I, Death

Wednesday January 18, 2006 - 10:23 PM

2005-01-31T23:37:00.000-08:00

It’s over. I can’t believe it. Sarah won’t speak to me. It’s as if she blames me for her father’s death sentence.

I can’t say it’s a new feeling, though. It’s like all my life death has consumed the people in my life. First my parents, then my best friend, now Sarah’s dad.

I’ve been where Sarah is now, but she won’t let me help her -- hell, she’s not even talking to me.
Ever since her father announced to the family that he had an inoperable cancer so far advanced that the doctors were giving him a 50-50 chance of living beyond one more month, she stopped talking to me, refused to see me and ignores my phone calls.

It’s been four weeks now. Four long, painful, horrible weeks. I think I’m going to die. I wish I was dead, actually, like so many of the people I’ve cared about.

Our school’s guidance counselor suggested that I start this blog in order to try dealing with it.

So here I am, typing, trying to come to terms with it. But I don’t want to write about how I feel -- I keep stopping and just sit here smashing my fingers down on the keyboard. I want to smash my fists down on the keyboard. I want to break something, smash something, throw my computer monitor through the fucking window.

This is bullshit.

Thursday January 19, 2006 - 9:27 PM

2005-01-30T17:49:00.000-08:00

Sarah’s still not talking to me.

She wasn't at school today, either.

I must have called her place half a dozen times just today. She has her own private line - I keep leaving messages. But she won’t answer.

The bitch.

No, I take that back. She’s not a bitch. I love her. She’s my soulmate. That’s why this hurts so fucking much, that’s why it feels like somebody ripped my heart right out of my chest and started stomping on it.

We’re studying Shakespeare in school right now - Hamlet, actually. I can’t concentrate on much, but this is something that caught my attention. It’s the scene that everyone has heard without having seen Hamlet -- the one where he’s standing there talking to himself -- it’s called a sol-something. Sounds like a sol ill query or something like that.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that the monologue our teacher, Miss Hamilton, explained to us in proper modern English -- I normally don’t pay all that much attention to the old bird, but this time, I couldn’t help but hang on her every word -- it spoke to me.

To Be Or Not To Be.

Wow - what wild crazy shit. I mean, what made him put it into such a bizarre term? Who would have thought that that’s what Hamlet meant -- that he was considering committing suicide. I find myself reading and re-reading the quote over and over again. I think I have a lot of it memorized now, because I can recite it.

To Be or not to be. That is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

“And by opposing, end them” -- what a wickedly cool statement.

To die - to sleep no more. And by a sleep . . . to end the thousand heartaches, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. To die -- to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub.

Ay, yes, “the rub”

For in that sleep of death what dreams might come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

I know this Shakespeare dude lived hundreds of years ago - but he knew, man. He knew exactly how I feel. I don’t know how, but he does.

Fucking strange.

Friday January 20, 2006 - 6:04 PM

2005-01-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, so the guidance counselor was right. I actually slept almost the whole night last night.

Fucking shrink. Who’da thought?

I actually felt better after writing the last blog entry. I even went a whole day without calling Sarah. A whole freakin’ day.

It’s actually helping, I think.

Saturday January 21, 2006 - 10:02 AM

2005-01-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I was getting over this, that the guidance counselor’s therapy was working, it all fell apart.

The elated feeling I had yesterday seems to have slipped away. Because I fell back into the old pattern again after a day. I woke up this morning with an urge to talk to Sarah. It was like this burning itch that I couldn’t control.

I just wanted to talk to her. That’s all.

Just talk to her.

But like an itch that you can’t reach, I kept trying to scratch it, but it was no use.

All morning I just kept calling, leaving my messages on her machine (she has her own phone line - have I mentioned that already?) But she never calls back.

She never calls back.

Damn, that whole therapy thing was a temporary fix -- it helped me for a very short time. But now, now I’m right back where I started. Or maybe even worse off, because for a day or so there I actually started to feel better.

Damn.

Saturday January 21, 2006 - 3:44 PM

2005-01-29T17:10:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about how I felt after writing about Hamlet and my thoughts about his little monologue and how it made me feel. It actually did help, and I think I need to get back on track like that again.

I think I need to express a bit of my pain. But not just today’s pain, the pain that I’ve lived with my entire life.

I think in order to understand this, to come to terms with what’s happened, I need to go right back to the beginning.

Right to the first person that was taken away from me.

To the beginning of this chain of death and misery.

If I had to pick a place to start it would have to be with my birth.

My mother died during my delivery. As the story goes, apparently there were some complications. The umbilical chord had wrapped itself around my neck and nobody had noticed. My mother was told that her baby had died in the womb, but that she had to give birth to me anyway.

She was screaming hysterically -- it took everything that my father had just to calm her down, he’d said. The doctors then talked her through delivering her stillborn baby. Although she did what they told her, she kept screaming through the whole process.

At one point, in the middle of the final push, she let out a gut wrenching scream, what happened to be her last mortal contribution to this world, and my head finally cleared her cervix in a huge rush of blood. Pushed down on the full flow of blood, the rest of my body came out so fast that the doctor and nurse who’d been ready to receive me didn’t catch me. I landed on the floor with a wet slurpy thud and the strangest thing happened next.

I started crying.

The labor room staff were mystified.

Somehow, I’d come back from the dead just as my mother had breathed her last breath.

I’m told that my father didn’t even know, even as the staff scrambled to pick me up, cut the umbilical chord, clean my eyes, ears and mouth of the amniotic fluid. Despite the loud and unwavering crying I was making, he didn’t even know.

He just held my mother and cried -- his own crying much louder than my own.

Welcome to the world, Peter.

Monday January 23, 2006 - 9:10 PM

2005-01-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Damn, I hate the fact that the guidance counselor was right, but I felt even better after getting the first death, my mother’s, off of my chest.

Sarah returned to school today, and, while I did keep an eyes on her whenever possible, surreptitiously glancing at her in class when she didn’t realize I was looking at her -- I have managed to not stalk her or approach her. And it’s been two days since I called her. Sure, last night, before going to bed, I picked up the phone and started dialing her number. But I put the phone down before I finished.

Who knows? If I keep up this journal type writing, maybe I’ll get completely over Sarah.

I guess I should share the second death in this lifelong chain, then.

My father.

