Note: Italics are used to vocalize thoughts. Any italics you see are the thoughts of the characters.


.1.
“They say you only live once, but if you do it right, isn’t once enough?”

With that final thought, she let go.



.2.
I sat alone in the room, waiting for her to arrive. It was already 2:07, she was late. This would be her first session with me, almost two months after the attempted suicide. I paced restlessly around the room, a habit I not yet willed myself to retire. The burgundy rug was worn and the otherwise vibrant color muted where I had made my path, walking back and forth over the not so durable fabric.

Once, twice, three times I tread around the room, bypassing the couch, two armchairs, desk, and bookshelf that were placed comfortably close to each other. There was a separate closet-like space in which I kept all my files, so as not to clutter the main area. After my third trip around the room I sat down once more on my office chair. The ones that you see in the movies, when you know something bad is about to happen; the long, tall backed, leather chairs with arm rests and a recliner should you choose to use it. I glanced distractedly across the desk, bare save for my small yellow notebook, three pens, and my clock.

The clock had been given to me by a close friend years ago. It was a rather large clock, but I liked the presence it commanded at first sight. It was porcelain, and depicted a young woman sitting with her legs delicately crossed on what appears to be an old brick bridge, her arm resting on the top of the clock as she holds open a book, her long hair tied back, cascading down her shoulder like silk. Two birds, which I assumed to be doves though I really can not say for certain, perched on the uppermost part of the face, and watched her read. Something about the way that each character had one single focal point calmed me. The woman was oblivious to all but the world of her book, and the doves captivated by her and her alone. A war could be waging around them, and something told me that they would still stay the way they were, unwilling to pry themselves away from their reason for living.

I watched the second hand revolve once around the face of the timepiece. I tried to daydream, but my mind kept wandering. At 2:11 I got up once more to open the two windows that were to my back when I sat in my movie chair. The room was getting stuffy, and I desired the fresh air of the living world.

I opened one, and after struggling for several minutes, I gave up trying to unstick the other, and contented myself with the fact that at least I solved the problem for a little while.

I turned around, to face the room once more, and habitually looked at the clock. 2:15. I looked up, and to my astonishment saw that there was a young girl sitting on the couch, staring down at her feet. Startled, my hand flew to my chest, where I tried to steady my heart by pressing my palm firmly down upon its beat. Slowly it returned to normal, and I looked at the girl.

Her long black hair fell over he shoulders, and covered a majority of her face. She sat with her legs uncrossed but pressed tightly together and her arms crossed in front of her. I wasn’t sure whether she was slouching unintentionally or curling herself up protectively. The skin on her arms was white, almost ghostly, and I could see her clutching something firmly against her. She didn’t wear anything to draw attention to herself. She was dressed plainly in blue jeans, torn at the knee as all the young people do it these days, and a yellow polo shirt, the collar ironed down.

I straightened my skirt and approached her carefully, softly.

“Tiniel?”

She looked up at me and for a moment I could not breathe. Her eyes. Her right eye was blue, a dazzling spectacular blue, like the waters that you see in pictures of islands that you know you will never be able to visit yourself. That clear, captivating blue that you can’t turn away from. But the other…

Her left eye was green. A green that made me uneasy and unsure of what was absolutely certain. It was if she knew. “Knew What?” I asked myself. Everything. She knew my secrets, my hopes, my despair. She knew how to get me to confess my inner most thoughts, knew how to break me down until I was nothing more than a heap of incoherent phrases struggling to make themselves whole.

I stopped myself and turned away from her for a moment to collect my wits. I walked over to the armchair that faced her and sat down in it, curling my fingers together as if I were praying and set them down in my lap. I took a breath and looked up again. She was still looking at me.

“Hello Tiniel. Do you know who I am?”

I could have sworn that the left side of her mouth almost twitched into a smirk, but she held it back. It made my uncomfortable, and I didn’t know why.

“Yes, I do.”

