Shame
"The darkest hour is just before the lightbulb shines."
"That's not how the saying goes, Ricky."
"Whatever, man. You get the point."
The ride was a bit shaky, and there was a breeze flowing through the car, presumably from some small misalignment or hole, but nobody ever cared to check. Dean felt, in the moment, that the breeze was an insurmountable tsunami crashing over his helpless frame. Dean had, unbeknownst now to everyone but himself and (albeit accidentally) Ricky, received the worst exam grade of his entire, spotless, idyllic life. He had received eighty-five percent. Dean had never ever experienced such a tragedy, except possibly when his ribeye at the Oscuridad was gravely overcooked to the point of inedibility. It was burnt to a medium temperature, and he never visited the abhorrent establishment again.
Dean fully intended to keep the direst mistake a secret. Unfortunately for him, Ricky is known for his driving expertise and was thus staring with the most meddling intent directly at Dean's phone when he received the notification.
When Dean arrived at home, he felt like an imposter. Who am I if not an A student? What future do I now have in Academia? He moseyed over to the bathroom (on account of his rather small bladder), washed his hands, and gazed over what he saw in the mirror. A maroon, rotund candle; a slightly wilted yet still seemingly healthy aloe plant---upon closer examination, a thousand small brown mites with it; a towel with a rabbit on it, in accordance with the holiday. The one thing he absolutely, certainly, most definitely did not see was a future.
He watched his silhouette dance with a crown of twigs from scene to scene in his life. His high school graduation, at which he received valedictorian honors. His fifth-grade science fair project (which, naturally, was on the current state of quantum computing). The seat in which he took the exam that has since defined his mood. His façade began to crumble. I need a break.
It was at this precise moment that Dean suddenly realized that he was alone. Not in the sense of being alone in relationship (he was best friends with a select few of his professors), but literally, physically alone. Nobody else was home.
Dean never envisioned himself as a person who could be comfortable with being alone.
With the new weight of absence starting to pester Dean like an aggravatingly-agile mosquito---the type that always evades the hand regardless of the wielder, he decided to spend his next adventure out of the house: finding a place to eat. The other less-than-fortunate discovery he had made was that the fridge was nearly empty, containing only food he would never dare eat, namely sliced ham and macaroni and cheese. Pigs are, after all, dirty animals, and macaroni has a peculiar texture, almost like you are eating boiled brains. Thus, on account of the shortage, Dean decided to go out to his favorite restaurant, the Schatten.
Dean had, as proof of conscience for his own self-preservation, never stooped as low as to get a driver's license. Driving a car is, in his mind, far too great a risk when he can (in a much safer manner, mind you) travel anywhere he needs to go via bicycle. In this way he decided he would travel to the Schatten.
As he walked to the door, Dean noticed a new painting sloppily hung on the wall, nearly a half-degree off. It depicted a man crawling on the floor, seemingly dazed, the man's frame was painted in the impasto style, and his agony jumped out of the canvas, at least to Dean. Dean stared long into the man's sunken, hopeless eyes, wondering from whose suffering he was born. He wondered, too, where the painting came from. His mother was selective on the art featured in the home---she was an artist-by-hobby, and this piece seemed out of her (and, by extension, the house's) style. It felt eerily out of place.
As Dean walked down the long, winding driveway (in retrospect, he realized his twenty dollars were not well spent), his eyes wandered to and fro around the pond. Gone was the swan. In its place, he saw a family of mallards trying to find a meal. The ducklings, yellow and fluffy, almost cartoonish, seemed to glow on the rapidly darkening blue surface. Dean wished he could be one of the innocent ducklings. He eventually made it to his bike and took off in pursuit of a meal.
