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The First Year

Written by:

PetPetAngel

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Mark held Collins to him, sighing softly.

This happened a lot.

It was becoming more normal than Mark would’ve had ever planned, more normal than he could ever have planned. The occasional, sparse trip. Everything else happened after the first year… The first year was moving on, and the second and every one after the second would be trying to continue living.

But then there was his funeral.

No one had been expecting it. Mark had. He knew – he’d spoken to Collins the very night before his death. Collins was too casual on the subject. He had been talking about seeing Angel again.

He was close anyway. The wait wouldn’t have been long, but Collins wasn’t always a patient man. He could try, but some times there was no use in trying. Angel was gone, and he wasn’t coming back – after the first year, that was more real than anything.

There was no pretending after the first year.

And Collins was gone.

Mark’s camera kept rolling.

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Mark held Mimi to him, sighing softly.

This wasn’t his place. He wasn’t the one to hold Mimi – Roger was on the way. Mark didn’t think he’d make it. It was all happening so fast.

The first year was hoping it’d get better.

All the years after were finding out it wouldn’t.

Rehab couldn’t help Mimi… Because Mimi didn’t want to be helped. Mark knew better than anyone else by looking in her eyes that she was back in the first year, waiting for it to get better. But her neurological calendar was off and Mark couldn’t decide whether it was purposely (of Mimi’s own doing) or whether it was just hoping too hard.

Then there was her funeral.

Roger was heartbroken. Every chord that came from his guitar was now filled with his own internal anguish and suffering.

Everyone had known it was close. Everyone had known that Mimi was taunting darkness, so close to the edge that the tendrils were already at her feet. Everyone knew, but not a word was mumbled.

Because Roger was still hoping.

And Mimi was gone.

Mark’s camera kept rolling.

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Mark held Roger to him, sighing softly.

It was just another night, just like this every night. There was no breaking the cycle. Roger always somehow found his way into Mark’s arms after Mimi’s death, and because he had no idea how else to, Mark held him and consoled him.

But one night, the cycle was broken.

One night, Roger didn’t come to him, didn’t ask for consolation. He stayed silent in all aspects of the word.

There were no chords being strummed, no anguish being released. There was absolute and complete silence, and that was how Mark knew.

Roger’s funeral hadn’t been like Mimi’s or Collins’ and definitely not like Angel’s. It consisted of withering hope, the few people trying to keep holding on to the first year. Hope for the better good. Finding out that the fight between good and evil was not in your hands, but hoping anyway that your two cents counted in the endless sum of money needed to win evil over.

Mark had known. It was like with Collins – Roger wasn’t going to wait, no matter what the length of the wait was, to see Mimi again. Mark wouldn’t help him do the deed but he wouldn’t get the man help, because this was what Roger wanted.

And Roger was gone.

Mark’s camera kept rolling.

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Mark held Maureen to him, sighing softly.

“It’s not fair,” Maureen told him every night that he dared to come to her.

“I know.”

The accident was something no one could’ve ever guessed – it simply was beyond their control. All of Maureen’s joking ended after Joann died. Watching her fade away like dust had taken away her good spirit and left her as a pitiful alcoholic.

But that was before the funeral.

It had been a nice funeral, personal, close. Just him and Maureen, it had been brief, but it had been nice.

No one was prepared for it. No one could’ve ever guessed it, either.

“It’s not fair,” Maureen told him, still thinking of the first year when things could still get better. When there was still hope, and just a little tiny prickle of pain, like getting your first shot. One that you forgot about, but then it got bigger. More shots. More pain.

“I know,” was all that he said.

And Joann was gone.

Mark’s camera kept rolling.

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And then Maureen was gone, and Mark couldn’t hold her.

She had had a horrible death. She didn’t deserve something like after suffering heartbreak.

That’s what you get for drinking, he thought cynically.

She had been mugged, beat to death.

The funeral was the smallest of them all, smaller than even Joann’s. Maureen’s funeral had him, and her family. And that was all. It was simplistic. It wasn’t big enough to accredit to Maureen and her boasting personality; it didn’t show her ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it’, motto.

In some twisted, nonsensical way, it didn’t even seem to be about Maureen, and that was just goddamned awful.

Mark had never been in the first year except when it had been happening. Each day in the year after he had thought of Angel’s words, “Life is shitty,” because they were the truest words ever spoken by man.

And Maureen was gone.

Mark’s camera kept rolling.

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And when Mark himself died, there was only family. He was the only one not buried in a church, but rather a synagogue, and there was only a short goodbye between family and the lost, because that was Jewish custom.

His mother talked about his Bar Mitzvah. His father of his brit.

His brother talked about how he hated missing Halloween, how he eventually celebrated it just because he could.

Mark’s camera was gone.

“Today 4 U” had been his only film.

And the second year ended.