“Come on then.” As they walked to school Andy had to keep slowing down. And on multiple occasions Mike stopped gasping for breath.
“Maybe you should stay home.”
“No…no I can’t miss my last day.” Andy began to protest but was silenced as Mike motioned to walk on.
The bell rung just as they entered the gates. The clamour of hyper students being ushered to their registration period rang throughout the grounds. In registration Andy listened as Mike listed his new favourite bands and songs. Andy noticed that Mike’s face was pale, his voice trembling. As they left their form room, and headed for History Andy noted that Mike was limping and holding on to something to support himself wherever he could. After a boring hour of watching an old World War Two film they headed for science. Mike was getting increasingly fainter in his movements and speech. As the bell for break rang Mike heaved himself upon to the playground bench.
“Andy I want you to remember what I am about to say to you. Every person in this world dies alone. Every person dies at a different time in their lives with different feelings, different thoughts, different memories…” His voice trailed off into a dry raspy tone. Andy was now so close to his face that he could feel his deep heavy breaths. He did not have a clue what Mike was saying or why he was but he was becoming urgently worried.
“But for some people death is a release. For some people there is freedom in death, freedom from suffering, pain, regret, emptiness and many other things that make daily life so harrowing.”
“Mike what do you mean? What are you saying?”
“Listen. I’m not going to be around much longer to say this to you. You have to live your life with none of these feelings that I have already listed. You have to live with no regrets, sadness or emptiness because if you do then there is no point in you ever living. You might as well have not had feelings or thoughts at all. It is better to not feel anything at all than to only feel sadness. And I, well I would rather die than feel what I am feeling right now. And so, and so I shall.” His eyes flickered, and his breathing slowed.
“Oh…and you might…want to get… me to a… hospital.”
“Help! Call an ambulance! Quick! Now!” Immediately a throng of students encircled the decaying bench where they sat. Fortunately a teacher spotted the group and pushed his way to the front. He looked at Mike and rushed to find his pulse. He yanked out his mobile phone and immediately called the emergency services.
What then happened is a complete mystery to Andy. He remembered leaping into an ambulance with an extremely flustered head teacher. He remembered sprinting alongside the stretcher as it sped along the many corridors of the labyrinth like hospital. He remembered making frantic calls to Mike’s parents. But he had no luck. He remembered banging on the room’s doors, yelling at the doctor’s for not letting him inside. He couldn’t even remember what the nurse said was wrong with Mike. He was ordered to leave. He didn’t speak as he climbed into his father’s rusty old Cadillac, nor did he eat the chicken laid out by his mother when he got home. Sleep failed to enthral him and in the early hours of the morning he left the house, climbed onto a bus and went straight back to the hospital.
When he arrived he found that Mike’s parents had still not yet arrived nor left any message. But the doctor’s would let him sit at Mike’s side. He spent ages at Mike’s side, but to him it felt like only two minutes. Andy tried to speak but tears prevented him. He looked into his friends pale face. All he could do was watch as the flame in his friend’s eyes began to fade into a cold hazy glaze. After hours of just watching and waiting, time was beginning to take its toll. He watched his friend try to speak, but his efforts were in vain. Various doctors and nurses now stood by rapidly speaking to another. What they were saying Andy didn’t even try to guess. Everything around him was now just a blur. The hurried clatter of doors slamming didn’t reach his ears, the smell of the nurse’s air freshener no longer reached his nose, various noises failed to shake him away from his distant state of shock. One of the nurses noticing his pain took him outside of the room to get some air. He didn’t even try to listen to her faint voice. He didn’t even think any more; all he felt was pain, deep inflicting agonising pain. He couldn’t even really remember where the pain was coming from. He sagged into a nearby chair, his head lolling onto his shoulder and cried himself to sleep. Even though he was lost in dreams he knew that when he woke up, his best friend would not be there anymore.
Andy sat at his wooden desk at school and gazed out of the window. A nearby squirrel rather than the register to which he should have been listening to took his attention.
“Jones. Andrew Jones!”
“What oh, yes sir.” He answered pensively. As he returned to the window the door opened. In entered a small boy pushed in by one of the chatty office assistants. Andy didn’t bother listening to the conversation.
“Ok then. You can take a seat at the back next to Mr Jones. Perhaps you can make him pay more attention. Heaven knows I can’t.”
Andy pretended not notice the boy take a seat next to him. He ignored this stranger for as long as possible. But soon after this boy had really begun to interest him. He sat there reading all the while humming along to various tunes Andy had never heard of. Around a week after this boy had first graced Andy with his presence, he decided to talk to him.
“What is that song you’re humming?” He asked just the boy began to hum it for fifteenth time that morning.