As she answered me she straightened her back, uncrossed her arms and laid them gently into her lap, and revealed to me what she had been grasping. It was a stuffed animal, a lamb. It had blue eyes, not like hers, and white fur all over. It was old, very old, and from its side I could see a little knob sticking it. It must play a tune.

Tiniel’s voice was clear and coherent, not like most of the patients who were recovering from an attempted suicide. It didn’t shake or wobble, its consistency telling me that she was confident in herself and knew what she was doing. It had a tone to it that wasn’t cocky, but self-assured, and it had a mellow almost melodic sound to it that calmed me from my previous disquiet.

“And you know why you’re here today?”

“Because I tried to kill myself.”

I almost flinched. No patient had ever come right out and said it, and it had a harsh, grating sound when I heard it said like that. I tried to kill myself. I shivered.

“Are you parent’s here, Tiniel?”

“No, they dropped me off.”

I was a bit surprised. The parents usually come in for the first meeting and ask questions, take care of their child. Their natural instinct is to feel protective and worried for the safety of their son or daughter.

“Well, my name is Dabria Knowles…” I started.

“I know,” she stated surely. I blinked.

“… and our sessions are going to be daily for a little while, and if things progress we may cut that time down to once weekly. During these meetings we’re just going to talk, okay? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, so we’ll talk about whatever you want to.”

I wasn’t usually so straightforward with my patients, but Tiniel looked like she could handle it. After I said that, she nodded, and I half-stood up to grab my notebook and then sat back down.

“First, however, I’m going to have to ask you a few questions. If you don’t want to answer a question you don’t have to, I’m can not force you to answer all of them. Just remember that the more answers you give the better I’m going to be able to help you.”

She nodded again.

“What is your full name?”

“Tiniel R.K., but you can call me Teeny” I looked up.

“What does the R.K stand for?”

“Redman Kevins.”

“How old are you Teeny?”

“Seventeen.” I looked up. She didn’t look seventeen.

“So you’re a junior?”

“Senior.”

“When is your birthday?”

“March Nineteenth.”

She was Pisces. I made a note to look up what her sign meant.

“Do you have any siblings?”

“One older sister.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kamaria-Kanti. It means lovely moon.”

“How old is she?”

“Nineteen.”

“Do you have a good relationship with Kamaria-Kanti?”

What a beautiful name, I thought to myself.

“She’s one of my best friends.”

“Do you get along with your parents?”

“Yes.” Unusual.

“Have you ever experimented with drugs, or alcohol?”

“No.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

She hesitated. I made a note.

“I prefer not to answer.”

“That’s your right.” I looked down at the remaining questions. They were not completely necessary. I skipped them and looked up at her.

“Okay, that’s all I really need for right now. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

I expected a “no”, or a “not really”, and her answer threw me off guard yet another time.

“Why I tried to kill myself.”

It was my turn to hesitate.

“Okay,” I said gently, not wanted to push her.

“I know that you were expecting small talk, but I’m not here for small talk.”

“Okay,” I said repeated.

“I’m not disturbed, or depressed. I don’t want revenge on anyone, or want to hurt anybody. I don’t feel isolated, and though I may feel different I accept myself for who I am and wouldn’t ever kill myself over something as stupid and shallow as that.”

She had just crossed off the top causes of attempted suicide, and I wasn’t sure what to say. I decided not to be calm and soothing with her, she didn’t need to be babied along.

“So why did you try to do it?”

“Because he was talking to me about it, and I just thought it would be a good idea. Things were… are just wrong.”

Well that was definitely different. I didn’t register the “he” in the sentence, and so didn’t ask about it.

“What is wrong?”

“Reality.”

“Reality is wrong? What is wrong with it?”

She changed. Her voice softened, became quiet, subdued. She wasn’t sure of something. Her hands grasped for the lamb and sought comfort in the old toy.

“There’s no background music.”

