Published in the Angelenean Pioneer’s Piola, 2009-2010 Literary Folio
Angeles University Foundation
What are you waiting for? Put that thing on my forehead already.
Let the scalpel be my last memory. I’m going to leave this world already. I’m but a miserable person. No one even tried to listen to my reasons. Everything and everyone was against me. What have I done to deserve this?
A neighbor saw me thrusting a knife on my cousin’s dead body. The idiot cried for help the time she saw that. Cannot blame her, though. There were four corpses in that house at the time. My uncle was found impaled on the garden fence. Auntie was making stew in the kitchen with her own blood. Their baby was inside the running dryer. And oh, I was with my cousin that time, doused in blood.
Too bad mom and dad were not here. The family should’ve been happier. Anyways, we’re happy even without my parents. My relatives were very accommodating. I can’t remember a time when they forgot to tell me that I’m trash; that I don’t have a mother; that I’m no better than a cockroach. They won’t forget to greet whenever they see me, with words like “lowlife”, “it”, “loser”, “insect”.
Sometimes uncle would throw a flaring cigarette on me. He lets me to sleep at the most comfortable part of the house according to him: outside. He was so nice. Auntie too always keeps me company. She lets me feel at home. She makes me clean the whole house, from inside out. If I failed to satisfy her standards, she expresses her thanks for my efforts by slapping me really hard and banging my head on the concrete wall. She usually has a thin, flexible stick with her. At times she wants to play with me, she uses that. My cousin was great. There was not a day when he stopped pestering me. He makes traps for me. At times I get caught he pokes me with a stick like I’m some wild animal. I always beg from him to stop. But he never does until he gets satisfied. He always brags about his achievements. There was not a day when he forgot to call me trash.
What are they saying? I’m a murderer? No, I can’t do that. I just played with them. They asked for it anyway. I accepted their pranks wholeheartedly. I never said anything bad about them. I never badmouthed them. I accepted everything like a good boy. And now that I was the one who played the prank, everyone condemned me. That’s just unfair!
Put that thing on my head now! Forget about anesthesia. What’s the difference of great pain from what I’m experiencing right now? What’s the difference of pain from what they did to me? Slice my forehead with that scalpel. Drill it until you reach my inner thoughts. Put the pick in. Twist it until you pulled everything off. Take all the misery away. Take all the pain away. Take all my emotions, bitterness, desires, regrets. Liberate me! Pull me out of this cursed existence!
In a few minutes, I’ll leave everything. The time this body wakes up, a new person will be born.
Bien is a software engineer for more than 10 years, focusing on Microsoft .NET technology. He developed solutions ranging from embedded systems to accounting systems. He spends his free time trying to understand the world and its people.