Death By Imagination

They said that before the accident, I was a cheerful boy, that I was going places, that I had everything going for me. Honest to God I can’t remember much before the accident. All I could do was imagine as I lay in bed, completely paralyzed and unable to move for myself. I can’t even turn my head or lift a cup to my lips; all I am capable of is a simple yes or no.

But I have lived.

I could imagine my first kiss, imagine the first time I scored the goal for my team, and imagine graduating from high school. I could imagine my whole life passing me by, one single glorious moment, that I was not some sad human vegetable stuck in this bed, in this dreary place that always had a stench of death.

I imagined marrying my high school sweetheart, having two great kids and I imagine having lived a meaningful life without regrets. I imagine growing old, I imagine death. I imagine being surrounded by those I love except I’m all alone as I die; I want to imagine there is a heaven for me not a great nothingness as I ceased to exist. I-

Death By Polvoron

Ego, you see it has always been a guy thing. We like to compete for the dumbest things, we like to win and we constantly need to prove ourselves the better man.

My mother always said I wasn’t good for anything, sports, studies even women. I was an awkward boy with nothing to offer to the world.
But I was good in one other thing, a crazy thing really. If you can, try. I dare you to whistle while eating polvoron. These innocent powdered sweets would give me my immortality.

Its hard trying to fork out notes with my mouth crammed with powder. My opponent’s eyes were tearing, just a bit more as he spit out a wet wad of saliva and powdered clumps. I should be hearing the sweet sound of victory bells, for it was my moment now- except I was choking, my throat constricted, and the dratted thing went down the wrong tube.

I knew I could have saved myself; I could have spit it out and lived as the paramedics arrived on scene. I kept my mouth glued no matter how painful it was, I choked myself to death.
Because hey, It wasn’t a bad way to go.

Greed

I had to have her, not just one time but I had to have her again and again. There are scores of them, little blonds with their baby blues, pouting lips and tight little red dresses. I could be a perfect gentleman the first few hours, appear like a perfect prince in a fairytale, then an incorrigible beast the next. How their exquisite faces cringe as I show them my special place.

The world calls it by many names, the Dark Room, the punitive Dungeon some, The Cage.

Most of them do not last very long, therefore they break and broken toys are not meant to be kept, they are thrown away.

It was never the same though. I could never find her perfect replacement. They were all plain, boring-vanilla, while she, she came in a dozen other flavors, rich crème brulee one minute, spiky jell-o the next.

But for the life of me, I could not remember her name.

Still greed is always the deciding factor. Even as I stand before my empire of flesh, as I stand before a mountain of broken dolls with flaxen skin and lifeless cornflower blue eyes, it was still not enough. It was never enough.