A Final Goodbye

A Final Goodbye
By James McMillan

  The warm, embracing light of the Sun funneled through the windows of the dim-lit classroom like a spot light beaming down on a city at midnight.
  "Tick...tick," the silence in the classroom was disturbed every second by the petite clock hiding away in the top left corner of the room where Mrs. Gregory sat behind her delicate, wooden desk. Ten seconds passed.
  "And...stop!" Mrs. Gregory said, rising from her comfortable chair as the small class of twenty grade 11 students, arranged neatly in rows of four, lifted their pencils from the pieces of paper in front of them. "Please hand your timed writes onto my desk when the be-"
  "Dinnnng!" the bell announced its presence before the teacher could and a great shuffle of people and paper erupted in the room.
    One student, Robbie Hunter, remained in his desk skimming through his paragraphs of weaving, intricate and complex sentences. They conveyed emotion no other student in his grade was capable of. He was politely interrupted by Rachael Locks, whom for seven months had been dating Robbie.
    "Hey," Robbie said, looking up to the pristine, blemish-free face, accented by sharp bubbly blue eyes, of his girlfriend.
  Rachael returned the affection, combing through Robbie's mop of unique, red, curly hair with her fingers. Since the beginning of their relationship, Robbie questioned inside that half the reason Rachael liked him was because of his hair.
  "Are we going to the movies tonight, Robbie?"
  Robbie smiled, getting up from his desk and responded tenderly: "Coach wants me to stay after football practice because he has brought in the head coach from the University of Wisconsin's football team to talk to me about getting me into the university and onto the football team.
    Rachael's eyes lit up. "So you are getting the scholarship? Robbie I knew you would get it!"
    "I can't believe it myself either. The only thing is it means less time for us."
    Robbie's girlfriend enveloped him in great, generous hug and said: "As long your hard work is finally being paid off I don't care."
    Robbie gave her one last quick smile and left, with a noticeable looseness in his muscles, but bumped into his brother, Jeff, as he walked through the door into the halls.  A grade 12 student, Jeff had all of his life been called "coconut boy" due to the shape of his larger body and the strange, massive amount of hair which had grown all over his skin since his growth spurt in grade 7.
  "Robbie," Jeff hissed in his snake-like voice. A wind of fresh, mint mouthwash blew from Jeff's mouth into Robbie's face. Jeff's eyes ran from Robbie to Rachael standing behind her boyfriend. A sudden wash of white filled Jeff's face as he took a long, cold stare at the attractive young woman. Trembling slightly, he turned away sluggishly and left.
  "Wow, what has gotten into your brother lately, Robbie?" Racheal asked, inquisitively.
  "I don't know about him anymore, Racheal. I don't know."

  The clock in Robbie's small but comfortable room read 7:32AM. It glowed luminously in the dark room with little light escaping from the outside Sun into the bedroom as the windows were concealed by thick blinds. The sheets and covers upon the bed had no hump of a human body in them and were still neat from yesterday morning's chores. Suddenly, a blanket of light cloaked the room as the door was creaked opened, revealing a shadow of a figure swaying back and forth vertically in a dreadfully slow tempo above the carpet.
  "Robbie time to--" 
  A scream which would cause ear drums to bleed pierced the entire house, causing a rapid movement of the entire Hunter family to congregate in front of Robbie's bedroom. Through the liquid mask of tears forming over their eyes, the Hunters' saw their son, Robbie Hunter, a college football prospect, hanging from the roof with a chair lying tipped over on the carpet, precisely underneath the dead body. On the nightstand sat innocently a note titled boldly "A FINAL GOODBYE."
  Robbie's mom shook violently, tears a river down her red face, the word "suicide" and "Robbie" not being able to fit in one sentence together.

    David Ingram sat behind his computer, on the other side of the town from the Hunter's house, his back straighter than a ruler, and his fingers madly pressing down keys. The square black frames of his glasses and his short, conservative, haircut and his lanky body gave him an obvious first impression. Taking a ten second break to reach for his coffee, the unexpected voice stating "You got mail!" caused David's hand to tip the cup in a jerky reaction spilling coffee all over his freshly printed documents. Letting out a couple words of profanity, a couple other people looked from their cubicles in the small office at David as he tried to keep his cool.
    "Spilled coffee," David tried to chuckle, but it came out in a slurred mess of barely audible words.
    The onlookers sat down quickly and shook their heads while David slid slothfully back into his seat cursing at himself for another stupid action to lower his already miserably low image. Hastily, he clicked the title of the new electronic message in his outbox which was titled "Madison Writing Challenge." For a second he paused staring at the title. His small office had put on this writing contest about two weeks ago with a prize of $50 for the best writing submission on any topic. It was just a way to get the company's name out there but the response had been sour until now.
  With almost a child on Christmas day reaction, he began to read the e-mail with eyes shifting back and forth line after line slowing down as the message sunk into his mind.
    It was a suicide letter.
  A suicide letter from the kid he had heard about on the news today; a college football prospect that seemed to have life so good yet committed suicide and put his family in indescribable grief. The reporter's voice reenacting in his head, he remembered vaguely one point she made referring to the scholarship which was about to be handed to the teen in a couple of days. Now because of his death, the scholarship was going to a girl, Rachael something, who excelled in music and was second in line for the scholarship the University of Wisconsin handed out every year.
  A flow of hot liquid trickled into his throat as he guiltily struggled through the rest of the writing. For a few minutes he sat at his desk, colleagues walking by seeing the scrawny thirty year old staring at the computer screen his eyes seeming to stare in an invisible distance for miles. Building courage within himself he reread it:

