Last Regrets

Last Regrets
By Shane Waldo

Today I broke all my mirrors. I can't exactly explain why, or well I
guess I can. I couldn't stand to look any more. I hate myself, hate
what I have become, a monster of sorts. So I broke them, every one of
them. Like I said, I couldn't handle it, seeing me, the way they must
see me. No I am not insane. Why, I believe Dali' said it best- I am not
a mad man because I am not mad. But I couldn't stand it. I would be
washing up, after eating, before eating, after outside, after opening
the mail and see my ghastly apparition of a face staring back at me
with accusing eyes. I have to use that womanly Ivory soap crap or my
hands crack and bleed from over washing. Oh, God how I hate blood.
There wasn't any blood when I broke them, not yet at least. But I no
longer have to see that face, the face of a man whom fell in the mud
while he screamed for help as if his ass was on fire and his head was
catching. All the while the surrounding people laughing and pointing
with their fingers, condemning with their eyes. There are a hundred
other reasons why I don't want to see myself, most of them make me want
to cry in big childish waves but no, I wont cry, not for them. Not ever
again.

The Choice.

Have I told you yet? Ha, I guess not. I should know. I am not stupid.
Stupid is not knowing that the outside air has millions of germs,
billions of viruses, all waiting to infest me; invade me like an alien
race with their pointy prodding microscopic bodies. Bursting my cells,
multiplying, seeding. No that is not mad, therefore I am not a mad man.
But I have to quit ranting and go back to what this calamity I write
now mainly deals. The Choice.

Yesterday I was walking to work. My handkerchief over my mouth
inhaling the pungent odor of the disinfectants I regularly swab it
with. Just making my way to my job. I am the curator at the downtown
gallery. It is a wonderful job; working with old, stagnate things
behind glass and in sterile white rooms. Clean as a whistle. So I was
walking to work as I began before I so rudely interrupted myself. I
usually take the deserted ally ways, as to try and stop the accidental
bumpings and so on. One time a lovely lady blew snot on the sleeve of
my overcoat. I screamed in terror as I threw it to the ground. Shedding
the things, which no doubt crawled around there now. Why don't I take
the cab you might be thinking, no sir? People sweat and sneeze and even
have sex in the back seats of cabs. Not thank you. As I was walking
through the alley I heard an odd thing. A dumpster, one of the big
smelly green ones with graphite all over it, was crying. What an odd
thing I thought as I dared to step a reluctant step closer, cautiously
approaching. I recognized the crying, a small child, no an infant. What
kind of person would leave an infant in a dumpster with the temperature
below freezing no less, what kind indeed. I wanted to go to it you see,
to rescue the little one but every step I took closer to the dumpster
just brought it back along with sudden pains like steel cables
tightening around my chest. I stood there trying to grasp my breath
with the cold wind whipping through my hair, invading into my coat. I
thought about it.

When I was five my parents both worked; I went to day-care during the
day. It was a lot of fun in general, in those days I was able to sit
next to my fellow man without shaking and convulsing or share my
Kool-Aid and gram crackers without fits of vomiting. It happened with
the speed and suddenness that all life-changing events do. Rarely do
people expect things such as losing a close realities or that cute girl
in class saying she would go with you to the dance as you just stood
there like she slapped you. Some of the other kids and me were in back
of the church in which the preschool resided. We were playing kick the
ball. Well, it was sunny, hot and invigorating, and I was up to bat a
cute girl eying me all the way. I had seen her before looking at me
that way and thought if things went well by the time school came around
next year maybe I could be her boyfriend, maybe even kiss. I wanted to
impress her a great deal you see, kick the stuffing from the ball. I
stood back awaiting my chance to astound her nearing. The pitcher gave
me a bouncer and I kicked it as hard as I could. I felt the hot summer
sun on my face and had to squint my eyes to see where the ball went. It
sailed over the outfielders, a red flying globe but my shoe. My shoe
flew from my foot and hit Jimmy, the playground bully, right in the
back of the head. Oh, he was pissed.

Jimmy, large for his age with dark hair and squinty slits for eyes,
and his two friends that were more adequately sized for five to ten
year olds, grabbed me throwing me to the ground. The Aid Lady must have
been away because she didn't come until I started screaming, later that
was. Jimmy and his two lackeys took turns kicking me. My ribs caved in,
the wind escaping me in big negated breaths. I would try my best to
gulp it back in, only to be hit again. Not a single kid tried to help
me. They just looked at me with the sun glinting off their dead silver
dollar eyes, watching. After their feet got sore from kicking me Jimmy
wanted to finish me off in a suiting manner. While his two friends held
me down Jimmy grabbed a nearby dog turd and crammed it in my mouth. It
was still slightly damp, recently released if you will. Jimmy punched
me and I swallowed a good deal of it. It was grainy, smelly and I, for
the first time I can clearly recall, vomited. I threw it up all over
him and his friends. Now he was pissed royally. They proceeded to use
their fists on my face, back and neck as I retreated into a fetal
positing, smelling how horrid my own breath was in the small safe place
between my knees. So there I was, kicked at, forced to eat shit and
being pummeled by three larger, older boys yet not a single one of
them, those on-looking children, lifted a finger. No one called for the
Aid Lady. No one helped. They just watched and watched and watched.
That is when I began to scream.

The Aid Lady came releasing me from my tormenters. The three kids were
kicked out of the day care. My parents tried with no success to sue
them and their parents. I never went back to that place again. Not in
actuality but my mind kept returning. To the beating that hurt for
weeks and that dog crap, ho God, it gave me worms. They came out of me
in oily stringy clumps but I, I, I don't want to think about that any
more, back to yesterday.

There I was standing by this abandoned baby in a dumpster, about to
vomit at the smell, the buzzing flies, the look of all that spattered
food. I dropped to my knees and started to cry in big sobbing baby
blubbering gasps. Am I so screwed up that I cant save an infant? An
innocent child; I stood up determined to overcome my fears and save the
child. I looked in and saw the baby, wrapped in a blanket from the
hospital. It was turning and giggling and spitting. Then it would cry
out again for a mother that would never come. That is when a fly landed
on my cheek. I doubled over and vomited on the cold blacktop. As I did
it I thought of maggots and flies and eggs and bacteria. Then I ran
like a coward back to the safe haven of my medically sterile apartment.
When I got home I threw my wretched clothing down the incinerator shoot
and called the police to report what I had seen.

I sat down later that night to watch the news at nine. Then I saw the
repercussions my choice made. The fucking choice! The baby abandoned in
a dumpster was the first story. The baby had frozen to death; the
police didn't make it in time. Some one had called in and told the
police where to find the infant and they had asked the obvious
question. Why? Why hadn't the person done something else? Picked up the
baby and taken it to the nearest hospital. I cried again and slept a
thin and dreamless sleep until a few hours ago.

At least I don't have to look at myself. No, I broke all my mirrors.
Now I don't have to see, that I am a coward. So here I sit thinking
about those children behind the day-care and how they just watched.
Watched with their pallid expressions of awe. Not one of them helped
me, how I hated them. How I still hate them. Now I must hate
myself.

I am looking across the room into my bathroom. I think I am going to
draw myself a hot bath. I think I am going to have a look at myself one
last time, in a small shard of that broken mirror. In my tub, the
scalding steaming water drawn with this put nicely in a perpendicular
fashion on my dresser. Oh, God how I hate blood.