"Death on a Bedroom Floor" 

He lay in despair on the floor, his right hand resting upon his chest as it moved up, down, up and down again. He wished that he could see his life flash before his eyes, but such was not the case. He looked right. He looked left. He looked up. The ceiling was above him. What if it was to fall right now? he asked himself. I would inevitably die-wouldn't that be fun? He looked right, left, and up again. He found his room boring-white walls, white ceiling, green carpet. The carpet was now stained a new color…red. Why isn't my life flashing before my eyes? Should I not be dying? And when I die, should I not see a clip show?

Soon he would be dead, and everyone would care, but not one of them would say, "Did he have the privilege of seeing his life flash before his eyes? Such a wonderful life he led-yet so short." No, none of them would say that. They would be intent on prosecution. His friends would be debating whether they saw it coming or not, and if they could have been a better friend and stopped it before it was happening. His parents would sue for money, and the entire town, and perhaps county would be "Oh-my-god"ing for the better part of two weeks.

He looked right, left, and up again-perhaps for the last time as he lay on the floor, bleeding, dying, suffering. Ahh…he thought. It is beginning. My clip show is starting! Ha ha!

He leant against his locker, waiting. He had already retrieved the supplies to his next class, and held them in his arm. Class had already begun, but Clarice had yet to show. She had a habit of doing this. Sometimes she would stay and talk to a teacher, while other times, she would be with her friends, and on occasion when she was particularly stressed, she would sneak to the bathroom and smoke half of an unfiltered cigarette. She would save the other half for later. She figured that if she smoked half that it would equal an entire filtered cigarette. And so, she appeared around the corner, a book for English class in hand.

She walked to her locker which was just two to the right of his. "Hey," she said. "Sorry I'm late." She opened her locker and threw the book within, not caring to keep it in its current pristine condition. He watched as she did it all in movements that resembled all but fluidity. "Oeffinger kept me after again. She wanted to compliment me on the paper I wrote." He could smell a hint of mint on her breath. "It's really getting tiresome, though." She reached in her locker and removed a canister of Tic Tacs. She opened the top and poured out four or five and threw them in her mouth. She replaced them to their position. "I mean, I know that I am a great writer, and I know that she knows it. And I know what I write, so she doesn't need to go through every part and tell me what's great about it. I know what's great about it. That's why I wrote it, for Christ's sake." He nodded in a pattern-whenever she said, "I know."

She shut the locker which made a cheap metallic thud. She began walking. He stayed behind. She got twenty feet down the corridor before stopping. She didn't turn, but the small movements of her arms gave away her anger.

"Why?" she asked. "Why, what?" he replied, with equal elitism which was merely an attempt to mock her. "Why aren't you moving?" she asked unwavering except for her arms. "Perhaps I don't want to move." "You mean you're going to stand there with your books all period? That is pointless." "Is it anymore pointless than knowing that you're the greatest?"

She turned. Her arms were quivering. Outside points in her mind, it was one of her weakest areas. "Excuse me? What are you inferring?" He stared at her for a moment, and then his eyes moved purposefully down to her arms where he stared for another, weakening her spirit. "What am I inferring? Well, I do believe that it is you who are doing such. I am merely implying that which is meant to be inferred." She starred back at him. If only she knew where his weak points were. "You know, [blocked], I really don't want to have this conversation right now!" She turned and stood for a moment, and then began her trek to class. "What conversation, Clarice?"

Her walking ceased. She did not turn. Her arms were shaking like miniature earthquaking appendages. He had her where he wanted her-or so he thought. "What." There was bane in her voice. "What!" "Nothing," he said, not quite sure if she in fact was where he wanted her. "Uh-" he faltered. "What conversation, Clarice? What was it about?" She stood firm in her disbelief at his rebellion. "Do you honestly know what it was about, Clarice?" More silence. She was definitely where he wanted her. This could end up being a better day than he had hoped. "If you don't actually know what the conversation was about, or more importantly, care what it was about, was there in fact a conversation at all?"