He died when I was about seven years old.

I can barely remember the man, but I do have these vague memories that play back to me like an old movie reel in my mind. One of my favourites is this memory from a time in which I think I might have been four or five years old. I’m standing, leaning back against the refrigerator, and my father is standing in the kitchen, talking to me but looking out the window at something outside. And he’s reflecting on something, like he’s sharing a deeply personal memory or experience with me. I can’t remember what he’s telling me, but I remember being very interested, enraptured by his words. All that comes back is this memory of him talking to me and the musky ripe scent of his pipe.

To this day, I cannot smell a pipe without thinking about my father and about that early kitchen memory -- and, though most of what I know about him is through stories told to me by relatives, I always have this image of him, standing near the window, talking to me and looking off into the distance, as the main picture in my head of him.And just like I have few memories of my father, I don’t have many memories from when I was seven. But I remember this.

All too clearly.

We were fighting. I was playing cops and robbers with a couple of friends, and my father wanted me to come in -- it was time for my bath and I needed to get ready for bed. It was early summer and I remember being so angry that I had to go in when there was so much light outside. I thought I should only have to go in when the sun was down. It just wasn’t fair.

I ignored my father, even though he was standing at the top of the steps and I was in the driveway. I remember wishing that he’d just shut up, wishing that he would go away, die, whatever, just leave me the hell alone.

When he came down the steps, I ran across the street, toy gun in hand, looking toward my buddies who had already crossed the street and were pretending to shoot at each other over and around a hedge. I wanted to be over there with them, back in the pretend world of cops and robbers, engaging in the mystery, the fun, not running from my dad.

He followed me across the street.

I didn’t even see the car -- but I heard it.

My dad must not have seen it either.

The impact killed him instantly.

Tuesday January 24, 2006 - 3:58 AM

2005-01-28T05:14:00.000-08:00

I can’t fucking sleep now.

I’ve been tossing and turning for several hours -- been thinking about my dad getting hit by that car ever since reliving it a few hours ago. I never realized how guilty I felt about the whole thing. I mean, just moments before he was killed, I’d been wishing that he’d go away, die.

And I suddenly had this memory of standing over his dead body and laughing a bit. Laughing, because when I looked at his dead body I was thinking that this couldn’t be my father. He didn’t have a pipe sticking out of his breast pocket and I couldn’t smell that musky pipe scent on him at all.

So I just stood there laughing. And that’s how they found me -- standing over my father’s dead body and laughing.

I never realized that I must have repressed the whole thing. I only remembered it after regurgitating the memory of my father getting hit by that car.

Yes. “Repressed” -- It’s a fun word -- the guidance counselor at school has used it a few times when I’ve been speaking with him. I’ve been visiting him regularly lately -- gee, I think I’ve been repressing those visits, although I do find them helpful. We don’t often talk about Sarah or the whole “death” thing, he often helps me just by listening to me talk about my day. Occasionally, the conversation will drift towards Sarah or the many different people in my life who have died. But mostly it’s distracting conversation.

I’d never admit this to him, but it’s actually helpful.

I wish that I could talk to him about this feeling of guilt, this repressed feeling that I just uncovered.

But instead I’m stuck with the coping technique he’d suggested -- write about it in my journal.

So much happened so quickly after my father died. I was moved away from most of my friends in Sudbury, sent to live with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Shelley in the small town of Levack. They’ve been raising me ever since -- they’re really good parents, actually. Maybe they’ve always been extra nice to me because they couldn’t have kids of their own and they felt sorry for what had happened to me. But in any case, it’s been good being their son.

Uncle Bob taught me how to fish, how to hunt -- we often went out in his boat, on camping trips. And Aunt Shelly has always been good to me. Loving and supportive, but not at all imposing or restrictive. She’s been protective, but also gave me my space when I needed it, let me have my freedom.

Of course, I’d never admit to them how good it’s been. It’s been years since we’ve been able to talk to each other, years since Uncle Bob and I have gone on a hunting or fishing trip together.

I miss that closeness, but I find that they annoy me and get on my nerves so easily these days.

Tuesday January 24, 2006 - 10:15 PM

2005-01-28T02:42:00.000-08:00

I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep from last night -- I finally fell asleep shortly after 4:00 AM and had to get up maybe only 3 hours later (I need to be up early to catch the bus to Sudbury, which is where my high school is) -- but I’ve been a real wreck today. Made a huge ass of myself, too.

I waited for Sarah in front of her locker. Skipped a bunch of classes to. Just planted myself there and waited for her. For hours. I think she’d seen me a few times and purposely avoided heading down the hallway. But it was in the early afternoon, when the hallway was busy and I guess she couldn’t see me through the crowd that she approached.

She was startled, I think, to see that I was still standing there.

She stopped, just a foot in front of me and stared.

Then she turned, without saying anything, and started walking away.

“Sarah!” I called out after her, my voice breaking, tears flowing freely down my face. “Please, don’t ignore me any longer! Please talk to me! Sarah!”

She just walked away and I sank down on my knees, my face in my hands and cried.

I didn’t look up again until the hallways were cleared. I just couldn’t face all the people who’d seen me break down like that.

Damn Sarah. Why does it hurt to love her so much?

Wednesday January 25, 2006 - 4:58 PM

2005-01-28T02:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I can't believe that I never noticed this before, but apparently there are people who have been reading my journal entries, and even leaving comments.

I guess I never paid attention to the comment feature (I'm kind of new to the whole web-log thing, so wasn't really sure what I was doing -- I just picked a template, loaded an image, filled out a few personal details and got started. I never realized how big this whole blogging community is, or even that there are other people out there doing this very thing).

It's kind of freaky, actually, knowing that there are people out there reading my words and deepest thoughts.

And this Furzl guy who has made several comments seems to really get me and what I'm going through. Love does hurt. Funny, in his comment to my last post, he mentioned a quote from this old porn movie that he saw once. Have I mentioned that my Uncle Bob is a huge movie buff? I wonder if that extends to porn films. I mean, we've never talked about that genre, but I'm sure there must be classic porn films that are studied and discussed, all while these academic types sit there stroking their goatees (rather than stroking other parts of themselves -- HA HA)

But this Franny person, the one who commented that I should back off Sarah, that I'm being a creep, well she just doesn't get it -- she doesn't get what true love is. She has no concept of the passion and love that Sarah and I felt for each other before she stopped talking to me. No fucking clue. How the hell can people go online and judge other people like that without knowing it? Sarah and I are soulmates, destined to be together. She just can't see that right now.

