I am a puppeteer of the shadows. I am a "Stromboli" from hell. I pull, twist and tug my strings as I please. And how I love it, oh so much! I hang over your heads, I am the carpet beneath your feet, all the time yanking at the fine, glass threads as they cut deeper and deeper into your wrists before they inevitably - give up. I am not here by force, but choice. I do not taunt you out of hate, I have no lust for revenge, no jealousy resides in me. I am here for one thing. Amusement. Happiness. The sheer joy of screwing up a life!
I committed suicide at the age of thirty-three on behalf of my wife. Yes, on behalf of her. Why, I used to be a truly selfless man. What a pitiful existence that was.
Due to an incurable virus of the heart, my wife was slowly and painfully shutting down. I feel nothing for it now - it was a waste, to be perfectly true to myself, giving up so much for one shameful dot of life. But at the time I cared for her. I used to be so naive, wrapped up in emotion like that. Yet I feel no contempt for her. If anything she brought me round to this way of thinking, shall I thank her do you think? How I love this new job of mine. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her weak, failing little body. Yes. Yes, I shall. Thank you my dear.
It was in the bathtub of a motel room down the road from us that I did the deed. I phoned for an ambulance before slipping into an ice cold bath and with the swipe of a blade, I let the blood drain from my being. By my side I left a note informing the medics of my wish not to be resuscitated thus staying dead and directing them that my heart must go straight to my dear wife. I donated it, for her and her only. What a dismal thing to do. And so completely pointless.
Oh well.
She was saved, thanks to my "selfless" actions. How good of me...
In my letter I also left my other organs up for grabs, for various waiting lists to fight over like dogs, deciding who would rip into me first.
My left kidney, a fine specimen, transplanted into the frail body of a fifty six year old man on dialysis. Look, I saved another! You may call me a hero if you must. Surrounded by family, it wasn't long before he began to recover steadily.
A young lady, a beholder of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, scarred lung tissue, who suffered terribly from shortness of breath and coughing fits, took one of my lungs. The cause of her condition was unknown and unlikely her fault. Some may say she deserved my superior lung. If that's what you must believe... As you wish humans.
The final one was a rather sketchy operation with some minor complications. A liver transplant. It was quite frustrating to watch, seeing part of me very nearly go to waste. The man was fine in the end, came out of the operation unscathed. What an arrogant fool though, drank too much, smoked too much, ate one too many crappy take outs late at night. He contracted cirrhosis of the liver at twenty five. Quite disgusting. Is this really the best they could find for my heartfelt sacrifice? Pfft.
But here is where the fun part comes in!
You may of heard stories of people receiving the organ of another only to meet the partner of the deceased donor to fall deeply in love or start following similar paths, showing similar traits, and lead similar lives as the donor would have. What if I told you that was the donor? From human to puppeteer, so desperate to hold on, never wanting to let go. Some just don't want to say goodbye and hold on so tightly, determined to finish their lives as they started, using twenty, thirty years even of borrowed time through another's soul, remaining in this wrathful, spiteful void of pure, black darkness only to watch their insignificant, minute, little "lives" go on through another's eyes, hoping it will constitute for the emptiness of the time they wasted, the pointlessness of their withered lives as sadness wells up in their wandering souls.
A few remain, the stronger of those deceased, to bring happiness, their sole aim to fix what they never corrected in their lives, to watch on as those they care for find peace and fulfillment and bring love back to those who grieve for them (hence why some people can find love in those their partner or relatives organs were donated to), as that is how we are able to control you.
You see, me, I'm different. I don't mean to be, I don't really care. I just am. You see when I died, I died in a whirl! A whirl of confused, conflicted colours and emotions. It was like flicking an array of brilliant paints onto a canvas! Red, green, blue, yellow, pink, white, purple, black. Success, disarray, sadness, joy, peace, anger, envy, happiness. All of it, splattered together, a beautiful mess. Then you take a brush to it. You add confusion. Take a brush to it, mix it around, blend them together and you're left with simple, solid chaos. A brown-grey patch of worthlessness, like what a child would make on the white walls of their nursery. That's me. I was once a selfless, compassionate human, a man willing to give up life for love! Now I'm a whirl, remaining here for one thing and one thing only. To bring pain. To tug my strings so deep into the flesh of the humans that they rub down to the bone, so tightly tied that I'll cling to their clattering shells to their very dying moments before finally greeting them with a twisted smile down here in hell... Or perhaps in this strange, hateful void in between.
