The young man relished the self-created nightmare that surrounded him in the darkness. A gloomy luminescence of moonlight refracted from the window in sporadic silvery shafts that flashed across the razor blade in his fingers. The computer screen in front of him was the only other source of light, catching his gaunt features and pale skin in a fashionably ghostly way. Salty tears of meaningless emotion picked their winding paths down his cheeks as he resumed typing, spreading heart-felt words in blazing red lettering across the screen. Feelings of depression and sadness roared in his chest as clichéd language of doom and gloom flittered from his head into the computer. ‘Loneliness’, ‘betrayal’ and ‘suicide’ were some of the words that rolled in an empty fashion through his jarred prose like bullets with no gun-powder. 1
At the same time, on the opposite side of the world, an African boy had just watched his sister be brutally raped and then slaughtered like an animal. His feet pounded the dusty African ground as he was swept up in the screaming terror of the village. Huts that had housed his family and friends burned with the same ferocity as the midday sun, choking black smoke billowing towards the blue sky. The constant rattle of gun-fire struck walls in hundreds of tiny dust explosions, and when they didn’t find a hard surface, they tore through flesh. Bodies dropped like rag-dolls tossed lazily to the ground as the corrupt soldiers blasted rounds into the thick crowds of screaming people to the tune of sadistic laughter. Blood decorated everyone and everything in a nauseous display of carnage and genocide. He could think of nothing but running, and as he watched more people tumble around him he knew his chances were thinning.2
“Why? Why am I so alone? I hate my life!” The young man moaned in hoarse whispers, tracing zigzagging lines of raw skin with the edge of the blade and blackened finger nails. He mused on the notion of death, picturing himself hanging limply from a rope, grimly swaying from side to side. He questioned everything in his life with a relentless burning pessimism and self-orchestrated depression. Why had his girlfriend left him? Why did he not have as many friends as everyone else? Why were his parents always complaining about him? Fresh streams of tears broke from wells in blood-shot eyes. He dug the corner of razor-blade further into his fleshy fore-arm and longed to see the sticky redness begin to ooze from exposed wounds. He wanted to feel pain; he told himself that it stopped the constant numbness. He told himself that it made him feel alive.3
The African boy was still running. He could hear bullets singing as they sliced through the air around him before slamming into every surface they could find indiscriminately. He danced on sore feet, desperately trying to find a way out of the village, but every path was blocked by bodies, blazing fire or wailing crowds. The rhythmic thumping of boots was soon upon the scattering villagers as the vicious gun-men pounced upon their prey. The boy watched a young woman cower in a corner, begging for her life with every ounce of her desperation, only to be silenced by a single bullet to the face. Other people were being thrashed to the floor by rifle-butts and machetes to be hacked and beaten until their agonised quivering stopped. More bullets cut down men, women and even children as if they were just target practise. Screams of terror were being drowned out by nightmarish screams of pain. The boy began to sob with the growing sense of hopelessness as he realised that he may soon have to submit himself to the same fate of twisted evils as his sister.4
Oblivious to everything else in the world, the young man continued to type his tortured prose, his mind only resting on the misery of his life. He believed that what he felt was pain and sorrow, and he loved to hate it. He thrived on his false depression and his empty threats of suicide. His life, he reasoned, was as bad as it could possibly get. The wind howled against the single-paned window and the draught burned the crimson lines on his arms. The hours ticked away as the solitary figure invested them in inventing new ways to allow his neurotic emotions to openly flourish in their gloomy, gothic colours. ‘If people noticed me’, he wrote, ‘my life would be so much better, I would be free of all the pain and torture of my life’.5
Being noticed was exactly what was not going to happen to the young African boy as he crouched in the tatters of his former village. Hours from the slaughter, he had returned to the carnage along with just a hand-full of villagers that had managed to escape. He had vomited the moment he had seen his mother, her right arm hacked from her body in a bloody mess and her chest riddled with scarlet holes. He cradled her dusty head in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably, kissing her forehead. He screamed for her life to be returned to the world, but he knew it was useless. People passed him by, all of them engulfed by their own sorrows and grief for loved ones. The African boy, a good boy that never committed any wrongs, was now truly alone in the world. There, in the embers of his home, he begged the Lord to take his life so he could be reunited with his family. He begged for the pain to end.6
Author notes
I am so sick of the emotional crap that everyone writes these days. Do you really think anything you feel can ever come close to what real victims around the world suffer on a daily basis? It's pathetic, write some real literature. Grow up.
Ethereal Butterfly's contest: I think this story fits because it is about being adult about depression rather than writing nonsense about emotions. As for the advice: just because you're an adult now doesn't mean you can't still party...
