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Hmmm...i don't know if it'll all fit in one post. >>;;; It's the first part of an anthology I've been doing. This portion is called "Suicide Notes (Scream Your Last Breath)." There really isn't any explicit content, despite what the title implies...
please be nice--just some constructive criticism. i don't want any harsh words. >.<
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Three more hours to go. It was a fast paced city, and three hours was nothing. A good word to describe it was "busy". A terrible word for it would be "alive". New York was no more alive than the cement that created it. The sun was just beginning its decent; it was six in the evening. The sidewalks were still buzzing with people on the move, coming home from work or school or wherever else. Horns were blaring in the smoggy air and the streets were streaming with taxis and cars headed this way and that, all a blur. Seventeen-year-old Rhian Gray stood on the roof of his apartment building, taking a picture of the scenery below. He wore a black hooded sweater over a white T-shirt and faded black jeans. A black ring pierced his lower lip and a small spade hung from his left earlobe. He tilted over the edge to point the camera below and snapped another picture of a man crossing the street with a cup of coffee in one hand and the evening newspaper in the other.
The boy then turned the camera to the sun, its red glow mixing with the smog in the air and the blue light of the sky to produce a muddy blue color. Another snap, and another photo. He packed up his camera and slung the bag over his head and shouldered his tripod. Two and half more hours to go.
Rhian walked down the street, in the opposite direction as the crowd. Every now and then he'd shake his head to move his dark hair out of matching dark eyes. He felt as though he were moving normally, but everything around him moved quickly, as if in fast-forward motion. But perhaps he was the one moving at a different pace; slow while everything else moved in normal time. The cars, the place, the people, they all began to move faster and faster, as if time was beginning to spin wildly out of control. Everything became a blur to Rhian, but he continued to move forward, one step at a time, across the New York pavement.
Artists never made much in this never-sleeping city.
And suddenly, things froze. The man crossing the street with the newspaper; the woman sitting at the little table outside of the cafe; and the little girl clinging helplessly to her mother's arm while clutching a teddy bear tightly to her chest for comfort; they all stopped where they were, stagnant in a picture perfect frame within Rhian's camera. The boy peered through the small hole, snapping pictures of people waiting for the crossing light to change so they could continue with their lives, pictures of cars and of buildings, and pictures of otherwise daily life within the city. He finished and packed up his camera once again, shouldering the tripod, and the city began to move once more; fast paced, loud, and crazy. Two more hours to go.
Rhian pointed his camera and watched as a homeless man ambled along the street, trying to remember to be polite as he bumped against people. The man was odorous to the people around him, dirty looking, and ragged, yet he continued to say, "excuse me" and "pardon me" whenever he accidentally collided with another human being. Those around him merely sniffed and turned a blind eye to the man as he shuffled humbly down the sidewalk. Rhian snapped another picture. A hour and a half left.
A band was playing on a street corner. The music was of a rock opera. A guitar case sat open in front of the lead singer, and a few coins and bills sat inside of it. A small crowd had gathered before the band, and all shouted "Yeah! To dance!" The singer replied with the music behind him, "No way to make a living, masochism, pain perfection, muscle spasms, chiropractors, short-careers, eating disorders!" Again the crowd cried out, "Film!" The response this time was, "Adventure, Tedium, no family, boring locations, dark rooms perfect faces, egos, money, Hollywood, and sleaze!" Rhian recognized the song. RENT, he thought, slightly amused. Another picture. A hour and fifteen minutes left.
Rhian continued down the street, which had become fast paced once more. He went down into the subway, taking a few pictures of the subway station. Out of film, he noticed. He took out the roll in his camera and placed it in the front pocket of his bag. He put in new film and jumped onto the subway train, holding on to the metal handle as the train jerked forward. Everyone kept to themselves here, and he took no pictures. The subway rumbled along down the underground rails. One more hour to go.
Rhian emerged from the subway, and the sun was beginning to set lower. He looked up at the sky; the setting sun cast a bloody red glow upon everything as it sank below the horizon line of blinking boxes, which were the windows of the dark skyscrapers and other buildings. The lights flickered in the buildings as time continued its erratic spinning. The bloody glow mixed with the smog, turning it to dark orange mud. The streets were split by an invisible line; the red streaks going one way were on the right side, while the white streaks going another way were on the left side, marking the direction in which the cars were going, but never marking where they were coming from. Rhian climbed to the top of a street, which elevated him up, and he took pictures of the streets of New York as it began to spin to the nightlife. Forty-five minutes to go.
Nighttime came, and the city did not quiet itself. If anything, it became even crazier than its day life. The boxes flickered more in the buildings and the streaks of light flew by Rhian as the cars drove by haphazardly. He looked up at the starless sky, dark and empty, a vast space of nothingness. He wondered if the stars had decided to move to the Earth, to this city of blinking lights, so that that the humans might notice them in their radiant beauty, if not in the sky then in their own creations. Only half and hour to go.
A few minutes of walking and Rhian found himself back in front of his door to his apartment. He opened it and dropped his bag and tripod on the sofa, wandering into his small bathroom. Rock music relayed loudly in the room beside the bathroom, and he could only assume his roommate was either there, or had forgotten to turn his stereo off. Each seemed like a possible reason, and both just as likely as the other. Rhian placed his hands on the rim of the sink, leaning against it and staring into the mirror as though it held an answer. All he saw was his reflection. He hated the face that stared back at him; it was the face of a young man who had already screwed his life up, the face of a young man who had already seen too much, the face of a teenager who felt absolutely nothing. He'd rather feel pain than that, but pain never came, nor did any other feeling.
With a scream, Rhian's fist flew at the mirror, shattering the glass and littering the floor with it. His knuckles survived with only minor cuts, and his yells were drowned out by the loud music. With another scream, he was on the roof of his apartment building, camera in hand. He screamed at the world, at the city that could not sleep because it heard thousands of these cries each day, all joined together in a blasphemous hymn, an existential song, a death note. Still the cars buzzed by as if nothing were happening, as if his scream into the empty night meant naught, the people came and went, ignoring his cry of pain and anger, and time was once again spinning out of control as Rhian jumped from the five story building. It was not a leap of faith, and he jumped into the darkness created by the stars when they came to the Earth. He jumped into the streets streaked with red and white, just as thousands of others like him screamed their final breath, cutting themselves off from everything and leaping into the beckoning Nothing and taking pictures of themselves as they did, so that whomever might develop the film will see them as they smiled into the darkness.
Time froze itself, and began to rewind. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, once again spiraling into an abyss that only it knew. It spiraled and spiraled, not knowing when it would decide to stop itself, but watched in amusement and laughter as those who leapt to their deaths were backed up and re-wound into...
Rhian Gray paused in the middle of Times Square and took a picture of the intersection as the sun sank far below the horizon. He then packed his camera, shouldered his tripod, and followed the direction of the crowd, disappearing into the sea of faces. We do not cut our wrists and black our eyes to fall asleep tonight. The sign he had stood in front of read, "If you want to get your point across, then write a suicide note and go through with it. -The Unheard Poet"
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