Letters of a Psychopath Part Three

That's what they say, isn't it?

“One man's trash is another man's treasure.” Or some bullshit like that.

But that's all it is.

Bullshit.

Trash is trash.

One man's trash is another man's trash.

I was trash to the faceless people.

So I am trash to everyone else, right?

Letters of a Psychopath Part Two

I kept you with me. The whole time, you were by my side. In my hand, wherever I needed you to be. You were a steady companion, keeping away the fear those nasty people brought me with their sharp silver sticks and cold circles they touched me with all over and you knew I didn't like it so you'd hold my hand and let me squeeze you as hard as I wanted. You were always there for me when I needed you.

Gabriel's Night

"It's been five years since Gabriel ran away. Faith still waits by the window, hoping that he will return. Angela pretends she never had a brother to miss, a brother to lose. And I comb the streets, searching for the broken son I would never find."

It's raining just like it was the night Gabriel ran away. Even the streetlights provide little illumination through the harrowing downpour. The mud, slick with clay, won't dry for weeks. The ground is so wet that footsteps disappear moments after being formed. A person could disappear into a storm like this one - disappear and never be found.
We get storms like this every summer, where the deluge is so heavy we have to shout to have conversations. Not even thunder can pierce through the deafening rain. Occasionally, lightning flickers on the horizon, too far away to be seen clearly and much too quiet to be heard. I used to take comfort in the season's storms because, as troublesome as the rain was, it also provided a sense of relief from the mundane tasks of everyday life. The rains isolated us from our neighbors. The town's friendly buzz was replaced by the steady beat of a million raindrops on the roof, and it was just us: me, Faith, Angela, and Gabriel.

Prompt

Some suicides are never recorded.

    Some suicides are never recorded. Travinia was sure his would be under that category, if and when it happened. No one cared, and surely no one would notice his absence. Besides, what was he to the masses? A pitiful sob-story of a man, reduced to begging on the insufferable streets of New York City. No one noticed him when he was there; why would they notice if he wasn't?

Incendiare

I fidgeted nervously on the bench outside Ladybird’s stall.  “How much longer is this supposed to take?”

“She’s only been in labor for half an hour,” my dad said.  “You’ve got to be patient, Emma.  These things take time – especially in the case of a mare’s first foal.”

“I know,” I sighed.  And I did know; this wasn’t the first birth that I had attended on my father’s ranch, not by a long shot.  But Ladybird was my favorite mare, and had been ever since I first moved in with my dad a few years ago. 

I had waited eleven months to meet Ladybird’s firstborn.  I didn’t want to wait anymore. 

As the minutes trickled onward, I forced myself to take deep, even breaths.  Stay calm, I told myself firmly.  You can’t do anything for Ladybird or her foal by getting anxious. 

The sound of a tiny whinny woke me from an uneasy sleep.  I leaped to my feet and saw that Ladybird was standing.  A tiny foal, still damp with afterbirth, was nursing from her, making greedy little sucking sounds as it drank. 

My heart sank.  “I missed it.”

The Song of a Thousand Shadows

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.” 

Lizzie felt her spirits plummet.  She gripped the nurse’s arm in near-desperation.  “Please?  You’ve got to let me see him.  It’s been three days since the accident, and the attendant told me that he was stable.  Why am I not allowed to go in there?” 

The nurse sighed in resignation.  “Because your friend is still in a delicate state.  He hasn’t woken up from his coma yet, and there’s no telling what state his mind will be in once he does awaken.”  Lizzie noticed that the nurse tactfully avoided mentioning the alternative – that he might not ever wake up. 

She gritted her teeth against the dark thought pushed it out of her mind.  “Maybe Aiden hasn’t woken up because he’s waiting for a visitor,” she countered.  “What if it’s like in the movies, where the person in a coma is waiting for a certain person before they can wake up?” 

“And you’re that special someone?”  The nurse looked skeptical. 

“I’m his best friend, aren’t I?  And I was in the car with him when it happened,” Lizzie protested.  “Maybe he’ll want to know I’m okay.”

The nurse rolled her eyes, but relented.  “Fine.  You get five minutes – not a second more.  And I’m staying in the room.”

The Rescue

If I were to describe the girl sitting in the corner of the coffee shop, I’d say she was a high schooler. Her face was unmarred by age and her eyes held a touch of the youthful innocence that adulthood stole away. Her hair was plain brown, without any accessories. On occasion, her hand would reach up and twirl a lock around her finger. She was waiting for someone – a date?

I was a struggling writer living paycheck by paycheck, working as a journalist. Needless to say, I wasn’t very good at it. I wanted to live in fantasies, fighting treacherous snakes and rescuing benevolent princesses, not trying to make a twelve-year-old’s winning goal in a soccer game seem heroic. Unfortunately, life wasn’t going the way I wanted it to.

It was stroke of fortune that I even noticed her.

Untitled

There was something about living in a neighborhood like this one that made a person wish for a lot of things that they knew would never actually happen. The houses were old, siding dingy and painted wood window-trim peeling. They were probably very beautiful when they were new, but now they were nothing more than crumbling monuments to the past, the outsides finally giving up their pretenses of happiness to reveal the ugliness and stress that lay within. Everything was close in this neighborhood, the houses nearly touching in some spots.

One such spot