She stood. The books fell from her shaking arms. They continued to shake as her hands clenched into fists. "Do you care about this relationship, [blocked]? Do you really care? Because if you don't, why are we here?" "I care about the conversation, Clarice." "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He didn't answer her. "So you care about the conversation, but not the relationship? What am I supposed to say to that?" "I told you what I felt about the relationship, Clarice." "Did you imply it? What is it? Tell me, you bastard!" "I told you that I cared about the conversation. Is the relationship anything without the conversation, Clarice? Or is there really a relationship here at all?" She began walking slowly. "I can't deal with this right now, [blocked]." She continued walking.

"Clarice," he said. She turned and looked at him. "What?" "You're going in the wrong direction. You're currently headed to fourth period despite the fact that it's third." "Shut up."

Wasn't your life flashing before your eyes supposed to be something that chronicled the good events in your life, not the annoying ones? He asked no one. This wasn't what he had wanted at all. Why was he seeing this…crap? He wanted to see his birth, his childhood, his father before he had died. Instead, he was seeing Clarice again. Maybe clip two would be better. Maybe he would see what he wanted to see this time.

Everyone around him was playing their woodwinds, their brasses, percussions and the like, but not him. He had his trumpet to his mouth, but no air was traveling through the metal pipes as they moved with a fluid-like motion. They crossed the valves and came out at another point until eventually the bell was reached, with the mute shoved within, but no sound emitted. His attention was elsewhere. He was in the audience, walking through every row, pushing by the many knees of the watchers. He continued his search through the symphony hall. He was not disturbing any of the people that he walked by. Some he stopped and looked at their faces that were engrossed in shadow. He had searched nearly the entire room, and still nothing. She could not have entered since the show began-they had locked the doors. The last row. To make sure, he searched each of the faces, staring at them, hoping that one would be her. He reached the last person. No.

The solo! He stood quickly and blurted out a random note followed by a high C. And a low C. And an A. And an F. This was not his solo. The assembly room stared at him. The rest of the band continued to play the piece of sheet music that lay somewhat feebly on the black stand. Many looked at him while playing; others stopped completely in what was a locked, shocked face. He looked about, searching each of the staring faces searching…. No. He sat down, and placed his trumpet I lap.

The concert ended…on a high note? He pondered. He had placed his brass instrument in its carrying case, and that had been put someplace-he forgot where. He stood waiting in the milling crowd. They would only be there for so long before he would be standing foolishly by himself. He saw the hair.

He walked toward it. "Hey." "Hi. I loved your solo. You did wonderful," she said with a glint in her eyes. "Why thank you," he said, with his own glint of devilishness in his eyes. "You really can handle that thing-" she paused to think for a moment "-it's a trumpet, right? I never can remember those sorts of things." "Does forgetting my concert qualify as such?" "What?" she said in disbelief. "I suppose that if I had in fact missed the concert that it might fall in the same category." "Well, Clarice, let's suppose for a moment that you did forget my concert, what would you say? Would you apologize? Would you care? For some reason, I doubt that." She brought her flattened hand up and brought it swiftly to his cheek. She pulled it back to her side and stared with contempt toward him. "You jackass. I was at the concert. And I did hear your solo."

The cheek that had remained white began to turn red. "Really?" he asked. "Yes, really. I heard your god damn solo, and that one that sucked. It was random notes!" "Really?" he said. "Yeah." "You were there, but what were you doing Clarice?" "What was I doing? I was watching the lame concert." "The bad solo was me, Clarice; you would know that if you had been paying attention…. Is there some guy?"

Christ. This clip show is pathetic. I'm getting bored. Maybe I should call the medic. Maybe I should live and improve the quality of this crap. So far, I'm not impressed. He looked to the right at a white sock that lay limply a few feet from his face. Very soon, that sock would have more life in it than he would. The red spread further across the carpet, getting sucked into available air pocket that the fabric had. Some had begun to dry, crusting over the carpet in brown.

