Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a land slide,
No escape from reality.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy.
Johnny Cade was a young boy, aging at only 16. Although his body deceived people into thinking he was younger, the years of being beaten down on caused his soul to age tremendously. In spite of the hardships life gave him, he was not bitter at the world nor did he live in hatred. He was a gentle young man who appreciated the world and all things living. That's why, when he found himself aiming a gun at a man's head, it was something he just couldn't phantom.
Mama,
Just killed a man.
Put a gun against his head,
pulled my trigger,
now he's dead.
Mama,
life had just begun,
But now I've thrown it all away.
With the gun planted in his trembling hands, Johnny mustered up his urge, up his impulse. He was such a gentle soul, he wouldn't hurt a fly. He really had not an idea what he was doing. But as he cocked the gun, he remembered why he was doing this. He was not one for violence, in fact, he hated it. But in the heat of the moment, that one sin that the man committed, was all that mattered. When Johnny pulled the trigger, he had tears streaked down his face. Why? Because he knew what he was doing. He didn't want to do it. But the voices, the voices they were everywhere, they were persistent. They told him the only way to get revenge was to murder this man. Disguised in beads of sweat and cramps in his gut, he gave in to the voices. When the gun was fired, and the man had fallen to the ground, lifeless, only one thought entered Johnny's head. What will Mama think?
Mama, didn't mean to make you cry.
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow,
Carry on, carry on as if nothing matters.
Too late, my time has come.
Sends shivers down my spine,
bodies aching all the time.
He was not close with his mother, in fact, quite the opposite. In between the brutal beatings he received from his father and the vicious slander he received from his mother, he did prefer her over his father. He never knew why. Maybe it was because, when ever his mother spat those horrid words at him, he could see in her eyes that, somewhere deep inside, she still had love for her son. In murdering the one and only man that he knew his mother to be fond of, he knew he'd have to flea. He knew she would put on her face and carry on as if he were never there. Neither of them. Surely she would temporarily grief for the man that Johnny assaulted. But for his own leave of absents, she would harden herself against her son. Even if there was a small love flickering inside her, it would be forgotten about, along with Johnny.
Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go.
Got to leave you all behind and face the truth.
Mama!
I don't want to die,
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.
Dropping the gun to the floor, he silently shrugged on his jacket and walked out into the night, leaving nothing behind but a lifeless man in pool of blood, his home, his mother who sat in non-belief, and his friends who he called family. He never thought he'd be leaving it all behind. He thought himself to live in this place all his life. Well, the tables surely turned for him. Freezing in the moment, Johnny realised he had forgotten something. The item was of no importance. He could've done without it. But he went back for it, in spite of that. Perhaps, he didn't want to leave quite yet. Or maybe he needed a last look at the man he had killed. Whatever it was, Johnny returned to the scene of the crime, standing there in silence, he simply stared. At his feet, drenched in his own crimson filth, laid his lifeless father.