I hadn’t heard her, her voice was now just above a whisper, and her eyes were cast down again.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you Tiniel.”

“The problem with reality is that there’s no background music.”

I wrote it down. Something was wrong, she was acting differently now. I needed to find out what had overcome her.

“Why don’t you sound sure about it?”

“That was his answer.” I heard the “his” this time.

“Who’s answer?”

“His.”

“Tiniel if I’m going to help you, you need to tell me who He is.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” She didn’t answer. I watched her. She didn’t move for a long time, and when she finally did she was back to herself again.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” I agreed, noting that I must look into this “He”, and waited for her to choose a topic. She didn’t. “Do you have any hobbies,” I offered as a starting point.

“I collect questions.”

I made a note of her answer.

“So you’re a question collector, huh?” I said light-heartedly. “Do you want to ask me some?”

“Most of my questions don’t have answers.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like them better that way. An unanswered question is better than an unquestioned answer, wouldn’t you say?”

I thought about it for a minute.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. Do you want to share some of them with me?”

“Not really, but I might as well as long as I’m here.” I waited as she searched for one.

“This one has an answer, I’ll be interested to see your opinion,” She smiled, making me uneasy. I could not read her face, and she knew. She started. “Is it better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, or the wrong thing for the right reasons?”

She was starting out deep on me. The more I pondered the question the more profound it seemed to become. Was she referring to herself? Might suicide be the “thing?” What was her reason? I noticed that she had eliminated possibilities, but never actually explained her actions. I disregarded the “reality” answer she gave me, as she didn’t seem certain that it was actually the reason. I decided to be vague.

“It depends on what the reason is, and to who it is considered right, or wrong.”

She smiled. She knew that I didn’t have an answer, that I was dithering. She asked another.

“Does thought depend on Language?” I was impressed.

“Mind if I ask you one? Not rhetorical, of course.” She nodded. I got up from my chair and pulled a water bottle out of a desk drawer, along with a mug I kept for tea, when I stayed late at the office. I filled the cup to the middle line, and set it down in front of her.

“Is it half empty, or half full?” She did not pause before giving her answer.

“Maybe it’s twice as large as it needs to be.” I was awed, but I wasn’t going to show it.

“So what you’re saying is that you’d rather the cup to be full?”

“No. If the cup is twice as large as it needs to be, then it would be full, and even a pessimist cannot deny that full is full. True he may say ‘It all needs to be finished,’ but he cannot contradict the fact that a full glass is a full glass.”

I didn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that she had daunted me.

“Your turn.” She deliberated a moment while thinking, giving me time to pick my pride up from the floor and attempt to piece it together.

“Shouldn’t we admit our errors before someone else exaggerates them?”

I nodded in concord. “You have some good ones.”

“Thank you.”

I looked at my clock. 2:30. Half an hour to go.

“So you said you’re a junior?”

“No, you said I was a junior. I’m a senior.”

“Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry.”

The rest of the session was spent talking of her school and her studies, and at the end of the hour I was left completely baffled. Tiniel had excellent grades, enjoyed school, was doing well in every aspect, did community service, participated in Basketball and baseball, and had a multitude of friends whom she seemed to love to no end. Why would somebody with so much going for her try to end her life, with no more of a reason than reality didn’t have background music?

I was however glad with the progress that we had made. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever talked to a patient as much as I had with Tiniel. She had a presence around her, like the lady of my clock. Tiniel challenged me, dared me, to figure her out, I could see it in her eye, and I wasn’t about to back down from that challenge. After mulling around for a little while I headed home, the notebook in my briefcase, as to be able to review the notes I had made.



.3.
It was nine in the evening. I had not yet had a chance to open the notebook, and only as I got into bed was I able to look at it. First were the answers to her questions.

