Alone

A young man faces death with confidence.

 

Alone

 

Ten years since they cut him from his beloved Camaro, ten years since he felt the burning sensation in his back as his car broke apart, ten years since he heard them pronounce him dead, twice, nine years since he beat the odds and wheelchaired his way out of the rehab center to return home.

            Return home, that was a joke! The home he knew was foreign to him. A veritable minefield of obstacles for him to negotiate, cabinets he could not use, sinks he could not reach. Paralyzed from the neck down with very little use of his arms, the world he loved was now hostile and unforgiving. 

            Settling into his job was not easy either. They had to make the job suitable to him, the Americans with Disabilities Act forced them to make his work space accessible. Not that it mattered. Within two days they fired him because he had to have an assistant with him at all times. The security required for his work was far too restrictive for an assistant. They found a way to deny him his job. Escorted from the building by two security guards no less. Humiliating to the nth degree!

            As he finally made it home that day, the last straw fell onto the camel’s back. His fiancé was present with a moving van, and three muscular men to carry her stuff. She met him at the door, red-faced as a child caught in the act of something wrong.   She stammered a few lines about how hard it was for her to live with him in his condition. 

            She closed the door without as much as a goodbye kiss and was gone. Stunned, he rolled through the house, trying to decide where to go next. He knew he had to make some calls, disability insurance, unemployment compensation, severance pay and other departure details had to be handled.

            He felt it coming, and moved to avoid the first wave of the darkness, yet in his present state, it easily overwhelmed him, pinning him against the corner. He poured a tall glass of bourbon and started down the road to self-destruction. If only he had the gun his father wanted him to inherit, but luck did not pan out for him there either.

            For the next months, he simply drank his meals. He had visitors, friends from work, church, the neighborhood and the social workers all tried to help as the depression drug him further into the pit.

            The once vibrant and intelligent man he was faded slowly until all that was left was a shell of his former self. He did not recognize the face in the mirror staring back at him. He looked worse than a ghost and felt nothing. His paralysis left him with little to no sensation of pain in his body, so his only pain was from within, and how his inside screamed in agony!

            All his talent gone in one careless moment, caused by one heartless and unfeeling person who drank too much, slamming into his car without a care in the world and never paying attention to the aftermath of the accident.

            He spiraled downward into the pit of depression, now at a loss for reason. They put him in the home, hoping a structured life there might help. He faded even farther into the blackness of despair.  No more booze to take away his inward pain, he had no relief. He found that he could fake internal pains easily and they had to take his word for this. His paralysis affected his functions, all of them, so he found it easy to manipulate the system and get the good stuff prescribed for pain. 

            Those who cared for him stopped coming to visit. His mind destroyed by alcohol and now drugs, the whole person he had been was gone. The fog of depression never lifted from his life, and now on the anniversary of his accident, he found a way to end the accident that started so many years ago.

            For weeks he stashed half his pain pills. He had enough to do the trick now. Carefully he worked the pills into his mouth. This took more effort than he thought considering the pills didn’t weigh much, but with his limited strength, they may as well weighed a hundred pounds each. 

            With the full overdose safely in his mouth, he slowly crushed the pills beneath his teeth, feeling the bitterness of each pill as they rushed him headlong into a full sleep from which he would never awake.

            As his consciousness left him, he saw the crash once more, and the voices, the efforts to save his life, and the careless driver who now killed him. As he swam through the life that was once his, he started thinking he might have made a mistake. No light awaited him, only the pain he had never felt. Could it be real, or had his depressed mind once again made him dream this end?

            His eyes popped open as the engine of his Camaro once again roared to life, and he was off on his date with destiny.

Reviews

[DarkAngelWriter]

Omgosh. You did a great job by catching my attention and an even better job at holding it! Great work!

[Kaij aka the Crit B***h]

Merry Meet.

Warning: Sarcasm ahead. If you don't like what I have to say, that isn't my problem. You don't have to listen to a word that I say. You're the author, I'm the low-life reviewer. I can't tell you what to do, only point out things that I would change.

Let's begin.

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1.) Your first paragraph is good. It grabs the attention like it's supposed to do. I only have one things to say on it, though, that could make it flow better. Rather than having all of those commas making such a huge sentence, put periods in. So it should read like this and so on:

--> Ten years since they cut him from his beloved Camaro. Ten years since he felt the burning sensation in his back as his car broke apart. Ten years...

2.) Adverbs are something you don't want to use in your story if they aren't necessary. For the most part, they aren't, so I'd advise you to take them out before they take over. There's too many of them out in the world, they're becoming redundant. Most editors will frown and move onto something else if you have too many in a book. Let alone a chapter.

Next are conjunctions. They are used to join two pieces together, not to start a sentence. The only exception that can be made is if someone's talking. That's just how we talk, I suppose.

Lazy Voice is another thing. Otherwise known as passive voice. Don't use it unless it's needed. It's part of that whole "show, don't tell" thing everyone and their mom is saying these days. The reader wants to be in with your story, not on the sideline being coached about what just happened. Let us see what's going on with out eyes.

9 Adverbs.
2 Conjunctions at the start of a sentence.
5 Passive Voice.

I'll be the first to say that isn't bad at all. I've read a chapter that had over thirty adverbs, tons of passive voice in the sentences and more than enough conjunctions at the start of a sentence. This is something to dwell on, though. I'll leave it up to you, the author, to find them.

3.) They had to make the job suitable to him, the Americans with Disabilities Act forced them to make his work space accessible to him.

To him, to him. I noticed that part right away. It's not aways a good idea to put the same words so close together like this. Instead, I'd erase the last "to him" because I don't think it's needed.

4.) Humiliating to the [ninth] degree!

5.) ...in the act of something immoral[,] and stammered a few lines about...

6.) ...tried to help as the depression [dragged] him deeper into the pit.

I didn't think you needed "deeper and deeper" in the end, so I took one of them out.

7.) He fell deeper and deeper, now at a loss for reason.

You're repeating the deeper and deeper part now. Stop that. Come up with a new line.

8.) Those who cared for him soon stopped coming to visit.

Take out "soon", it's superfluous.

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Interesting. I liked the story, sort of sad in a way, but he could've made a good life for himself if he wanted to. The ending was pretty nifty though. A well-done story. Thanks for sharing it.

Until next time.