"Was I just dreaming?"
Was he?
His mother was repeatedly screaming over him– screaming and screaming, in that voice of hers. God, he wanted to shut her down but he was not his usual self in this dream– or maybe his usual self wasn’t him here. Who was he? He could barely pin anything down.
She screamed and screamed at him to get out of bed, so he did. He got up and out of bed, and he stared at her.
His mother went silent.
He went downstairs and ate breakfast, but as he sat eating, he realized that he had no idea who he was. He had no idea about his profession, age or anything. He didn’t even know his name.
It occurred to him that he might ask his mother who he was– but no. Somehow, he was sure that it would be no use, asking her.
Then, a strange thought wriggled into his head.
He wanted to see her dead body.
The body he loved the most, but never touched. He knew he was in a dream but he also knew something else, in that strange dream-way– something more magical– more evil. More… satanic? What was this?-- this feeling– this impossible thing he suddenly knew?
He went out into the backyard– for some reason. And for some reason, his feet took him over to a certain spot– why? Why here? And why was he digging? He was absolutely certain that he needed to dig here, but why…?
And then he saw her. There she was.
She was the same– the same girl, the dream of his real life. Or really, she was more blood than she was anything else. She was horrifying.
The stab-wounds on her chest were fresh. He knew with absolute certainty exactly where he had stabbed her– and he knew with absolute certainty that he was the one who had done it. And… but… he couldn’t have done this. He knew that he had, but he couldn’t have– it was ridiculous– it was insane!
"I could never do something like this… I’m not crazy…” he muttered. “This is not real. This is not real. This is not real. This can't be real. This is absurd– this is not me. This is not me, this is not..."
He buried his face in his hands and cried and cried, and cried and cried, until all his tears were gone, but even still he carried on sobbing.
She was real, but what was her name? Was she related to him? Or was he dreaming in delusions again? Did she really, truly love him?
Perhaps, she did, the way she had tolerated his torture. She did love him.
But what about him? Had he loved her?
She had just been a puppet for him– an object. A living object, but an object just the same. He never valued her as anything more than that. Their love had always been one-sided. All she had ever gotten was torture… and him? He had gotten everything that he wanted. Even her beautiful corpse.
But it was all over now.
It was this and this and this– nothing more than this, just her, down in the ground. Nothing more, ever again. A deep wound carved out of him– the death of all other possibilities.
And then he saw it. The crow.
It gazed deep into his soul, telling him that he should not be alive. Oh that day, the crow could talk with its eyes. It gazed at him, and told him what it needed to say– what he needed to hear. And then it flew away. And that was the end of that, too. That was all over now, too. It was just this and this and this– nothing more.
He fell to the ground-- unconscious. He dropped into the hole he had dug. He dropped on top of the corpse he had created.
So, this was it!
This was all of it. His life was nothing but a piece of untold stories and chaos.
He had lost his mind a long time ago, now it was the time for body to catch up.
There were many secrets that must have been revealed to him as he died, but there’s no point saying things here that no one will understand.
After all, the only truth that makes it through the veil back into this world is that death brings peace.
But he was not dead yet. How could he be dead? He had so many responsibilities, even if he wanted to die, he could never leave the world. He was carrying the burden of the whole world on his shoulders.
And now it was the end of him.
Was it the end of the world?
"Doctor Miller,” murmured the medical student, “That patient there, the schizophrenic… his brain-waves, what’s happening?”-- she had never seen anything like that before, not in medical school, or in any of her prior rotations.
The doctor sighed– so many people still had so much to learn. "It’s nothing we have to do anything about,” she replied. “Or at least, it’s nothing that we can do anything about. A lot of strange things happen in the brain during these seven minutes."
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Author's Note: This is the last episode - the ending and whole story is open! You can understand it the way you want!
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