Death
A bit haunted and disturbed from the barrage of songs her iPod had forced on her, Lexi sat around wondering what to do next. She had wiped and reloaded the iPod with the latest software upgrade and her entire catalog. While her systems were updating, she even purchased a few more old school nineteen eighty's new wave tracks from her iTunes account. She laughed at herself for having the balls to actually purchase the tunes and smiled as each thirty second clip she listened to, brought back some silly memory of her past life and awkward growing up through that time. She recalled the tall hair styles of her friends and the wild fluorescent red, green, blue and yellow colors that clashed when worn all over the body from shirt to pants to shoe laces.
"Man, we have come so far," she reminisced over what some people would call, "the good old days,". "You know, that period would make a great anthropology study. I cannot recall a whole lot of writing being done on the time period yet." She made a mental note to maybe talk to publishers about writing such a book come her graduation from Grad School. She closed her eyes and started daydreaming about the what her life was going to be like outside the convenient bubble and comfortable umbrella of Fieldsmith University. Of course, she liked to think that she would retain a paying day job in the library system, where she would help students discover which books they wanted to use to help them write and craft their papers for all their classes. She wanted to help buy books for the library to fill their growing shelves of books that would, in turn, spark the creativity and the passion that learning about new subjects or invent new ideas that come from being in a big time university setting helps give their students.
She imagined how she would continue her own studies by uncovering new thoughts and symbols and how they helped to connect people together and push the universal creative process forward. She planned on writing articles for several predominate anthropological papers as well as open minded religious papers or literary studies. She would live in a house, with a few rooms and wanted to get a cat, as she was never really allowed to have a pet of any sort, not even a kitten or a hamster, when she was younger and living with her family. Of course, her apartment complex she was currently living at forbid her to have fuzzy pets of any sort. Which it upset her but she had no control over it and was not going to test the hands of fate by sneaking a cat into her apartment only to have the rental property force her to get rid of the tiny furball or worse, yet, evict her from what had to have been the best apartment deal she managed to land since she had left her freshman dorm Engersall Hall.
Lexi smiled at the dreams and plans that she wanted to put into motion once she got her second small piece of paper degree professing her expertism in her chosen field of anthropology, when her cell phone started to ring.
She brushed her laptop off her lap and darted for her well loved sling back. The cell phone pocket un-velcroed with a loud zippp as she released her small phone from its harness against the black padded strap of her bag. She looked at the small LCD display that told her who was calling, it simply said Unknown: Out of Area.
"Huh, that is odd," she said. She knew that it could not be her parents as she never gave them her number or address. Her mind started processing through the small Roladex of people she knew throughout her life that she could have possibly given her cell phone number to. Coming up with a blank she decided that it was probably in her best interests to pick up the cell phone despite the basic fact that it could have been coming from a telemarketer or some other spam promoting product pusher offering her toys and services that she did not want to buy at any given moment in her life.
"Hello," she said, waiting for the computeristic voice to answer from the other end confirming that she should never ever really answer a phone number from an Unknown or Out of Area listing on her cell phone.
"Is this Lexi Carsten?" the tiny, almost inaudible, somewhat familiar voice of a woman, came from the receiver.
Lexi paused before answering, as she was not able to readily place the voice to a face, "This is she speaking. I am sorry, but who is this and what can I do for you?"
"I can imagine that it has been a long time since we last spoke. This is Meghan McGraw, from the dorm days at Fieldsmith University? Do you recall me now?"
"Oh My Gawd. Meghan. Yeah, I know you. I am sorry I did not recognize your voice. It seems almost like a life time has passed since we last sat in the lounge watching really bad MTV videos and playing pool on the broken pool table. How are you doing?"
The voice on the other end sighed audibly and paused before answering, "Well, actually that is what I wanted to call you about. I am not really doing good at all. I have some disturbing news for you and..."
Meghan paused again and Lexi heard a rustling nose from the other end of the phone as the woman blew her nose into a wad of tissue paper. "Sorry about that, after... well, I have not been able to stop the tears from falling."
Lexi was confused but very patient. What ever news Meghan had to tell her was very, very important and she was having difficulties on finding the right words to tell her, "Meghan it is okay, take your time and find the right words. I can wait. Just start at the beginning. What happened?"
She heard another deep breath over the phone and then Meghan quickly blurted out, "He is dead, Lexi. He is dead. My little boy killed himself."
Shock and horror registered across her face as the realization that her dorm floor mother's son, was no longer among the living.
