Jonnie put the bottle down. It's been three days since he saw the light of day or the fresh air of night. Just thinking to himself that the parties over and he's still here. It's just like his life he stands with his hands above his head wondering where everyone is. He's 46 now and all of the people that were there when he was younger are now gone. Tunnel vision type loneliness had taken over, the kind you feel when your options shrink to nothing but nothing never quite comes like a never-ending nightmare. Jonnie is a drunk, a bottom of the barrel drunk, one of those people you see on the street and wonder why or how that could have happened to someone. Most people don't care. In fact nobody did.
He walks to the bath room in his dilapidated apt. through the junk and garbage he never had the energy or the will to throw away. In the bath room there's a dirty sink and a tub that looks as if it has never been washed. He looks into the mirror and finds an old man with yellowing eyes and deep wrinkles. Not wondering what happened but knowing what happened with every drink he's ever had every cigarette he's ever had. Regret was a constant companion the only thing he could ever count on to be there always. He looks down and an even deeper feeling of remorse, regret, and pain overtook him like a snake wound around his neck taking his breath and life.
Johnnie wanted to give up he wanted to stop the pain that caused so much loss; loss off time, loss of soul, loss off love. He sat down in a corner of the bath room crying, screaming silently the kind of scream that makes no sound but was louder inside him-self than any noise anyone had ever heard. He lay on his side and kept crying until he was so exhausted he slept and slept some more. Jonnie woke. He didn't know how long he has been asleep. The crying and the screaming were like a let off of steam, a momentary relief, which normally lasted just long enough for him to go and get drunk again. This time was different. He saw the words burned into his arm he couldn't remember when he did it but there they were “I was.� Knowing exactly what that meant and feeling a sense of purpose, Jonnie whispered “I want to die.�
Jonnie stood up and decided to take his death to the world. He wanted to shock people to give a little pain back to the world that turned its back on him so long ago. He wanted to jump off a building to leave the shocking remains in the middle of busy sidewalk. Perhaps he should hurt people but then he thought, “There are people all over just like me, and I couldn't do that to them.� “Why add more pain to the world I'll keep this to myself and leave the mark on my arm as my note.�
But there wasn't time for planning he couldn't wait. He remembered the Iowa farm he grew up on, and the blue night he used to walk though, and he remembered his mother, and he started crying. Johnnie stood up, he started screaming; I won't give up, I won't give up, don't let me give up, I won't give up, please help me, and spun around to the window and he saw his mother there with her arms open and he ran to her, and he ran to her through the 3rd story window and fell to the alley below. Jonnie was dying now, and he was relieved, and there was darkness.