“Tiniel… call me Teeny… Redman Kevins… 17… Senior…”
I glanced at them all quickly and then moved on. There was her answer to my questions. Reality didn’t have any background music. I read the line over and over again. What did it mean? Who was “he”? “The right thing, for the wrong reason…the glass twice as large as it needed to be.” A list of her classes. Friends that she had talked about specifically. I had made a note to talk to some of them, see how much I could learn about her. I decided to go the next day, it would be a school day, but I was sure the school would allow me to pull a few students out for short periods of time. Certainly if it would help Tiniel they’d be more than willing.
Near the middle of the page I had scribbled a word, and upon closer inspection I made it out to be Lamb. That’s right, the little lamb she never let go of. All throughout our time together her hands never once left the old stuffed animal. I didn’t think anything of it; it was her safety object, a comfort to her.

On and on I went, down the page, and finally I reached the bottom.

There was something there I hadn’t remembered writing, and I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. Had Tiniel written in it while I was unaware of it? No, the notebook had never left my hand. But there it was, those words accompanied by the crude sketch of a desperate face. Desperate, but calm. Certain of its desperation. There was no denying its existence.

“If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.”
There it was, in black ink that seeped through the paper and onto the next, and the next. Four, five, six, seven pages. Seven pages with that quote written on it down on the last three lines. Black Ink, and I hadn’t been writing in black ink, I had been holding a blue pen. A blue pen that wasn’t even visible through the page.
I looked again. There was something else. Smaller, but there all the same.

“Suicide Braves Death.” Each first letter capitalized. Suicide Braves Death.

Sleep would be long in coming tonight, and would never stay for long.



.4.
I sat in the office and heard the assistant at the desk call over the loud speaker for Cathy Ryan, Melissa Jorna, and Taia Montoya. They were the three friends Tiniel had talked most about, and I was here to find out what they knew. The assistant came back and sat at her desk, glancing irritated at me over her half-moon glasses and strumming the table top with her fake two inch red nails. Several moments later the three girls walked in together, laughing and talking amongst themselves. They walked to Ms. Irritated and announced themselves as Cathy, Melissa, and Taia. Ms. Irritated looked up at them with contempt, and then without a word shot arrows in my direction. The three girls turned around and I stood up.

“Hello Girls. My name is Dabria Knowles, and I’m working with your friend Tiniel.” The girls glanced uneasily at each other. “I was wondering if I could ask you all a few questions.”

“Sure.” One of them answered. Ms. Irritated, bothered by our talking, walked us to a small library that was situated in the back of the offices. There were enough chairs, and a small desk which I sat at to question the students.

“I’m sorry, could you tell me all your names again?”

They complied with my request and after a brief period of uneasy silence I began.

“How long have you all known Tiniel?”

“Four years, since freshman year,” Melissa answered, and the other nodded in agreement.

“Did you all know her well? Have you met her family?”
“Um, well I’ve never met her parent’s, but her older sister picks us up sometimes, and she takes us places when we don’t have rides. She’s pretty cool.” Taia replied, and Cathy agreed with a confident nod of her head.

“I’ve met her folks on several occasions, they seem like nice people. She’s very close with her sister, they’re best friends. Tiniel is really nice, but she’s shy, so I don’t think any of us really knew her well.” Melissa answered.

“Do you all know that Tiniel tried to commit suicide two months ago?” I asked. I wasn’t here to chit chat, I needed answers, and this was the only way to get them. I could see that they were uncomfortable, fidgeting and moving around constantly. I felt bad, but not bad enough to go lightly on them.

“Yes, her sister called us and let us know.” Taia answered finally, and only after approving looks from the other girls.

“Before the attempt did she ever mention killing herself, or hating anybody? Did she ever give you any reason to believe that she would actually try?”
The girls glanced at each other nervously. Melissa answered me.

“A few months ago, just before she tried to… kill herself… she kept talking about Him.”

So here He was again. Did they know something?

“She was always talking about how He was going to push her, that she wouldn’t be able to catch herself. She used to say that He provided her music.”

Reality has no background music.

