Ashes [closed/read and enjoy]

[Naoki Ito]

!!!
_{First person, sad. Naoki is about 17-18 when this happened.}

"The cinders are falling like snow."
There is poetry in despair, and we sang with unrivaled beauty, bitter elegies of savagery and eloquence, of blue and grey.

I remember... It was sunny and innocent that day.. The sky was clear and blue, not a single cloud floated in the spring sky. It was a Tuesday in May, and I was looking forward to graduation. I had enough of the town I lived in. My peers were cruel, and no adult ever stepped in to defend me, not even my own guardians. Though, I didn't ever expect them to. They never have in the past. I would wish every morning that someone would at least have pity on me and rescue me from my tormentors. No one did, and I was tortured every day. I was often told that I should kill myself, or that someone would kill me, for the sake of hateful bloodsport. I probably would have killed myself long ago if they didn't want me to die so badly. I lived to spite them. I took their abuse quietly without complaint. If they wanted me to die so badly, they would have to kill me.

The ringing of the school bell is what saved me from most of my abuse. I quickly left classrooms, and left the school as fast as I could most days. I walked to and from school. I remember on that day, I could tell from the cool breeze and the smell of the air that is was going to rain that evening, but I still walked home. I didn't dare step onto a school bus, I would surely be killed if I even thought about it. My bike had been stolen earlier in the month, and I just didn't bother with trying to raise money for a new one..

That was the fifth bike that had been taken from me that year.

I was carrying home a painting that I'd completed earlier at school. It was put on display for a while, and I told them that I didn't want it back. I was incredibly proud of it, but after seeing it on display, I grew to hate it. It infuriated me listening to people trying to understand the meaning behind it, and because the message wasn't realized. It felt like a failure. The teacher told me that they were going to throw it out if I didn't take it, and despite my hatred for the piece, I took it along with me. A life sitting on my bedroom floor had to be better than being thrown away like common garbage. The painting still meant a lot to me, personally. So, it didn't matter that no one understood what I was trying to say, as long as I could recall the feelings I felt during its creation, then it didn't matter what other people thought.

The walk from the school to my house was a decent length. On a normal day it took about an hour to walk home, and I usually enjoyed the walks by myself. The walks I took back and fourth between the school and home were the only times I ever found peace. I would walk through the neighborhoods, wandering through backyards and avoiding the streets. The streets was where people could see me, I didn't want them to see me. Their meddling eyes, judging me as I passed. Labeling me as a sub-human simply because I didn't want to relate to them. I hated them. They acted as if I was below them, treating me like filth. For a while, I was convinced that perhaps I was below them. perhaps I really was nothing more than dirt. In the back of my mind.. I knew better. I saw things in my mind that no one else did. I thought of things differently than others. So did that make me less of a human?

No. they were wrong. I didn't believe them and their nasty words anymore.

As I approached my home, I smelled something foul in the air. Already suffocated by the heavy humidity, the new smell made me cough. It burned my nose and lungs, and it was incredibly familiar. I began to run. I dropped everything I was holding as I ran, not caring if I never found the lost objects ever again. I remember flashing lights and sirens. A crowd of people had gathered across the street from my house. I looked in horror at what was once my home. Black smoke billowed from the windows, crimson flames climbed up the walls...

It was hours before the fire was put out and I was allowed to look inside the remains of the house.

My parents weren't home at the time of the fire, I remember someone telling me that I should thank God that they were away.

I didn't thank God for anything. I half-wished that my parents had been in the fire and died.

I truly wished that I had been in the fire and died.

I knew I was just being bitter. I couldn't help it. I felt so hopeless.

I walked through the blackened rooms of what used to be my home. Everything had been reduced to ash, there wasn't anything left. I didn't stay in the house for long, I went and gathered the things I'd dropped while running toward the disaster. I recall thinking that perhaps I should've just kept walking and not bothered to have run. The house was doomed, and there was nothing that I could've done. It turned out to be arson, and we got a lot of money from the court and the people who did it. It didn't matter to me, though, I still felt a sickening loss. All I had left was the painting I'd rescued from being thrown away, and the school books that I carried in my bag.

I still have the painting, it sits in the corner of my room. I had painted it in autumn, the colors I used being eerily reminiscent of the fire. The picture itself was of a simple creature I had seen in my dreams. He was dog-like and had a disgusting face and drooling mouth. From his gaping mouth hung a thick black tongue, and his body was a sleek red color. He had many eyes, all over his body, all of them yellow, some of them closed, some of them tearing up and crying. He was running toward a lush blue forest, and behind him was a wide, empty landscape that resembled a red and brown wasteland, the only plants being black and dead, and the sun being a wide eyeball that hung low in the sky. It was one of my more obscure works, and one of my favorites. It was something that almost no one understood. Why was my dog creature running? Why so many eyes? I just claim I don't know, because every time I explain it, the true meaning is lost.

I remember, talking to someone at a lonely cafe, and for no reason at all, I recalled the fire.
Then the someone asked me, with a concerned voice.
"Why are you crying?"
I was confused, I didn't know I was crying.
I didn't feel sad, I didn't feel anything at all.

I didn't even feel the tears clinging to my face.