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By: Ben (I am immensely proud of this story. 'Tis my favorite. Written from inspiration of Fight Club, which rocked the world around. Go see it. Well...read this first, then go see it) A graveyard is the only place I know that�s as shadowy in the day as it is during the night. I caught myself as I nodded sleepily. I was tired. It�s hard to get a good rest when you wake up to hear your mother was murdered. The lengthy droning of a monotone eulogy didn�t help keep me focused. I should have been beside myself with sorrow, pulling an unlimited supply of tissues from some unseen pocket like the rest of my family was. No, it was boring. I sat in my folded black metal chair, silent, simply staring absently at the coffin, covered with the swaying shadows of the trees overhead. I sat silent, the people around me felt such pity for me, thinking I was past the crying stage. No, I sat bored in that hard metal chair, staring at the still coffin and the black- robed minister standing over it. I sat and thought if it was a mistake, the upcoming wedding. I thought about how the selfless and emotional man that once was me had vanished, my heart now tainted by one blacker than my own. My blushing bride, Sofia. It was called Hydenism, a clever little name created by the soon- to- be famous doctors. Sofia, the poor, innocent beauty sat in the examination room, biting her lower lip in worry as she waited for the man in the white lab coat to come back into the room. It was a routine checkup gone bad. I had been asked to stay as well after my check up, so I could comfort her. The doctors didn�t think of her as another life, just a source of fame. She was a disease, a new disease, a source of actual excitement around the hospital. The name Hydenism is part meaningless suffix, part name of the evil alter- ego of the kindly Dr. Jekyll. It couldn�t be called a mental disorder, as Sofia was the picture of mental heath. It couldn�t be called multiple- personality disorder, because those suffering from it have all their different personalities inhabiting the same body. No, it was Hydenism. The trembling, worried woman was Dr. Jekyll, the �other� was Mr. Hyde. The female Dr. Jekyll bit her lower lip and chanced a glance at me every few seconds. The description the ecstatic doctor had recited reminded me of that old cartoon, �The Incredible Hulk.� Frustration or anger turned a mild- mannered doctor into a maniacal green beast he couldn�t control. The �other� was the whole package: stronger, faster, smarter and almost invulnerable. The doctor had said �almost invulnerable� with true fear in his eyes. It didn�t take four years of medical school to know fear. I had been dating Sofia for two weeks before then. I didn�t like her, I didn�t care for her, yet I was marrying her. Marrying out of fear. It sounds much funnier than it is. Mother had never liked Sofia. I put on the fa�ade that I did after Sofia forced me to take her to my parents. My father had left my mother after I was born. She told me he was dead. I never believed her, my mother, the last of my close family. My mother was a strong, independent and, at some times, crude woman. Not once during my childhood had I seen her keep anything to herself. The world had to know her thoughts. I wished she could just lie. I prayed as they met that she would lie. Whomever I prayed to didn�t hear me. Sofia had, suprisingly, contained that Hyde until we exited the house and I left her alone standing outside her home . I woke up the next morning to a call. My mother had been killed. The emotional, selfless man would have cried. Would have been home to take the small gun I had bought after the diagnosis from its hiding place in my closet and avenge my beloved parent. No, I sat, bored, dark heart simply viewing the coffin as an old, dead tree containing an older dead woman. The eulogy ended. I pushed through the fog of pity that the guests spewed out of their frowning mouths and jumped into my car and drove. Calling off the wedding would be suicide. Staying with her would be suicide. I would drive to her house and make my decision, a quick death, or a long, painful one. Sofia greeted me with an unrequited sweetness as I entered, sat down with me and held my hand. She had to talk to me, she said with little sparkles of fear in those innocent dark eyes. Then, came a sudden stroke of utter shock. She called off the wedding. Freedom! I should have felt relief. No, it wasn�t there. No relief, just pure anger. I sat, stunned, confused, wondering why a rage built up in me when this is what I wanted. The rage clouded my senses. I knew this anger. Before going to sleep on the night I had brought Sofia to my mother I had felt it. No�I hadn�t slept. I had gotten up and gone into my car. I had driven back to mother�s. My muscles began to ache and swell, tearing the fragile stitch of my cheap shirt. I had shattered the door like glass. I had looked upon my sleeping parent. Sofia began backing away, heading towards the door. I blocked her off. I had seen my mother lay there, so peacefully, and raised a small, loaded gun with muscular arms that weren�t my own. The last of that selfless, emotional man had left the darkened heart, escaping through my knuckles into a dark, reddish liquid that covered it. I felt the rage subside and the feeling of extreme might ease out with it. A broken body of a pale, worried, fragile woman lay at my feet. The doctor hadn�t been talking to Sofia, hadn�t been pleased and afraid of her, the living disease. I felt the edges of my mouth rise. I smiled. <~~Back to Stories |