Topic: Why Bother?

Aaron Marshall · Date: 2009-09-28 02:37 EST

Everywhere I go I'm greeted with the condescending words of people who think they know more than I do. I'm treated as the nice guy who can't do she*t to help out with anything other than being the dude you can trust your secrets to. People think I'm weak. I figured by now it'd be easier to prove them wrong.

He stared at the mirror, leaning over the sink, glaring at the gaunt reflection of Aaron Marshall. Hair covered his jaw, his eyes were sunken, his hair matted to his forehead, and even against the grime coating the mirror, he could tell he was sweaty and filthy. His pale skin shone in the dim, fluorescent lights of the dirty bathroom, clammy and pallid. He shook visibly, with sporadic, but violent tremors.

I'm not weak though, despite what they think. One day, people will get it. Aaron Marshall is made of tougher stuff than he looks. I've been stabbed, shot, and beat up, thrown out of a car. I've been lit on fire, I've been through hell and back. I've seen friends die...hell, I've killed some of them. I'm not the nice, happy go lucky guy everyone thinks. I'm not the nice guy without a care in the world. I'm also done running from him, from them. They'll be here eventually, and when they are. I'll face them, I'm sick of doing this. I mean...why bother"

He sighed, turning on the faucet to splash the cold water in his face, grimacing as a bit of the foul tasting liquid slipped past his lips. This place was hell, he needed to get an apartment. His head lifted up, back to staring at the reflection of Aaron Marshall. Only, it didn't look like Aaron Marshall anymore, but like the ghost of him, someone broken and lost, hiding behind a false grin.

I've killed people. I've stolen. I've lied and cheated, robbed stores, broken into houses, stolen cars. I've sold drugs, I've beaten people who've stolen from me, and I've been in gangs, gang wards, hell. I've broken out of jail before. Am I still weak" What the hell does it take to show people I'm not what they think" That I can be tough, that I know how to hold my own" So I'm not the most articulate speaker in the world, but damn it all, I can still do something. I'm still worth something. Aren't I"

"No, you're not."

He blinked at the sound of his own voice, blinking at the reflection as it spoke to him.

"You're nothing. You're useless. You're scum, you're the kind of thing people try to avoid. You should have died when she stabbed you, back then, you would've saved the world a lot of pain. You're sh*t, Aaron Marshall. And you know it."

Glaring in anger, Aaron punched the mirror, not even wincing as it shattered and glass stuck into his knuckles. He watched as the blood dripped from his hand, mixing with the still running water of the sink, thinning out as it swirled down the drain.

You can break all the mirrors you like, commit all the petty crimes, kill, steal, and lie. You can survive gunshots and stab wounds, you can take an ass beating and walk away with a smile. But you're still not strong. That's not what strong is, Aaron. You've still got a lot to learn.

"Why bother?" the question echoed back to him, followed by complete silence.

Why bother"

Aaron Marshall · Date: 2009-09-28 17:23 EST

He sat up in the bed, sheets all tangled and bunched up, half draped over the floor. Aaron stared at the wall in front of him, and then lifted his hand to peel the bandages from it and inspect his knuckles. They were caked in dried blood, he sighed and wrapped the bandage back around his hand and turned, slipping from the bed. Light shone through the thin sheet covering his window, bathing the room in stagnant light. Aaron grunted on his way to the bathroom, stepping over the shattered mirror carefully to reach into the medicine cabinet for another roll of bandages.

You can get as drunk as you want. You still won't amount to anything. You can laugh and smile it all away, but you're still scum in the end, Aaron. Give up, on everything. Stop trying so hard to make them like you. Show them who you really are. Show them the scum that is Aaron Marshall. Let them see how sick of a person you've become.

He sighed, leaning lazily against the wall as his inner voice spoke to him, wrapping his hand up in the clean bandages. His eyes were focused on the bloodstained tile floor, littered with shards of the broken mirror, painted red with the drops of his life.

"Stupid," he muttered under his breath as he stepped over the broken mirror once again to pad through his cheap room. His eyes swept over the room, to the two guitars resting in the corner, to the small bag with clothes tossed around it, and to the empty bed with its sheets all over the floor. Breathing out another sigh, Aaron walked over and flopped into the mattress, his head slowly turning to stare at the duffel bag that lay beside the nearby chair.

There's only one escape. You know it.

"I quit that years ago. I'm not starting it back up again."

Then you'll be miserable forever, Aaron. You need it, without it, you're nothing.

"It's not me anymore."

Then go back to being miserable, Aaron. Hate yourself, hate your life, and keep wishing. It's all you're good for now, for wasting away and wishing things were different. You're pathetic, no one cares about you, if you died, the world would be better off, everyone would be happier.

Aaron sighed, rolling from the bed to slip into a dirty pair of jeans and tug a plain, white t-shirt over his head. He stepped into his flip-flops, walked toward the door, and put on that fake, easy-going smile was he stepped out of the room.

