That is All
By: FacingtheStorm7
The List is getting ridiculously long. I've borne witness to the comings and goings of so many people, that I have forgotten the exact number. Maybe I will count them next session. I'm good at that. Counting. The seconds I sit in my chair, the beat of time between my vocal command and the video game response. The feet it takes to get from the front door to my bedroom. The number of steps it takes to get from the front door to the sidewalk. The number of days without Monica, and Gus, and now Hazel. Indianapolis had become a City of Bones for me, the air a mass of ashes that threatens to choke me. The ashes of my fallen friends, the people I've lost, and still those I don't know, fighting an invisible battle that can never be won. It reminds me vaguely of that Mortal Instruments series that Gus and I had dared each other to read, simply to see what the hype was all about.
Gus always reminded me of Jace, golden and lively, chronically vain, but someone you just couldn't hate. Well, I mean you could, but honestly, that would be exhausting. Hazel was his Clary, without a shred of doubt. His angel in the darkness, his reason for drawing those last painful breaths as the cancer claimed its victory. They shared that true, unhindered love that only exists in fairy tales. If I were to deduce myself to picking out my very own likeness among those literary lives, it would have to be Simon. Not because of his crush on Clary, or in this case Hazel, even though I must agree that she was hot, but because in the grand ironies of the series, he outlived nearly all of them. Just like me. At least Simon had Magnus, a kind of immortal BFF as it were, and all I had were my memories and my all-consuming, perpetual darkness. But as a glittery Warlock once said "You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all." Even though I would never have admitted this with Gus or Monica or anyone nearby, I dig these books. They may not have had a lot of blood and gore and sexy women, but they did have something real. Something even a blind ex-cancer kid can grasp hold of. Call it sentimentality. Call it a twisted and slightly lopsided sense of humor. At least I have that left.
I remember speaking at Hazel's funeral, the cancer finally overtaking her like it had so many before her. Since Gus' death, we had grown closer, shouldering the grief together, remembering all the smiles and jokes he had cracked before that final hour. I was told that Hazel went in her sleep, that there was no pain and that she was surrounded by her family. I remember standing in the cemetery, listening to the wind in the trees, with Hazel's dad helping me to and from the podium. I spoke of her quiet bravery, her never wavering strength, the fact that she chose to live on after her heart had been decimated by loss. I wish I had one tenth of her spirit. She never complained, never believed that she was truly handicapped, and made sure that others knew it too. I remember hearing a woman with a mild Dutch accent speaking on her behalf, and I could hear the tremble of tears in her voice. She talked about the fire that no illness could put out in Hazel, as she told her idol of so many years exactly where he could stick it. Her voice was hot, and I would imagine the rest of her followed suit. I half-expected to hear a gruff drunkard voice behind the Dutch woman, but hers was the last eulogy spoken before they lowered her into the ground. I could hear her mother's quiet sobs, echoed with her husband's, who hadn't uttered a word beyond the pleasantries to anyone.
My memories are beginning to fade. I've started to lose the details that made up so much of my existence, the exact color or Monica's eyes, the hearty bellow of Gus' laugh, the witty snap of Hazel's remarks. The images of their faces are fuzzy, disjointed, like a puzzle that wasn't cut quite right. Things just aren't matching up anymore. And yet the sun continues to rise. But I've found that life has a funny way of doing that, trudging on, never pausing or slowing in its constant and almost reliable pace. Never looking back to regard the fallen or even stop to honor their memory. It's infuriating. If I had just let go, let the enemy win, to see with my remaining vision the beauty of this life, just a little longer, I would have been happy. Granted, I would be dead, and everyone I love would be a little more broken without me, but at least I wouldn't have been condemned to this dark and lonely half-life. Well, it's too late now.
So I have become the one everyone looks up to, like Peter, nut-less, eunuch Peter. I am also the one everyone pities. "Look, that kid beat cancer." "Yeah, but see what it cost him. Would you be willing to pay that price?" Was I really...willing? Or was it something that happened, something I was swept up into like dust under the rug. Was it out of desperation to live, or the hope that maybe I could have a life. A life with Monica, a love as true as those fairy tales. But she had proved to be less than trustworthy. So now I am alone, friendless, hopeless, sightless. Was it really worth the price? But again, you endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.