Acceptance

There was no fanfare when Mike died; nobody even remotely batted an eye about it. When I screamed and shouted outside of his room for anyone to help me, I saw no people there, not even anyone remotely curious about what I was crying about; I was desperate. I ended up calling 911 on my own, telling them what happened to my dear friend and that I found his mangling corpse hanging on the ceiling.

After a few minutes, the police officers arrived along with an ambulance, and they went along with their jobs to transport Mike's body into the morgue. After some more interviews and interrogations in the police station, a detective told me that I should go home before giving me the apparent news. Mike is already dead, the police do not need me anymore because they already have all that they needed. He tapped my back gently before telling me to go home and rest. I knew that he meant it well because when I looked at my reflection in a mirror inside of the questioning room, I realized that my face looked just as dead as Mike when I saw her corpse hanging on his ceiling. The officers are kind enough to give me a lift home, which I wanted to refuse, but the detective insisted that I should take his offer. I didn't argue anymore and allowed more of my tears to flow during the silent drive home in the police car.

After three days, I visited the hospital and found out that Mike has no immediate contacts other than me—no family, no other friends, and no other people who would care for his death. Apparently, he was already dead three days before I found his ghastly corpse amid the cold darkness of his room. The doctor even stressed that Mike should be thankful to me for so many reasons because if I didn't visit him at that time, he would have probably remained there until the only thing we could find is his skeleton dancing around his lonely room or someone would complain about the murky smell coming from his place. However, I couldn't even thank myself enough for that at all because I came way too late, three days too late. If only I came earlier, maybe things might have ended well for Mike. Perhaps it would have been better.

Oddly enough, when I went to the hospital, the doctors informed me that someone had paid for his hospital bill. At the time, I was too tired and broken to think about the person responsible for paying Mike's hospital bills along with his funeral. I just thought that maybe he has some kind of insurance or something. Nonetheless, I hated it; I was already counting all the money I had left and spent it on Mike's hospital bills and gave him the best funeral service the world has ever seen, but I couldn't even do such a small thing for him. I felt like I was about to throw up every time I think about this. I am disgusted with myself, for I couldn't even help him even after his life had flown to the other side.

I then posted Mike's obituary and everywhere I could to notify his family about his passing. In that obituary, I posted Mike's picture that we took when we last met each other in a bar along with another of his image when he was still in high school that I accidentally found in his Facebook albums while reminiscing the days when he was alive. I also wrote my contact information and where I planned to hold Mike's funeral there in hopes that one of his family members would notice it. I tried to do it so well; I posted it everywhere and did everything that I could to let everyone know that such a wonderful life once existed in this world, and now is the best time for them to let their love for him be known.

After another three days, the first day of the funeral finally commenced, and not even a single soul excluding me attended. I was beyond broken without a doubt, for I felt like the entirety of my body had stopped functioning well. I didn't feel like this when my mother died—this sort of loneliness and utter sadness coming from a pit forming deeply inside of my chest; I have never felt such absolute form of isolation as I looked around the empty room where Mike's dead body was supposed to be mourned.

Finally, in the stillness of the growing death around me, I finally managed to have time to process everything that happened to me. I cried—I wept more than I had ever done so in the entirety of my life. I knelt in front of Mike's casket after looking at his peaceful and beautiful face, thinking about how such a troubled soul managed to leave such a calm shell. My gurgling voice echoed throughout the empty room as my gaze wandered around the chairs that contained no life in it as a thought finally struck my mind.

There is no other life in here other than me: no other living people, no other soul to witness my sadness for my friend—my friend who returned to me just as suddenly as when he died. It felt like I did not deserve the grief I am feeling as my tears kept flowing and flowing out of my eyes while I pounded both my arms on the floor.

You see, I could not even feel angry for Mike because of what he had done to himself. I didn't have enough reasons in me, nor do I have enough people to stir some kind of triggering effect that would blast my wrath away into the stratosphere. I could only feel regret that I was not there for him in his final hours; I didn't even see how he struggled while the rope tore through the skin around his neck nor have I seen the pure melancholy in his face while he was preparing to do the thing that he had done.