She sat at the computer. He was outside the paneled glass door. He was staring at her. Could he do this? He had never been particularly confrontational on a planned level, and this was certainly a planned confrontation, and he was nervous. He wanted to get it over with, but it would take strength. He took a deep breath. He let it out. He opened the door and walked to the computer next to hers. He opened the Internet icon and proceeded to his email account.

"We need so talk." "[Blocked], you've been doing most of the talking lately as though you don't seem to care." "Clarice, the last time I tried to have an intelligent conversation, you didn't care." "But you didn't care about the relationship." "I did. And I said so, but you chose not to look at the other level of what I said. If you don't care about what I say, does that mean you don't care about me? And if you don't care about me, then doesn't that mean you don't care about the relationship, since I am one half of it?"

"You are always to confusing for me, [blocked]. Perhaps that's why I was the only one willing to take you on, try to make you one of the respected. Do you know why I decided to take you on?" He said nothing, only looked at the computer screen in silence. "I took you on because I am a good person. I took you on because if you try, you too can be respected."

He closed out of his e-mail and stood and pushed the chair in. "Clarice, since when did 'respected' become a synonym for 'popular'? Because if you look at it from a 'non-respected' person's point-of-view, you are not respected any more than all human beings regardless of whether they are a different race, speak a different language, have a different lifestyle, have views that differ from your own, or subscribe to a different e-mail provider!" He began walking to the door.

"You always did have that view that I didn't agree with, [blocked]," she said to herself.

This is incredibly boring. I really don't need to see this again. It's still fresh in my mind. He choked. More red appeared. He had little time. His clip show would soon come to an end. He shifted his position slightly to become more comfortable. It hurt.

There was a knock at his bedroom door. He looked up from his book. It was not like him to have visitors in the afternoon. "Come in." The door slid open slowly, revealing Clarice. "Hey. I decided you were right about talking." "Really?" he asked. She nodded slowly in agreement. "Good," he said. "I really don't want to end this relationship." She nodded. "I think that we just need to communicate better. We're on different courses. I think we can construct it so that we can turn or courses so that they will combine to make one."

"That's a good idea," she said. There was an icy chill in her voice, and the white walls turned to frosty blue, and the green carpet to white, shaven ice. His face become shadowed and a flower wilted in his eye. "But, you see, [blocked] that doesn't go according to my path. I'm following my path, and it's a closed road. No admittance, [blocked]."

He cocked his head slightly to the side. "What?" He stared at someplace behind her as he said it. "Yes, I am breaking it off. This is goodbye, [blocked]. We will never meet socially again."

"Wha…." He couldn't finish his word. He stared into the spot on the wall, through it, and outside at the now sickly world.

She reached into her pocket and withdrew it. It fit with the glacial surroundings of the room. The reflective blade blended well with the new colors. He stared at it, not sure at first if he saw correctly, or if his eyes deceived him as she had with her intentions of entering his room. She brought the blade to her mouth a licked one side of it with a long, red tongue, eyes focused on him all the while. She looked deep into his eyes, pulling out every scrap of information that she desired to keep from their days together. She finished, and took her seductive eyes off his and laughed. She looked at him again and said how stupid he was to believe that he could rebel against her and win. He said nothing as his tongue had become numb from the cold of the room. She tossed the blade from hand to hand for a moment, then in a movement not usual for her, she fluidly, and forcefully inserted the blade into his heart. He gasped for air, and fell off his sitting position on his bed, and onto his back on this carpet. She looked at him again.

"I hope that you get better, [blocked]," she said, and exited the room. He watched her go leave and put his hand on the blade. It was cold like the room. The iced, blue room in which he lay on a cake of shaven frost. He looked left, up, and then to his right. The sock again.

He reached for the sock, and got it in his hands. He threw it toward the hamper, missing slightly. He looked down at his chest. The blade was gone. He could hear a car being started outside; Clarice was leaving. The puddle of red began to seep in from the outside edges, in toward his chest. It came slowly, slowly, until the crimson on his shirt and around the wound was gone. The wound filled in, and the hole in his shirt was repaired. He stood, retrieved the fallen sock, and placed it in the hamper.