Testament

Testament
11 March 1989

18 years old

Shut up. Get away from me. Get away from me now. Goddammit, NOW, I tell you! I don’t want to hear your voices any more. I want silence. I’ll mask your voices in black silence.

The black walls of my despair surround me, comfort me, numb me. I have pain, yet I feel nothing. Apathy, indifference, despair… That is my world. Black and numbing. I crouch in my corner alone, alone. People come at me from all sides, yet I’m alone. I try to explain, “Please listen to me.”

They listen but they don’t hear. “Yes, I know what you mean. I know how you feel,” they tell me.

“No! You have no idea at all!”

They don’t understand, they won’t understand. They leave me standing alone, blanketed in my black shroud of despair. No one hears my cries. My despair is overwhelming, “Hear my testimony! Hear my plea!” I cry.

And still I stand alone.

“What’s wrong? Why do you feel like this?” they ask.

“The people,” I say. “I hate the people. They suck.” But it isn’t the people. It is, but it isn’t. They only enhance what I feel. So what is the cause? There is no cause. This is what I am.

I live beneath a shroud of blackness. The shroud is too heavy for me to part alone. It parts only of its own volition and always falls back into place. I feel myself falling deeper and deeper into my black pit of despair. Falling, falling, the air rushing past my ears. I hear it, yet it’s not there.

Get me my gun, you son of a bitch! I’ll shoot your fucking head off! Don’t talk to me, don’t ask me questions. I’m not here. You don’t see me, I’m an illusion. Fuck you one and all. Eat me raw, suck me dry, and all that other good shit. You’re an illusion, too!

I turn my back to you, I turn away into my corner, my dark, black corner. No light can shine through, none at all. I look back and there is a faint speck. It speaks to me. We love each other with an unmatched intensity. It told me its name. What is it, you ask? If I told you, you’d think me crazy. But I’m crazy anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Its name is Death. He becomes harder and harder to resist with each passing day.

He asks me if I’m worried.

“Worried? Whatever have I to be worried about?” I respond.

He isn’t satisfied with my answer and I know it. I sound too unconvincing. In truth, I am worried. I wonder if we’ll join in unholy matrimony, or if we’ll part forever, throwing me deeper in my pit, wrapping me, engulfing me tighter and deeper in my black shroud. Will Death be my stronghold, or will he too give way beneath my weight?

I still hate you. I hate your voices. You din grows louder and louder in my ears, and I can’t stand it any longer. I spin around, thrashing about, hoping to hurt you, taking care to avoid none but Death. He stands there, looking at me, tears in his eyes, streaming down his face, my pain clearly reflected in his eyes. But even Death, my counterpart, my lover, my soul mate, doesn’t understand my despair.

No big deal. Who does?

I retreat now to unwillingly allow the blackness enshroud me again. My black curtain closes around me and I stalk the cemeteries hand in hand with Death, through this fucking carnival of life. We turn to face each other. He smiles, I smile back. He leans forward to kiss gently my lips. We embrace. I’m warm and secure in Death’s arms. I’m finally where I belong. We’re together…

Yet, I’m still alone.