I Found Myself19:39 Sep 26 2006
Times Read: 684
(NOTE: THIS IS A SHORT STORY BASED ON A SONG BY EVANESCENCE. "MISSING". THE STORY IS MINE, THE SONG IS NOT)
I Found Myself
I found myself in a cold and quiet cemetery late one evening. And in that cold and quiet cemetery, in a lonely coffin, lay the body of a beautiful young woman. The grave was marked simply by cross, no name, and forgotten, with only a bouquet of dried and ugly flowers. I found myself reaching down and picking fresh flowers from the ground and replacing the dried ones with the new ones. Then, as if in thankfulness and plea, came the voice of the young woman, riding on the wings of the wind.
“Please, please….” Her voice seemed to beg. But please what? What did she want? I looked at the grave and spotted a glimpse of a shimmer. I reached down and grabbed it. It was a ring. A wedding ring. I shuddered. On the inside was an engraving. It read, “I love you. Forever and ever.” It tugged at my heart with a great and painful pull. But why?
“Please, please….” Came her voice one again. The sands of time seemed to stop, if only for an instant, holding me still. I felt a coldness brush against my skin as her voice echoed in my mind.
Suddenly, time started again and standing inform of me was the young woman. Her long brown hair framed her face, shoulders, and back with a chilling-ness that got under my skin. Her skin was pale and her lips were bright red from the cold. She wore a tattered dress, once white, no doubt, but now it was smudged with dirt. Then there were her eyes. Her eyes were brimming with tears. Beautiful brown orbs of sadness. I was terrified yes calm and unbelievably sad. She took hold of my face with her cold hands. Her eyes were averted.
“Please, please….” She pleaded once again.
“Please what?” I asked, finding my voice.
“Please, please….” she repeated, taking the ring from my hand. She stared at it and tears fell from her eyes. Then, she looked me square in the eyes. “Forgive me….”
Forgive her? For what? I was confused. She looked at me as more tears fell. Then she switched her gaze from me to the ring and spoke, “But I won’t be home again.” She wasn’t talking to me, but to the ring? No, not the ring. To the one the ring belongs to. Her love.
More sadness overwhelmed me as I watched this young woman.
“Maybe someday you’ll look up and barely conscious you’ll say to no one, ‘Isn’t something missing?’”
I gasped for reasons I didn’t know. She was hurting and so was I. But why? I was connected to her. Then a thought entered my mind. A memory. A memory from the woman, I’m sure. A nice cool night. A sweet kiss by a car. Then another memory. And another. She mourns for a lost love. No. Not a lost love. A love that was ripped from her.
“You won’t cry for my absence, I know.” Holding the ring tight she continued, “You forgot me long ago.” She cried but her voice remained strong and firm. “Am I that unimportant? Am I so insignificant?”
My eyes shed tears I didn’t know I had held within me. Why is this happening? What is it she wants to share with me? What is it she wants to show me? Why me? Why me?! She looked at me with sorrowful eyes and I felt her heart cry out to mine.
“Isn’t something missing?” she seemed to ask both me and the night. She came to me and grabbed my hand then turned towards the entrance of the cemetery, “Isn’t someone missing me?”
The young woman had somehow allowed her memories to flow within me. I was taken to a place where she and her love, or at least I assume it was her love, were conversing under the stars. They were holding hands and gazing at each other lovingly. They were in love. Then, in a dizzying frenzy, they were at a house sitting in two separate chairs. They were in trouble. She was scared.
“Even though I’m the sacrifice,” she spoke, her words bringing me out of the thought. Yes, I was correct. Her love had been ripped out of her arms. “You won’t try for me, not now.” I was back in the memory. He left the house and ran. Not back to her loving embrace, but away from her.
Now she was crying in her room the day after. She held his picture and a picture from his prom. She was heartbroken. “Though I’d die to know you love me, I’m all alone.” I was in the cemetery again, though, I don’t think I ever left. Tears streamed down my face as I looked at her. For the first time I realized that there was something about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Isn’t someone missing me?”
“Yes!” I wanted to shout out, but I found myself without a voice. I cried for her. I had never felt so connected to someone before.
“Please, please, forgive me.” My head swam with emotions as the young woman once again showed me another memory. Or was it my own? I really couldn’t tell anymore.
I saw a girl on the phone planning her escape. Her escape from her life and trying to make a life with her love. “But I won’t be home again.” Now she’s upset and pleading with her love. He was threatening to do something drastic. Hurt himself, perhaps. “I know what you did you to yourself. I breathe deep and cry out-“out of my/our reverie once more. Torn away from these memories much like her love was torn from her.
I watched her kneel next to her grave and cry. “Isn’t something missing? Isn’t someone missing me?” she held her ring up to her face and said, “Even though I’m the sacrifice, you won’t try for me, not now.”
The young woman sobbed at the cross that marked her grave. “Though I’d die to know you love me, I’m all alone.” She sobbed harder, hugging the cross and looking at the ring. “Isn’t someone missing me?”
Suddenly, as if by some invisible force, her face and arms and legs started opening up. It was as if she were being slashed right in front of me, only, I couldn’t see the culprit. She looked up at me. Or was she really looking up at her torturer. I couldn’t tell. Her eyes were glazed over and she seemed to talk in a trance. Her words were haunting.
“And if I bleed, I’ll bleed, knowing you don’t care.” The ground seemed to shake. The earth beneath my feet shifted and her coffin emerged before us. “And if I sleep, just to dream of you, I’ll wake without you there.” She shied away from her coffin and came towards me. “Isn’t something missing….?” She asked a bit louder. Her mouth curved into a slight smirk.
In an instant she was behind me, encroaching on my space like a tiger stalking its prey. “Even though I’m the sacrifice, you won’t try for me, not now….” With each word she spoke, she came closer to me, causing me to step back. “Though I’d die to know you love me, I’m all alone. Isn’t something missing?” her head cocked to one side. A glint entered her eyes. “Isn’t someone missing me?”
Her eyes turned cold and almost hateful. With her final word, she shoved me. I opened my mouth to scream, but the fall enveloped me and then was broken by something soft.
I found myself lying in her coffin, staring up at her beautiful face. Then it hit me. I was looking at myself! In my frenzy to forget and stop the pain, I had forgotten a part of myself; the part of me that loved a man so much that his removal from my life had made a part of me die. Or at least make me think it had died. I had found myself, or at least, a part of me.
As the coffin closed, I heard her whisper, “You won’t say the words.” I felt the thuds of the cold soil fall upon my grave and I felt my lips move.
“Please, please….”
6.17.06 - 6.19.06
COMMENTS
-
Strider
03:57 Feb 07 2008
This is a powerful story,,,,,,,nuff said!