Three sorrows in the rain

I lied. I lied and thought I would have the strength to take it to the grave. I kept spiraling in memories of Annie and what happened to her. The Monday morning of May 6th. By 7:53 a.m., I was staring at the crowd which surrounded us and told, I would argue, the biggest lie of my life.

A storm that night made me step out onto the balcony and greet my fears. The smell of wet earth and wood mixed with the sharpness of the wind instigated me. I sneezed when the wind slapped me in the face once again, as I was leaning over the balcony, making sure that all our four dogs were in the kennel. I wanted to keep standing, but bit by bit, my body was filling up with cotton. It started with the softening of my calves, then hips, then hands. I didn’t let myself persist till the last moment when the cotton would reach my head, so I sat. I sat in a little puddle without realizing it for quite a while. Everything was already wet, and I was soaking wet even before sitting down—does it even matter then?

Water went through my sweater, socks, and hair. I didn’t feel wet nor cold at some point. Raindrops dripping from my pointy nose kept falling into my palms; it felt like a countdown to my doomsday. At least it distracted me from the buzzing pain that was slowly spreading.

I was afraid to fully close my eyes, and more than that, I couldn’t because of the earache. Mom’s doctor told me it was an infection, even though, after examining me, he didn’t find any evidence of it. Grandpa knew right away what it was once I told him about the ache, and he asked me to look into his eyes. He didn’t shake his head nor frown his eyebrows. “You’re keeping something inside for way too long, let it out,” he nearly whispered. I swallowed in response.

A little drop kept its steady journey from the crown of my head to my forehead, brow, until it reached the cliff of my nose and jumped. As it hit my wrist, I wished I had its courage for a freefall. It almost made me stand up and own the situation I ended up in. I took out a small ball of cotton from my left ear—the ear Annie whispered her last words into—but the rest of the cotton inside simply kept overtaking my body. I couldn’t stand up because of my wobbly legs. I crawled back into my room, bringing with me leaves and dirt on my clothes, shut the door, and lay on my back. A liquid started leaking out of my ear, but I didn’t rush to stop it. I felt I fully deserved the pain and disgust I would evoke in anybody who would watch me.

Pit Bulls barked at crows that kept returning to the kennel. I heard Elpis first, whose voice was the highest and most irritating to the ear. Metis and Moksha followed him. I didn’t hear Tharsos. There were not four but three pit bulls in our kennel. Tharsos killed Annie. They killed Tharsos after. And I watched.

When the police officer, detective, or whoever he was, asked me how the incident happened, my ambitious personality, stimulated by an apparent manic episode, shrank twice in size. I didn’t want to leave my plans, my diaries, my saved money, and go to jail. I figured people like me should end up in the Ivy League even at the points of the strongest manic episodes. They love freaks and geniuses. Any distortion you present within but somehow manage to hold yourself together on the outside is a definite ticket to such colleges. Without hesitation, I dropped, “Tharsos… err, I mean our family dog, was Annie’s friend. We would take him on walks every time she visited me. It was a moody dog”—I smirked and looked at my hands covered in human and dog blood—“But she insisted on taking him even when Tharsos was at his worst behavior.” I was continuing my monologue that I can sum up in one brief message: “An accident caused by a mood swing of a dog and the irreversible stubbornness of my best friend.” The officer nodded, signaling to me that the monologue was reasonable enough and passed the test.

Pit Bull’s howling brought me back to my room. I checked a watch on the desk, which showed 7:30 p.m. Twenty-three minutes before I light a candle in memory of Annie and Tharsos. She left her body in the morning, but to catch her spirit, I mirrored the time. I killed them, and I miss them. Annie shouldn’t have bullied Peter. He was her last among many victims. He ended up in a psych ward, diagnosed with a light degree of nervous exhaustion. We all knew from the red swollen lines on his wrists that chamomile or mint tea wouldn’t be the cure to this kid's suffering. This was the last straw for me.

I never understood why my father loved a pit bull as a breed and bought not one but four of them. A pit bull, recognized as one of the most dangerous and mentally unstable dogs, seemed to him the best option. In reality, my father, with anger issues, decided to have someone like him around. The only two things I found during my research were that pit bulls have unusually high levels of the neurotransmitter L-tyrosine that stimulates anger and that they can get addicted to dopamine. That was enough for me to take the first steps.

Keeping enemies closer than friends was my guideline throughout high school years. Annie and I got close at the end of the first semester of ninth grade, when I was a team lead and fought back when she tried to undermine my status. She sniffed out my authority, as Tharsos sniffed out hers the first time they met.

I believe that any person is great at the right distance. Any time Annie annoyed me, I merely ghosted her, which turned out to be helpful in making her addicted to our dynamic. I didn’t dare to label it as any kind of human relationship. Symbiosis? Maybe. Surely not friends or good acquaintances. She was so frustrated after my disappearance that it was no struggle for me to take over her emotions and desires. Eventually, her obsession grew to the point where she wanted to have Friday dinners at my family house.

The same way she adored the sadism she was applying to our classmates and the one I used to upset her, she fell in love—or I should say in addiction—with Tharsos, the biggest dog among the four. Calm, at times extra obedient—on the outside. Anyone who had enough emotional intelligence and some anxiety felt that something was off with this dog. Like Achilles had his weak heel, Tharsos had a spot that would break his psyche if you touched there, and it was his lower chest. On our last walk, once I felt like Tharsos was addicted enough to Annie’s smell, I told her that he loved being rubbed on his chest the most. We were walking around the pond. She called Tharsos. As she kneeled down, I held my breath. The next thing I knew, Tharsos took a few steps back, Annie’s smile turned into a grimace, and I heard the sound of the teeth biting into the neck. The pond got red and closer to the center turned burgundy. A sudden silence after such a violent act seemed so inappropriate. This vendetta felt like a life mission of mine when I was looking at the red pond and Annie’s hand that was moving in the last convulsions. In honor of all the weakest of our schoolmates, justice prevailed.

It was 7:52 p.m. when I started lighting the candle. At 7:53 p.m., I heard voices and heavy footsteps going up the stairs and getting closer to my door. At 7:54 p.m., I saw my mom opening the door, and several police officers, one of whom said, “Pack up your stuff, I think you are going on a long vacation with us.”