away from all the red things in life. a little girl to protect from the types of people you became. you'd rather have that. the sea looks cold and dark and for the first time you want shades of white and yellow, rather than the red and black you've found comfort in. black looks empty. red burns like fire.

and before you can climb back down and choose life, you slip. it feels nothing like flying and when you hit the black water, all you can see is red.