Shattered Hero

It was a long night, a night of curiosity, confusion, regret, guilt, sadness, trauma, desperation, compulsion, and solitude. She started off the evening by eating a low-grade dinner in the ragged red lazy-boy downstairs. Covered in copious amounts of dog hair and grime, she ate. Staring at her phone, watching a movie, she distracted herself from reality as it was too harsh. Come around 11 pm and her family was as quiet as the night itself, only once and awhile would she hear distant snoring. Suddenly, her biggest sword swiftly punctured right through her glabella, resulting in  the feeling of curiosity. Curiosity was indeed her mightiest weapon, allowing her to be determined to find the truth, the secret behind the ominous curtain, the shadow lurking in the dark. It was a sword. An extremely rare, yet common sword… A sword with two edges. Curiosity brought both success and ruin to her, yet she continued to wield the gruesome weapon  despite the downside.

Traveling slowly, step by step to his office, she felt the lingering feeling of hesitation. Almost like her subconscious was trying to warn her, yet she had a mission that no simple hesitation could halt. Her mission, my friends, was to find what he had been hiding from her all this time. Each step grew heavier and heavier, as she grew closer to her destination. It was only 16 feet, yet it felt like a mile. Suddenly, she stepped on the coarse, dog-excretion filled carpet with dog droppings scattered like a connect the dots sheet. A surge of disgust hit her as she began to skip through the “obstacles”. The office was a relatively small one, each side covered with clutter that was never going to be used. Wires, old cd’s, board games, clothes, boxes, drums, papers, and guns filled the ominous space. The walls were painted a soft surfboard yellow, with a confederate flag aloft the paper-infested desk. That was where the answers were. The truth she had been seeking was blatantly standing right before her. Obviously she indulged herself and moved towards the  groaning wooden wheely chair. As she sat down  to pull herself in, she felt the bleakness of the seat on her thighs. Then she grabbed the underside of the desk and pulled herself in. Some people might consider this as the point of no return, with her anticipation arising and no one there to stop her. She had free rein to dip into the darkest depths of him.

The desk itself was a massive sight, yet it’s image was degrading due to all of the rubbish sitting on each end collecting dust. The sheer surface was covered in a tacky substance, making the even the mere touch degrading as well. Despite these factors, she continued her search by starting with the computer sitting right before her. She took the beaten down bluetooth mouse and right clicked it until a blue screen appeared. In the center was a logo and a thin rectangle. A password was required. He always arrogantly refused to tell her said password, so she moved on. The only reason why she gave up was because she knew from seeing him type it before, that it contained both letters and numbers, which was a boss she couldn’t defeat on her own. Next was the papers, which mainly consisted of to-do lists, bills, law notes,and  blueprints (for the wooden projects he liked to build in his free time). So far, everything was uninteresting and boring to her, so she went to her last option, the drawers. 

    There are a total of seven drawers, two small  and one big on each side, and a long one in the upper middle. In the top left drawer she found checks. Check after check made out by a distant her to him. The range of the money was vast, $500 all the way to $75,000. She tried to count the total amount, but got lost after the fifth check. To her this amount of money was insane and unreachable. Questions like “why did she send this to you” and “I thought you said we were below average” surfaced, increasing the drive to expose the real reason. The drawer directly below that contained a random passport and books that were about the law system. The last and biggest drawer on the left side contained only batteries and cd’s piled together. She already knew what was in the upper middle drawer, since she had to get supplies for a project. Only stationary and some lighters resided in there. She moved to the upper right and began to move down, exactly like the left side, keeping expectations low. The first two were busts, but the last one. The last one held the truth. At first she glanced down and saw only a green file collection, but didn't bother to look in them because her eyes were glued onto the smallest black line separating the drawer and something else. Slowly, she grabbed the drawer and pulled it out even more, creating only enough space to see another dark portion of the drawer and a strange box. She slid her hand in, got hold of the little box, and slowly exposed it to the reality. She then sat down and looked at the box with a profuse amount of anticipation and excitement. She began to look down to read what was on this box, and almost instantaneously, as if it was planned, she began to cry. 