“My own.” He replied. He spoke politely but showed no interest in Andy.
“Oh, it’s catchy.” This seemed to make the boy pay attention.
“You really think so? I mean I can play it as well.”
“You can play it?”
“Yeah. Oh I mean on instruments.”
“Oh right. So uh, what instruments do you play?” From there on they would talk about anything no matter how irrelevant it was. They talked and talked. After school, during school, before school, they became inseparable. They’re shared hatred of sports finally meant Andy was not all alone in P.E. Finally he had someone to stand alongside him when a cricket ball struck him. Finally he had the freedom to talk about anything he wanted without feeling foolish or nervous. It was as if he had been locked inside an old, dark cupboard and finally he had been set free. It was happiness beyond words. But it couldn’t last, true happiness never does, even though the darkness of his life had finally faded, it was about to rear it’s ugly head once more.
When Andy awoke he noticed that it was only one in the afternoon. As he clambered to his feet he noticed there were tears in his eyes but what for he could not remember. He looked up and saw a nurse standing before him, her head bowed and her face grave. Immediately Andy remembered.
“I hate to tell you this. Michael passed on a few minutes after you left the room. I’m sorry. If you want, I could arrange a session with someone you can talk to. Confidential of… course.” She broke off her sentence. Andy stood in shock for a while; time stood still, the tears did not drip from his eyes no longer, he ceased to hear the hurried footsteps of doctors rushing to and fro, finally he sank to his knees his head in his hands. He fell onto his side.
“Why? Why him? Why him? Why him?” For two minutes he repeated those words over and over again. The nurse was lost on what she should do. The only friend he had ever had had been taken away from him. How is that fair? What about the other kids at school? They have loads of friends, why can’t they lose one? It doesn’t matter then, they’ve got other people to turn to. He, Andy had no one, he would not talk to his parents, and he did not trust teachers or care workers. How is that fair?
“Why me? Why me? Why me?” After repeating this to himself for far too long his throat dried up and ceased being able to speak. He sat watching the many figures of the hospital for many hours not eating or drinking. He stared at them with intense hatred.
“How could they not care that Mike had just died? It doesn’t matter to them. They don’t care.” Andy thought to himself. “Mike has just died and they are carrying on as if nothing’s happened. How dare they?”
At last around eight o’ clock he tore himself away from the long corridor’s of the hospital and left. He did not cry any more, he couldn’t. His tears had all dried out.
Andy’s mother stood in the kitchen chopping up carrots.
“Why didn’t you pick him up? You knew he was there.” His father, staring outside the window tore himself away to look at her.
“He needs his space. We can’t intrude on his life right now. We barely knew this boy.”
“But what about my baby? We can’t just leave him to mourn in his room playing computer games.” A long pause followed, the silence broken only by the dim echo of Andy’s computer.
“When’s the funeral?” His father finally inquired.
“How would I know? I’ll have to talk to the boy’s parents. Heaven knows they’ll be devastated.” But she was wrong. Mike’s parents were not devastated at all. They couldn’t be, they were dead.
A few days later, after isolating himself from the world completely. Andy picked up the phone and rang Mike’s house hoping to get in touch with his parents. No one answered. The second time, no one answered. This continued for some time until Andy went round to the house to see if they were just ignoring their phone. But the house was the same as Andy had found on the Monday before the holidays began. Completely empty. He went round the neighbours. But none of them had heard anything from them since that fateful Friday. Without any more options Andy took himself down to the hospital. There he found the sickening truth. Upon hearing of Mike’s rush to the hospital, his father had picked his mother up and sped off. But it appeared that they been driving far too fast. While thundering down a country lane, the car they were driving overturned off of the road into the woods. They both died shortly after the crash before a passing lorry driver spotted them. Andy did not cry, he hardly knew the couple. He had only ever talked to them once or twice properly; all the other time he just said his passing hellos as clambered up the stairs to Mike’s room. He found it hard to grasp that a whole family had passed away in two day’s. So much death. How could all those years of knowledge, of memories, of feelings be gone in instant? All of that time spent on earth and yet it was gone, as quick as you could click your fingers. Andy could just not understand that and he never would.
The following days saw Andy slip further and further into a crazed depression. He rarely left the seat of his computer. He began talking to Mike even though he knew he could not reply. He constantly ran Mike’s last conversation with him over and over in his head, day and night.
“You have to live with no regrets, sadness or emptiness because if you do then there is no point in you ever living. You might as well have not had feelings or thoughts at all. It is better to not feel anything at all than to only feel sadness.” What could all of that possibly mean? As he dwelled over the meaning of these words he slowly began to make some sense out of it. One morning as he completed yet another game he though he had finally figured it out. He ranted on to himself for hours. He just sat in a demented trance rambling on for hours.
