Green?

He had died seven deaths.

He remembered all of them – he recalled such radiant blood – blood so beautiful dripping down his chest, staining the floor. He remembers deriding that the tiles will never be the same no matter how much he cleaned it, he recalled his heart being stabbed, he remembered the sickening crunch of his own head being bashed against the pavement, getting hit by a truck, choked by a rope – yes, he remembered every one of them with frightening clarity. The agony they caused was blissful compared to the reality he does not believe he lives in.

Yes, he died seven deaths, and his now skeletal hands were trembling as he turned the machine back on, knowing he’d die another time, he heaved – breathless, his eyes red rimmed, desperate to find the right buttons once again.

He died seven deaths – yet they tell him he didn’t die once he knows this because his serpent tongue will never correct it – he despised the lady death. Yet he despised himself even more for his addiction.

Love, he knows, shouldn’t be such a cruel abstraction we seek to grasp – it is too close, too illusive, as the concept of infinity we desire it exists and beyond that we wish it exists, until we don’t as infinity will always one day be finite – he despised this, he despised feeling something – once oh how he craved it, oh how once he sought the pain to use and morph into words to write.

He closed his eyes, his anguished shouts echoing in the dark: ‘Why am I in a homeless home?’ All he could see was green, and all he wanted to see was green.

He screamed, clawing at his chest, hitting his head on the wall, ‘Please, please, please get it out, get it out, get it out! – despite this sorrow! Get it out, I despise it! I am sorry, I never meant to wish for sorrow to paint my pages with ink! Let me be the joyful poet, please! Please! I hear too much silence; too much silence is maddening and haunting.

‘Why is the silence laughing at me? Why? Why, why get it out!’ he clawed and clawed on his chest leaving ugly red scratches, wishing, begging to shed this skin, perhaps if it were another’s, this suffocating feeling would dissipate.

It's not fair.

He paced up and down the room, waiting for it to turn back on.

‘Come on, come on, come on, just one more second!’

He waits and begs for someone to blame, yet he cannot find anyone—he, living—breathing, stealing the breaths of dying trees and black skies—constantly living in a world as a thief, a sly criminal, trembles and whispers to himself.

‘I will not steal the breaths of my dead daughter.’ He is not mad, he is not angry, he is a father, I am fine, perfect – nothing’s wrong.

He was fine, fine, fine – he was fine.

There was so much red, he blinked. Why was there so much red? He furrowed his eyebrows and took a deep breath. It’s OK; I’m okay, he nodded to himself.

And stepped in it.

The first thing he heard in that haunting house was a lullaby—a melody so soft yet so cruel. A child’s voice should never cause such fright. He hid his trembling hands and walked towards her.

‘Daddy?’

‘Hi, baby,’ he smiled gently and crossed his legs as he sat before her.

‘I thought you were at work.’

‘Yes, well, Daddy got bored and came here—you’re so much more important to him,’ she beamed, her green eyes twinkling, and jumped at him, tightening her hold. ‘I missed you!’ she mumbled into his chest, her voice muffled but warm.

His hands curled into her hair, desperate and shaking, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He will not let her see his tears.

Never her.

“I missed you more,” he choked, voice breaking, “so much more.”

Thirteen seconds. That was all the time he could steal before it snapped him back—thirteen seconds of sunlight, warmth, and her voice, and then the darkness swallowed him whole once again.

He fell on the floor of the study, bruised knees bleeding, his hollow cheeks, his red-rimmed eyes returning his breath ragged. He looked up knowing what he would see.

And there she was, as she always is, bringing a balance.

Thirteen seconds of life, and 13 seconds to die, he waited for the gunshot. At least this one isn’t so gruesome.

But it never came – he furrowed his eyebrows.

‘This is not going to change anything,’ she said

Her inhuman raspy voice was always somewhat of a comfort—a reminder that perhaps he is not living in this reality, one that…that…

But he can’t—he can’t stand it if she starts spreading truths he believes are lies.

He looks away.

‘I know,’ she put her hand on his shoulders, tightening her hold. ‘But the alternative will always be worse,’ she nodded.

This is his eighth death – and he knows it won’t be his last – they both do.

The gun fired.

The pain was brutal—searing through his chest, the sound treacherously blaring through his skull, leaving him raw and gasping, but he would never regret it – the disgusting lie he remembered writing in his book whispered, laughing in his head, as he recalled it.

To embrace emotions is to court madness, to lose oneself to the temptress we call feeling is special…

He shook his head, his vision blurring, as he heard the woman’s footsteps fading.

He crawled to the lever, holding his bleeding chest, his throat raw and hoarse.

‘Just ... just one more time, please…’ he imagined her joyful, innocent smile, her soft laugh, and her bright green eyes that should have never seen the color red.

Not while he was there.

But it will never be enough.

He closed his eyes and waited, knowing his next breath would be both his first and his last.

The machine whirred back to life.

Thirteen seconds and a death – it will always be worth it.