disclaimer: nothing belongs to me

The people below you aren't looking up.

Maybe that's some nice extended metaphor for your existence. They're all going about their daily life, worrying about trivial things, but none of them are looking up at the scrawny teen boy, standing on the edge.

Your toes are nearly over the precipice, if you were to lean forward you'd just fall. And that's what you intend to do.

Because you've got nothing left to live for. There was a time when you were happy. That was when you were still Ray. Ray, with a girlfriend named Jan, Ray, holding his mother together. Ray, boy who didn't have many friends but still liked by everyone.

Now you're 47. 47, not yet shot down. You're on a permanent Walk, but somehow not yet shot down. Where have the soldiers gone? Why aren't they shooting at you, sending you warnings that your days are numbered?

All your friends are shot down, blood and bones on the road. And now you're alive, and that has to be fixed. If you aren't going to be shot down, if all the authorities who set the ends and beginnings have gone away, you have to end it yourself. You, 47, hate yourself for being alive, at the time.

Ray wouldn't have. Ray would have sought comfort in his family and his girlfriend, but you spend your days by yourself, staring at the numbers you've put up on your wall. Those are your only friends left. Sometimes you'd just look at them for hours on end, wondering why 61 had had to die. It was a question that had hung in your mind for so, so long. Why? Why death? Why couldn't they have just been sent away?

Why did it have to end permanently? It's funny, because that's what you're going to do now. End.

You're still on the Walk, and you're the only one walking. And that's the most tragic thing, really. You can't have a Long Walk with only one Walker. You've just got to end it, end the whole damn business.

You could've gotten anything from The Major, and you requested paper numbers and a graveyard. The Major had looked at you with a confused expression and asked why, and you had begun to cry.

You haven't stopped crying since then. There's always the hot, sticky feeling of tears on your skin, even if they aren't flowing out of your sore eyes. They'll never really leave you think. You'll always be crying, for the rest of the monotonous years you live.

And that's why death sounded like such a sweet option. You'd never feel a thing, just a little bit of pain and then permanent sleep. Sleep. Another thing you've been missing. You've spent so many nights kept awake by sobs shaking your body and nightmares twisting your thoughts into something unrecognizable.

There are no nightmares when you're dead, right? It's just like falling asleep, but more permanent. In this moment, you wish more than anything that someone were there to sing you to sleep and wrap their arms around you and tell you that it's alright. But the person you'd want to do that is too far gone, now.

61. 61, with his dark hair and angry humor. 61, the one who sat down. Beautiful, wonderful, angry, suicidal 61. That's all that's really on your mind. If you've ever felt any idea of love, then it's for 61.

You smile at the thought of 61, and then wonder if you really are queer. Does it really matter, now? You can picture your mother being disgusted at the idea, but you don't really care anymore. Because you've come to terms with the fact that you're in love with 61, that that boy is the only person who really matters to you anymore.

Funny how the people who matter the most are the ones shot and killed. Huh. Is that always how life works? The people you love you end up losing, and the ones who don't really matter at all stay alive.

Jan matters, sure. She's sweet. She used to be enough for you, but now somehow her arms aren't the ones you want to feel around you. And she really doesn't understand. The hours she spent sitting beside you trying to understand what you saw in those numbers were all worthless.

She has no idea about anything, she just sees paper. You see dead boys, kids you once knew with their intestines strewn about on concrete and their eyes wide open in a last moment of fear.

It was like the purgatory to this hell. This never-ending cycle of crying and screaming and the worst part of it is remembering and understanding and knowing that they're all gone and you'll never see them again and god, why do you do this to yourself?

The beautiful, indigo Maine sky is filled with stars in front of you. You have a faint memory of people screaming that number, wanting you to win. Supporting this slaughter that was the Long Walk.

This is a good night to die, you think The sky's beautiful, the wind is blowing, and it's cold but not too cold. Weather, oh, goddamn weather, suddenly that brings tears to your eyes as you imagine an angry, blonde boy screaming curses while clenching his stomach from the pain of a bullet in it.

You wonder how it would have been if that had been the winner. If you'd bought your ticket earlier on, you and 61 together. If that one moment when you looked into the barrel of the gun and the eyes of a soldier he'd really shot you.

You obviously would've preferred that, otherwise you wouldn't be here, ready to just die. Huh, why don't you just do it already?

It won't hurt, you tell yourself. Death isn't painful, it's only a moment of pain and then pure, sweet sleep.

But what if you fail? What if when you jump, someone catches you or your feet catch on a clothesline or when you hit the ground, somehow you stay alive and in pure agony? You almost laugh, this is almost like worrying about the beginning of a Long Walk.

It'll be easy, just like when you used to jump off of bales of hay in the barns. That was fun, wasn't it? Back when you were Raymond Davis Garraty, a boy whose life wasn't as empty as yours?

You take a deep breath, smelling the sweet, sweet air for what might be the last time. Should you jump? Or just fall forward?

Hey, Pete. If you're out there somewhere, I'm going to see you now. Maybe. Is there a heaven? Is there a God?

You don't want to contemplate that, it's too complex for right now. You look down once again, the streets are emptying, which is natural, since it's four in the morning. The sun is beginning to peek through the darkness of the night sky, and you want to die under the starry sky.

So you lean forward, your heels over the edge, and you fall. The air is rushing past your body, your hair blowing behind you.
God, this is exhilarating.

And then it just ends. You feel a trickle of warm blood on your face, although it's quickly cooled by the air, and then it's as though you've closed your eyes.

You open them, and there in front of you is Pete McVries. Number 61. He looks cleaner, healthier, although the scar is still there on his cheek.

"Ray...Ray...you didn't?"

"I did," you say.

"Ray, you could've lived a great life."

"I didn't want it," you respond, and McVries sighs as though this is some irritating habit you've got. But he takes you in his arms like you're a child and plants a kiss on your lips. It's a relieved kiss, but also somehow a sad one.

"Damn, Ray. I didn't think it'd be like this. But I'm glad it is, I s'pose."

Suddenly you're Ray again, no more of that 47 bullshit. You're Ray Garraty, and you're happy. You burrow your face into McVries' shoulder and say, "Me too, Pete. Me too."

this was originally in third person and it turned into second person i hate myself