No Escape From Being
Horror -- About 500 Words
I have an itch in my inner ear, right next to the eardrum in that spot you're not supposed to touch with a q-tip. You know the one. As soon as you hit it, an unbearable ache persists for minutes and all you can think is “I'm throwing out my q-tips and never buying another box again.” It's a recurring itch. It's come and gone since I was a kid. You wouldn't think it'd come back after I died.
I don't know how long I've been dead. Can't remember how I died, either. There's nothing after death - the atheists were right about that. Partially right, I guess. I'm still here. I've got no sight, no hearing, no sense of touch even. It's just me and that awful itch.
“Don't worry. Death is where the party really starts.” I pretend that there are bugs with me, and I pretend they say that. No clue what they say next, though. The itch distracts me too much to figure that part out.
A skeleton buried in the dirt, roots growing through my ribs - that's how I imagine myself. A tree feeding on my nutrients comforts me, would make me feel warm if I was capable of it. Giving back to the world some way, that's the way it should be done. Probably wouldn’t have an ear if I was a skeleton, though.
Perhaps the ear isn't even real. Death feels like it's been so long that all I can remember now is the itch. Being a person, life - that's just a haze. This itch, it could just be a phantom thing, like those vets get after losing a limb in war.
I remember vets. Suppose that's something from when I was alive. There's no soldiers here. No war, no battles. Kind of wish there was. Doesn't matter how horrible, something to do would be a godsend. Anything to distract me from this awful itch.
Sometimes, I think ‘Why me? What did I do to deserve a fate like this?’ There was a time when the answer seemed obvious, when I was grateful that this was the only punishment for doing whatever it was that I did. Like I said, though, it's all fading. Except the itch grows stronger. I used to think it would become painful, but it doesn't. It just itches more. God, I wish it was painful. Something different. Something new.
If I did have a wish, I wouldn't waste it on that, though. Hell, that would be a waste, wouldn't it? I wouldn't even wish to be alive again. Or to see, or hear, or to actually talk to the bugs.
Just a finger would do. Just one little finger that can move enough to scratch. If I had two wishes, maybe I'd take a q-tip on the side.
From a skeleton to another, yeah, I know the itch, and you conveyed it well.
Jesus, the start alone had me wincing.