Living Dead, Offer Reish [classic novels for teens .TXT] 📗

I assure you that it was a beautiful ring that she couldn't have been reluctant to be seen wearing, and even if she was its symbolic value alone should've warranted never removing it.

"Why aren't you wearing the ring?" I said on the bitter evening in which I'd first realized it. She'd removed the ring! It took me a few moments to comprehend the implications of it. She was telling the world: I will not marry him!

"What ring?" She asked, squinting with about as perplexed an expression as is humanly possible. But I wasn't the gullible man I'd used to be, a change I owed to her.

"The ring", I repeated in a rasp, wondering if the finality of her action was indeed as unquestionable as I thought it was. It took her a while to follow my thoughts (or to come up with an answer).

"Oh, the ring you bought. I keep it for special occasions. Why do you suddenly ask?" She wondered. But how could she be so foolish? It was so unlike her to act rashly, and yet here she'd admitted it: she'd taken it off. Have you ever heard of a woman that keeps her engagement ring locked in a drawer, saving it for special occasions? That would defy the very purpose of an engagement ring, would it not?

I was too weak to push on any further. Lacking the fire I'd had when pursuing the man with the tattoo on his forehead, I simply turned from her and left.

From then until now nothing has changed on my part. Lila seems to have forgiven herself and moved on, believing our love is strong enough to prevail. I believe it's hanging by a thread, like an old man clinging to life with the constant aid of manmade machines, never to be weaned. Such a life is an artificial one prolonged for no other reason than the lack of the courage needed to terminate it and cope with death. Our love is the same, artificially held together when it's not meant to survive and causing more pain than pleasure. It's not real love, and any love that isn't real is far worse than no love at all. Not only my love but my life is the old man's life, but I don't fear to face death.

 

 

Fated

 

I hope sincerely that the light in which you see me has changed since I first called out for your help. I don't presume to have convinced you already to support my intention of ending my life, but perhaps that I'm a profoundly afflicted, unfortunate man who has suffered more than his fair share and is entitled to greater sympathy than the next man. That certain measures that you would find extreme for yourself aren't so for me and may even be requisite in order to cure my despair.

But perhaps this isn't yet the time to ask you to revise your views. If I'm disagreeably persistent it's surely the lawyerly side of me speaking, and as a lawyer is by nature disagreeable to many surely you can bear with me with just an ounce more of patience. For you will presently learn that my troubles with Lila, excruciating though they were (and are), weren't the first to be unjustly cast upon me, nor were they the only ones that could tear a healthy heart apart. In fact, I'm quite certain that few (if any) are the men alive who've been subjected to the kind of combined injustices you will soon learn I've undergone. Let us go on, then.

It wasn't two months before my affairs with Lila began to deteriorate that my younger brother, Ross, met his terrible fate.

Ross was three years younger than I, though judging by his strong penchant for mischief one would think him to be half my age. In my heart there resides nothing but love for him and profound grief for his fate, but these shouldn't change my observation of the objective fact that he was a boy who'd misused his fine abilities and ample resources. He was never as talented as I was and was never previewed to have the bright future which acquaintances of the family liked to ascribe to me. (Which one of us will have turned out to be the more miserable it remains to be seen). He had decent potential but zero motivation and was easily distracted from the more important things in life by whimsical desires and the promise of momentary pleasures. He had many friends, mostly temporary, and a certain personal charm that allowed him to often get his way with the girls. He tortured his body with a constant flow of poisonous materials, which despite his frequent attempts at working out and growing out of his lanky figure and weak stature prevented his body from developing. And still he was quite a handsome guy with fair hair and expressive features. With just a glance at his dark eyes you could guess his mood and the amount of festivities he'd had lately (the two were usually closely linked). He dressed well and more often than not looked at his best. He mingled well and could choose which social circle to integrate with, but he usually chose unwisely and got involved with many questionable characters. We didn't know what he did in his spare time (which was most of his time), but it was almost a certainty that he engaged in unlawful activities. His future was so thickly wreathed in the smoke of the substances he smoked that nobody, least of all he, could at any time whatsoever tell you where he would be or what he would be doing the following month.

