The Gift

    Reds and blues waving out of vision, a faint shimmering light circling above, an anxious throbbing heart, pressure thickening; my last sensations to take into oblivion. I wished only then that the sensations I left behind could be so docile, so coveting. Had I planned to keep air, I might stay afloat, but how else would I release myself from this facade? No other way could be cinematic enough. Frankly I don’t deserve anything more; certainly a death so graceless is all I have earned.

    It’s disappointing how pitiful I was in the beginning. The last few breathes of clinical depression were taken begrudgingly. From anger classes to group therapy, antidepressants to anti-psychotics, borderline to bipolar, from psychedelics to opiates. Feed me more reasons that I am broken and meaningless, feed me enough and I'll finally be full. Each experience so empty, each relationship almost scripted. Then there was a spark, divinity few might consider it; It's not that I have no meaning, it's that nothing does.

    Any volition, vitality, any means of self identification, any regard for emotion followed the next bit of air. This is when I knew that the life we are born into is destined to crumble. No part of it will be sustained, and no part makes it worth trying. Here, my sisters life ended. Not from the disease which trapped her in a hospital bed for the last five years, but the look in her eyes that said there wasn't anyone living inside her anymore. As I watched her eyes dim with my hands around her neck, I knew then that there was never a life to begin with.

    A little more air spilled into the eradication of all other means of identity; there was no kinship, no borders, no humanity. Not a single institution remained. Yet there I stood, knowing I didn't exist, knowing it was all a lie, and unable to shake the illusion. A sensation so profound that even the knife carved into my father's throat was comparable to caressing the softest fur. His eyes sunken with despair were suddenly wide and present. Then followed a shift in understanding as he looked back at me, and his eyes dimmed much like my sisters. Again I knew that there was never a life to begin with.

    It was almost entertaining, each air bubble rising higher above me carried what little sensation was left from killing my mother with a baseball bat. Transcendent it was, watching her tremble at the sight of her husband’s blood spilt across the bedroom furniture. She could barely tap the numbers on her phone to reach the police, and even less able to speak when they answered. I tried to imagine how difficult it might have been to utter the words that your son killed his father and is about to kill me. I could count along with each strike, each rising bubble, and each spot of blood, and each person I released from the facade. Sweet satisfaction is was; the only bit of life left worth living. This was good enough to try for.

    There can't be much more, the last bit of air can't be as meaningful, though it wouldn't be there had I held my mother's corpse a bit longer. There it goes, the last 12 days in one last sinking release; a brazen finale, a dozen days, a dozen lives, a dozen knives. I couldn’t begin understand why; why I thought to check for and feed any pets in the homes of those I released, why I locked the door behind me as I left, why I never took any money or a vehicle. It seemed desperate, as if I was trying to remain human in some way; the idea is disturbing.

    I found I was partial to the sensation of a blade sinking into skin, and delighted in just how inhumane it was. I suppose it's synonymous with their fascination with sex; yet they fuck to bring more to the facade, and I fucked to bring them to real life. Only when my knife releases them do they know real living. And now I long for the same; how ridiculous the lasting sensation I carried might have been envy of the gift I have bestowed them.

    Could I not be grateful for the power to give them life? Well, no purpose in being sentimental now. I shall simply relish in the glory of my own divinity. As my eyes fade, and there is no more breathe, no more colors, no more circling light, only sinking, darkness, a faint beating, enormous pressure. Maybe I should have stayed with my mother that night. Maybe that was enough.

    It’s disappointing how pitiful this ending is. Sinking into the ocean of self, and the facade floats above me, like a great island with all its cultures and characters, all its castles and caves. None of it will last, and I gifted that truth to many. I can die at peace, knowing there will never be another moment tending to the facade.

Just a concept in itself, peace. Another mask in the facade, and for those who I left behind, they can build their lies a little further, having their example to compare peace to. ‘He’s dead,’ ‘Now we can be at peace,’ ‘Now we know our families are safe,’ ‘Now we can continue on with our lives,’ ‘Now we can grieve for those he took from us.’

    No matter; there will be more like me. There are more like me. There will always be, they take many forms, some choose to coerce you into it yourself; the realization that you are nothing. Some use justice, some righteousness, some will never even know it’s happening, and some won’t know they’re doing it. No matter the case, there will always be something to release you from the facade. And you’ll martyr me as a killer because I chose a knife. I chose blood as my earning, my currency, my breathe of life.

    If only I could...