Bleed II

Suicide is no easy thing. We all want to live; we all want to live life to our very best; we all want to have those foremost and leading things that we can possibly have in this life; and if we cannot have them and instead we are unhappy and broken-hearted and hapless, what better alternative than to put an end to our being and existence itself?

I don’t know why. But in spite of wielding the knife and assuring myself that I was going to thrust it into my stomach, I just could not get the power and zeal and spirit to accomplish that. Mother. I thought about her. Yolanda Moon. What would she do without me? I was her one and only daughter. The only girl she adored more than anything in this world. Yes, even more than her own happiness and well-being. Was this how I was going to repay her for everything that she had done for me? By killing and depriving her of my companionship and intercourse. No, that was not being fair, or was it?

That night, while it poured hard and showered and thundered outside, I dreamt about Cid. These days, ever since I had become so humiliated and depressed and chilled about where my life was going, I had been experiencing frequent and endless and incessant nightmares. Nightmares about I myself wedding with fire-winged and hellish-looking demons and devils; nightmares about enraged and murderous-looking mobs and throngs of people swarming over me and chasing me and stoning and hitting and beating me up and calling me a witch sent straight from the devil himself; nightmares about the entire town gossiping and prattling and gibbering about how cursed I had been in killing any man that happened to be drawn in toward me.

Yolanda and I have kept this a secret to ourselves. That we are beautiful but cursed. No one else apart from the two of us knows our condition; not our friends or neighbors. We always do what we can to avoid men that become interested in us. If we were so inconsiderate and unmindful—sure, just like in my nightmare—the whole town would without doubt know about our curse and go on to gabble and gossip and dish on the dirt to others about us. And what would we do from there? Nothing but move away to some…far away town or place?

Yolanda and I have switched towns like mad. Endlessly even. Since I met Cid two years ago, we have relocated more than fifteen times. At least seven times in a distinct and separate year. This curse, it has just made our lives so miserable and a painful living hell altogether.

In my bedroom, there are pictures of Shawn Hansen. He looks just like me in some way. I have light brown hair, black eyes, and golden-colored skin. That is what Shawn precisely had. But then, I look more like my mother. Yolanda herself is brown-haired, brown-eyed and pale-skinned. I share more of her facial symmetry and body shapeliness and curves. We are very much alike.

The morning following my nightmare, on Tuesday 14 August 2018, I woke up at five to strive and withstand the temptation and almost overpowering feeling to head back to bed and sleep again. I went on to sit in the living room, close to the still afire burning place, where I tossed in a handful of stony-like but long-burning wood, and here, I fetched the diary that I had carried with me and began scribbling the words:

Yolanda and I moved here to Svetlana, Nebraska, two days ago. The town is this big and wonderful and amazing; the people here have been good and kindly to us; our neighbors always check in to bring us gifts and presents of all sorts. There is this funny thing though. Ninety per cent of my presents are from boys. Or men I should rather specify. Young men. Two boys from our neighboring house, Marion and Lev Meyer, who are brothers, I must what’s more add, brought me my current alarm clock and newly-shopped romance novels and an enormous blank diary that I have to fill in and a glittery-like pen that scrawls with shining and glimmering ink and wholly nice- looking teddy bears and sweet-most and pretty flowers and a nice and very new pair of jeans and—their biggest and final present, an old-dated but still functioning and superbly operative laptop. Marion said that it belonged to him and he was giving it over to me as it had a highly effective and powerful browser with which I would surf the net and research up any assignment that I might have. Words cannot adequately express my gratitude to these two adorable and loving brothers.

Charlie Wooding, the blond boy from next door, brought me blooming and freshly flowers and a nice new hat and a cake written ‘Welcome Jamie and Yolanda to Svetlana,’ which he said his grandmother, Sally Wooding, had supposedly baked. It was so sweet and tasty and pleasant that I had not tasted anything marvelous like it before.

Edward Chen, the leggy and well-built and highly handsome bachelor from four houses down the street, brought me an expensive perfume he had picked for me while on a recent trip to Spain, and which he said he had bought from one of the Spanish royal family members themselves. He showed me photos of himself in Spain and this Maria Theresa Castillo woman whom he said was married to a grandchild of the Queen of Spain Herself. She was holding the perfume itself and smiling at the camera happily, appropriately dressed in a very expensive and far-reaching yellow dress that had an Indian look and elegance to it. On top of that, Edward brought me paintings and cookers and cutlery and carvings and dresses and boots from Spain itself! Everything he handed me screamed, “Spanish! Spanish! Spanish! And more Spanish!”

I will end here. Ten other men brought me diverse and unlike things. I cannot list them all or else my diary would be filled up and…become something else rather alien and outlandish. And I don’t want that to happen. This is strictly a diary. Not some detail-everything-to-the- very-last-bits sort of book. No way! That said and made clear, I am still muchly grateful and indebted to everyone who have brought me something from the depths and very bottom of their hearts, I fathom. Diary, goodbye!