A contest entry
- Flash Fiction by carrot.
205 points, ended March 18, 2008, 15 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - MAKE ME DEPRESSED by Springs.
235 points, ended June 4, 2008, 52 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Let's all be adults here... by EtherealButterfly.
350 points, ended May 2, 2008, 10 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 12 of 12
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I like this a lot. I've been in the young man's place before myself but I've grown out of it for the most part. I've begun to think that people are very closed minded to what is going on in the world around them (I myself have been trying to shake those bonds). I thurally enjoyed this peice and everything about it. It brings up the 'some people have it a lot worce' statement. I like the fact that both of them were wishing for death but for far different reason. I agree with your a/n for the most part however I must also agree with malisfent in that people take to the enviroment to which they live. So in Africa, Asia, Iraq, and other troubled war-torn/politicly shaken countires people may get tired of people wrighting about the ills that they are forced to face. Its just a thought but either way. I think more people should read this story and stories like it.
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partaaaaaay! lolz...let's hope i can *strict parents*
enough of that...i really like this...a bit thrown aback by the first part of the author's notes (lolz) but not by a lot. I liked the vehemence...certainly slapped some sense into me...
Your story was deep and very thought provoking. And, because I'm a very emotional person, I shed a tear or two at the end...thanks so much for entering this into my contest!!!!!
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I forgot these, sorry:
My comment is below.
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Hmm.
I'm adding this to the finalist list. It was very insiteful because, I must confess, I'm almost always in the young man's position, and I don't think I'll ever stop with that.
But, like I say, it was a nice compairsment, and a good change from the other stories I've been reading in this contest.
Now, as for your AN, we write 'emotional crap' like the young man's stories due to more people in our environment going through this 'emotional crap.' We can connect more to it than Africans and such going through the torment displayed within this story.
I'm sure Africans write about stuff in Africa. We write 'emotional crap' and I'm sure it'll continue that way with some exceptions on either side.
Also, I think you should take more consideration for the people who genuinely are depressed, and not flame them the way you did in your AN.
If you insist on responding, try not to argue with me (or agree with me for the sake of getting a trophy), please, you're in the finalists, that's the side where the bread is buttered.
Thinly.
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Thank you for your comment. I am not going to argue with you at all, that was your opinion and I am happy that you shared it with me - just as what I wrote was my opinion. I will say, however, that I am a manic depressive so I do know what it feels like to be in the young man's position. Thank you again.
- CC
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Excellent. I loved it. It was intense and immediately got your point across. I'm ready for people to grow up and realize that their problems aren't forever. I'm really glad you entered this, I really thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Thanks for entering. =]
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Wow...
Although i've already praised you for writing such an extraordinary piece, i felt the need to comment once more.
This is absolutely genius hun! I ran around thrusting the link to this piece in everyone's face saying "FINALLY! Someone who has brains!"
So uniquely portrayed, and definitely and eye opener. I just hope more people get to read this.
Well done!
Yrs.
Azaradelle.
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Genuinley Awesome
I've not been reading stories on this site for long, but that, by a very wide margin, is the best writing I've seen here. I couldn't agree with the sentiments expressed (both within the piece and the author notes) any more if I was asked to at gun-point.
Gives faith
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 4, characters: 4.
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I have to say...whoa!
Ive felt this way before. The common "teen" depression everywhere in literature is soooo overrate the moment u exit the doors into the real world. I love the alternating paras, beautiful contrast. Like, who cares if he has self-esteem issues! Some poor kid lost his family!
beginning: 5, language: 5, plot: 5, ending: 5, dialog: 5, characters: 5.
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Nicely Done
Excellent piece. The frustration lies in not really being able to shout loud enough.
It's this world. Voices become diffuse.
At least, they are not silenced.
And your seems to be a clear one.
GA
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What brilliant juxtapositioning between the boy holding onto whatever scraps of life he can, and the young man who thinks of nothing but himself!
It is true that nobody really thinks what goes on around them - I'm sure things like this happen all the time, and yet there will still be many teenagers wrapping the culture of angst around themselves.
I would like to add that people really don't appreciate what they have until someone tries to take it away or something happens to rip it away. I'm sure the young man in this story would abondon his petty and inconsequential self-hate, if someone came and did to his family what happened to the boy in the third-world country.
Kudos for putting this out here!
beginning: 4, language: 4, plot: 4, ending: 4, dialog: 4, characters: 4.
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Incredible piece, and I've thought this way before about the contrast between the genocides in Africa and the trivial issues that the average person faces. You really did a wonderful job of putting the world in perspective.
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