Death in Life and Life in Death

 My name is Lucy. A boring name. An unnoticeable name. I’m quiet, I’m shy, I’m forgotten by most who meet me. I have no friends, and my sister’s hardly company as she leaves to go smoke with her friends in the alley nearby nearly every night. Truthfully, the only thing you’ll ever need to know about me is that I am Alina’s #1 fan. You know who I’m talking about. The one, the only, Alina Orisir. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you have heard her songs. Her music, ever sweet, finds its way to you one way another and captures your heart. My heart.

 She’s my hero. My love. My life. Who would I be without her? I felt like an empty shell, an ocean of despair devoid of life before I heard her. Now I swell with emotion, primarily love. For her. She’d never notice me though. A nobody on the street, perhaps. A speck of dust in a world of glitter and glimmer and color.

 Then one day, by pure chance, a ticket to her concert comes my way.

 It’s hardly my fault, I tell myself, watching another walk on, not knowing what they had lost. It was a dark, gloomy day. I had been taking a walk, needing space from the suffocating environment I was supposed to call home. The houses were drab, and not the scenery change I needed, and in the end the smoggy and smoky air only fouled my mood. I noticed another on the street, in bright contrast to the dim world around her. It was a lady; she was completely green, from the tips of her sandals to the hair clip in her hair. She strode by, and stumbled on the cracked pavement of my street. She looked so pretty, and rich, her clothes fine and her accessories finer. Her purse, also green and studded with emerald-like gems, fell down with her. I rushed to help her. Someone like her didn’t belong on streets meant for people like me, people with nothing. Nothing at all.

 She got up with me supporting her, and thanked me. Her almost-neon dress had faded in the front to a swampy green, since the dirt here clung to anything that touched it, almost desperate to escape the dystopian hell this place was. I nodded and smiled, though it felt like a lie. A smile was for someone alright. Someone happy. I was neither.

 As she walked on, I noticed a slip that had slowly fallen down, swinging back and forth in the air like a kid on a swing. I snatched it out of the air, and almost called out to the lady. But I made the mistake of reading what it was first. It was for Alina’s concert in two days. 

 I clamped my mouth shut, and walked back to my house. For a few seconds, I despaired. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Tickets cost so much money, and I had just stolen this one from her. I was a scoundrel. I was a thief.

 I was a person with a ticket.

 I ran up to my room, and sat down on my bed.

 My room was an Alina heaven. Photos of her gorgeous face hung across the walls. Everything was blue and gold, gold and blue, her favorite colors. I had her merchandise; hats, shirts, and more, so much more. I looked at the ticket, and a smile spread across my face. A real smile, a smile of which I hadn’t worn in years. I knew now what I would be doing in two days.

 I got up by bouncing out of bed, a smile already on my face and my mood better than it had been in years, already anticipating the concert. I hummed as I went through the necessities of the morning. Clothes. Dishes. Laundry. Breakfast. Look presentable. Gaze in awe at Alina’s photos and read different articles on her. I’m a girl obsessed, what can I say?

 I actually waved at my sister as she left, and her face of pure shock at me smiling only dimmed my mood slightly. I had an uneventful first couple hours of the day, then got ready to go to the concert. I left my house and made my way down the street.

 The morning air was great, and the clouds spun around in the sky, swirling in the air like sugary-sweet cotton candy. The sun was already in the sky, smiling down at the world. I practically skipped along the sidewalk, seeing the houses near us, their lawns mowed, with clotheslines strung up, and child’s toys all across the yard. The houses looked lived in and loved. I looked back ahead of me, and saw a daisy among the cracks of the pavement. I thought it pretty, so I plucked it and wove it into my hair. The grass is green. The sky a bright blue. The clouds are startling white in contrast, and the houses, brown and gray and yellow and even red dotted along the street must've looked like flowers to the birds and planes above.