A FINAL GOODBYE
 
  I don't understand why humans feel such contrasts in emotions day in and day out. In the end, the help I would have had to need would not have been sufficient for the woes and pain in which I truly kept inside the last few weeks. The readers of this, my family, I understand your thoughts of how the dreams I were about to accomplish with the help of that coach were right around the corner. As I write my last words I want to say how Jeff, my dear brother, that you did not have any influence in my death but the way you began to act in the past of couple of weeks really killed me. Not literally, but I don't want to see the family fall apart because of my death and you and your hermit like ways of recent. Lastly, tell Rachael I truly loved her and I am sorry we never got to go the movies Friday night, which will be my last. My prayers are with you brother and family as I am about to enter this new world alone. There are no clues to my death so an elaborate search of my closet and the rest of my room will turn up nothing.

                                    Goodbye,
                                          Robbie

The reread still did nothing to the understanding of the work, for which David was so desperately trying to figure out. An analytical man, he studied it hard for 15 minutes coming up with no ideas.
  "Nothing, this is just a sick prank," he whispered coldly. But it is real, the kid did die! Thoughts whirled around in his head.
  With no reason at all, he began to link the words in italics noticing how almost every sentence contained a word which was slanted, odd but invisible to the eye to most. Naturally, the italicized words formed a message, a message which caused Dave's heart to skip a beat.

