Place Your Bets - By Nathan Iverson
Well heres the second morbidly wonderful work of art I completed a while ago as well. Its a story about a man who has lost everything in life because of his own addictions. He has come to the point where he feels his sins can no longer go unpunished and calls on the use of an arbitrator to help settle his fate.
PLACE YOUR BETS
By Nathan Glen Iverson
It was the middle of the afternoon as the hot July sun hung high in the sky, threatening to break the triple digit record if one more car should start its engine. Waves of heat rose off the hot asphalt like a radiating frying pan, keeping most of the cities inhabitants inside no matter how well protected they would have been.
On a particular decrepit and tarnished street, high above the ground in a single studio apartment, sat a young, extremely undernourished man on an old dirty mattress covered in stains limited only by the imagination. All he wore was a pair of sweat pants, sharing the same condition as his mattress. His hair was matted with grease from weeks without a shower, his body littered with broken sores, and his eyes were sunken so far in that you would think he was already dead. The only movement he ever made within the last few hours were small twitches, most of them involuntary, as his mind was littered with the mix of his past, broken memories and what little remained from his last fix.
Littered about his feet were a couple of burnt spoons, used syringes, and an empty sandwich bag which before contained something far more potent than a ham and cheese. In one hand he held a simple revolver, visibly worn but still well functioning, while the other held five matching rounds. He stared at them the entire time, as if half expecting them to strike up a conversation with him, and maybe an hour ago that, in the daze of his high, would have most likely been happening.
After finally having come down off his last high, he had since come to a breaking point, a point to where he regretted everything he had ever done, all the mistakes he ever made in the past that had finally led him up to this point, and all the people he had ever let down, most notably himself.
He stared at the five rounds in his left hand, each one making a clinking sound as he rolled them over each other. Eventually He held one with his thumb and forefinger and stared at it intently, the metal glistening in the sunlight that shone through his window.
"Tom." He quietly said to himself, reflecting back to his kid brother and all the good times they had before he became a part of this twisted hell that he created. Only now Tom no longer existed. Now, because of him, he was dead, gunned down by a dealer he forgot to pay when he first opened up the gates to this very real nightmare of his. A tear rolled down his cheek and then turn his gaze at the gun in his right hand. His thumb pressed the cylinder release hatch and, as if eagerly ready to serve its purpose, out popped the cylinder with 6 empty chambers. He then nestled the round he held effortlessly in one of them and then stared at another in his left.
"Ilene." He muttered the name of his high school sweetheart. He wanted to share everything with her and for her to become a part of his life. But eventually he shared too much at one time as he hovered over her, crying over her dying body as she convulsed from an overdose of his lifestyle. He then nestled the round next to the other and held another.
"Mom." She was there for him from the beginning to comfort him when he needed it and was there to make the world seem right. But as he slipped farther into his prison, he rarely saw her at all. Eventually she suffered a fatal stroke, and never heard till after the funeral as he was in the middle of a week high binge. He failed to be there for her after so many years of being there for him. He placed her next to the others and stared at the next.
"Dad." He was all that he had left, and tried desperately to reconnect with him. But his father was so far under the bottle that he had forced himself to forget his own son. A year later he succumb to alcohol poisoning over his wife's death, and now was finally alone, going on to dig himself deeper into his fix to forget it all. But sometimes the past won't leave you alone. No matter how far into the hole you go, it will always find you. He nestled his dad next to his mom and stared and the last round.
"Me." Would he ever forgive himself of the lives he robbed, the people he hurt, and the opportunities he threw away. Would he ever find solace from this beast that held him, this drug that owned him. Even if he was free, would he ever be able to continue on knowing what he had done and would his family ever forgive him of his mistakes. He couldn't ask them now, but they would let him know if he gave them a way. He then loaded the last round, and then with a spin of the cylinder that held his answer, locked it back into the receiver.
He then feebly lifted the revolver and placed the barrel into his mouth, tasting the cold hard steel of the firearm. He then thought of their names one last time, tears slowly rolling down his face, and asked them if they could forgive him and to let him know. He pulled back the hammer with his thumb, and after a long while when time had seemed to stand still, finally pulled the trigger.