“She used to say that He wouldn’t let her go, that her name was on His list and He wasn’t leaving without her.” Melissa finished.

“She never said who He was?”

“No, never. It was just always Him. That was His name.”
I nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

I questioned them loosely about how Tiniel was at school. Did she have many friends? Yes. She seemed to enjoy school? Usually. She wasn’t having any boyfriend troubles? Only recently she had begun to flirt with death. Other than that she had no relationships with guys. Didn’t hate any of her teachers? No, she liked them all.

But nothing else came up. The only thing I had to go on was Him, and I hadn’t a clue who He was, or how to find Him.



.5.
It had now been three months since my first visit with Tiniel. Our meetings were changed from one hour every day to two hours a week. She would come in on Tuesdays, and we would talk about her family, her friends, and more of her questions. Not only was she a collector of questions, but also of statements, of quotes, of literature. She was a collector period, and took to sharing with me her collections when we met. Marbles, books, pictures, dolphins, empty journals. Every week she brought something new to share with me.

And each time she came to talk she had the lamb with her. That same, white, old lamb with the knob sticking out of its side like a spear. I had decided to bring it up once, and she said it had been her first stuffed animal, her first present. She received it the day she was born, and still kept it with her. I asked her what the knob was for, and she showed me. She set it down on the small coffee table that separated us, and slowly twisted the knob around once, twice, three times. She looked up at me, smiled, and let go.

The song started. Mary had a little lamb, not the words, just the tune. I sang the words in my head as it went on and on. The lamb’s head moved, up, to the right, down, to the left, up, to the right, down, to the left. Over and over, never changing its course, sure of the path its small head, fixed with two blue eyes, took as the song played on and on. It stopped finally on the word Lamb, and Tiniel picked it up and set in her lap once more. She kissed it on the head, and the movement caused it to spit out one last note. A thank you note, I thought you myself, and smiled inwardly.

And I now had another item on my desk, aside from the clock. It was a marble, a large yellow marble that she had singled out of her collection and offered me as a gift. I kept it next to the clock, a reminder. Of what? I’m not sure, just a reminder.

For a long time I let Tiniel pick the topics, talked with her about what she wished, but I was going to make a change today. I was going to bring up Him. He hadn’t appeared again after our first talk, and I was anxious to know who He was. I was determined to bring it up, and I was going to get an answer.

I sat at my desk. It was 12:03. I should have been having lunch, but I was not hungry. I just sat at my desk, playing with the marble. It rolled under my finger like water. I felt like God, sitting in my high-backed leather chair rolling a marble back and forth across the hard surface of the wooden desk, imagining it was water. I smiled softly to myself. I left it in the middle of my desk and began to pace. I walked around the room twice, before stopping at my bookshelf. I had let Tiniel borrow The Picture of Dorian Gray. She had articulated her interest in it, and I let her take it for the week. I saw its empty place in my bookshelf and my heart plucked at the strings of its guitar. I sighed, discontented, and turned around to sit back down and play God.

I turned, and to my surprise found that someone had filled in with my absence. A blue butterfly perched boldly upon the yellow marble. Its fragile wings fluttered kindly in the sunlight that fell upon the wood. I waved back, amused at the sight of the butterfly upon that marble. The marble didn’t move on the desk, the butterfly either perfectly balanced upon it, or otherwise weightless. The yellow marble was oblivious to the higher power that governed it. I couldn’t help but chuckle, amused at my thoughts. “I’ll have to tell Tiniel about this,” I told myself. But I changed my mind.

The calm, serene feeling I was first touched by was drowned in a new feeling. Disquietude. Something about the sight of the butterfly, seated upon my make believe world, made me uneasy, frightened even. I wanted to walk toward it, take my finger and just push it off, force it to fly away. But I couldn’t. It was watching me, watching me the way that Tiniel’s green eye watched me. With a knowing. Somewhere in the back of my head music started. I didn’t notice.