  Friday came and by this time the news reports had died on the subject of Robbie's death and a suicide was virtually confirmed. No proof of anything else was found whatsoever at the scene and the case was about to see the giant book close over it. Only David, just a gangly man who sat in an office all day knew the truth, yet was still struggling a week later struggling why the power had to be placed in his hands.
  The moon glittered brightly in the night sky, a black velvet sheet stretching across the entire atmosphere, in which David sat under in his old beat up 80's Honda Civic waiting for the family car of the Hunters' to drive out meaning only Jeff Hunter was home. Hands tapping rapidly against the steering wheel, a gasp of air escaped David's mouth as the house's door opened and the mother and father slipped into the family car and drove off almost soundlessly into the peaceful night. David became immersed into his thoughts again reminding himself of the sole reason he had chosen to embark on something which could be easily just a nasty, sick prank. It was his self-confidence meter at stake, though, which could see either self destruction or an increase so great, a girl could finally look at him and say something other than, "busy day?" The muscles inside his legs and arms, already feeling like he had jogged for 5 miles, became used as Dave pulled himself out of the car and trudged to the doorstep where a light faintly revealed the shallow, pale face of the 30 year old.
  How will I prove this kid killed his brother, anyways? All he left me with was that there was a clue in the closet.
  David reached into his pocket revealing a small flashlight. The flashlight in his hand quivered slightly as he opened the door. Outside a slight gust of wind pushed through behind him, the force of it causing him to lose grip of the slippery handle and leaving the door to freely slam into the wall. The resulting thump, to his surprise, made no noise but shook the house ever so slightly. Behind the door was a couple of hoodies hanging daintily which had muted most of the blow. Immediately, the buzz of a TV and stereo slithered into his ears coming from up the stairs which stood in front of him like a mountain in the middle of night. With sweat releasing from the pores of his fingers in inhuman ways, the button to turn on the flashlight seemed like an impossible task. Finally, the button sunk into the plastic and a small light was ignited at the end. With great meticulousness he stepped onto the staircase, trying to step on each end of the stair to muffle the creak as much as he could. The creak was next to silent.
  Taking in a deep breath, his organs in his body curling up, David began to lift his foot for the next stop.
  "Crashhhh!" in horror Dave glanced back to see he left the door open, allowing the entry of a gale force blow of wind to attack the house directly, hitting a vase lifting it with its invisible fingers and thrusting it into the ground.
  The stereo stopped and the buzz of the TV disappeared from the airwaves. A squeak of a door opening whined across the entire house.
  Eyes clenched, David opened them to look up at the top of stairs where a figure, which reminded him of a black egg stood.
  "Well I guess my brother doesn't lie. He said for someone to come tonight in knowing that I always spend Friday night's alone.  You know, he was a smart kid but italics just ain't going to cut it."
  Even from the bottom of the stairs, David could smell a heavy amount of the scent of mouthwash flowing from his mouth.  David gulped.
  "Why wou...would you kill your brother?" David somehow released from his tongue, in a stark, threatening voice he did not know he possessed.
  The black shadow cast over the kid's face revealed an evil but almost forced grin. "Jealously, of course."
  Without any notice, the grade 12 student lunged at him from the top of the stairs revealing a baseball bat which was illuminated for a second as Dave lifted the plastic light in protection. Sending a tremor through his entire body, the flashlight shattered into dozens of pieces of black plastic, the battery soaring through the air, as the bat crashed down on the makeshift wall defending David and plunging the entire house in darkness.
    "No one will know...NO ONE!" The madly, wrenched sadistic face of Jeff barked as David dove down to the broken vase.
    No. This cannot be happening. David hearing the heavy breath of the eighteen
year old behind him, scoured the broken pieces of the vase for one big and sharp. Nothing. A glimpse of a larger more round object caught the corner of Dave's eye. He picked it up, the breath of Robbie's brother heating his neck. In one quick swift moment, he turned plunging the object, a large South American coin which had been chipped by being in the vase when it fell, into the stomach of the demented teen.
  Eyes becoming dinner plates, the teenager backed off stumbling into the staircase his skull recoiling harshly as he crumpled to the floor.
  Silence.
  Even in the overwhelming blackness the movement of the teen's chest could still be seen. David released the blood sheathed coin from his hand, a slight "Ting!" echoing across the house as a moment of relief passed over him. Backing off slowly he turned to the stairs only to be met by two eyes of ice frowning malevolently down upon him from the top of the stairs.
    "This isn't a game," the figure hissed in a possessed whisper.
    David felt his stomach leap into his throat. The voice was female.
    "My boyfriend was an intelligent guy. Even under the pressure of a knife at his throat and the noose being flawlessly fitted for his neck could he still write a suicide note; a suicide note which contained more than just fiction." The figure became a young, gorgeous woman as she stopped her descending of the stairs where David stood.
    David scanned her beautiful face, drilling his eyes into hers and said softly, "You took it too far. This elaborate scheme was almost executed impeccably but you under estimated the power of the pen." David realizing how corny his last sentence was tried to frown his eyebrows harder, trying to retain some seriousness to what he just said.
    "I made a mistake," Rachael began reaching into her jean pocket, "now I have to erase it."
    The silver gleam of a knife flashed across David's eyes.
    "Kill me with that your plan will crumble like the lives of this family," David inquired in a distinct, mellow tone.
    The words could not stop of the thrust of the knife from the white, trembling hands of its owner. The knife glided into David's belly like a shadow moving into darkness. Collapsing slowly to the floor, David pulled the knife from his chest as the sound of a miracle from someone above, the whir of sirens could be heard in the distance. A sly smile stretched across David's face, staring at the pale, quivering young woman whose face was etched with deep lines of fear. The last colour to sneak into the closing eyelids of David was blue and red. 
 
  David awoke suddenly, immediately scanning his hands which throbbed violently, noticing they were etched with red lines of blood from his desperate search of something sharp. He was sitting against the wall in the pile of broken porcelain, looking dumbly at the cops who were surrounded around Jeff. Truthful insanity had breached the kid as he hollered violently that he was a sheep; a sheep forced to murder his brother and then slipped into unconscious once again.
  Another police officer in front of him, hands sheathed in white gloves, reached down to pick up a silver object painted with blood; the knife.
  Suddenly noticing the girl who almost killed him was not present, he twisted his body in search for her, which caused him to yelp in pain as the stab wound lined across his stomach was agitated.
  Finally the majority of cops turned to him noticing he had awaken, questions flying at him traveling quickly in and out of his mind. The only sentence which remained in the corridors of his brain was that the girl had been taken away, Robbie's brother admitting his involvement of the murder and how he was manipulated and threatened into it all.
  In sympathy David looked over at the 18 year old, who was being placed on a stretcher, but the truth being he could be leaving his house for the last time in his lifetime sent a slight chill through David. Nonetheless, David knew killing someone even if you didn't want to, didn't add any compassion in the harsh world of the court. 
  It was when the video camera and around 30 year old reporter came in that David finally let a weak smile go across his face.
  Slowly, looking through the doorway up at the velvet sky, ignoring the reporter's questions for a second, he saw a star twinkle and disappear and realized why he really did this and said to reporter, "You know I don't want my identity on national TV. So I refuse to answer any of the questions."
  The reporter, obviously taken back, shook her head at him and walked away.
  All David Ingram could do was smile.