D(r)ead - A Memo

One might never live to see themselves unpleasantly crawling through gallons of rain water just to fetch a measly bite of a rotting scrap of someone’s thrown-out and forgotten mid-day meal. I wish the satisfaction of release had come upon me earlier on so I could join those who have not. I was only twenty-two when I was evicted from my one bedroom apartment. A two month streak of late rent payments was my ultimate downfall. I presume the day my fiancée perished had brought me into those times of turmoil and confusion. Overtime I have felt too much pain to consciously connect with the emotions brought by dwindling on the topic of her death, so I rather pretend that it was just ‘maybe’ the reason.

The radical processes I carried out following the vehicular manslaughter of my lovely bride-to-be were justified by nothing other than my heart rate, at the time. I would pour milk onto the floor of my room for no apparent reason and sleep in my car for days at a time until the smell of rot had permeated the hallway inside. I dismantled my bed frame and would only sleep on the floor while covering myself in her clothes. Such actions had caused me to miss many days of work and lose any sense of care for any responsibilities that were bestowed upon me by society. After some time, I decided to express my loss of sanity in a tamer manner.

It was a Monday morning, and I had woken up deciding I would start selling everything that I owned. Simple enough; a week of selling off the materials that made my home a ‘home’, and I was left with an empty shell with bare walls, along with eight thousand four hundred and thirty two dollars and twenty six cents. I used a good portion of that money to purchase an Air-Britain flight to Dublin, Ireland, as well as a carton of Pall-Mall menthol cigarettes. Ireland was my love’s dream. My flight was scheduled to depart at 09:00 in the morning the following day. Staring at the lock screen of my phone restlessly quickly became a chore, and it was already 7 o’clock in the evening, so I figured I would drive to the airport and sleep in the parking lot. I did not think much of abandoning my car, as the bank still technically owned it. I thought of the gesture as a favor to the tow truck driver who would inevitably come looking for it on the bank’s behalf.

Approaching the departure gate, the only items in my possession were confined to the bounds of an old backpack I found sitting in my car. My possessions consisted of around five thousand British Pounds, the only money I had to my name, which I had just received from a swift visit to the airport’s currency exchange. The stiff, foreign paper money had the least value to me out of the items inside of my backpack. I had three possessions other than the money in my bag; tokens that I would protect with every morsel of physical strength left inside of my wretched and animated shell of a body. Firstly, I had a small glass vial with some of my fiance’s ashes. I had spread most of her cremated remains next to a tree outside the bedroom window of my apartment, where deer used to come eat apples that we had left out for them the night before. She and I would watch them as they ate what we had offered, and every time I stare into the vial I still see the look of joy and happiness on her face as she viewed the wild doves. Secondly, a voodoo doll named Oscar. There’s really not much to add, it was a staple in the beginning of our love and I hold it dear to me as she did to herself. The last item in my backpack was her personal diary. When she lived, she did not want me to read what she had written in the black, leather-bound book; and to this day, I still have yet to discover the words that lye on the pages. Her notebook; this quickly became what my existence had revolved around. I lived off of the blank pages, sparingly writing her notes so she could read them in the next life, the life where we would both live long enough to get married and have children.

Arrival in Ireland was bleak, and I quickly ran out of the five thousand pounds after drinking it away while wasting paid nights in hotel rooms. I had lost focus of the initial reason I journeyed thousands of miles across an ocean. I did it not for myself, but for the spirit of the one girl that I’d hoped for a family with. I spent the last of my monies on train tickets and taxi fares, showing off the sights of Ireland to my vial of ashes while writing nonsensical rambling in blank pages of her black notebook. I found myself back in Dublin after a few months of traveling around, but this time with no way to stay warm; no way to feed myself; no way to provide shelter against the weather for my backpack and its contents. I had quickly stolen a case of trash bags from a local store to protect my possessions. As for myself, I did not think much of what to make of my existence from that point on.