That little blue butterfly was only going to live one day. It was going to flutter away, lay down in a bed of pedals, and softly and quietly die. No one would mourn the loss of the butterfly, no one would know. If it landed in a pond, no one would see the ripples, no one would feel the ripples. It was nothing, simply nothing. I kept telling myself so, knowing it wasn’t true. I knew that the butterfly knew everything, and I was nothing. It knew the answers to all my questions. But no one would mourn it. I was wrong again. He would mourn the loss of this small insignificant creature. He would mourn, and then He would rejoice.

My thoughts confused me, but before I had time to sort them out, the butterfly moved. It threatened me. It fluttered up, into my face, around me once, as if to size me up, and then flew to the opposite side of the room, and there landed on a shadow.



.6.
A shadow I say, and a shadow I mean. He was a shadow, and the butterfly sat lithely upon His shoulder, a shoulder that wasn’t there. Its wings continued to beat up and down, keeping tempo to the rhythm of my racing heart. What was going on? Who was… or rather What was this being, this silhouette, this absence of light? I didn’t understand.

A cloud moved in front of the sun, and the room darkened considerably, as did the shadow, but the butterfly maintained its queasy brilliance, shedding a light I wasn’t sure I believed in.

The shadow turned from me, and I watched with paralyzing fascination as one non-existent arm reached up, and with his long, non-existent finger wrote three very existing letters upon my wall.
SBD

Suicide Braves Death

A voice whispered in my ear. It wasn’t in English, but I understood it. I understood it perfectly.

Does Thought Depend on Language

Where had I heard that? It seemed like so long ago. Again, that inhuman whisper. SBD, Suicide Braves Death. I stared at the letters for long after the shadow had dissipated, and the clouds moved out of the way of the sun. The butterfly flew away out of the window, but I never noticed. I just stared at the letters. SBD. Suicide Braves Death. The music stopped.



.7.
When Tiniel walked in (without my book in her hand) I was sitting blankly at my desk, staring into nothing. I had taken a framed photograph that usually sat on my bookshelf, and nailed it up on the wall to cover those three condemning letters. I now had no choice but to bring Him up in the conversation. I wouldn’t say that I had seen Him. I wasn’t sure how I knew that was Him, but I knew, and I wasn’t going to tell her. But she knew.

“You’re on his list.” I was drug unwillingly out of my hypnosis, and turned to look at Tiniel.

“What?”

“You’re on his list. I saw it.” She no longer seemed uncertain talking about him. I wondered why.

“What does he want?”

“You, me, Everybody.”

“That’s not an answer Tiniel.” She smiled at me.

“You’ll see. You’ll see.” Her left hand stroked the lamb’s head.

“What is SBD?” I asked.

She looked at me, shocked.

“What is SBD?” I asked again.

“Don’t you know?” She paused, searching my eyes. I turned them away, afraid of what she might find. I was sure she smiled, a soft sad smile, but I couldn’t be sure. She looked at the photograph on the wall. “Suicide Braves Death.”

“Yes, but what does that mean? Why did He write it on my wall?”

“He wrote it on mine too. Did He play you music? Background music for your reality?”

“What does Suicide Braves Death mean Tiniel? I am no longer playing games with you, answer me.”

“You’ll know when the time comes.”

The rest of our time together was spent in a stony silence, interrupted only by the occasional click-click-click of the knob in the side of the Lamb, followed by two verses of its tune. Mary had a little lamb.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. It’s fleece as white as [old] snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went [left], Mary went [died], the lamb was sure to go [follow].

As she was leaving, Tiniel turned to me.

“When you can’t see the bright side of life, it’s always possible to polish the dull side,” she said. She had a half-smile on her face, and it looked liked she pitied me. Pitied Me!

“Not if you’re out of polish.” I returned drearily, and she closed the door.



.8.
After she left I didn’t leave the room. I didn’t have dinner, though my stomach complained heartily at the lack of food. I didn’t go home to go to bed, I stayed in the room, and I slept on the couch.

