The Last Word

Terminal.

Six months ago, terminal had a very different meaning for Violet Grey. An airport terminal, for when she, on her father's dime, went on luxurious vacations with her friends. Friends that were, she noted bitterly, nowhere to be seen now.

Terminal had a whole new meaning now.

It was likely the smoking. Maybe hereditary. Maybe some of the designer drugs had something to do with it. There was a lot of medical jargon that she didn't understand, didn't need to understand really, given the cancer's rapid progression. The long and short of it was that no amount of money or flown in surgeons and experts was going to do anything but make Violet's last few days more comfortable.

But medication didn't make her comfortable. Nor did a brand new laptop or tv. Nor did specialty meals. What Violet wanted was a mother or father who would stay with her in her waning hours, or a friend to hold her hand as her vision blurred or her body rebelled and yearned for release…

But Violet had no friends. Violet had a girl-posse, a gang of females who helped her verbally tear down anyone they held in distaste, and when it became apparent she was no longer able to take them on Caribbean cruises or ski trips they abandoned her.

Oh, her father had hired the finest doctors to take care of her. To tend to her in his place. Her mother was in rehab, again, for overindulgence of wine. Of designer drugs. Of sex with male escorts, take your pick. In the end, she was alone, a patient who, it was clear in the eyes of the nurses and doctors, had earned her way to an early grave with chain smoking and drug use.

It had been a blast, she had to admit. She had eschewed college in favor of partying and vacations and shopping trips, her father had allotted her extra recreational money once she had promised to quit the ecstasy raves- an attempt to make sure she didn't wind up like her mother- so she only really exerted herself in the name of leisure.

But now, she thought, as the final hours drew nearer and nearer, and waddling to the bathroom became bedpans, she really, really wished that one of the boys she had taken to bed would at least checked up on her. That her friends would send her a card. Someone stopping in to say hello would be nice. Anyone at all, someone to let her know she wasn't forgotten completely…

There was a knock at the door. "Ms. Grey, you have a visitor."

Her initial instinct was to check her hair, but that faded as she remembered she was bald to a sheen- chemo had seen to that. Trying to appear as dignified as possible, she sat up straight…

In walked a man arguably as bald as her, save for one defiant strand of hair at his front. Her initial thought was that it was a sympathetic gesture from some admirer- but the face didn't resemble anyone she'd dated.

It took her a few seconds to realize that Charlie Brown had become quite the looker. He looked well, if a bit colder. The light in his eyes had dimmed a little than she remembered. His posture was more confident. And the look he gave her now had not one wit of pity to it. It was most definitely Charlie Brown who had walked into her room, but not the one she knew. Slimmer, wearing a jacket fitting the colder months of winter they were headed into, holding a plastic bag with something rectangular and large inside.

The last time she'd seen him, he was graduating- barely- from high school. It had been a hard time for him- she and the teachers had seen to that. Routinely she would pay boyfriends or her girl posse to harass and torment him at every opportunity. Several times his locker had been broken into, projects destroyed or hurled in the toilet. He had once desperately salvaged what he could of an essay for his science class, only for the teacher to join in the jeers, claiming such a 'shitty' job deserved an F.

Her teasing- everyone's teasing- of Charlie had been relentless. It became a running joke among teachers to fail him for increasingly stupid reasons, simply because it was agreed someone like Charlie deserved to fail. It had all culminated in a lawsuit that resulted in him getting a minimal degree and an undisclosed settlement. The look on his face as he left the graduation ceremony had been of bitterness and hurt, his final act was to throw his cap and gown in the trash.

"What the fuck do you want?" Violet snapped. Remorse struck her for but a moment- she had it set in her mind that she was light years above Charlie Failure Brown in terms of class and intellect, and so help her, she would stay that way to the end.

Charlie gave her a cool look. "Just wanted to see you." He said it causally, as one might to defuse the situation, but there was a hidden malice in the words. He wanted to see her, yes.

See her broken. See her fallen.

"I can't tell you how flattered I am you took time out of dumpster diving to see me." Violet retorted.

Schadenfraude turned to frustration when her barbs failed to elicit any pained response.

Charlie tilted his head slightly. "I wanted to ask you something. Why?"

Violet waited a moment for additional words that didn't come. "…why what?"

"Why did you treat me like garbage? Why did you get other people to treat me like garbage?"

Violet gave him an incredulous look for almost a minute before it struck her that he really didn't understand.

"Because you were-" she corrected herself- "-are garbage! You fail at everything! Baseball! Life! Dating! School! You deserved everything we gave you and more!"

Charlie snorted. "So I deserved to have my homework and projects stolen."

Violet rolled her eyes. "Duh, yes."

"I deserved to be beaten up every week."

"Of course!"

"I deserved for the entire freaking school staff to turn on me and flunk me automatically for every test just because everyone thought it was funny?"

"Yes, you blockhead, yes! You deserve to stay at the bottom! You should be in this bed! You should be the one with cancer!"

Charlie shrugged again. Her barbs did nothing. "But I didn't smoke a pack a week, Violet. You did."

Violet's eyes widened. "How did you know-"

"Oh, come on. You were a chain smoker in high school. You and your friends burned me with cigarettes more times than I can count." He tapped a place on his cheek. There were still several faint scars.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. "How the mighty have fallen", and all that. Well, the thing is, I had a blast doing everything I did- especially what I did to you, that was the best part. Watching you choke back bitch tears every day. Watching you try, fail, and laughing at you when you fell flat on your face!"

Nothing. He either didn't care or didn't feel anything anymore.