Dean always knew how to make himself stand out, for better or worse. On the road (not on the sidewalk, because he felt he was better than sharing concrete with those who refused the technological innovations of the last two hundred years---so long as they met his calculated safety standards), he stuck out like a sore highlighter. On top, a large, blocky, padded yellow helmet. On his chest, a full high-vis jacket with long sleeves so as to not become a human skid mark. On his elbows and knees, glowing pads which would have gotten him instant VIP access into nearly every nightclub in the eighties. On his way, he saw what appeared to be a pair of eyes in the distance, staring menacingly yet curiously at him. He paid them no mind and made it to the Schatten, where he promptly parked his bike between two cars so as to maximize the empty lot space. He calculated that the car doors would still have space to open safely, given that the rider was well below the obesity line (which, as he came to find out, was a poor assumption at a restaurant that boasted a 96-ounce steak challenge platter).
He walked in and found himself standing in front of the hostess. She had on a black dress, under which her pale skin seemed to shine. As she sat him, he felt as if half of the restaurant was watching him. As soon as he was comfortable and had ordered bottled water (tap was, for his taste, insufficient), a large, unkempt man walked up to his table.
"Are you the one who parked his bike next to my car?" he asked, actively misting the air with aromatic spit. From the scent, Dean could also tell that he had been drinking.
"What makes you think that?" Dean asked, trying his best to be smart. He had no respect for drunkards.
"Are you fucking serious?" the man replied, half-gesturing to the scattered pile of equipment opposite Dean. It looked like a rainbow had died. Dean, unsure of how to handle such a burly, furious, and bald man, stared with wide eyes and tried to call his waitress over.
"Listen kid, all I'm asking is for you to move the bike. That's it. I can't even open my God-damn car door." Dean, as if Medusa had stared directly through him, straight into his soul, didn't say a word. The only thing he could even fathom to do was disappear. The walls and the ceiling and the light fixtures all suddenly started caving in. Dean bolted to the door, but he wasn't able to escape before crashing into an ever-growing mass in his way: the waitress. He couldn't interpret the deep calls of the mountain, but he did his best to appease the gods by throwing all three of his Amex cards (everyone has to have an outlet for their collector's urge; for Dean, this was credit cards); this sacrifice seemed to mildly suffice, and Dean managed to squeeze through the last valley out of the restaurant. He mounted his bike, nearly planting headfirst into the concrete, and managed to escape what he thought was most assured death.
The events that next proceeded were, as Dean saw them, a curse which only the most sinister masters of the universe could place upon him. Namely, in the heat of escape, he forgot his pads (and his helmet). Dean felt as if he were a naked piece of paper, just waiting to be crumpled up, folded, and ripped apart at the slightest breeze. That breeze manifested itself in the brown, elegant, and semi-animate form of a deer. It pranced in front of him, stopped, and seemed to stare deep into Dean's soul with dark, sunken eyes. Perhaps she was pregnant. Perhaps, Dean thought, she was sent from the grips of hell to spurn him, for a reason that seemed to evade him.
Now hardly able to move his arm, Dean had to walk home with the rubbish of the world on the sidewalk. On top of that, he had to carry a mangled bike (one could label as Calderian) in his good arm. Thankfully, he was only a left, then right, then left turn away from home. From afar, his house appeared to glow in the moonlight. The moonlight reflected on the pond such that small drummers could be seen parading in line, trying their best to keep in rhythm with the tune. As Dean approached, he recognized the familiar scent of the hyacinths that his mother cherished so deeply. As he tried to find the source of the pleasant smell, the drummers dispersed away from his ghastly image. The hyacinths aligned in a purple oval that Dean found comforting.
As Dean reentered the home and turned the lights on, a deep feeling of dread coursed his veins. He was, more or less, stuck in the house. Without a bike, he was rendered immobile except to visit the gas station across the street. As he pondered, he watched the painting on the wall. The man was kneeling, begging for mercy from the Gods; Dean felt, however, that he was now staring deep into Dean's eyes. The man's eyes, dark, sunken, and seemingly lifeless, felt now familiar to Dean. Dean felt oddly at home.
It was nearly midnight, and Dean felt as if he was hit by a train. His bedtime ritual normally begins at 9:34 P.M., and he felt every minute of the extra time spent laboring down the road. Dean decided that, as a gift to himself, he would skip his six-step face-washing routine.