Comments like that just piss me off.

Thursday January 26, 2006 - 2:10 AM

2005-01-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

Can’t get to sleep again. Dammit, it took me several hours to fall asleep because I was tossing and turning, and thinking about that comment this Franny person left about me being a creep. But when I finally did fall asleep I had a damn disturbing dream. So I decided to write about it, see if that helps me sleep. It worked the other night.

I had this vivid dream. An erotic dream. About Sarah.

Damn.

There we were, in my Uncle Bob’s truck, like so many times before. Sarah’s favorite album by Evanescence was playing, but neither of us was paying any attention to it. We’d just finished talking around the issue of University, neither one of us wanting to admit that after graduation it was likely possible we’d be heading to two different cities. The frustrated conversation ended the way it always had when we started talking like that. Us telling each other that we loved each other and that’s all that mattered -- we’d be together forever.

And then we completely avoided the whole issue by getting hot and heavy.

Within seconds of our lips and tongues melting together, I’d been able to get her shirt pushed up to her shoulders. As I rolled her bra down, revealing taut firm nipples, I slipped down in the seat to let my tongue swirl around them in small circles. She tasted like candy, and as she moaned beneath me, I felt myself strain uncomfortably against the denim of my jeans.

Her hands quickly found my zipper and fumbled with it while I darted back and forth, unable to settle on a single breast, but instead wanting my hands, my lips, my tongue to explore every inch of them.

By the time her hand slipped past my underwear and she took hold of my stiff cock, my lips stayed focused on a single nipple, sucking it in, flicking it with my tongue, swirling around and around My hands began working her shorts down, my finger poking, exploring the hot moist warmth of her sex.

It was always a struggle as to who would go down on the other one first, and this time Sarah moved faster than me.

Knowing she’d won, I laid my head back against the seat, letting her take me in her mouth and just relishing in the moment, but still able to reach and rub one breast with my right hand, the nipple stiff against my palm and still damp with my saliva.

She worked my pants midway down my legs as she bobbed her head up and down. She moaned in pleasure, and the sound of her muffled voice, stuffed full of my hard-on brought a heightened sense of arousal. Every so often she’d stop, look up at me with a devilish glint in her eyes, flap my cock against her cheek and let out a girlish giggle.

Then she’d alternate between pumping her fist around my aching shaft and taking me full in her mouth, her head bobbing madly, impossibly fast, up and down, up and down.

“I’m going to come,” I gasped and closed my eyes as she switched again from pumping to sucking . . .

A sudden noise, a throat clearing, startled me. When I opened my eyes a moment later, there stood Sarah’s father, silently staring at us through the passenger window.

Unable to stop myself, I shot a load of come deep into her throat as her father looked on.

I woke with a start at that point.

I can’t believe I relived, through that dream, that horrible night.

Well, it’d been a wonderful night until Sarah’s dad showed up.

Man had he’d ever been pissed.

But he didn’t say anything, he just stared at us as Sarah and I scrambled to get our clothes back on properly. When Sarah had her clothes back on, he pulled her out of the truck.

I sat there, stunned. I didn’t know what to do. So I followed them to his car which was waiting just a few parking spots away. I can’t believe we hadn’t seen him pull up -- well, I can believe it -- we’d been too deep into the moment, hadn’t noticed anything around us.

After putting Sarah into the car the way you see cops put suspects into the back of a cruiser, he whirled around and faced me. But instead of yelling at me, accusing me of having my way sexually with his little baby, his little angel, or punching me, kicking me, spitting on me, all things that I’m sure he must have wanted to do, he just stared me down and the words he spoke hurt, struck me harder than any physical or verbal assault could have at the moment.

“I trusted you, Peter” he said. “I trusted you with her.”

The words struck me deep. I wanted to tell him how much I loved Sarah, that she was the only girl for me, that we would be together forever, that I wanted to marry her -- that there was nothing wrong with what we’d done because we were everything to each other.

But I just stood there, wishing he’d go away, that he’d just die, drop dead on the spot -- whatever it took to relieve the guilt and shock that he’d just inflicted.

Wishing that he’d die.

And now, he’s going to die.

I can’t help but think that it’s my fault.

But who the hell would believe me?

Maybe Sarah would -- maybe that’s why she’s avoiding me. But I never got a chance to speak with her since that night. The next time she spoke to me, it was to tell me about the results of her doctor’s appointment -- the death sentence he’d been handed.

Sunday January 29, 2006 - 9:24 PM

2005-01-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been sleeping much since that last nightmare a few days ago.

The worst part about it, of course, is the fact that it’s not just a nightmare -- it’s a nightmare in which I relived everything that occured that night exactly as it happened. That's almost worst, I think.

Every time I close my eyes I see Sarah’s father staring at me; his hurt, painful eyes. Dammit, why couldn’t he have just been pissed off with me and taken a swing at me? Why did he have to come off like that? All “I trusted you, Peter” and shit. Man, that’s what really gets me.

I also spent a long time reading and re-reading the three comments on my last post. It’s funny that Furzl should mention me being a writer. That’s what Sarah wants to be. A writer. And she’s going to be a damn fine writer, too.

But that’s her. Not me.

At least Furzl gets me. Fuck, the guy lives in South Africa (I followed his comment post to his own blog -- what a fucking awesome thing this whole blogging thing is), and he gets me. I don't know how he found my online journal, but at least he fucking gets me. Yet people I know, within my own town, they just don’t get it.

There are a couple of other comments from this Michael dude and Kimberly chick (Yeah, they seem to be bloggers, too, and from Ontario -- man, this whole blogging thing is huge -- I never really thought about it much before). Yeah, okay, I see the advice, and I hear you. Blah, blah, blah, fresh pain, if you love something set it free. Gee, you think I haven’t heard these things from my friends?

Well, I guess I would have heard these things from my friends if I was hanging around with them. But I haven’t been. I’ve been avoiding them since Sarah dumped me. You know why? Because I don’t want to hear all that bullshit from them. And now I’m reading it here. Jesus. You just can’t escape people and their unsolicited advice. Even if they're complete strangers and you haven't a fucking clue who they are.