Every day, another trash bag; always making sure the contents inside of my backpack stayed warm and dry. Keeping her ashes more comfortable than myself always made me feel secure because I would always picture her gratefully smiling at me for it. I wrote to her as often as I could in her notebook, always making sure I don’t write too much, as to have the blank pages in the notebook outlive me. Day by day I found alley ways and crawl spaces, stole and panhandled, all to keep in contact with her. Predictably, I will tell you that time went by and the days turned into years and not much of significance occurred. This is true; a miserable life for myself was masked by the joy I felt in protecting the memory of my lover.

I discovered a particularly easy-to-steal-from night club a couple years after living on the street. I set up a make shift bed inside of an abandoned barn outside of Dublin and would walk several miles every night to visit this place, as the reward outweighed the risk. There was nothing high class about the club, as a matter of fact it was the opposite. The staff and patrons were indistinguishable, which made it easy for me to go unnoticed. Slipping a hand in a purse or bag in a dark setting and scurrying out after a few seconds proved very easy during the early morning hours. Every paper bill I stole, I would insert into the pages of my finance’s notebook. I ate as little as possible and saved as much as I could. I felt as if I still needed to provide for her, as we would need the money in our next life together.

Years went by, my health decline had become very noticeable by the time I was twenty seven. It was my birthday; a foggy October day, and the rain had turned into a mist. “This was my fiance’s favorite weather”, the first thing I had said to myself in weeks that put a smile on my face. I felt motivated to go into town on this night, walking faster than usual, breathing in the fresh smelling air so that she could catch a breathe of it as well. After arriving at my preferred location for thieving, the night club of shadows, as I liked to call it, I noticed that a white limousine had been parked out front. Many nights of seeing drunk scoundrels, stumbling out of the place, along with the aroma of feces in the air made me pause in shock at such a sight. I knew that I had to move quickly, and I did. I darted inside and grabbed the biggest and bulkiest piece of hand baggage I could, barely making out what it was because of the darkness of the lighting inside. I ran as fast as I could until I was at a safe distance to examine what I had eagerly snatched. I opened up the large brown briefcase and found an array of jewelry, nothing too mind-blowing. I then found a tight pocket attached to the lining of the three foot long leather case, and in it was a stack of British Pounds as large as the feeling of jitters in my bones.

Darting toward the barn was the only objective in my head. I had thrown out the suitcase and only kept the stack of bills. I entered the barn and jumped into my bed and threw down the stack of money. Hours went by counting by as I counted the money over and over again by the dim candlelight. I had made twenty thousand pounds on my twenty seventh birthday, and I wanted nothing more than to share it with my fiancée. It was the time of night I would usually hold her ashes snug to me and give them a gentle, loving kiss goodnight, but tonight was different. I stuffed all of the bills in-between the pages of the black notebook until it was ready to burst open at the bindings. I had felt that I made enough for us to live comfortably in the next life together, a feeling of relief I had not had since the day she became mine. Settling into this new found ecstatic mindset, I though it was necessary to join her and bring what I had gathered for us.

Malnourished, diseased, and weak, I knew it was time. I took Oscar, the voodoo doll, the vial of ashes, and the over-filled black notebook and walked out onto the field next to the barn I was living in. I spent hours digging with my hands at the wet earth, forming a grave deep enough for at least two people. I drove a large piece of plywood into the ground at the bottom of the dirt-coffin. I grasped my three prized possessions and stood at the top of the mound of dirt I had created from digging, and simply fell backwards onto the sharp plywood. It pierced through me like I was a stick of butter being cut by a butcher knife. The pain I felt was letting me know I was a step closer to being reunited with the love of my life.

It took longer than expected to be reunited with her, but time is experienced differently as a soul. As I lay here in our bed, watching over our infant son, I become more grateful to myself for retrieving the fortune that has made this try at life so much more comfortable and giving, and my wife the happiest she could ever be. I would endure an endless amount of suffering and steal as much wealth as I could if it meant that in my next life, I will find her and we will live comfortably once again.