1 - An Entry of Mourning

The First Journal

06/10/2010

I think I can only start this by stating some facts. Yesterday, the fifth of October, not too far from the new grade's beginning quite possibly one of my only and best friends, Kenneth 'Kenny' McCormick, died. I write died, because it is nearly impossible to say what he actually did, why what happened... well, happened. How it happened.

Why he had such a strange request as his last words.

I guess, the only way for me to say what was wrong, is to say what happened on the day, before it did occur.

A Wednesday is how I can describe it, literally and figuratively, a Wednesday, just passing over the hump of the week and on a steady decline to the end. Only to wait for the cycle to continue as it always does.

The snow was four inches thick, I could tell because it reached above my ankles and nearly into my socks as I walked the same early morning walk I took every weekday. Yet there was something about the air... about the cold that day that set me on edge, made my heart beat just that little bit faster than normal, it made the world around me seem a little bluer and the daily shivers a little more savage .

Or maybe I'm remembering wrong, maybe the grief is getting to me. But I swear the day itself was melancholy and scared.

If it was, or if it wasn't, it really doesn't matter. All that mattered was that the snowfall was heavy the night before and dampened my shoes.

It seems out of place for me to think (and therefore write) this down but I have to shout at Stan for making me waste my weeks saving on damn converse so 'you don't look like such a dork with those damn snow boots.' I think I'm trying to purposefully get off topic.

They didn't get too damp though, as I walked up North Hill I could feel the concrete slowly edging closer to my covered foot and start hearing the sound of the outsole stepping on the cement. The snow was only at small patches at the top of the hill and to the right of the street grass was peeking through, although with that odd blue tinge of the air.

The red sign at the top was my destination, and when I checked my watch - finding the time as 7:35 - I realised I had another ten minutes until the bus arrived. This is a thing that happens far too often for me, for the past year I had been trying to make it simply on time. As with yesterday, I did not.

Although, for the past three months I had been coming prepared, and soon after I was flipping through the pages of a small two hundred something page Richard Matheson novel, I am Legend I remember, the one with the last man on earth against an army of vampires.

Just as I had read twenty and Robert Neville was just about to complain about the voluptuous undead trying to get a bite out of his throat, the bus startled me from the land of the vampire infested LA, to reality. Where the dull, greying bus driver was quickly trying to wave me on as if he had some magical force powers.

It was not the force powers that got me on, but simply my want to get to school. Well, want is a powerful word, more of legal requirement so my parents don't get fined. Yeah, that fits the bill nicely.

I can say with a grin that I'm second smartest in all the school (with my, and I quote 'Super best friend's' girlfriend Wendy, above me and the poor little English immigrant Pip just below me.) but that didn't mean I liked it.

There were fifteen others on the bus, none of which I knew well, although they must have all come from a few towns over, the people who got on that early normally are.

There is only one high school in this pocket of Colorado, a large place with a knack for falling apart. A place I'm glad to be leaving in a year or so.

People from all over the area, from Denver to a little place a good fifty miles away called Lenoy, come to this school, called simply Colorado High School. Kenny suspected that 'the creativity guy was using his hour to whack off when they had to think of a name.'

Oh god... Kenny.

Anyways, we drove up and down hills, and through the patches of trees that wound about at the bottom of the mountains, all to get to the thirty mile away destination of Colorado High School. We drove on open road for a good hour, into the town of Kingfield, where the school sits a little on the eastern outskirts. Stopping three times in the town before twisting and turning to the final stop.

By the time we were there, Robert Neville had began putting food out for a dog, who he thinks may be the only other living thing, except himself, as he didn't believe the vampires to be living things at all.

I can see why Stan and Kenny thinks and... thought I am and... was such a dork. I guess I am.

The bus parked itself outside the main entrance, of which is a set of stairs down to the flat land where the school building is. Within the second that we had walked on out, the driver left with a screeching skid of his tyres, probably with better things to do.

Then I was at school, in the concrete building with a roof that leaked more than pictures of naked celebrities, tools and equipment that was five years out of date and teachers that seemed to not know how to educate children. That is Colorado High School in a nutshell. Where the only place that had a dose of comfort was either the counselling room (as the councillor gave a damn about cleaning) and the library, because hardly anyone went there.