I did let Sarah go, dammit. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve tried to call her or approached her at all? It’s been almost a week. Fuck. What do you want? Want me to move to another town? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to just “back off” anyway? It’s not easy -- not at all easy.

If only I could fucking sleep. Just a little bit.

Tuesday January 31, 2006 - 7:40 AM

2005-01-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

Couldn’t sleep again last night.

Still haven’t been able to sleep properly.

Keep having these erotic dreams about fooling around in the truck with Sarah that always end with some horrifying image of Sarah’s father dying.

I’ve been a wreak at school.

Can’t concentrate on anything -- except Sarah.

When she passes in the hall, I stand there staring at her. Like a big dumb jackass, I guess, standing in one spot, the crowds of students moving all around me, just staring at her, and, after she leaves, at the spot she was last in.

A big dumb, tired and horny jackass.

And I noticed that I've got more comments, more advice, more people concerned. I don't know. I don't want advice, but it's nice to know that at the very least there are strangers out there who seem concerned enough. At least somebody cares.

I'm so tired, I just want to sit down and fucking cry.

Wednesday February 1, 2006 - 11:47 PM

2005-01-26T08:51:00.000-08:00

It’s always the same, now.

I know that I’d previously said that dreaming of exactly what really happened that night in Uncle Bob’s truck was the worst kind of nightmare. But I was wrong, because these new nightmares I’ve been having the past few days are far worse. I can’t get rid of these maddening dreams.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye there’s the rub.

It doesn’t matter what time I fall asleep, whether I stay up late or go to bed really early -- it always starts the same -- hot, heavy and frisky, then the blowjob, then Sarah’s father shows up all of a sudden.

But it ends differently each time.

One time he’s standing there and he starts to fall apart. Chunks of his face start dropping off in bloodless pieces, like some sort of animated 3-D puzzle, until there’s nothing in front of me but a pile of his pieces all quivering on the ground like some strange new flavour of Jello.

Another time, his eyeballs start bleeding, then his nose and blood starts gushing out of his mouth and ears. I stand there in front of him, unable to move as these rivers of blood quickly rise up around both of us.

Yet another time he’s staring at me with that hurt look in his eyes then starts sweating profusely. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he starts melting. His flesh starts crawling down the sides of his face like giant beads of sweat or tear-drops, until his head caves back in on itself, and he melts like some Dairy Queen cone that’s been sitting in the sun.

This last time -- the thing that woke me just a few minutes ago -- he starts aging in front of me. His hair starts going grey, like some sort of mad time-lapse photography, then his skin starts to crease, wrinkle, and sag. In less than a minute he’s standing in front of me like a goddamn zombie, his flesh all dried out, completely devoid of colour and cracked, and I can’t look at him. Instead, I look down into the car where Sarah is, and I see her zombie face staring back at me, my come dripping down the side of her face from a huge crack in her cheek.

“Peeeeeter,” Sarah says, her voice like the whisper of wind through crusty dried leaves, “I want you in my mouth again.” And when she moves her tongue out to lick her lips, a sad pathetic echo of the way she used to do so when she was trying to turn me on, her tongue falls out of her mouth and lands with a sickeningly loud slap onto her lap like some piece of thick raw meat landing on a cutting board.

It was the slap of the meat that broke me out of my sleep a few minutes ago.

I jumped out of bed and started looking around the room, convinced that somewhere in the room, somewhere just out of sight, I’d find Sarah’s severed tongue. It took several minutes before I was able to convince myself that it was all just a terrible dream.

I was at about that time that I bolted for the bathroom where I puked my fucking guts up.

It’s been tough, too, since I’ve hardly eaten anything this week -- can barely get anything down.

These dreams are driving me fucking nuts.

Sunday February 5, 2006 - 11:42 PM

2005-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

The dreams have stopped.

For now at least.

I dropped into a dead sleep right after lunch and slept for 10 solid hours.

Fucking snow. This morning I hated it, but I think it was the snow that helped me finally hit the proper point of mental and physical exhaustion. We got dumped on over night with somewhere between 30 and 40 centimetres of snow. Holy shit. Again. Uncle Bob's snow blower is on the fritz -- likely because it's been used so many damn times this winter due to winter storms like the one we just got. At least our friggin' power wasn't out like I heard happened to over 80,000 poor slobs in central Ontario.

Uncle Bob and I went out there and started shovelling the snow around 9:15 this morning, and, without the snow blower, it took the both of us close to four hours to get the snow cleared.

The drifts in the middle of the driveway were almost three and a half feet high in some places, and the two ends of the driveway (we live on a corner lot with a big long wrap-around driveway with entrances on two different intersecting streets) were plowed in at least five feet high by the snowplows. Man, that was the hardest part, that heavy, salt and sand encrusted snow. I thought we would never be finished.

Anyways, when we came in for lunch, all sweaty and exhausted, Aunt Shelley was pestering me, the way she always does, about how little I eat. I guess this time she was right, because I haven’t been able to eat a solid meal all week. Anyways, she was pestering me about how little I was eating, and suggested she call the “on-call” doctor so I could get in to see him, when I almost collapsed at the table. From exhaustion, I guess.

I left my plate virtually untouched and went into my bedroom.

Without changing or anything I fell onto my bed and passed out.

I'm pretty sure Uncle Bob convinced Aunt Shelley not to call the doctor, and not to pester me anymore, just to let me sleep the day away, because I woke up in exactly the same position I'd collapsed in, still dressed and everything. Thank God for that.

It was glorious.

Ten freakin' hours of uninterrupted, dark, empty, blissful sleep. I think that's all I needed.

I’ve been up for about 10 minutes now, feeling fully awake. Fully rested.

For the first time in what feels like forever.

Don’t think I could sleep now if I tried.

Tuesday February 7, 2006 - 10:46 PM

2005-01-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

It’s amazing what a couple of good night’s sleep will get you. Maybe it’s all the fresh air and back-breaking snow shoveling I’ve been doing lately, but something’s working right.

I did end up going back to sleep the other night. I dropped off again at maybe half past midnight. Last night, I slept the whole night through as well. And I did dream, but it was normal stuff -- none of the nightmarish stuff that’s been plaguing me lately.

