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By Root 1070 0

at me and she smiles and our eyes meet and I smile back. She looks down and I stop walking and I stare at her. She looks up and she smiles again. She is as beautiful a girl as I have ever seen. Her eyes, her lips, her teeth, her hair, her skin. The black circles beneath her eyes, the scars I can see on her wrists, the ridiculous clothes she wears that are ten sizes too big, the sense of sadness and pain she wears that is even bigger. I stand and I stare at her, just stare stare stare. Men walk past me and other women look at me and Lilly doesn’t understand what I’m doing or why I’m doing it and she’s blushing and it’s beautiful. I stand there and I stare. I stare because I know where I am going I’m not going to see any beauty. They don’t sell crack in Mansions or fancy Department Stores and you don’t go to luxury Hotels or Country Clubs to smoke it. Strong, cheap liquor isn’t served in five-star Restaurants or Champagne Bars and it isn’t sold in gourmet Groceries or boutique Liquor Stores. I’m going to go to a horrible place in a horrible neighborhood run by horrible people providing product for the worst Society has to offer. There will be no beauty there, nothing even resembling beauty. There will be Dealers and Addicts and Criminals and Whores and Pimps and Killers and Slaves. There will be drugs and liquor and pipes and bottles and smoke and vomit and blood and human rot and human decay and human disintegration. I have spent much of my life in these places. When I leave here I will find one of them and I will stay there until I die. Before I do, however, I want one last look at something beautiful. I want one last look so that I have something to hold in my mind while I’m dying, so that when I take my last breath I will be able to think of something that will make me smile, so that in the midst of the horror I can hold on to some shred of humanity.

A woman walks over to Lilly and she leans over and she whispers something in her ear and Lilly shakes her head and she shrugs. The woman looks as if she has some sort of Authority and I don’t want to get Lilly in trouble because of what I want, so I wait until she looks back at me and I smile and she smiles a beautiful perfect smile back and I have the image I want. Good-bye, Lilly. I will hold your image dear. Good-bye and thank you.

I walk to the Lecture and I find a seat in the back row of the Lecture Hall and I sit down and I stare straight ahead and I ignore everything and everyone around me. In fifteen minutes I’ll be out of here, gone for good on a beeline to Hell. In the simplest terms, what I’m doing shouldn’t be hard. Stand up, walk out, keep walking. The abstract, however, is starting to sink in. The abstract is starting to sink in and it is starting to make this harder for me.

I am going to die. When I die I will dead, gone, no more. There will be no more thinking, no more breathing, no more feeling of any kind. There will be blackness and the blackness will be eternal. There will be silence and the silence will last forever. I am going to die.

I take a deep breath. I am doing the right thing. I am doing the right thing. I am doing the right thing. It is time to end this charade, it is time for me to leave. I can’t take my life anymore, I can’t take myself anymore. I can’t look into my own eyes, I can’t bear to face my own image. I have tried to get better and I can’t. It is time for me to die.

Leonard sits down next to me and he stares at me. I stare straight ahead.

Why you wearing that big coat?

I ignore him.

You cold?

I ignore him.

Why you wearing that big coat?

He stares.

Talk to me, you Little Fucker.

I stare straight ahead.

Why you wearing that big coat?

I ignore him. He reaches for me and he puts his hand on my shoulder and he shakes me.

Why’d you tell me to have a nice life?

I remove his hand from my shoulder and I forcefully set it in his lap and I turn and I look him in the eye.

Leave me the fuck alone.

He looks back, right in my eye.

Why’d you tell me to have a nice life?

Leave me alone, Old Man. Leave me the fuck alone.

I turn