But there was one thing that weighed against all his flaws and some would say outweighed them. It's not uncommon for the youngest sibling to receive the greater part of his parents' affection and attention; I believe this holds true even more when he's in need of such special consideration due to lack of independence and poor choice-making. Little does it matter if an older sibling is neglected and almost openly shown to be the least favorite as long as he's trusted to cope well with the unfair treatment. Indeed anyone who'd ever visited the family from the time we were children until Ross's untimely death knew that he was the preferred son. If there is a certain total amount of love that parents can give their children (it's claimed that a mother's love knows no bounds, but if that's the case, why not love both her sons limitlessly?), then Ross received two thirds of the love, I the remaining third. This isn't to say that either mother or father had ever neglected me or shown me any less care than a son is due, but that they knew as well as I that Ross's shadow constantly hung over me. It became an element of reality, as natural and unchangeable as my own shadow following me.

This was all very well; a very natural setting in which I was assigned the least favorable position, but there was one additional element that rendered it far more upsetting than it ought to have been: the person who was most conscious and supportive of the discrimination between us was Ross. He enjoyed his favorable treatment and used it to his benefit whenever a dispute arose between us in which parental intervention could be effective. He never hesitated to admit that mother and father's preference for him was based on no logical reasons and was even unjustified, and still he would proudly and aggressively take advantage of it whenever the chance loomed. Never hesitate to seize an opportunity, he used to say. A man with a God-given talent doesn't search for a reason to use or develop that talent though he doesn't deserve it any more than anyone else; in the same way he made the most of his own talent for winning our parents' greater consideration. Not once in my memory had I prevailed in an argument or struggle between us in which mom or dad had intervened. You can imagine how frustrating this can be for a child. Children have trouble making concessions even in order to serve justice; let alone when they support injustice against them. Things were no better when puberty had struck, in which period friends often seemed like foes. The hate I sometimes harbored toward Ross and my parents in my teenage years due to what I used to call their conspiracy against me was deeper than any dislike I'd ever felt toward anyone. One would think that such petty rivalries and unhealthy ill-will be allayed and forgotten by the onset of adulthood, but this perceived rule, if correct for most families, didn't apply to ours. I see things through a clearer lens now than I did fifteen, twenty or thirty years ago. But through this clarity I realize the objective damage my brother's conduct, and my parents' pampering of him, did to our family. Yes, I was perhaps the principal victim, but it was to his detriment as well. And since parents live vicariously through their children more than they live on their own, undoubtedly they suffered greatly for it too. I suspected that everyone knew it and there was no dispute about these grave consequences, and yet nothing was ever done to change it. Nothing, until that cold rainy night in which the vicious cycle was severed in what must've been just about the only way it could happen.

It shouldn't come as a total surprise if you've been at all attentive until this point, that my memory of that night is quite a blur. Just as one's vision would be impaired by the large, heavy raindrops that plummeted thickly to the ground, so is my memory obfuscated by- well, I should be a happy man if I knew the cause for the weakening of my once knife-sharp memory. But in any case nothing of importance evades me.

It was a late evening hour in which mother and father had already turned in after an especially unsettling day that had taken its toll on all of us but my brother. It was something about my suspicion that he was spending time with certain questionable fellows who were known in our neighborhood to be selective about the laws they respected. Surely you can understand my concerns in the matter: admittedly a man shouldn't be judged by the actions of his cohorts, but I was convinced that once Ross got involved with such characters the way to unbridled delinquency wouldn't be long. The conclusion of the argument was, of course, that he shouldn't be criticized for his choice of friends and for his belief in people's (specifically his lawbreaking friends') ability to change. An additional resolution was that I was unsatisfied with my own social condition and therefore chose to attack my brother's out of envy for his social finesse. Shortly after the matter had been settled to the satisfaction of everyone but me, mother and father went to bed while I went out to calm myself. I ended up taking a drive that led me to some place I've no recollection of whatsoever. My mind must've still been occupied with the frustrating dispute and my brother's complacent denial of my claims; in any case I returned to the house with the intention of picking up some things mother had left for me and, preferably without meeting any of the three before I left, most of all my brother, drive home to my fiancée. In my fury before that I must've left the door unlocked, as it stood ajar when I returned though there was nobody outside or even downstairs. The bedrooms were located on the second floor, and the complete darkness in the house implied that all had gone to bed.

Turning the doorstep light on, I noticed the sign of boot marks on the floor leading to the stairway. Oddly the marks seemed to match