It’s interesting. I saw Sarah today, and, instead of getting all freaked out and staring at her, and wanting to follow her, I just kept walking. Sure, my heart was in my throat, and beating a million beats per minute. But I just kept walking, and I think I made it look like things were cool and I was over her.

I should be an actor. Like I said, a couple of full night’s sleep works wonders.

The thought of actually being "over" her and being able to play that part reminded me of something, though. A conversation that Sarah and I had not all that long ago. Back in the fall of 2005, in November, I think, Sarah and I were driving back after seeing the latest Harry Potter movie in Sudbury.

We were in her father’s 76 Impala -- a brown beauty of a car with a convertible top. Of course, it was too cool out to have the top down, but man I loved driving that car.

That was the great thing about that car. Sarah loved to drive it, and so did I. It was fun, too, because when she was driving, I’d be undoing her front zipper and slipping a hand under the waist band of her panties, rubbing her with my finger while she drove. And when I was driving, she would either be playing with my nuts or stroking my cock.

That night, she was giving me one of her nimble and expert hand-jobs when the conversation turned to University. Sarah was talking about heading off to Carleton University in Ottawa. She is a brilliant writer and has always wanted to be a journalist. Ever since I’ve known her, she’s always loved to write. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that one of the only reasons I’ve taken to following the guidance counselor’s advice and writing these journal entries is because on some level I’ve equated writing with Sarah. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, writing this stuff gives me the sense of being closer, somehow, to Sarah.

And it’s funny, too, because this Furzl guy who leaves me comments from time to time mentioned that he thought I’d make a good writer. I guess I must have picked up at least a little bit of talent from Sarah and maybe it even shows.

Anyways, Sarah wanted to get in to the journalism program at Carleton, and I wanted to stay here, attend Cambrian College. I’ve always said that I wanted to take the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning program, but that’s just been an excuse to stay here in town and keep doing the things that I’m doing until I can figure everything out.

I’ll be fucked if I really know what I want to do. I need a few years of just living and not going to school in order to figure out what that might be.

They should make that mandatory, you know? I mean, how the hell does anyone who’s 18 know what they want to spend the rest of their life doing? College or University should start a few years after high school -- give kids a chance to figure out what they want to do. It’s all too damned rushed. No wonder our generation is so damn fucked up.

But I wasn’t about to admit my reason for wanting to stay around here to anyone -- least of all Sarah. There, see how that’s working. The guidance counselor would be damn proud of me, I think. I AM admitting it now, and admitting it to anyone who happens to read this. So it’s not like I’m just admitting this to myself. I’m admitting it to the world.

Anyways, back to that night, the night we were coming back from the last Harry Potter movie. There was a scene in the movie about the School of Hogwarts that reminded Sarah about something she’d read about Carleton University. Something about the underground tunnels that completely connected all buildings on campus so that you don’t need to go outside at all. Apparently, if you lived in residence on campus, you could attend classes in your pajamas, never needed to take a step outside in the snow all winter. She thought that would be the coolest thing, and was hoping that she’d be accepted into residence there.

She started talking about all that, and I immediately became flaccid in her hands.

“Peter,” she asked, still trying to work some life back into my now unresponsive cock. “What’s wrong?”

I’d been about to say it, about to tell her why I got so tense, so upset when she talked about University, about moving to Ottawa -- that I knew what would happen. She would move away, and at first we’d miss each other, call every day, write letters, send emails, make trips on the bus back and forth. But then after several weeks, maybe even a month or two, she’d make new friends, begin a new life with new people that had more in common with her. We’d slowly start to drift apart. She’d stop returning my calls.

We’d stop being a couple, two people who knew they were destined for each other, and we’d become friends. Then, maybe after only half a year passed, we’d barely be in contact with each other at all.

The mere thought of it, of being apart from Sarah, of losing her like that, it burned a hole in my heart. Whenever we talked about differing paths after high school, Sarah always reassured me that we’d be together forever and that we were soul mates and meant for each other. She talked about these future fantasies she had of the two of us, some time off in the distant future, both of us in our thirties, a married couple, and doing fun couple things in our home and on our various vacations.

But I knew the whole thing was inevitable if she moved away. I’d seen it happen to a friend of mine a couple of years ago when his girlfriend’s family moved away. It didn’t matter how much two people tried, or how much they both wanted it not to happen. It happened. People grow apart.

I’d been about to tell her this when I spotted a pair of eyes low on the road in front of us, two sharp points reflecting the headlight beam. Then a second pair almost above the other. They belonged to two small dark shapes sitting in the middle of the lane immediately ahead. I tried to swerve to miss them, but they started skittering off in the same direction I’d swerved.

The car hit them with a sickening double thump as the tires rolled over them, and Sarah screamed while I adjusted the car back into the proper lane. An oncoming driver who had to brake as I’d swerved laid into his horn, but I barely heard it for the maddening thud of my heartbeat in my eardrums.

We immediately smelled the unmistakable and putrid scent of skunk in the air.

We’d hit a pair of skunks.

“Holy shit,” Sarah said. “Did you see what they were doing?” She paused. “I think they were fucking.” And then she started laughing. “Man, we’re bad news to a skunk’s sex life.”

I didn’t laugh though. I didn’t think it was funny. It was disturbing to me. We’d just killed two animals attempting to come together and mate. And it happened at the same time we were talking about our own fate as a couple.

It disturbed me deeply.

But I didn’t realize until now just why.

The damn thing was symbolic of the break-up of Sarah and I. It was -- what the hell does my uncle like to talk about when discussing movies? It’s when the director sets up a scene that alludes to something that is going to occur later in the film -- it was foreshadowing. Yeah, that’s it. The skunk death was foreshadowing things to come for Sarah and me.

This event just mocked me, reminding me that the whole thing was inevitable.

But there was one other thing that disturbed me about that night.

Once I caught my breath and got the car back under control, I realized that my cock was rock solid again. Sarah had removed her hand when she shifted back over in her seat while we were swerving on the road, so she never noticed. But I wonder what she would have thought about that.

Fuck, I’m still not sure what I think about it.

Friday February 10, 2006 - 11:23 PM

2005-01-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

I walked by Sarah again today in the hall. Again, didn’t turn my head, didn’t let on how much I still loved her, how much I still missed her.

I was just playing it cool.

And pretty proud of myself, too.