 I made it to where the concert would be held, since it wasn’t far, and noticed I was early. I had expected the walk to take longer, and had twenty minutes to spare. I shrugged and kept walking, and got myself a quick muffin at the bakery nearby. I sat down and saw the kids who lived nearby, laughing, playing, and I felt their joy of life lift my spirits. Everything seemed to pulse with life, and energy, as if today was special, meant to be perfect and pleasant. I made it back to the concert, and got there as it was just starting to open. In the bit I had been gone, the previously short line had grown a considerable amount, but I didn’t care. I would wait the whole day if it meant I could see Alina. Perfect, perfect, Alina.

 I only had to wait thirty-ish minutes to get in, and I made my way to my seat. I sat down, and waited a bit more for the show to start. Then Alina came on stage.

 Her hair was blond, so yellow and shimmery it looked like real gold, and her eyes were blue, deep like the ocean and light like the sky. Her dress was a deep blue with gold accents and flowers on it, and it made her look straight out of a book, she was that perfect. She smiled, and it was a smile that could mend a broken heart, enchant a stranger, or even call down a bird from the sky. I cheered along with the crowd, and I must have been extra loud since her eyes fell on mine and she smiled wider, her teeth perfectly white. I almost fainted on the spot. I was crying of happiness. She had looked at me!

 She began her first song, and she danced and paced across the stage, when suddenly she stumbled. When she stopped singing and didn’t get up, everyone in the crowd started to quiet, questioning if this was part of the show or not.

 Alina slumped over, and the microphone fell out of her hand, and then she collapsed, and I saw her expression. Her eyes were now dull and gray, and I thought I saw foam in her mouth. Everything became a blur as medics came on stage, and everyone held their breath as they checked if she was alive.

 The medic got up after a long second that felt like an eternity, and then shook their head.

 A strangled noise came from my mouth. My ears were ringing, and I couldn’t see anything through all the tears that came down my face. They found a path to my mouth, and I licked them up, wincing as the salt got into my bitten and chapped lips.

I look around, suddenly feeling hot and claustrophobic as the room swayed. No one else was doing anything, they just looked surprised and in shock. I got up and pushed my way to the door. I think someone might have tried to stop me, but I don’t remember. All I do remember is bursting through the door, and making a mad dash back to my house, desperate for the privacy of my room. I couldn’t see where I was going and the world was in focus one moment and then not the next. I saw the kids on the sidewalk, and bitterness overtook me. Why did they get to live, happy and young and oblivious to the horror that just happened that they should be crying over? I stumbled over the pavement, like that lady eternity ago, and I got a cut on my face. I stood back up and touched it with my finger, and when I pulled my finger back to look at it, my finger was soaked with blood. I shook it off my fingers and kept running.

 I processed while I ran. Alina was dead. I was alive. It wasn’t fair. She was amazing, and what was I? Who was I? Who was I to live in a world that was unfair and unjust and without Alina?

 Now I stood in front of my house, adrenaline keeping me going. I came in in a frenzy. My sister was there, and when she saw me, she immediately rushed over.

 “Are you okay?” she asked nervously. She didn’t seem to have noticed the cut, which was probably because my hair swooped over the part of my face with it.

 “Oh I’m fine,” I said, obviously lying. I was anything but fine. I might burst into tears or maniacal laughter any second now. I felt sick to my stomach, like everything was wrong with the world.

 She looked at me skeptically. “If you say so.” She sat back down and took out a cigar.

 I rushed upstairs to my room. I looked at the walls, covered in printed out and colored in photos of Alina. I almost threw up. When I looked at them, all I could see was her dull and lifeless eyes, the way her limbs were in an unnatural position as she laid dead on the floor. A gave out a piercing scream and tore them all down, then collapsed on the floor. My hands move of their own accord, picking up the pictures and braiding, twisting, intertwining. I  looked at the handiwork I had made. A rope.

 If Alina couldn’t live in this world, why should I? I had nothing to live for anymore. I made the rope into a noose, which I attached to the top of my room securely. I got on a chair and put my neck in the loop.

 I thought about the question I had thought ever so recently, ever so in the past. Who was I? I had figured out the answer to my own question. 

 I was nothing. Nothing at all.

 I kicked away the chair and felt myself choke.

 My last thought was one of relief. Finally, I could be free.