"I didn't really have any successes to my name before graduation." Charlie admitted. "But I got out of this town, went to college, and things got better. It's amazing what you can get done when everyone doesn't care about you, good or bad." He regarded her with a faint smile. "What have you done?"

"I, for your information, have dined in the finest restaurants, shopped in premium boutiques, last summer I went on my third cruise to-"

"I mean, what have you done with your life?" Charlie interrupted. "Have you learned anything? Found a hobby besides insulting people? Learned a language? Gone to college? Got a job?"

Violet searched and searched mentally, and came up empty handed. It had all been one party after another, really. She didn't have time to settle down.

"Well… what have you done?" she countered. The blockhead had probably got some throw-away degree in liberal arts that amounted to a job at the local McDonalds…

Charlie Brown smiled. "I'm glad you asked." He reached into the bag he'd brought, retrieving an object- a book. He offered it to her, and she snatched it away, reading the title.

Blockhead

The title was accompanied by a crude drawing of a miserable looking child with a cubic head.

"I started writing about my childhood as therapy. Then some professors suggested I write a book. Soon I had a publishing offer, and now I'm well past 100,000 copies sold. I start talking with an agent about the movie soon."

Violet looked up, horror struck. He hadn't. He couldn't have. There was no possible way failure-face blockhead dumbass Charlie Brown had succeeded…

"I didn't change names." Charlie's face grew cold again. "I figured everyone who helped make the book what it is deserved full credit. Especially you, Violet. I have a whole chapter devoted to what you and your friends put me through."

"You're lying." Violet snapped. "This is a trick to make me feel sorry for what I did, isn't it? Well, guess what, Failure-Face? It's not working. I'm not sorry."

"Sorry?" Charlie chuckled. "I didn't come here to make you feel sorry for me. I don't need you or anyone to feel sorry for me, anymore. I'm doing great! Don't believe me? Look me up on your laptop."

"Then why did you come here?" Violet asked.

Charlie paused for a moment, genuinely confused. "I'm… honestly not sure. I guess I wanted to give you the chance to apologize. You know, make peace before you die and have to explain yourself to God."

That was a low blow. He had to know someone in her position lived with the dread of what lay beyond the grave. There were two possibilities- something next, or nothing at all. The idea of cessation of existence was a terrible, cold elephant in the room she could not purge from her mind, but the idea of standing before something- god, goddess, the universal consciousness, or what have you held little more appeal. Reincarnation held no guarantee of the easy life she loved, and an afterlife…

A glimmer of hope struck her. "My dad donates to charities all the time. I'm covered."

Charlie, for the first time since he'd walked in, gave her a look of pity. "You honestly believe that, don't you?" It was a rhetorical question.

"All I'm saying is that, before it's too late, you want to get right with yourself and God. Not for my sake, or the sake of anyone else, but for yours, Violet. Because soon, you're going to have to explain why you did what you did to your life, to others, to me-"

"For the last fucking time-" she growled, grabbing the bedpan from beneath her sheets, filled with waste, "I did it because YOU DESERVED IT!"

Charlie dodged. Not that he really needed to, her aim was horribly off, the flung filth splashed all over her new TV as the bedpan cracked the screen, and the stench of waste and ozone filled the air as thousands of dollars of electronics became unsalvageable.

The halls had gone silent as doctors and nurses peered around the corner to see what was going on. Violet's heart felt like it was about to explode from fury, pain, or a combination of the two. The doctors had warned her that it was necessary she relax, but right now, after being lectured by the anthropomorphic personification of failure about repentance, relaxing was the last thing on her mind.

"You deserve to lose everything, forever." She hissed, clambering out of bed, dragging her iv post with her. "You deserve to die alone." She broke a vase of flowers over her beside table, advancing with a broken, jagged piece of pottery. If he was going to show up and mock her on her deathbed, then he deserved to die with her. "You deserve all of this, not me!"

She lunged, and her bare feet stepped in something slick as Charlie moved back towards the door…

Pain radiated through her back as something foul smelling seeped into her hospital gown, and she realized, with mounting horror and shame, that she'd slipped in her own waste.

She barely registered Charlie being pushed aside as doctors and nurses, disgust and revulsion evident in their faces, rushed in to help her up and clean her. All she could hear was her own sobs as she pushed away the doctors trying to help her up.

Through the tears, she saw Charlie walking out the door as a nurse helped her up. "You think this is fitting, don't you? You think I deserve this!" she hurled the accusation at his back as he turned down the hall.

He paused, turned back to her as nurses wiped her clean as best they could, bearing a blank, champion poker face expression.

"It is, and you do. Goodbye, Violet."

…

"Blockhead, the story of a childhood overshadowed by constant bullying from both peers and authority figures, continues to soar in sales. Part autobiography, part decrying of the acceptance of bullying in schools, the story of Charlie Brown is slated to hit the big screen in early summer next year."

"While several libel lawsuits have been attempted against Mr. Brown, the most recent of which was by Martin Grey of Grey Industries in retaliation for his recently deceased daughter's portrayal in the book, proponents of the blockbuster novel have dismissed such lawsuits as frivolous. Linus Van Pelt, longtime friend of Charlie Brown, was quoted as saying "If the book misrepresents anyone, it is because Charlie had the uncommon decency to leave out acts of malice against him either out of kindness, or because he understands his audience cannot possibly believe humanity is capable of such cruelty to one person."

"Linus Van Pelt confirmed for this station that chapter six's recounting of Halloweens where Charlie Brown received nothing but rocks were not, contrary to what critics have suggested, fabricated in any way whatsoever."