My watch beamed a digital 8:00 at me, half an hour before Stan and Kenny arrived.

And so, I sat on the stairs that led down and Robert Neville continued trying to catch that dog and end the Vampire plague.

I had only had thirteen pages left when the bus rolled up behind me, Neville was being attacked by the Vampires and the climax was coming, just then did those two have to arrive. I wasn't complaining though, not seriously, it had been strangely quiet outside the school with the same feeling that had been following me the entire day like a deranged stalker.

And my heart hadn't slowed down, which worried me a little.

Still though, I noticed the blue of Stan's hat and the orange of Kenny's hoodie stand out in the crowd of greens and browns and beiges and creams. Everyone seemed to wear dull colours in comparison. As if growing up had washed the light out of everyone but those two.

I met them halfway, and the second sign (or sorts) that the day was turning for the worst presented itself in the form of Kenny. The dirty haired, rough blond was anything but right on that day, his skin was pale with a yellow tinge of sickness over it, his cheeks hollow, his breathing laboured and his eyes deep and nearly bloodshot.

He walked with a limp in his right leg.

Stan, like me, was worried, he glanced down to the limping leg every now and then, and it took me a while to realise something else that was strange.

The jeans were new, Kenny never had new jeans, hell, the guy could hardly afford to feed himself, let alone buy new clothes. They weren't designer or anything of the sort, but to Kenny, new jeans were like the new Levis.

What a world, where I cared a little more about what he had to do to afford what he wore then why he looked like he had contracted every disease known to man. Still though, Kenny was far too poor to afford most things.

He looked like hell but still he smiled at me in that strangely natural way of his, a smile that claimed the nerves and said 'no need to worry about me'

And like that his smile convinced me, as soon as that expression came I was calmed and didn't think anything else of it, perhaps he got the flu, I thought to myself, yeah... yeah, that makes sense. Thinking back, I don't know why I was so, well, not worried, he looked to be on the brink of death, near to collapsing on the floor and chocking on his own vomit, somehow I thought nothing of it, by his smile or my own stupidity.

Then again, Kenny was never a person to speak of his problems; everyone knew his life was total shit. That he had to deal with problems most couldn't even have nightmares about handling in their average working to middle class lives. He was a survivor of a human being, the type of person to break out against the odds and strive over the rest and, even though he was at the bottom, end out on top. At least, that was what I thought he would be. He never spoke of his problems, he had strength, but too much pride.

"Hey dude," Stan said, a sheepish expression about him as he seemed to look up at me - even though he was a good three inches taller than I. "What do we have for first period?"

"How long have we been in this year Stan?" I asked.

"Um... about... maybe two months, three maybe."

"We've been here for three months, Stan, and you still can't remember what we have for first period."

Kenny butted in there, his grin still plastered on like a protective ward from questions about how he was feeling, His voice though, was weak and laboured as if talking were a razorblade to his throat, "we can't all be loveable nerds like you, Kyle ol' buddy. So what is it we have?"

I sighed, "Homeroom."

Stan groaned, "Besides homeroom, dick."

I let go of a brief chuckle and finally answered his question, Math was our fist lesion of the day, then English, Break, Chem, Lunch and finally IT to round off the long tirade of boredom that is school. Mr Jones droned about circle theorems, Mr's Brotch babbled on and on, as she does, about comma splices, break was short lived and Kenny still looked like the dead and Mr Took rambled about fractional distillation.

Then came an also short lived lunch with Kenny unasked, even though I had the question just at the tip of my tongue, I just couldn't form the words, and a... nervousness, I guess, stopped me from just asking "are you alright." I couldn't. I don't know why, but I couldn't. Even so, when I tried to say it, Kenny just gave me that look, the same one as always.

It's scary, almost, I don't feel sad that he's dead, not one bit, all there is, is this headache whenever I think about him, no grief, I can't place my finger on why, because I'm still in shellshock? Because of what he told me? Perhaps... perhaps I don't care? But that can't be true, this Kenny, I have to emphasise this, Kenny! One of my best friends, but something keeps telling me in the back of my mind, 'it'll be fine,' but he's dead. God damn it one of my best friends are dead and I don't feel anything. Does Stan feel this way? Or that fat prick Cartman? Or am I alone with this... awful not-feeling.