“There’s no point in living if you’re sad? OK then I’ll have to sort that out. That shouldn’t be too hard.”
The funeral for the whole family was a week later. Mike’s grandparents had arranged it. Throughout the ceremony Andy did not speak to them nor did he speak to anyone else. A storm brewed inside his mind eating away at his thoughts and feelings. He needed to let his feelings out and standing outside in the rain singing hymns was doing nothing to help. He wanted to punch the vicar. He didn’t want to hear what some distant relative who had most likely only seen Mike once or twice thought about him. If more person said that Mike was “one of the bravest boys I’ve ever met” or that he “fought until the end” he would scream. Deep in his heart Andy knew what these people were saying was right but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Why was no one talking about Andy’s real personality? Not how brave or quiet he was, but his love of poetry, of books how intelligent and soulful this person was. The only reason he was quiet was that he had more in his mind than most people ever will have. What they were saying was not doing this incredible person justice. And he could not take it any longer. With a look of disgust imprinted upon his eyes he turned and fled. The funeral observers perceived he was overcome with grief. They were wrong. Andy was overcome with disgust. He sprinted off heading for home a gleam of madness gracing his eyes.
“They said he just turned and fled. I don’t know. I’m just pulling into the driveway now. Yes, I shall call you back as soon as possible.” Mike’s mother, talking on her mobile to her husband, had rushed home after discovering Andy had unexpectedly left the funeral. She found the front door wide open.
“Andy! Andy are you there?” She leapt up the stairs to find her bedroom door wide open. A note was lying on her bed. Her hands trembling she picked it up. Her eyes could barely focus on the hastily written words.
“Mom, dad I know you’ve been worried about me lately but rest assured you won’t have to any more. I am off of your hands. You see all these years I’ve spent my childhood alone without friends; I’ve spent most of my school years alone. And then last Christmas I finally found a friend.
A friend! My own friend! Me! I was finally happy. And around two weeks ago I was looking forward to spending my first summer holidays with that friend. But I didn’t. He was stolen from me. He left me and now I am all alone, so now I have to follow him. I figured it out! I go where he goes! Simple. But that means saying good-bye. Mum, Dad I love you both but really I have to go. So much death! Something I will never understand is how so much life can be ended in a flash. So many years ended! Just like that! I love you both and wish you all the best for the future. Perhaps you can have another child who isn’t a moody, self- pitying idiot or who isn’t hell-bent on self-destruction. Mike said that if I am sad then there’s no point in living. I have to obey him or I’ll be all alone forever. Remember everyone single person in this world dies alone. Mike said that to me, I never figured it out. Perhaps you will. Andy.” Just as she finished reading the note she noticed her wardrobe door open. A box lay strewn on the floor. The box contained her husband’s gun that he had owned since he was a child, but the box was empty. Panicking she sprinted off down the stairs and vaulted out of the door leaving it wide open. She called Andy’s father then the police. She did not know where to look. She raced down streets. Looked down back alleys. Then she realised she had forgotten about the cemetery. It now had become a race to get there before Andy did something stupid. It was a race she was bound to lose.
“You had to die, didn’t you? Why couldn’t you stay so I could be happy? No that was too much trouble for you! Did you not like me? Is this your way of getting rid of me? You could have said you don’t like me! You could have said…” Andy was now stood before the freshly buried grave of Mike. The funeral observer’s had now all left and he was alone ranting. In his hand he held a small handgun loaded with a single bullet.
“You said that if I am unhappy then there is no point in living. Well guess what? I’m unhappy! I’m empty inside! Well now I’m coming to join you. I’m coming. And you won’t be able to escape from me this time. You were my best friend and you left, you left me all alone. Well I’m not going to be alone much longer.” He held the gun in his hands pointing upwards into his neck. He let out three screams. One scream for the loneliness he had felt all of his life. A second scream for the joy of finding a friend and a third for having it taken away from him. He dropped to his knees. The last thing he saw was the darkness of the gun’s barrel. The last thing he heard was a loud bang. His mother’s car pulled into the cemetery, but it was too late. Blood stained Mike’s tombstone.
“Hello is there anybody there? I thought you would be here if I followed? Where are you all? Isn’t there anybody around at all? Please, come and talk to me? I’ll talk how you want me to. I’ll wear the clothes you want me to. I’ll listen to your favourite music; I’ll eat your favourite food. You said that if I was unhappy then there was no point living! You said there no point in living! Where are you? Won’t somebody help me? Won’t somebody come talk to me? Oh god I’m so alone. Why isn’t anybody with me? I’m so lonely. Please! All I want is a friend.”