To the man with my kidney, I cause pain and sorrow. Through my strings I muddle his head. I reach deep down into his thoughts, pull out his darkest memories and pinned them over his clouded eyes.
Think of all the pain you caused. All the trouble. Remember your distraught daughter, crying, weeping at the foot of your bed as you lay useless in the hospital! See the images of your wife desperately trying to balance her work and looking after your pathetic self only to break down every evening and once again lie sleeplessly in bed next to you all night only to do the same every day for years. You did that to them! You cause them all this grief. All this stress and worry and pain. How do you feel about that? Are you alright with that? That's ok?
I fill his head with these thoughts. I pull my strings. Tighter and tighter. The memories, thoughts, questions, blame - they fill his mind. Soon my strings will lead him to a motel, far off from here, where I hang over his head, disguised with shadow, and he'll finally meet the same demise as me.
The young girl. Such a shame. So pretty. Yet I feel nothing really. She's foolish anyway, so silly, so weak and childish. I'll let her think this fun will last. I watch her laugh, dance and sing with friends, let her be young for a while. I feel it necessary to be oh so slightly pitiful on her meek soul, as not to be thought of as a monster, though I doubt there's any way I can pull anyone back from thinking my sadistic ways aren't cruel and animalistic already. Oh well.
All the same, my strings pull tighter, cutting into her pale skin in the form of pin pricks, needle marks, chemicals in her system. My strings took her many places, she did many stupid things. This girl will finally meet her end in a motel far from here, as I drape my shadow round her shoulders, at the point of lethal injection, prescribed by her own idiocy for the sake of a "good night".
Ah, my wretched little clown. My twenty five year old waste of a liver! It was not long before he returned to his bachelor life, working as a dedicated armed police officer, committed to drug busts and high speed car chases, only really there for the glamour of it all, the bragging rights. He was easy to take hold of, take advantage of. My strings took him out on many late nights, once again wrecking my liver with alcohol... Not that it would matter much longer.
This time he got drunk. More so than most other nights. My strings tweaked at his trembling fingers as he tipped the crisp, cold poison of a beer past his quivering, smiling lips so it cloaked his throat in the toxins that once destroyed the very same thing I had given up. This night he got drunk and as a single man, I made him hunt. He found a nice girl. Tall, pretty, slutty. My strings put his arm round her waist and off they went together, some place private, me hidden in the shadow beneath their stumbling, staggering feet. I spun his head round and round, made him more drunk, more merrily confused, and in a motel far from here he will soon become wildly tangled in crazy thoughts, caught up in his own irrationality, in his impaired judgment, his foolish drunkenness and in the midst of what he thought would be a fun night he'll mess round with his hand gun from work, in an attempt to impress and my strings will splatter the contents of his empty head over the walls, drowned in the screams of his unfortunate "friend".
And then who else might there be to toy with? To control? To bring to their ultimate demise... None but the one I gave it all up for in the first place.
My wife. My oh so dear wife. So sweet and giving, so very beautiful. I called my former being selfless, but next to her I was outshone by her natural willing to give. Her radiance filled every room with brilliance and inspiration. I was the luckiest man. A woman of bravery and independence, with a face, strong and flawlessly gorgeous, to match. Someone I loved so dearly, so closely, even in this mess of emotion, could I still feel that love? You'd think so. The way I once cherished her perfect smile, the flutter of her delicate eyelashes and shimmering arctic blue eyes and the way she'd wrap her slim, little arms around my waist from behind and lean over my shoulder, giggling that sweet laughter. How fun my job is. How fun it is to plan everything out in this way, to have this control, but could I do that to her?
I am a mess on a canvas.
That brown splodge of paint, of confused colours, no longer beautiful. No longer emotion.
I do not feel the same.
I no longer feel for her, for now, she is only a mere human. I am not.
She's nothing to me now.
Maybe I'll bring her to the same tragic end as my own worthless body met.
I can feel excitement welling up in the tangle of strings I control.
Let's have some fun.