My parents died yesterday. I didn’t even see it coming. They were returning from a vacation that they take every year. They always go to different places like Paris, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or Costa Rica. Usually I would go with them but I said I didn’t want to go this year because I was at that point in my life where I didn’t want to do anything with my parents. I somehow rationalized a reason to stay home instead of going to the Bahamas. It’s a lot easier to rationalize a reason to not do something then to actually do it. My best friend came over to my house and tried to make me feel better. All I did was sit on the couch rapped in a warm blanket and stare at the dark blank screen on the television. My friend would ask me what I was doing and I would tell him I’m watching TV. He laughed, I didn’t. Our friendship started to fade out as a result of my desperation to come out of my depression. I find it’s easier to say screw the world then I love you.

Sometimes I would make jokes that normal people would think were funny and they did. People would laugh at the things I said. They would smile and try to make me feel better but at this point not even a face lift could make me smile. This kind of attention didn’t last long enough for me to get over my depression. I found out that people tend to talk to you less and less if you don’t have anything to say in return. I would only get the kind of meaningless conversation that you would expect to get when you’re at the dentist and they’re asking you questions like “How’ve you been?” or “How’s you’re Brother doing? I haven’t seen him in a while.” Meanwhile, there sticking a pair of metal tongs down your throat ripping out one of your molars. How do they expect you to come up with a logical reply to their question when you in this ridiculous situation of pain and confusion. Some days I would go to church and after I would run into someone I knew. One day it was a beautiful girl from my school named Caroline who looked like Marilyn Monroe with long black hair. She came up to me with a smile. “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been doing lately?” she said. This question puts me in a weird position because either I can say the thing that everyone says to that question and be forgotten, or I could say the most outrageously romantic thing I can think of and be remembered forever. So, I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Well lately? For the past hour I’ve been staring at you from four rows back waiting for you to turn around so I could smile at you and watch you smile back.”I thought I had made some sort of impact but she just laughed in appreciation. We had a brief small talk conversation where we revealed the most simple and uninteresting things about ourselves, but somehow it was exciting and different. Maybe it was because it wasn’t our dull words that were interesting; it was the flirtatious body language that seemed to come down like a waterfall on top us. In the end, she walked away from our conversation and I thought this was another one of those times that will be forgotten. As she was walking away I was intrigued by how beautifully elegant she looked in her black dress that tightened around the curves of her body. Before she reached the door at the back of the church, she stopped, turned around, smiled and waved.

Thursday morning I couldn’t get out of bed. Even the smallest of sounds in my small room would radiate through my head like a railroad spike, even the light tapping I heard on my bedroom door was thunderous. I heard a voice coming through, “It’s time to wake up, I’m going to be late for work.” “I don’t feel very good mom.” She opens the door, walks in and takes my temperature by putting the palm of her hand on my forehead. “You feel fine; it’s probably just a migraine. I’ll get you something for the pain.” She goes downstairs and starts a desperate search for pain pills through the medicine cabinet. I tried to open my eyes but my mom had turned on the light and opened the curtains. I couldn’t open my eyes any more than a squint. It was like looking at the sun through a magnifying glass in the summer. My father walked in after hearing about me from my mother.
“Hey Jack, how are you feeling?”
“Shredded”
He sits down on the edge of my bed, “You’re going to have to go to school today, you have to take your history final.”
“Yeah I know” My father smiled and said “We’re planning another vacation; me and your mom both are able to get time off work in two weeks and were thinking of going to the Bahamas this year.”
“I don’t really feel like I should go this year, every time we go on a vacation, I always feel like the third wheel with you two and I feel like I’m holding you back.” My father paused in confusion.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Positive”
My father then got up off of my bed and left my room to tell my mother about what I had told him. I became powerless in the effort to keep my eyes open and I fell asleep.



I could see something about to hit me, or someone; it was a person whose face I couldn’t see. I would try as hard as I could to crack his face in with my fists but every time I tried I felt weaker and weaker. Soon I felt like a kitten trying to wrestle a gorilla to the ground. I could finally see his massive fists coming at me until I felt bright florescent lights on my eyes and my body was thrusting backwards and I made one large gasp for air. I found the people all around were staring at me and I realized that I was sleeping and I woke up during class. The teacher paused and laughed for a moment then continued teaching. This happened over and over again, where I would wake up in different places. Some places I would know and some places I wish I did know. This has been happening to me ever since there death. I haven’t been able to sleep ever since they died. When you have insomnia, you’re never really awake or asleep. You’re in an unconscious state of mind where you create a false reality for yourself that’s a combination of dreaming and being wide awake. That’s why I can never tell how things in reality start; you never remember how your dreams start.