I made it to the end of the hall before I turned to look back.

And saw her laughing with this Chad guy. He’s one of those good looking jock types, plays on the volleyball team, is a member of the cross-country running club and can often be found during spares or after school using the weight room. Most of the girls I know have always had a crush on Chad.

They’re both standing at her locker, she’s retrieving some books and he’s all hanging on her locker door and telling her some sort of amusing story.

The sound of her laughter coming down the hallway is both good to hear and yet slices into my heart like the cold steel of a blade.

Dammit, I was doing so good there for a while, too.

Monday February 13, 2006 - 6:36 PM

2005-01-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.

I think it’s going to be hard. But I’ll get through it. I spent the entire weekend closed up in my room listening to music and playing X-Box games, just trying to get the image of Sarah talking with Chad out of my head. I spent hours playing through Ultimate Spider-Man. It’s a pretty awesome game. You spend part of the game playing as Spidey and the other part playing as Venom.

It’s not as good as the Spider-Man 2 game was, but it’s still pretty decent. It has an incredible open environment to roam around in, some good challenges and intense fighting action.

Lord knows I can use the fighting action to let off a little steam.

For the past couple of months I’ve been pretty good while sitting on the bus. Pretty good about picking a spot where I can’t see Sarah and she can’t see me.

But this morning, for the first time since we broke up, she was sitting in a seat across the aisle just a few rows ahead. And there was nobody blocking my view. I tried to focus on my Gameboy, tried to read my magazine, but I couldn’t help continually looking up trying to catch another glimpse of her.

And I try not to think about what Sarah and I would have likely have planned for tomorrow. And with that, of course, wondering if she's going to be doing something with this Chad guy who's been hanging around her a lot lately.

This must be what addicts go through when exposed to that thing -- whatever it happens to be for their addiction -- that pushes them over the edge. I guess, for me, Sarah is that thing. I'm over her, I'm really trying to be. But when I get close to her, when I see her again, I have to "get over it" all over again.

Tomorrow is not going to be easy.

Fuckin' Valentine's Day. Another seasonal "in your face" reminder of lost love. Yeah, like I need that.

Wednesday February 15, 2006 - 5:14 AM

2005-01-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

Valentine’s Day was harder than I thought it would be.

And I’m embarrassed to admit something that helped me get through it.

I don’t normally like pop music or top 40 stuff -- most of my favourite music tends to be stuff that was released a generation or two back. I do like some new stuff, but they tend to be alternative bands and not the kind of stuff that you’d hear on the average radio station. Maybe that’s why I like Q92 so much -- they do play new stuff, some top 40 rock and pop songs, but do a great job of mixing it in with a lot of the older things that I like: Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, ACDC.

Anyways, there’s this current top 40 song they’ve been playing in a semi-regular rotation on Q92 that speaks to me. It’s the song by Simple Plan called “Welcome To My Life”

Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you
Do you ever wanna runaway?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming

Yeah, I’m not really a fan of their music, but this song says it like it is. These guys actually get it. I went and downloaded the song from iTunes and ended up just playing it over and over and over again.

To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life

Geez, my buddies, who have similar tastes in harder, edgier rock music would cringe if they knew I was up all night last night, playing this song over and over again.

But it helps. It really does.

Friday February 17, 2006 - 8:52 PM

2005-01-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

I was watching Sarah across the cafeteria today.

I don’t know why. Dammit, I was doing so good for a while there, and then along comes this Chad guy, sniffing all around Sarah.

He’s one of those good looking jock guys who could pretty much have any girl that he wants. Why is he bothering with Sarah, then?

And why am I so worried about it? And keeping an eye on Sarah now wherever I go?

It’s not like Sarah and I are going to get together again. Or that there’s a chance that we’ll reconcile. I think I’ve come to terms with that understanding. I mean, I have to give up that possibility, especially since she’s not even willing to speak with me.

I mean, the good thing is that I haven’t approached her again, haven’t gone through my pathetic display of hopelessness. Sure, I’m watching her again. I can’t help but pay attention whenever I spot her. But how can I help it?

Sure, a relationship can end, but you can’t immediately turn off the feelings that you’ve had for someone for years.

I can’t, at least. Sarah meant too much to me for too long to just be able to forget those feelings so quickly.

So there’s Sarah, sitting in the cafeteria, not chatting with her friends, but eating her lunch and writing in a journal. She’s been doing a lot of that lately. Well, actually, she always wrote in her journal a lot -- but she often didn’t do it in the middle of the day. She usually only wrote in her journal first thing in the morning or at the end of the day.

Anyways, she’s writing in her journal and snacking on an apple, and along comes Chad, slips into the seat beside her and starts up a conversation.

I wanted to walk over there, tell him to leave her alone, punch him in the head and then walk off. It took everything in me not to do so. Instead, I just got up from my chair and walked out.

Wednesday February 22, 2006 - 10:12 PM

2005-01-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

I sat on the bus beside Harley today. He’s one of the guys in my group of pals. Well, actually, Harley is one of the guys who is on the edge of the group. I mean, within our group of pals, there have been times when I’ve been closer buds with Neil or closer buds with Jagdish. But I’ve never felt particularly close with Harley.

Not that I feel close with any of them lately. I’ve been sticking by myself a lot lately. It’s been so long since I’ve actually made any effort to hang out with my group of buddies it makes sense that any attempt to get re-acquainted with them would be through Harley, the guy on the periphery. So on the bus ride home today, I sat near Harley. I knew he would start up a conversation almost immediately.

Anyways, Harley was talking about hockey. It’s funny to see him all enthusiastic about hockey this year, because last year, during the NHL hockey strike, he was really pissed about the whole thing. Because there was no NHL season last year, he refused to even put on a pair of skates or even play a quick pick-up game of street hockey. He was a bit ticked because Team Canada lost out at the Olympics today, but still pumped about hockey in general.

Harley said that it’s time to have another one of our challenge games with the Sudbury guys and that he’s been organizing an outdoor game on Windy Lake - it’s to take place this coming weekend on the ice near the old Elk’s Club hall.