The funeral only lasted for two days. When Mike's body was lowered 6 feet under, I was still the only one crying for him. As I went home after seeing Mike's name engraved on a stone tomb, I was the only one who was crying for him. The days went by, and no people contacted me to know more about Mike or to ask what Mike's life was before he eventually killed himself.

There are no press people who went towards me and asked about his woeful life and how it all led to his death. The police dropped the case the day it was put forward to their offices because, well, what else could they possibly answer when all of the conclusions are already inside of his room? No family members were there around his casket to grieve and talk about his wondrous life like a bunch of hypocrites who never really knew who he was until he inevitably died.

Mike's death just feels all too... unnecessary to the grander scheme of life now that I have seen the entirety of it. Nobody would care about the death of someone when there are hundreds of more similar cases as him happening all over the globe. There is no juicy narrative surrounding Mike's suicide or any story behind it at all that would catch people's attention. There are no amount of foul plays in it that would pique the interest of the world to make them ask more questions about it.

In this world, I am the only one who thinks that Mike's life and death are not dull. I am the only one who cares; thus, I'm the only one who has to bear all the tears for it. Who could I even confide these feelings with when the only person I could talk to about it is the sole reason why I am feeling this way in the first place? If no one remembers him, who will? I made it a constant reminder to myself that I should engrave Mike's memory within me for as long as I die and honor his life the way he deserves.

I went out, and when I finally saw the bustling life of the surroundings, I finally let my shoulders droop down as my tears stopped streaming out of my eyes.

My mother is dead.

My best friend is dead.

My career is dead.

I finally dare to accept that because unlike any of those things, I am not yet dead.

When I went back home with an ashen look on my face, what welcomed me inside of my room was not the ones I would usually come to see, but it was still something familiar, very familiar to me.

When I opened my door, I saw Mike's room instead.

Somehow the darkness of the surroundings and the coldness of the atmosphere made me remember what had occurred a week ago. Thus, with a shudder, an image of my mother's dead body appeared right in front of my very eyes as I stood there, motionlessly, in the middle of Mike's entryway. The image of my mother laying on top of the metal bed started to feel so real that I could somehow feel it's decaying scent protruding from my nose. Somehow, I felt only a ghastly void forming in my insides when I saw my mother's upper body slowly rising with the white blanket still sticking on his body. Suddenly, her face started bleeding, showing a crimson silhouette of her fucked up looking face. However, it still didn't faze my numbing body as if I was just another corpse looking at another one of my kind. I walked past that ghastly image as if it was just a hologram that I could pass through with the greatest of ease. The image of my mother grunted an indistinguishable and hoarse noise coming from her mouth as I walked away from him with blackened eyes and an agape mouth.

Finally, when I saw my bed, I realized that it was surrounded by the same things that I could remember coming from Mike's room—I have no air conditioning. Still, I could feel it penetrating my skin while everything inside of my apartment turned into the image of Mike's final sanctuary. The only thing that remained the same was my new bed frame and my new mattress. On top of my bed, there was Mike's corpse hanging on the ceiling with a rope tightly locked around his neck. It was dangling from side to side like a pendulum on crack as blood dripped from his toes, staining my mattress with a wet, crimson hue that slowly enveloped the entirety of my bedsheet.

Nevertheless, I walked towards my bed with the same grimness seething through my blank expression with no care about the world at large.

I laid on my bed as I felt my aching head finally getting the rest it wanted for the very first time while my drowsiness conquered my thoughts. I blinked my tired eyes while looking at Mike's swaying body on top of my, feeling his blood drop on my navel every few seconds.

Then, from god knows what sort of stupid mind tricks my brain is doing to me, Mike's hanging corpse moved ever so slightly, forcing my already paralyzed body to gaze at his lifeless and sorrowful expression. However, after a while, that tortured expression of his distorted ever so slightly to turn into that of his usual smile—gentle and kind, like all pain in the world does not exist, like all the pain in me is slowly crawling away from my beating heart.

And then...

I thought I was over it, but...

When I saw Mike looking like that, I...

I cried once again as I felt my body falling into a primordial state of sleep as I gazed at Mike's smiling face.

'Knock, knock.'

"Hey, you there? It's me, Jimmy!"