    XXtra Clean Detox Drink

Devastated and Confused she spiraled into panic. Her world was spinning, the room upside down. She analyzed the box and found that it was a drink to get drugs and alcohol out of one’s system. She couldn’t believe it. Out of desperation, the girl leaped towards that terrifyingly black crevice and shoved her hand down there, hoping for an explanation to this. What she found was a yellow piece of paper and another box. With a blurred vision she scanned the box and realized that it was an at home drug test. And the note. “PLEASE BE GOOD, PLEASE GIVE A REASON, PLEASE MAKE HIM INNOCENT, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS, PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE!!”, she thought as her trembling hands opened the carelessly folded sheet of paper. She had hopped and even begged god that it would be for someone else or anything other than him. What she found were notes, written down by him, on how to pass a drug test and what to do. How much to drink, how much to pee, how much to eat, and for how long. She quickly looked on the bottle, and found that the date was from three years ago.

She quickly texted another her and asked if he was on drugs, and she replied with “Yes, he’s been using for 10-15 years.” This did nothing but rip her apart. Limb by limb, organ by organ, vessel by vessel,nerve by nerve. Imagine it. IMAGINE THE SHEER PAIN AND AGONY SHE WENT THROUGH. IMAGINE HER CRYING, REALIZING THAT HIS ENTIRE IMAGE WAS A FACADE. IMAGINE WHAT SHE FELT LIKE, CURLED UP IN A BALL CRYING, HAVING HER HERO SHATTERED TO PIECES, REALIZING HER DEAR HIM WAS ONLY FABRICATED BY DRUGS. IMAGINE  WHAT IT MUST FEEL LIKE TO BASE YOUR LOVE, YOUR UNCONDITIONAL LOVE OFF OF A FALSE MAN. 

A thought smashed through all barriers and walls. Becoming the only thought on her mind. 

“If I just end it now, I can pretend nothing ever happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. I didn’t see that. No no no, I was never here. I was never alive…”

Slowly she reached towards the silver case, withholding the end. She opened it and found a browning 22 semi-automatic pistol. Still trembling and light headed, she grabbed it and brought it back to the chair. The crying ceased. Everything was quiet. She thought and thought about how he was dishonest and miserable. She thought of all of those times when she could smell that repulsively pungent smell throughout the house. All of it made sense now. He was a drug addict. He would do drugs in the house with her there. He has been doing them constantly for 10 years. She laid down on the plastic pad used to aid the wheely chair and simply stared at the ceiling light. Everything slowed. Mind, body, even the universe slowed down, to where one would compare it to a movie. Finally she sat up, with the slightly heavy pistol in her right hand.

She gradually brought the gun up directly above her ear. The muzzle touching each dark hair follicle. She moved her index finger towards the trigger. Feeling the smooth texture and ridged edges, and the open slot, fit for her finger. She put just the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger.  WOOSH, she quickly threw the gun across the room, crying and trembling again. Heart racing, she sat up and started to rock back and forth, so she called her best friend. She slurred out a mix of her crying and explaining  everything. The friend replied with, “it's going to be okay, you are going to be okay, and he still loves you, thanks for telling me.” She talked her out of madness, so she put everything back in its place, like no one was ever there.

As she excited the office, she became overwhelmed with disgust and anger. She was so furious that she couldn't bear it to be kept inside of that house, but she couldn’t leave. The closest thing to not being inside of that wretched house was to sit on the outermost inside. The slab of bricks on the outside of her window seal. So, she went and laid a towel down on the rough bricks and sat down, listening to a plethora of Frank Sinatra songs, whilst she cried and talked to herself about what she just experienced. There was so much repugnance in her towards him that she stayed out there for six hours straight. Nothing could make this better, no one could make this better. She had realized that people are always diriter and more sinful than one could even imagine. She lost hope in humanity as her one beloved hero was thrown off of his golden pedestal, leaving only a shattered skin of someone she never even knew.