Once Dean made it to the bedroom, he felt isolated. Before climbing into bed every night, without fail, Dean closed all the doors in the room. He insists to himself that it is just a matter of practicality in the scenario of robbery (as a secondary defense to the numerous locks and alarms on every possible entryway of the house). Somewhere, deep inside, Dean knows the truth, but it is his nature to deny and suppress any feeling of weakness or failure. Perfection is a virtue, or at least that's what he tells himself.
Dean watched the moonlight dance along the walls as he made an attempt at sleep. He couldn't shake the innate feeling of fear, the source of which he did not know. The thoughts in his mind clashed and fought like great titans, and the war was enacted on the drywall in front of him. After a short battle, he snapped at a crashing sound that he heard, which seemed to come from the kitchen. The titans had destroyed a mountain. Dean lay frozen, eyes glued to the door. He was physically incapable of moving, struck by Medusa's gaze. The home was silent for a short moment. Then Dean heard footsteps. Long, uneven, heavy footsteps. He could hear faint wheezing, gradually getting louder and louder until he approached the door. A shadow slid over the wall, taking a grotesque shape that Dean could only imagine in his worst nightmare. The moment seemed to last forever, until Dean heard the click of the lock.
I'm not ready to die, Dean thought.
As the moment lingered, Dean felt a cool breeze overcome him. He saw a deep maroon, veiny, misshapen hand creep around the doorframe. Dean had accepted his fate.
Dean woke up in a daze, unsure if he was alive. He looked at the windows. Sun is out. He looked at the triad of snake plants in the corner. Still green. He looked at the door. Closed. Dean, confused, stood up and stretched. He seemed to lose reality for a moment (which, as his doctor told him, was due to an iron deficiency) and then walked halfheartedly to the bathroom. As he brushed his teeth, he stared at himself in the mirror. He looked and felt entirely exhausted, unable to properly execute his diurnal ritual. Dean watched himself in the mirror walk to the corner of the room and stare. He turned around and laid his head on the wall. He sank to the ground and conjured up the beginning of a tear but was unable to draw more from the reservoir. If only I could cry, he thought, but he wasn't really sure why. He then tracked around the house to the kitchen. He peered out the screen doors to the patio at the sunrise. The beauty in it was hard to argue. The sky was red, then orange, then purple, and in the center a large deer was standing in front of the most magnificent sun.
The buck bathed in the light, its coat sparkling, its growing antlers lined with velvet. Its neck twitched and it looked off into the forest, and then it went limp and fell to the ground. A coyote quietly scurried over and, without any hesitation, began dragging it deep into the forest so it could feast unseen.
Dean walked down the driveway towards the street. He saw once more the family of ducks, except this time they were huddled together in a pocket by the cattails at the corner of the lake. Dean happened to know that this was the most flourishing part of the lake---the sewer pipeline ran underneath, and the vegetation in the area had the perfect combination of water and fertilization to support a microecosystem. The ducks' bills were slightly miscolored, and he noticed only now that one of the ducks had a mangled foot. He walked by the reeds and reminisced about his childhood. He was once dared by a childhood friend to eat a cattail; what he did not realize was that they are filled with the foulest, expanding white fibrous material that had the consistency of a deconstructed cotton candy. These were not good memories, and Dean felt once more that he was missing something.
Dean watched the cars go by as he arrived at the edge of the road. His house, although on a pristine piece of property in theory, sat on a busy road that was always impossible to pull out of. Dean couldn't even imagine where to begin crossing on foot. At night, it was a different story, but right now all he could think about was getting obliterated by a Honda Civic going ten over (the speed limit was already forty-five miles per hour, so this would most definitely spell death, or at least permanent disability). Eventually, Dean noticed a gap in the traffic and decided to make his great exodus to the gas station. It was well worth the candy he planned to buy. Usually, he would be able to snag a Snickers or a Twix. In this particular season, however, he banked on being able to find the holy grail of sugary slop: Reese's Eggs. Normally, Dean refrains from eating candy except for special occasions (like for a club promotion). However, on a weekend as disastrous as this, he decided he would excuse himself in the hopes that it would improve his unbearable mood.
