Gone Remembrances Part 2/2 (277 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by DaBaddestHic <jtight.at.usa.com> (View user info) at 2005-06-02 23:47:00 EDT
Part 1 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/67513
Life after that fateful day was a blur. That was when he'd actually started to dip into the world of depression.
He lost interest in school and his grades slipped tremendously. While he'd once planned on going to college, it wasn't even an option after he was forced to drop out of high school during his senior year.
He picked up random jobs in the upcoming years, doing whatever he had to do to earn money and hating every second of it. When he came home every evening, he did little more than sit on the couch watching TV and fixing himself microwave dinners whenever he got hungry.
A love life was virtually nonexistent. The few girls that actually took interest in him soon gave up as they realized he had issues they'd never be able to comprehend. Maybe if he'd been willing to talk to people about what had happened...but he remained silent. The few friends he made were other people like him, who had been deeply hurt in the past, and chose not to talk about it.
His parents were baffled as to why he got worse after the move. Year after year they urged him to go to some type of counseling, and year after year he completely ignored them. He knew what his problem was - he had let down the one person he'd been the closest to in life. No way he was going to pay someone to tell him that.
The dreams started around the time he turned 22. At least once a week he dreamed about the tree house. Sometimes his friend was there, and they were once again working on it together. Other times he dreamed that someone had figured out what they were doing, and had erected a huge fence to block their access to the woods. The one he hated the most, however, was when his friend would appear to him and chastise him for his inability to complete their dream. "All you had to do," his friend would exclaim, "was add in one final piece. You couldn't even do that and now it's all just sitting there rotting away. This is how you treat your best friend huh? Maybe it was YOU that should have died!"
He always awoke from that one sweating profusely and feeling like he could throw up.
By the time he hit 28 the dreams were coming every 2-3 days.
At 31 you could see the scars on his legs from where he'd tried to take his mind off the emotional pain that surrounded him.
The visions started around age 34. Nothing truly spectacular, just small things that he thought he'd see during the day but were never there. It had caused many people to stare at him on multiple occasions, but he was still too stubborn to try and seek any sort of professional help.
Now, at age 37, the man was a complete mess. And that was why he was here. The dreams were every day now, that was when he decided not to medicate himself to the point where he'd stay up all night. His parents had long ago given up on him, and it had been years since he'd spoken to them on the phone, let alone seen them.
Last week he'd awoken at around 2 am in the yard behind his house. He could have sworn he'd gone to bed in his room, which was on the second floor. The question of how he'd got down to the lawn didn't bother him. What did bother him was the fact that he had a bloody knife in his right hand, and the name of his dead friend carved into the underside of his left arm.
That had been the final straw. After a little deliberation, during which he finally considered getting some outside help, he decided there was only one thing to do. He would go back and finish the tree house. Only then would he, and his friend, be able to live their lives in peace once again.
So here he was, walking down the sidewalk of his childhood neighborhood, a random stranger on a journey to finish what he'd started almost twenty years ago. He smiled to himself briefly as he realized there weren't many people who could say that.
He didn't remember it being this long of a walk, but then again, he'd been riding a bike when he was younger. He wasn't really paying a lot of attention to where he was going; even after all these years the path was still locked firmly in his memory.
When the woods first came into sight the man could start to feel anticipation start to build in his chest. Just a few more minutes and he'd be reintroduced to the subject of his dreams for so many years.
Reaching into his left pocket he felt for the existence of the small item he'd put there. This item was indeed the final piece, a simple padlock for the door to the house. Purchased the day before the move, he'd kept it near him all these years. The combination was forever burned in his memory as he'd often spent hours opening and closing it while zoning out.
Soon the lock would be on the tree house where it belonged. Just a few more minutes, a quick climb up to the door, and he could close the chapter of his life that had run on way too long.
Entering the woods, he felt a sudden change in temperature from the shade provided by the trees. The path that had once been prevalent was now overgrown, but he pushed his way through. As his anticipation increased he imagined he could hear his friend behind him, racing him to their private sanctuary. Without meaning to, he quickened his pace in order to stay ahead.
Plants rushed by, whipping at his face and hands, which he held in front of him in an attempt to move larger branches out of the way. He started to smile to himself, something he'd rarely done as the years had dragged by. When he passed a cluster of three pine trees that almost formed an equilateral triangle he knew he was seconds away. With a final thrust of his arms he pushed through the last barrier of plants and emerged in front of the familiar tree.
It was all he could do to keep himself from passing out.
What the man saw in front of him was nothing like what he remembered. It was true that the tree house hadn't been the greatest example of carpentry, but it had certainly been better than what lay in front of him. The ladder, which he could have sworn he'd kept stowed away, was hanging down, supported by only one of the ropes. The other rope was broken in multiple places, resulting in the wooden steps hanging downwards, clashing against each other whenever the wind blew. The roof was filled with holes, which could have been the result of animal or human hands. Multiple boards were missing from the floor and walls, and what did remain was coated with year's worth of spray paint and carvings. Possibly the worst thing was that the door, which had taken him the most time to construct, was nowhere to be seen.
This is what had become of his dream after all these years.
The man stood there a few minutes, stuck in a state of shock. His left hand reached into his pocket and grasped the padlock with all his strength. Visions flitted in front of his eyes: His friend, yelling at him for allowing the tree house to come to this state, all the while pummeling him with sticks and rocks off the ground. Finally his knees gave out and he fell to the ground, his face crushed against the dirt and twigs of the forest floor.
There was only one thing the man hadn't done since the death of his best friend. With an intensity that was barely noticeable at first, but soon grew to fill the whole area around him, the man lay there.
And he cried.
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Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2005-06-22 11:17:29 EDT (#)
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