I awoke when it was dark. I couldn’t see a thing, and I groped desperately for the light switch, suddenly afraid of the shadow. It was everywhere, shadow everywhere. The complete and utter absence of…

Light. On. The light was on. I breathed a sigh of childish relief and scolded myself for believing in ghosts.

Not ghosts though, something said to me. Not ghosts, shadows. You can’t not believe in shadows, they’re there. They’ve always been there, they’ll always be there. You can’t deny that. The glass it twice as large. It all exists. Not even the pessimist can deny…

I shook my head. I was making no sense. I stood up and stretched. It must be late. I turned to look at the clock, but it was facing away from me. That was strange, it always faces this way. I got up and turned it around.

The clock had stopped, hours ago. It said that it was still 12:03. Weird. I stared at it for a minute. I noticed a third bird. That’s funny; I had never noticed it before. Why not? There it was, plain as daylight, and it wasn’t looking at the lady, or the book, or the bridge. It was looking at me. I turned the clock back around again, I didn’t want to look at it anymore.
I went and sat back down on the couch, cradling my head in my sweaty hands. I sat, and I listened to the silence. Listened. Silence. Listened. Music.

Music?

I looked up. Yes, there was music. Someone was playing music. Someone was playing music at this Godforsaken hour of the night. Why on earth would anybody be playing mu--

The room tipped. Quite suddenly and quite unexpectedly the room tipped. On the left side. Tiniel’s left eye, it was green. The room tipped, to the left, everything tipped, and I went sprawling against the wall, as the wall became the floor. But the marble never moved. Someone was playing God, and the marble never moved from its spot in the middle of my desk. And there in the shadow, could it be? The shadow of the yellow marble. Yes, I was certain of it now. There was a butterfly in the shadow. Why?

“If I were you, who’d be me?” The shadow of the butterfly spoke to me. “If I were you, who’d be me?” I couldn’t answer. It was my one “Get out of Hell card” and I didn’t know the answer.

The unanswered question… the unquestioned answer…

A whisper. More whispers.

Mary had a little lamb. Little old lamb with old white fleece, old dirty white fleece
And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was dragged along

No, that wasn’t the way it went. Was it? I didn’t know anymore. The music played on and on, my background music. The background music to my new twisted reality, in which everything was tilted to the left, but nothing ever fell. Nothing. Nothing ever fell but me. Down and down, falling by myself. Me and lamb, falling. Pushed down the hole by Mary. Seemingly innocent, beautiful Mary, like the butterfly. The corrupted innocence of the butterfly, of Mary the Butterfly. Mary the butterfly whispering into my ear.

Death is nothing to us, since when we are it has not yet come, and when it has come we are not.

Lies. Death was here. Here in this room waiting to take me, but I wasn’t going to go. I wasn’t going to let Death the Shadow, with Mary the Butterfly as his accomplice, take me away. I was going to stand up to Death, prove him wrong. SBD

Suicide Braves Death

I understood. Suicide Braves Death. Suicide. Death. Suicide Braves Death. I looked at the Shadow, and the Butterfly. I looked at the shadow of the butterfly. I understood. I wasn’t going to let death take me. Not today. Not tonight.

I walked around Death, all the away around its lingering wraith, to the window. The open window that had invited that small blue butterfly to come in and play with my little yellow marble. To play God with my marble. Fourteen stories up it had flown to sit on my little world. Fourteen stories.

“They say that some people march to the beat of the different drummer, but how many people Polka?”

I decided to Polka.

Twirl, step, step, step, twirl, dip. Step, Step Step, Jump. [[The Music Stopped]]


.9.
The yellow marble rolled quietly off the desk, and hit the butterfly. The butterfly died, and there were no ripples. The lamb sung its song.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, you are the lamb, with soiled white fleece.
And everywhere that Mary went, Mary left, Mary Died. Everywhere that Mary went the lamb was drug along.