Dean sprinted (with a very obvious limp) across the two-lane road and survived the great wave of automobiles. He walked into the store and proceeded to partake in people-watching. He was inconspicuously walking up and down the aisles, pretending to search for savory snacks (he had already found and grabbed the eggs), and observed the others in the store. There was a mother with a young kid, probably five or six, who looked at the very end of her last nerve. She looked dejected, panicked, and ready to leave. Dean wasn't quite sure what she was looking for in the store, nor did it really matter to him. His eyes moved to an old man who looked strikingly similar to his grandfather. So much so that he audibly gasped under his breath. Thankfully, only one person noticed, and he was able to play it off by pretending to find a new flavor of Jack Links beef jerky. Not even was he rich and shameless enough to pretend to buy the overpriced, dried meat (regardless of what it truly was worth). Once he recuperated from nearly blowing his cover, the old man was gone. He saw an old '61 E-Type driving away in the lot, although he couldn't make out the driver.
Dean now placed his eyes on a man whose age he couldn't decipher. He seemed to have the spirit of a man in his mid-thirties but the physical decline of a man nearing sixty. He looked somewhat withered, except for the face, which seemed to preserve his true age. Dean saw him looking around for a drink, although he wasn't sure what kind. The man wobbled a little bit as he walked, and Dean spent some time focusing on his steps. Dean could tell a lot from someone's gait. If a man walks with bowed feet, similar to a penguin, Dean knew that he either played hockey since he was a toddler or was unfamiliar with the concept of athletic endeavors. If a man dragged a leg, Dean knew he had sustained significant injury and endowed respect to him. If a man walked on his toes, Dean could attribute this to a great many factors, but one he gravitated to (especially in teenagers) was Sever's disease, which Dean had growing up.
The man seemed to stumble inconsistently, almost as if he was faking his disability. Dean couldn't tell why a man would do this, but he knew it felt off. The man, having found a satisfactory drink, was now walking towards Dean's snooping post, forcing Dean to once again pretend that he was shopping and not stalking.
The man walked up right next to where Dean was standing and started looking at sunflower seeds. He reeked of cigarette smoke and something else that Dean couldn't quite pinpoint, but it reminded him of something of his past. Dean was trying his best to hold his breath---he absolutely did not want to get lung cancer from the second-hand smoke he was inhaling. The man grumbled something, but Dean couldn't tell if it was something he was supposed to understand or purely a sound of disappointment at the fact that the station didn't stock the flavor of seeds that the man wanted. Dean thought he looked like an Old Bay guy, but he wasn't perfectly confident. As Dean was deep in thought, the man looked at him and mumbled some short nothing about how he felt about the lack of worthy kernels. Dean responded with a halfhearted smile, and the man felt this was sufficient to introduce himself.
"I'm called Jacque," the man said in a vaguely German tongue. Dean was caught slightly off guard by the fact that he pronounced it more as "Jock" than how it normally would be phonically.
"I'm Dean," Dean replied hesitantly.
Dean had unequivocally lost track of the time and noticed it was nearly 9:00 in the morning. He ran home, paying attention to only the oncoming feelings of guilt and doubt that seemed to spawn every morning since his greatest failure.
He walked through the front door, face flushed, and peered once again at the painting on the wall. The man's eyes seemed to burn intensely to Dean, and he was standing and staring directly at Dean. Dean walked around to the kitchen, unsure of what he should do. He felt like he was being crushed, and he had no way to escape the grinder. His head felt as if it was splitting in half. Dean decided that there was only one method to fix the issue.
Earlier that weekend, as Ricky was dropping Dean off, he decided to leave him a gift of apology for snooping around in his business. This gift, in a small green capsule, was described to Dean as a way to keep the headaches away. Dean, unsure of what exactly that meant, accepted the gift, albeit wary of what Ricky's words might imply. Ricky assured him that the gift was not dangerous in any way, and that it was just Sumatriptan. Dean, depressed and looking for a way to get his mind off the impending doom, didn't bother questioning Ricky, especially since he had never heard Ricky utter a word that long and complicated in his entire life.
