Conclusion

It was unseasonably cold the day of the party. Luckily, I had not planned on getting into the pool, although I was a bit upset about possibly missing Veronika in her bathing suit. My mom had me help with the banana pudding, and my brothers were making hamburger patties. Somewhere between slicing the bananas and layering the Nilla wafers, I found myself having easy conversation with my mom. We talked about school, and how I had learned to tolerate it. She asked me if I had any thoughts on college, and I told her that I had not thought about it, but I knew I wanted to get the hell out of this town. I think she was a little taken back by my use of “hell,” but did I guess she decided to let it slide. She asked me why I had been wearing makeup, and if I had taken any of her eyeliner. I hadn’t, but I don’t think she believed me. After a little while, we were laughing and talking like we were friends. The weird spell was broken when my brothers got into an argument over if the raw meat looked more like brains or intestines. I personally thought that it looked like the inside of a stomach, but I didn’t want to interject.

The rest of the day passed without consequence. My mom was frantically running around the house making every thing look perfect. She gave up on enlisting anyone else’s help after my dad hung a sign slightly askew on the living room wall. I spent most of the day in my room trying on different clothes. I had a feeling this was not quite typical for boys my age, but I needed to look good tonight. I settled on a plain white t-shirt and jeans (which I had gotten new, but spent three hours making them look well worn). After putting on enough eyeliner to look a little bit like David Bowie, it was time for the party. I headed to the back yard, took a seat, and pretended to read a book. I needed to look like I was not interested when Veronika showed up with her family.

When she did arrive, I had been staring at the same page for almost thirty minutes. I would not go so far to say that she did not know I was there- it was my house, after all. I think she must have just been distracted, because she didn’t speak to me. For the entire evening. I gave it till 9:30 and headed upstairs to my room. I fell asleep about 2 hours later, and never woke up.
I slipped into death quite apathetically. No fighting, no protests, no thoughts about the life I was losing. I suppose I would have liked to go in a more dramatic way, to offer some contrast to the monotony of my existence (maybe a car accident, head trauma, or a gunshot?). But that was it. I died in my bed, a virginal 16 year old David Bowie look alike in fifty dollar jeans.





*Note.* I thought long and hard about how to kill this kid. It just did not seem right to do anything too dramatic, because his life was so simple...and, like most of us, boring. It really depressed me this week, and I didn't publish the conclusion for a while, because I was sad about the state of his life. After thinking though, this was the absolute right way to tie it all up.