"Oh, wow. Like really wow. Oh wow," Lexi found that she was repeating herself over and over and could not stop or do anything to get the words to stop coming from her mouth. "Wow. Meghan, do you know what happened? Gawd, I know this sounds awkward but Shane was such a cool kid, he helped me put up my make-shift bunk bed. That earned him lots of points. Er, that is, can you tell me? I am sorry, I do not mean to sound "
Shane was Meghan's teenage son who while he did not live on campus with his mother while she stayed on the University's dorm staff as a guardian for all the girls on her floor. He was shy and wore a lot of heavy metal t-shirts and torn knee jeans with a pair of vans on. But once you got him talking he would not shut up and would talk for hours and hours about music and skateboarding and whatnot. And now, he was gone.
Meghan coughed into the phone. "No, no. I know.... It is just hard for me to talk about but I know that you tried to help him and make a difference in his life. He was such a good boy, my Shane. Quiet but very smart and studious. I blame the people at his school and all the crap they did to him and filled his head with, really. But I digress," she breathed heavily, in a desperate attempt to keep ahold of herself and her sanity. "I was at the college, when it happened so I do not know what actually happened to him that day but, when I got home... I found him hanging from his attic bedroom rafter, by a black and grey woolen winter scarf I got for him to wear the previous year's Christmas. He had written a note saying that he could not stand things as they were going on and that he knew his grades were slipping and that it was too hard for him to try and push on any more and that he figured that he would be better off dead than to face the reality that he was probably going to let me and Charlie down by not getting into the ivy league college that Charlie wanted him to go to when he leaves for collage next year. So yeah, he had hung himself off the rafters. My little baby boy, committed suicide because he did not think he could hack life anymore. His neck was all blue and black and it looked like he had maybe broken it from jumping down off the beam he hung from. Oh my god. It was horrible and I hope that no mother EVER has to go through seeing something like that again."
"The paramedics came and carefully cradled his body while they cut the scarf loose and free from the banisters. His body was so limp. It all felt like a dream," Meghan started crying again.
"That is so horrible. Oh wow," Lexi said, sniffling herself after hearing the tale. "When did this happen? Is there going to be a funeral? And what can I do to help you or Charlie out? Wow, this is so shocking. I cannot believe that he is gone."
Meghan cleared her throat and choked back another sob, "It was totally out of the blue and it happened last night. I do not know what time it was because I was at school and not at home with him. I should have been home, you know. I should have been there to talk him out of it and let him know that have always been proud of him and never, ever wanted to push him into something that did not fit what he wanted to do in life..."
Lexi choked and started to cry as she asked, "Did you say last night?"
"Yes, I know I probably should not have called so soon but I needed someone to talk to and I recall how good you were of a person to chat with and provide some perspective to me and my family and I really wanted to let you know what had happened. I felt like you should know as you were very much a family member as he was."
Lexi's mind spun as the image of the Hanged Man popped up in her head. Slowly, the rest of the other cards from the horribly depressing reading she had done the other night came into place. The reading was about Shane. She could not believe it. She closed her eyes very tightly and tried to not think about it all. Was the reading the cause for his depression and his death? Should she have known better and tried to stop all of his insanity by calling them up and seeing what pep talk she could have done to get him to NOT destroy his life and his family's life? Had she had done that would he have still been alive at this moment and instead of having a depressing death talk with Meghan, would they be discussing her alma matter and all the new and interesting changes that came the school's way since she left two years ago?
"Oh my god. Oh god," Lexi cried into the phone. Choking back the tears that got stuck in her throat, Lexi managed to squeak out, "Please call me and let me know when the funeral date has been set and please let me know if there is anything I can do for you and Charlie. I want to be there for you guys. I wish I had been there last night, because I would have tried to talk him out. I liked Shane, he was a nice boy and had so much to offer people."
"Thank you sweetie," Meghan said trying to keep her voice even, "we are dealing right now. But yeah, I have taken time off from school now and we are focusing on Shane's little brother and the rest of the family. We know we will pull through all this and be stronger. But yeah, I have lost my first born and there is a piece of my heart that died yesterday. That hole will never be replaced."
The phone beeped on the other end which paused their discussion, "Hey, Lexi. I hate to do this but I have to go, Shane's god-parents are on the other end and they have a few questions for me. Thanks for listening and I am sorry that I dumped all this on you from out of the blue. But you have my number now, right? Please please call me soon. Let us not grow apart this time. Like I said, you are family and I would hate to lose you too."
Lexi squeaked out, through tightened vocal cords, "Thank you and a do not worry about worrying me or bothering me. I am glad you called, even if this was bad news and I really wish I had been back home with you. I just cannot believe he is gone now. Please promise to call me if you need me, I can take time off from my dissertation and help you clean out his belongings or something. Be with you."
"I will sweetie, I will, promise," Meghan said, "Take care of you and hope to hear from you soon."
The line went dead and Lexi was alone once more in her apartment. She dropped the cell phone to her bed and put her hands to her face and started crying hard. "What if....," she muttered to herself as she cried herself to sleep.