Dean never asked Ricky where the gift came from, and never even knew of Ricky as the kind of person who carried around tablets of joy. That being said, Dean felt that this could be his only way of escaping the crushing force of the ceiling above him. Remarkably, as the capsule dissolved, he began to feel immediate relief. Ricky may have been onto something.
Dean felt calm enough to take a brief nap on the living room couch. He hadn't gotten much sleep, he reminded himself, so a twenty to thirty-minute nap wouldn't hurt. The couch accepted him, brought him in, and took care of him as his own mother would. He couldn't remember the last time he had fallen asleep on that couch. He promised himself years ago that he would cut out daily naps, and until today, it had been a promise he kept. He dreamt of the buck that he saw earlier that morning. He dreamt of the day it could have had that led up to its demise.
He saw the buck in the night, grazing, unaware of the death that was soon approaching. Unaware of the lungworms festering in its body, it was one of the crown jewels of the forest. Beautiful, elegant, and wise, bothering no animal and no animal bothering it. Basking in glory before the devil came to destroy it. It wandered through the forest, periodically feasting on the grasses, until it came to the opening in which Dean saw it. It was here that the great executioner swooped down and took his prey. It was here that the flame of the innocent soul was extinguished. The twitching of its neck was repeated in Dean's mind until he abruptly woke up.
Dean sat up on the couch and looked around. It was significantly darker now, likely to be approaching sunset. Dean hadn't the slightest clue as to how he managed to nap for that long, or how he had forgotten to consider a method to wake himself up. He stood up, crept into the kitchen, and decided to make himself a meal. On his way, he noticed the front door seemed off. The wood was unusually dark, and the windows were now clear, rather than their ordinary frosted and patterned look that characterized the entrance. Dean wasn't sure how to interpret this difference, and at this point, he didn't care much to. All he could think about was the growing hole in his stomach.
As he opened the fridge, he heard a foot dragging from behind him. He turned around, and in front of him stood Jacque. He was slowly limping towards him with an eerie grin on his face, almost fake. Dean reached for the knife block, but Jacque reassured him:
"I'm not here to hurt you."
"Get out of my house."
"Let me speak. I am here to apolo---"
"Get out of my house. Now."
At this remark, Jacque decided that speech was not the way to convey his message. He produced a weapon that Dean could only attribute to a master blacksmith. It was a short knife with a wound handle that he had never quite seen before. It shimmered in the cloudy light of the kitchen, and Dean swore it hadn't the slightest speck of a stain, a scratch, or even a smudge on the blade.
"I am here to apologize for what is about to happen."
"What?"
"I know everything about you, Dean."
Jacque suddenly approached, and Dean had no choice but to unsheathe the largest knife he could find in the block on the counter. He held it out, and Jacque's face seemed to quiver. The skin on his face began to melt, revealing sunken eyes that to Dean felt all too familiar. Dean's nostrils were overwhelmed with the familiar scent that he could not pinpoint, and he was blinded by the ugly sight of Jacque's visage.
Jacque took another step forward, now face-to-face with Dean. Dean couldn't seem to find anything behind his lifeless eyes. In a quick rush, Jacque thrust the twisted knife deep into Dean's stomach. Time seemed to freeze, and all Dean could do was stare as the metallic scourge squirmed inside of him. Dean felt his organs rupture, and the only thing he could picture as the blood started to gush out was the green capsule that he had earlier swallowed, slowly diffusing into his body. Dean closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them to the sight of nothing. Jacque was gone.
Dean looked back down at his abdomen in shock. It was still there, blood still gushing. Dean collapsed to the floor, first to his knees, wondering where it all went wrong. He wondered what the world had in store for him. He wondered what would happen to his family. He wondered, most importantly of all, if his perfect academic reputation would remain unscathed.
Dean's breathing slowly trailed off, and he was no longer able to hold his own weight on his knees. He slumped on the ground, and his soul seemed to zoom out of his body. It looked around at every inch of the house. The screen doors, slightly opened. The front door, windows frosted. The painting on the wall, in which the man was now in swoon. Dean's body, now lifeless, with a large, steel, red-stained knife resting next to his hand.
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