Anyway, I've got to do this, so... last was IT, Mr Bake drones much less than all the others, and the work is ok, I guess, so that went passed fine, just fine. Quicker than normal, now that I think on it, as if time it was pushing me to the terrible end of the day.

Kenny was waiting outside the room, leaning against the opposite wall. Sicker now, his face was an awful white, looking down, and didn't notice me until I was right in front of him, he looked up sharply, with eyes that were dull and far away, like a pond suffering from years of pollution.

His grin spread across him as if on reflex, "Ah, Nerd, you're finally out of your nerd class," he spoke even worse now, haggard and horse, as if it pained him to say a single word. That was what made the words leave my lips, the question that had plagued me the entire day.

"Are you ok, Kenny, you look like total shit?"

He simply shook his head with an almost dreamlike slowness, "nah... nah, man, I'm fine, just... can I ask you a favour?" the people moving around us, out of school, almost drowned out his speech, it was so low that I doubt that anyone around us even heard a syllable of what he was saying.

I nodded, "Sure, whatever you need."

"Well, you know what it's like to, you know... uh... have problems that you just can't... in fact, never mind."

He turned and began walking away, and I felt the urge to run out and grab him, the urge to help him, he had dealt with all of his problems on his own, I had to help him at least once. I couldn't just not help my friend when he was in such a situation, and for him to be so off, it was surely bad. So, I exclaimed, "no!" loud enough to draw the attention of a few of the stragglers leaving their rooms, and luckily, Kenny as well, who I hardly heard chuckling under his breath.

"You can't be that desperate for me, can you?" he asked, a hint of his sly charm under the illness. The stragglers had taken their eyes off of me and began walking to their individual destinations.

"Shut up, dick head. What's wrong? What were you saying, about problems?"

His head weakly raised to smile at me again, "you know, apparently smart people swear more than idiots."

I cocked my head, a tick from when I was a child, "So?"

"Well, you're one of the smartest people I know... that's why I want your help, just a small favour... ok?" His head fell down, as if he had lost all strength, and he finished in a defeated whisper, "Is that alright?"

He was serious, Kenny McCormick was serious, I'd have said there was a time for anything, but not for that, Kenny always took things in his stride with a grin. He hadn't ever been this... intense.

"Ok... uh... what do you need help with?"

"Meet me down at the cliff, you know, the one that looks over Starks Pond and the highway?" I did, it was a an offshoot of a rise before the great big mountain that shadowed South Park, hanging at least fifty meters over the pond and nearly seventy from the highway. I hadn't ever gone there much, it was more the place for Stan and Wendy to go in a banged up old truck and act their age.

I nodded and he walked away abruptly, before I could utter a single word. And I was alone in the hallway, only just realising that I had to make it to the bus or wait another hour. For the first time in months, I had to run to catch the way home.

I did catch it on time, although I shouldn't have, there was hardly any space and I had the misfortune of having the Fatass himself right in front of me. Eric 'Fatass' 'egotist' 'racist' 'Nazi' (and however many other words can describe the prick) Cartman is the same as ever, loud, obnoxious and a waste of human life. Or, I hope he is, he didn't joke at me on that trip home, he was strangely silent, and I knew he had seen I was behind him, I could feel his eyes on me whenever I looked out of the window. But he didn't say something like "swindle anyone out of their money today, filthy money grubbing Jew," or any of his slanders against the faith I didn't follow. He was silent and thinking, a bad thing for Cartman.

I made my way directly to the cliff as soon as I was off the bus, almost making a beeline towards it, if Kenny was this serious; there was no time to lose. Thinking on it, I was in such a mood that I would have climbed the cliff if there wasn't such an accessible route near to the bus stop.

I walked down North Hill, crossed the street when there were no vehicles in sight and followed the beaten path through the woods that wound up. It was commonly used by dog walkers and hunters or just people wanting to get a good view, I remember there being this big farce over a fancy photographer using it to get his 'best shot'. I don't think that went anywhere. It was used enough to stand out in the street as a path.