And the whole time, he wondered"

Why bother"

Aaron Marshall · Date: 2009-09-28 18:04 EST

He trudged down the street, turning corners here and there, aimlessly walking along. The alleys and streets were empty. Everyone was still at work. Aaron breathed out a sigh as he glanced around, yawning quietly as he sought to clear his mind, to get rid of the voice in his head for a few hours. Once he got to work, it'd be easier.

Silence permeated the area. The air was surprisingly thick and still, as though he were several miles underground. And as Aaron turned a corner, something heavy connected harshly with the back of his skull. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, letting out a surprised yelp of pain as he dropped.

"Wallet, money, c"mon, give it here," the man behind him said as he lifted the club up to swing down at Aaron again, drawing another yelp as the scrawny musician was forced flat out against the pavement.

"I can't give you any money if you keep hittin" me, dipshit," Aaron snapped angrily, kicking out behind him to connect solidly with the man's knees. The attacker cried out in his own bout of surprise as he fell forward, finding a fist coming up to meet him on the way down to send him backward instead with a sickening crunch of bone.

Aaron stood, moving over the mugger to kick him harshly in the ribs while he was down.

"Useless piece of sh*t!" he shouted angrily, kicking him again before bending down to slam another punch into the man's face. He picked the dazed man up by the collar with one hand, and wailed into his face with yet another well-aimed punch, again and again, beating all the pent up frustration out and into the mugger who was likely just trying to survive.

Aaron lifted the man, and then slammed him back down, his head connecting solidly with the pavement. By that point in time, the mugger had curled up to take as little damage as possible, pleading with Aaron for him to stop.

"Stop, please!" he cried between hits as he suffered an unexpected beating at Aaron's precise hands. "I'm sorry! Please, sop!"

The pleading only fueled Aaron's rage. Again and again, fists, feet, arms, elbows, whatever he could use to cause the man pain was used. By the time Aaron was finished, the man was far from conscious, maybe even dead, and Aaron only sat there, breathing heavily as he glared down at the mugger, his face splattered in blood from head butting, his knuckles bleeding again, the wounds on his hand reopened to seep through the bandages. And he only stood, giving the man one last firm kick and turned to start back home. Couldn't go into work covered in another man's blood. It wasn't ethical.

Aaron Marshall · Date: 2009-10-11 04:53 EST

He leaned back against the wall, sitting on the bed of his new apartment. It didn't have a headboard, was just a mattress atop a frame. Aaron stared blankly out at the window that waited on the wall to the right of his resting place. His head was tilted to the side; chin tucking in against his shoulder. Aaron's arms were brought up to drape over his bent knees, fingers linking together lazily. His eyes slowly began to track the motes of dust that were set aglow in the sunlight spilling in through the window, dancing erratically through the air. The sight was mesmerizing; simple, yet majestic.

It was in these pure moments of calmness, that he could truly let go of the many demons that he feared would forever haunt him. They were temporary reprieves for Aaron, which came maybe once a month, twice if he was lucky. But he savored the moments, the simple spaces of time that allowed him to look back on his life and say that now, if not then, he was finally at peace.

Happy and peace were two different things, though. However, he believed happiness was something that was fast approaching. His new life in Rhy"Din had opened up an avenue of things he never deemed possible before. It was like walking into one of the books he would read as a child. Granted, he knew he wasn't magical, that he had no special talents save for an unlikely strength and skill with a sidearm. But the people around him, they were something else.

He was dating a goddess, apparently, friends with the craziest group of people he'd ever met, lived upstairs from a half-dragon and next door to a demon. If Aaron didn't know any better, he'd have been sure it was just one, very vibrant dream. But like all calms, his never lasted.

A few hours passed, and he turned, tearing his eyes away from the stream of dancing dust to stare at the door that led into his living room. Then he thought about the gun stashed beneath his pillow, followed by the memory of the would-be mugger he'd beaten a few weeks prior.

And with it all, came all those negative emotions. Self-loathing, disgust, fear, isolation, maybe Aaron should have gone and seen a therapist. The thought was pushed aside by a helpless chuckle. His eyes turned down to his wrists, which were turned upward for inspection.

Thin, white lines stained his skin, going horizontally over either wrist. A failed suicide attempt when he was in his late teens. He sighed at the memory. Aaron then turned his eyes further down, to a scar on his stomach, above one left by a knife from a certain ex-girlfriend. This scar was more surgical, precise. From when a hospital had to pump his stomach after a second suicide attempt involving pills, cough syrup, and any liquid he could get his hands on.

Aaron had learned, though. He learned that if you were going to do something, do it right. There was a gun beneath his pillow. He could have taken the weapon and ended it then and there. But was he really that hopeless" His head shook. Aaron wasn't at that point, not again. Not yet, at least.