The Dead Can Wait

He was about to go home after an exhausting day at work. It was a cool summer evening, and the sky was already dark. His home was an hour’s drive away; after the day he had, he couldn’t wait to get there. He got on his car and started driving. Two miles from home, his car broke down.

“If there’s a god, he hates me.”, he muttered to himself.

He was in no mood to repair the car or to call a mechanic, so he parked it there and started walking �" it would take him thirty minutes at most. As he walked down the familiar path, his mind started walking down its own familiar path, wondering how he got here �" how he hit rock bottom.

Being an introvert, life was never easy for him. All his life, everything he wanted was given to someone �" someone who wasn’t hesitant to ask for it. It started when he was at school, and had shadowed him throughout life. It wasn’t just materialistic things �" even people; everyone he felt close to, left. He had never had real friend in his life. He wanted to turn his life around when he entered college. He was tired of being a freak, a loser; he was tired of being him. So he put on a mask and made himself more likeable. But no mask could hide who he really was. Everyone could see him only as a defect. Nobody wanted to be with a guy having so much baggage. But he was strong �" he survived college.

However, his curse never really left him. It followed him like a child after the piper. At work, he tried to be the most hardworking, reliable employee. His longing for recognition fuelled him. But this desperate need for attention only made him a target for the wolves around him. He ended up doing everyone’s work in hope of earning their appreciation. But it only made him a gullible, disposable piece of garbage in their eyes. So when the manager needed to fire someone to employ her son instead, he was the obvious choice.

And that brings us to today.  He was unemployed, broke, and broken. He snapped out of his daydream, and entered his house. Exhausted and defeated, he fell to his bed and surrendered to the night’s call.

He woke up the next morning with dread in his body �" the kind you could feel in your bones. In fact, it was the only thing he felt. He desperately wanted to feel something else, so he broke a razor, and placed it against his wrist. All of a sudden, being suicidal didn’t suck anymore. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being alone, but he hated being lonely. With the cold blade against his skin, he felt carefree after a long time. He contemplated the thought, and decided he was ready to release himself from his suffering.

Just as he was about to do it, his phone rang. The display showed a solemn name �" ‘Dad’. He didn’t answer the call, and let it go to voicemail. He sat there, one step from darkness, listening to his father’s voice.

“Hey buddy... just wanted to catch up. How’s life? Hope everything’s good there. Cause, you know, things kind of suck around here. Business has been slow lately, and your mom’s been too sick to help out. The doctors are saying she might need a surgery. You know, we really hate to bother you like this, but we could use some help, son. Financially, I mean. Just... just call me back when you can, will you?  Take care until then. We love you, buddy”

The call ended. He dropped the razor and broke down to sobs, as reality hit him �" his life sucked, but he wasn’t the sole proprietor of it. He didn’t have the right to kill himself; not without killing the people relying on him. Death had to wait, for the living weren’t done with him yet.