The Levack guys are challenging the Sudbury guys. See, from our town -- actually it’s not just Levack, but it’s Levack, Onaping and Dowling. Well, that’s not really true after all, because several years ago we amalgamated into the Greater City of Sudbury; but we still think of ourselves as a unique town -- there’s quite a large group of us that take the bus in to school. Anyways, whenever we participate in after school types of events, they always take place in Sudbury, the veritable centre of the universe around here. It’s always tough to get any of the students who live in Sudbury to actually show up to anything that takes place out here, even though it’s only a 45 minute drive.

One of the only exceptions, of course is the occasional Levack vs Sudbury Hockey challenge. Levack no longer has its own high school, or hockey team, but the team used to be called the Huskies. So that’s what we’ve named the Levack team. The Sudbury guys call themselves the Wolverines -- partly named after the Sudbury Wolves junior A hockey team and partly an ode to the X-Men comic book character.

Harley asked me if I was interested in playing, and he showed me the sheet of names of players, said that the Huskies could use a couple of more players. “Whaddya say, Pete?” he asked. “Tired of moping around like a big cry baby and sobbing in your milk over Sarah? Ready to play a man’s sport again?”

Harley has this way of saying things in a blunt fashion, not really holding back or worrying about perceptions. This had a tendency to piss people off, but at least you always knew exactly where you stood with him.

But my mind was already too busy to take issue with the way he’d said that, because I’d been looking at the list when he was talking, and spotted Chad’s name on the list of the Sudbury team.

I smiled.

Man, it would be a good chance to take my frustrations out on him, maybe a nice cross-check across the forehead, or a body slam right onto the ice.

“Yeah, Harley,” I said, a huge grin on my face. “You can count on me. I’ll be there.”

Sunday February 26, 2006 - 11:40 AM

2005-01-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

I don’t care what anybody says, revenge is not sweet.

Now I can’t be sure, 100% sure, that it’s my fault. But given my track record, why the hell else wouldn’t I believe it?

Why didn’t I just stay away from the hockey game yesterday?

Why didn’t I just stay home?

Dammit.

Fuck.

I’m too upset to talk about it right now.

Wednesday March 1, 2006 - 10:16 PM

2005-01-25T09:20:00.000-08:00

The guidance counselor at school wants me to talk about it. Wants everyone who was there to talk about it. Even though it wasn’t a school event, there were mostly people from our school there. So he has arranged these sessions with everyone -- they started yesterday, and we had another one today.

He wants us to talk about it.

But I don’t want to.

It’s funny, the only thing that I want to do is to try to find this old movie I remember watching with Uncle Bob several years ago. It was bothering me all week, because what happened reminded me specifically of a scene from a movie.

These past couple of nights I’ve been rooting through his DVD’s as well as his VHS tapes. He hasn’t completely replaced and updated his original movie collection -- shit, he even has a few movies on this format called Beta -- he told me that it was all the rage just before VHS players came out -- in my mind, VHS players and tapes themselves are ancient. But I haven’t yet found the movie I was thinking about. I keep remembering that there’s this old guy like whathisname from that show Aunt Shelly watches, The West Wing: Martin Sheen. Or perhaps it’s Jon Voight or maybe that guy who was in Wedding Crashers, Christopher Walken. I do know that I saw it a long time ago. So the actor must have been quite a bit younger when the movie was made.

But it’s the scene I can’t get out of my head. Because it’s almost as if what happened was right out of that movie.

And I don’t think I’ll be able to talk about what happened properly until I can see that scene again.

I know it sounds nuts, but I need to do this. And I haven’t mentioned this to anyone. Because what would they think of this guy who wants to talk about a movie instead of the real thing that happened?

So I remember this scene from the movie. I remember it, but there are different images that don’t make sense together, almost like a dream. Maybe it’s really two different movies or two different scenes that I’m thinking about and confusing them both in my mind. Who knows? Anyways, it’s winter. These kids are playing hockey on the ice of a lake. Then here’s where I’m not sure if I’m remembering a single scene from a single movie, or maybe different elements from two different movies: There’s like this guy who’s mad at one of the hockey players, or else he has a vision that something bad is going to happen. I can’t remember which. Maybe it’s both because it is two different movies I’m remembering. I don’t know.

But the next thing you know, the hockey player breaks through the ice and everyone is standing around looking at him. And you can see him through the ice, banging on it, the air escaping from his lips. And everyone is standing on top of the ice, looking down at him, stunned. He can see them, they can see him.

And everyone watches him die.

That’s what it was like on Sunday. Sort of.

But I need to know what damn movie, or movies I’m thinking about. I need to watch that scene or those scenes so I can get those images out of my head and then properly talk about what happened.

Friday March 3, 2006 - 7:28 AM

2005-01-25T09:18:00.000-08:00

An anonymous commenter helped me identify the two movies that I’d been trying to figure out. Man, gotta love this whole blog thing. My uncle did have both The Dead Zone and The Omen 2 in his movie collection.

I ended up watching both movies last night. Well, okay, I didn’t actually watch the whole movies, because I did fast forward through most of them and just watched the drowning scenes I’d been thinking about.

Funny how I’d mis-remembered them somehow into a single memory.

But in any case, I’ve gotten that strange deju-vu feeling out of my mind. I think I can talk about what happened last Saturday now.

We had another session with the guidance counselor yesterday. Sarah was there this time. She wasn’t at school at all this week until yesterday. She looked like hell, her eyes all bloodshot, her hair a frazzled mess.

I just wanted to hold and comfort her, tell her it would all be okay.

But what’s the use in that? I’m the one who caused it, after all.

So today more people started talking about what it meant to them. Sarah didn’t say anything. When she left the room crying, I started to get up to follow her and a friend of hers, Julie, held me back.

“Peter, don’t” she whispered to me. “She just wants to be left alone.”

“But . . .” I started to protest.

Julie shook her head. “You’ll just make it worse.”

“Shouldn’t you go?” I asked Julie. “I mean, her new boyfriend just died, after all, and . . .”

She interrupted me. “Sarah hasn’t been with anyone since you guys broke up, Peter.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, but she hasn’t been seeing anyone, certainly not Chad, and she hasn’t even been spending time with me or any of her other friends all that much. She just wants to be left alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Definitely,”

Julie had always been one of Sarah’s closest friends. We hadn’t spoken all that much since Sarah and I broke up. I’d assumed that Julie was still close with Sarah and so had felt uncomfortable around her, hadn’t even spoken with her since the break up.