Thanks to the trees, the snow didn't leave the ground like a white blanket and more looking as if large shreds of the blanket were scattered here and there. It wound left for some twenty meters, then right for another ten, left again and then began rising upwards as it rounded its' way to the peak. After twenty minutes the faint sounds of cars, trucks and motorcycles on the highway could be heard in the distance, then the trees began to go from brown to reds and greens as wannabe gang signs were sprayed on them or cutesy love hearts with 'Adam and Jane' or any other names were carved in them. That or simply "fuck you, cocksucking faggot," was carved in one or two.

Ten minutes later I saw the peak, hanging over the pond to the east and the highway to the west, I could make out Kenny to the east, his bright orange hoodie like a flame in the darkness.

His head shot up as I walked onto the clearing and he span to see me, calming down when he noticed it was me and not anyone else.

"Took your time, Nerd." He still sounded like hell.

"Took my time? How did you get here before me, I took the first bus!"

"Got a lift with Stan, how else? Not my fault your mom doesn't trust him driving."

I shook my head, "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"Don't you think we shouldn't be shouting at each other, come here."

His skin was even whiter now, and I couldn't help but think back to the vampires from I am legend. Reading that seems a thousand years ago in comparison to what happened next.

"I wanted to ask you something, Kyle."

He used my name, not "Nerd" or "Geek" just, "Kyle," he never did that.

"What is it?" I asked, looking over the cliff down at the pond, it shimmered and moved with the light breeze, leaves fell from the surrounding trees and harmlessly landed against the water, floating without a care.

"Can you write a journal about today please? And don't miss a detail about what's going to happen in a second."

I turned away from the pond, "what do you mean, Kenny?"

He wasn't smiling in the charming way that he normally did, or in any careless expression, he was smiling sadly. "You can see I'm ill," he said, "I'm clearly very ill, so ill I can hardly talk... hardly walk... or think, for that matter. Overnight as well, and it dawned on me, I can't fight my battles alone, I'm like this and... well... things could happen, so I want help."

I nodded, "Ok, what do you need help with?"

"I want you to write that journal."

I cocked my head, "Just that... how's that going to help you?"

"Not only help me, help give you peace of mind, a distraction."

"A distraction? What do you mean?"

He didn't answer my question, instead he stared down at the water with a sereneness that made my heart beat a mile an hour, "Sometimes, I wonder if there can ever be a painless death. Do you think there could be, Kyle?"

"Kenny..." I said cautiously, taking a step towards him, "What are you thinking, man, tell me, please."

"I don't think there is, Kyle, just some are shorter than others, but all the more painful."

Oh shit, I thought, oh shit, shit, shit, shit.

It's hard to write this... but he asked me to, he asked me to!

"From this height my bones would break into chalk when I hit the water... it'll hurt... write that journal, please."

"KENNY!" I shouted and threw myself foreword to grab him, but in that time he had already muttered a single phrase:

"See ya, Kyle," and jumped first, I skidded against the ground, barely stopping myself going over, and saw his hoodie flail in the wind, billowing upwards, his arms spread and the same happening to his sleeves. Time moved slowly then, his hood was up, his dirty blond hair was rustling madly, and as soon as he hit the water, time was normal.

A massive splash came upwards; maybe ten or more meters high, I swear I could hear the crack of his body. The water fell down, pattering like rain. And I was still, shocked and I couldn't believe what I had seen.

Kenny... why, Kenny?

I can't remember for how long I led there looking down and seeing his body float, like an orange silhouette in the water, slowly going north with the wind. After a while I cried, sobbing like a child, I didn't have the courage to walk down and see if there was even the chance that he was alive, deep down, I knew he wasn't. So, with tears streaking down my face and shaking so much I could hardly move, I stumbled my way home and bawled to my parents, an incoherent mess.

The police found his body soon enough, today they asked me questions about what he was like before he died, I could hardly tell them and... I can't even remember what I told them... presumably what I have written above, but it's hard to even remember that.

Manic depression is what they deduced, his funeral is tomorrow, I don't know if I can go and...

He asked me to do one more thing; I can only remember it now. He hadn't asked me to "write that journal" the second time... he had asked, "hide it behind your bookshelf," how did I get those mixed up?

I need sleep; it's finally starting to hurt to remember. I'll do what he said, and tomorrow... I don't know what I'll do tomorrow.