Forgive Me

written in response to Shafali’s Creativity Carnival picture below:

John sat with his head in his hands, his back against a tree, at the bottom of the hill. His queasiness had subsided, but he wondered if he would ever be able to erase that image from his memory. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was a pair of deflated blue jeans and white sneakers. He wished he had kept his eyes there. But no, they had travelled further. They saw the gun and the notebook. They noticed how the arms were covered with a thin, leathery membrane and that the bones were exposed beneath it.  The skin around her cheeks had shrivelled and contracted. Scorched by the heat of the sun, her face had taken on a mummified appearance. Her bottom jaw line and teeth were fully exposed.  He remembered how a black beetle crawled out of her boney nose and scurried down into her gaping mouth. But it was her eyes – her dry, black and bulging eyes – that would haunt him the most.

John watched with a surreal fascination as the officers carried a large, black bag down the escarpment. Her body had been so badly decomposed that it had come apart in pieces. Even that black, thick plastic wasn’t dense enough to contain the smell of rot and decay. The odor burned into John’s nose, down his throat and into his belly. His stomach somersaulted in response, and he began to vomit, again.

The investigators, now finished with their photographs, labelled the evidence – the notebook and the gun. The items were placed into a tote in the back of their vehicles before they drove away.

The letter would have said this….

To the person who finds this paper, 

I have attached a picture of myself so you will be able to see who I once was. Yes, this is a younger version of me. One that was full of passion and life. One who had plans before a depression overtook me and crippled me with its cruelty. I am sorry, I cannot take this anymore. I feel like I have been peering out from a black hole, waiting for a ray of sunshine to light my way out. I have clamored; have tried to scrape out my path but I can no longer stand the plummets back down. My efforts have exhausted me.

I am a coward to the highest degree. I have hidden myself here amongst these trees in the hopes that my remains will be scattered among them. I do not want anyone to know how my story has ended, how I have given up the fight. I only want them to remember me for who I once was.

Forgive me,

Clair

*The moral of this story is that death is not pretty. If you are depressed, please seek some help*