“But I saw them . . .” I started to say.

The guidance counselor interrupted me at that point. “Peter, do you have something you would like to share with the group?”

Yeah, your toupee is way too damn obvious I wanted to shout out. But instead, I shook my head and listened to students take turns offering up different versions of the same story. With each rendition I heard, I kept reliving my own experience of that day.

And now that I've heard all those different viewpoints and watched those scenes that had been plaguing my mind, I think I’m ready to talk about it, tell what happened from my point of view. But not right now. I’ve got to start getting ready for school.

Maybe tomorrow.

Sunday March 5, 2006 - 9:28 PM

2005-01-25T09:16:00.000-08:00

I never made it back to post about what happened. Instead, yesterday what I did was walk from my home over to Windy Lake, to the spot where it all went down. It took about an hour to make the trek, but it was a beautiful sunny day, not all that cold. And I think I needed that walk just to run the events through my mind again, get clarity on it all.

When I got to The Elks Club shoreline, I stood there, looking out over the ice. The crack and hole from last weekend were not even visible from the angle I was looking, at least not physically. I couldn't tell if it was because the snow had covered it, or if it had resealed.

Hard to believe, given the massive breaking of the ice that had occured in the attempt to retrieve Chad's body. But despite the heavy snowfall and refreezing that had occured, my eyes easily found the spot.

And I just stood there, staring at it, thinking back to that afternoon a week ago.

It was a cold but clear day. Crisp and cold, yet relatively warm in the sun if you were dressed right, especially considering the time of year. The teams were on the ice, warming up, getting ready for the game. There were plenty of spectators, from Levack and from Sudbury, standing either on the ice near the shore or on the hill that rose up from the lake’s edge to the Elk’s Club. There was a small bon fire near the lake’s edge, where a constantly changing group of people were huddled, taking turns getting warm.

Sarah was there, too, not far from that crowd, hot chocolate in hand. I saw Chad skate up to her and start chatting with her, saw her smiling at him in response.

I wanted to skate over there and just haul off and deck him. But I needed to wait until the game began before I’d have my chance.

The game was a good paced one, with a lot of action, and a boatload of tired guys because we didn’t have two shifts of players on each side, merely two extra guys on our side and three extra guys on theirs.

Checking wasn’t part of this game because we weren’t wearing any equipment -- no helmets, no skin pads, no jocks, nothing like that, just the extra padding that a sweater and winter jacket provided. But we never played this game without a little bit of light checking and body contact.

I got a couple of chances to come up behind Chad and give him a seemingly incidental nudge to feel out his balance and strength. He did the same to me. We weren’t fifteen minutes into the game when we’d pegged each other for more and more grudge type playing.

Then it was at one moment, when I gave him a hit hard enough to knock him over and lose my balance to fall on top of him that we heard something crack. I don’t remember worrying about it because in the heat of the moment we were fixated on each other, on getting to our feet. But I certainly remember it now.

It was when we were scrambling to our feet that I turned to him and said. “Stay away from my girlfriend.”

He grinned at me. “She’s not your girlfriend.” Then his face turned serious and he gave me a hit to the shoulder that sent me back on my ass. “And I’ll do whatever I damn well please.”

The ice must have cracked some more at that point when I fell, but I don’t think I heard it. He skated off, back into the action. The fact that he left without our conflict being properly settled riled me. I remember seeing red as I glared at him.

I got up and headed back towards the action, my eyes on Chad the whole time. I remember getting closer into his direction, but the puck and action would shoot off again in another direction, and I’d have to close that distance again.

The entire group skated at least two times over that spot where Chad and I had fallen. It was the third time when Chad had the puck on a breakaway for our net, and I was the closest person to him, and was rushing at him, rushing to knock him flat on his ass, hit him with all that I had, that it happened.

Another crack broke through the air, more like the overpowering crack of lightning than anything else. It was surprising to us, and we all stopped, almost as if taking cover from a gunshot or something.

And Chad was standing there, puck still on the end of his stick, and I was looking at him and he at me. It was quiet, calm. Nothing but a calm wind settled over the ice, evident in the drifting powder of snow visible in the middle of the lake. But it was an eerie calm, especially considering the bizarre and loud explosion of noise that had just occurred.

Everyone around started laughing at their own startled reaction, a huge group release of combined tension. Chad stopped looking at me long enough to wave over at Sarah, then look back at me, a satisfied smirk on his smug jock face. She was looking back at him. My rage intensified and I was about to launch myself in his direction again.

That’s when the final loud explosive crack echoed through the air, and Chad went down on one knee, or so it seemed at the time because, then, impossibly, he seemed to quickly melt down into the surface of the ice like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz on fast forward.

But he wasn’t melting. He was falling through the ice.

Screams went up; the players on the ice nearest the hole, including myself throwing themselves flat against the ice -- it seems, growing up where we did, and being involved in many frozen lake activities like hockey and ice fishing, we knew our odds on a questionable ice surface were always in distributing our body weight over as much space as possible.

I looked over at where Chad had been standing. There was nothing but a fissure in the ice big enough for a person to fall through.

And a small mark of blood on the ice surface where he’d hit his head on the way down to mark his fresh ice cold watery grave. A mark of blood that, one week later, wouldn't even be visible. At least not physically.

Tuesday March 7, 2006 - 11:09 PM

2005-01-25T09:14:00.000-08:00

Starting doing a google search online a few hours ago. Found some interesting web sites about death, and spent the last couple of hours reading through it all.
Cool stuff.

Freaky stuff.

--> The Death Clock

--> Death and Dementia

--> Death - The Last Taboo

--> Near-Death Experiences

--> Death Images

Got me to thinking more about Hamlet’s little speech, again. And Death.

I think I want to talk to Miss Hamilton about Hamlet again.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Miss Hamilton, our English teacher, is Sarah’s favourite teacher and, while Sarah hasn’t been spending much time with her friends, she still is hanging around Miss Hamilton a lot.

But that’s NOT why I want to chat with her. I want to talk about Hamlet, and Shakespeare, and maybe see if she can recommend something else that I can read of his that is just as good. I remember we read The Merchant of Venice in Grade 9 and then The Tempest in Grade 10 and King Lear in Grade 11, but I didn’t really like them so much.

There’s gotta be something else Shakespeare wrote that’s as good as Hamlet.