The Abyss
By Mario Figueroa
Why Me?
My name is Mark Tacker, and I hate my family. I'm from a little shit town called Wilcox, Arizona. I lived there with my older brother Jonathan and my parents Josie & Clyde for the first 8 years of my life, till my father decided we needed a change and moved us all to the Big Apple, New York City. My brother Jonathan had been extremely sick before we had moved to New York, and I saw the pain in my parent's eyes, as if they thought that he wasn't going to make it. I never quite knew what ailed my brother, but he looked sickly pale, with dry lips, and could barely speak. He kept coughing up blood, and spent weeks in the hospital while we waited for the doctors to do something. It seemed like nothing could be done. My father spent his time yelling at doctors to do something while my mother cried the whole time. I would sit next to Jonathan and talk to him the whole day. My parents didn't seem to care that I had stopped attending school, they already had much on their minds. One night in the hospital I was awakened to the whispers of my mom and dad out in the hallway.
"What are we gonna do? I don't know what else to do," my dad murmured to my mom in the hall.
"I don't know Clyde" my mom said through tears.
My dad paused for a while.
"Should we try what that man told us?" Dad asked.
"Didn't he sound crazy though? I doubt that it will actually work. And he said that there would be consequences" Mom replied.
"Well then I don't know Josie, do you have any better ideas?!" my dad exclaimed.
"Shh, you'll wake up the kids…but I guess you're right." My mom said.
"Alright I'll be right back." Dad said.
"Don't you think we should both go?" Mom asked.
"No, you should stay here with the kids" Dad replied.
My mom walked back into the room and just sat at the small table that occupied the corner of Jonathan's hospital room and stared solemnly at Jonathan as he slept. She hadn't noticed that I had been awake, and I decided to not ask, so I just fell asleep again, feeling my eyelids grow heavy and a foggy dream roll into my mind.
I woke to the sound of my mom crying. The first thing I thought was that my brother had already passed away, and as tears filled my eyes I noticed that my brother was sitting up in his bed, my mom hugging him crying from happiness instead of sadness. My dad was on the other side of the bed smiling and hugging my brother as well. My brother stared at me, unaware of the situation and confused. He kept looking at his skin which was back to its original color and licking his lips. I ran up to them and joined in on the hug. The doctors came in and were just as confused as my brother. It was a miracle, everyone was sure that he would not make it. As soon as we got home my dad told us that we were gonna move out of Wilcox. That we needed a new start and that our lives were gonna get better. He was wrong.
Jonathan died 5 years later from a random heart attack while he was with his girlfriend, Jocelyn, at Central Park. They were having a picnic and was about to propose to her. They had both just gotten their Master's Degree in Forensic History from NYSU and had been together for 4 years. We all mourned my brother's death for the next year. My parents didn't speak for a year. I had graduated from Midwood High a month before his death and was ready to go to MIT to start college, but I stayed to take care of my parents. I started working at an antique shop that was close to our apartment. Jocelyn spent her time in my brother's room. I could hear her sobbing all the time, since my room was next to his room. I would make them food, but they rarely ate.
One day I went into my brother's room to see if Jocelyn wanted some soup that I had made that day. She stood up and kissed me aggressively. I stood there baffled by what happened as she kept kissing me. She undressed and we had sex in my brother's room. After that she gathered her things and left. We never saw her again. With no one to talk to I found it hard to register my emotions, so I stopped feeling anything for a while. When my mother decided to leave us she didn't say anything. I was walking down the stairs to go to work when I saw her put her briefcases into a taxi. I wondered what she was doing, and when she saw me neither of us said a word. Then she got in the taxi and left.
I went to work and stayed there until it closed. The owner of Benny's Antique Shop was sick that day, so I was the only one there. There weren't many customers that day so I had time to think. I was getting used to people leaving my life. I was drawing nearer and nearer to that abyss where you couldn't come back from, and felt nothing as I did my routes around the store. A girl my age came in at one point during the day, and it appeared like she wanted to strike up a conversation as she made many quirky comments and asked many questions. It came to me that she may have been flirting, but I just shut her out, and she quickly got the hint that I was not gonna amuse her in any way, she sighed and wandered around the store for a minute before she left. I thought for a moment if maybe she could have been my way to come back from that abyss and turn my life around, but I quickly dismissed that thought and returned to my mindless task at hand.
It was past 11 by the time I got home. I was about to unlock the door when I noticed that it was left ajar. The knob and keyhole were torn to shreds, as if it had exploded. I slowly opened the door, alarmed and scared. I thought about calling the police, but was already inside and decided to move on. As I moved into the kitchen I immediately noticed that everything had been broken, the cupboards were off the hinges and destroyed, glass was everywhere, the table and chairs broken, and on the floor was puddle of red liquid with a smeared trail leading into the living room. I followed it and discovered my dad sprawled on the floor with the house phone next to his hand. I shakily grabbed the phone from his cold hands and dialed 911, in shock, and told the dispatch woman our address then hung up. I sat on the couch and watched my dad's lifeless cadaver until the police came and took me out of the room.
They caught the guy a week later in his home drunk off his ass and took him into questioning. It turns out the perpetrator had come into the house and aimed to rob us. He had held my dad at gunpoint while he stuffed a bag with our stuff. My dad didn't do anything but sit there, he didn't care, he had stopped caring when his first son died and his wife deserted him. When the robber grabbed my brother's class ring something stirred inside my father and he decided to protest and the perp accidentally shot him while struggling with my father. The man said that he didn't want to shoot him, and that it had been an accident. It didn't matter what his intentions were. My father wasn't coming back. I was alone. I fell into the deep dark abyss.
"Why me?..."
The Abyss
"Wow you're barely 21?!" She screamed over the music so I could hear.
"Hahaha yeah, how about you?!" I replied.
"It's not nice to ask a girl her age" she said with a smile on her face.
"You're right! How about if you let me buy you a drink?!" I asked smiling back at her.
"Yeah I'd like that!" she said.
I turned for the bar at the far end of the club. The music was shitty and the strobing lights were a bit too strong, but it was the best place to find