It was October of 2024, and I was packing my bags, ready to leave Finger City for good. The last month of my life had been a swirling clusterfuck of confusing emotions and closed doors. I was ready, I was SO, so, so, so, so ready for something new. I hadn't felt like this since I was a sophomore in High School.
With tears in my eyes, I walked through the halls of the apartment we thought we'd spend forever in, when I realized there was one person I needed to say goodbye to. Someone who, ultimately, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I never said goodbye to.
My next door neighbor, Vincent Rostenkowski. Vincent was an older gentleman, in his seventies. His wife had been long dead, and he didn't have any surviving relatives. I was one of the few friends he still had. Many nights, I'd visit him, and he'd tell me about everything and nothing. From his career as a musician, to his disdain to this new age of heroes.
Vincent spoke of an older point in time, an era long forgotten. I'd often spend one moment teasing him about being an old coot stuck in the past, and then in the same breath beg him to weave me another tale of his youth. I'd sketch them all out in front of him. He was quick to point out every flaw in my art, yet he'd always save every last one of my drawings. Some, he'd laminate, others, he kept in a box. He told me that I brought his past to life.
He convinced me to send in all my art, all my pitches, all my inspiration to 'Morningstar Comics,' back when that's what they were called. And look at where that got me.
Before the cancer left him bound to his home, we'd go on walks through the city. He'd ambush complete strangers, asking them just how much they missed the era of human achievement. He saw happy days ahead, sure, but ultimately, I doubt Vincent died happy with the world he had once loved.
When he didn't open the door, I unlocked it with the spare key he had given me. The one he kept under his floormat he had glued to the ground, to prank any would-be thieves. From the moment I cracked open the door, I was met with the overpowering, familiar scent of a corpse. As memories I had long assumed forgotten flooded my psyche, I immediately understood that I was bound to a new curse. At his desk, Vincent's body laid, lifeless. Like a ragdoll.
His head was missing.
That's not to say he was decapitated... Where his head once was, where you'd expect blood to be pouring out, shot what was only comparable to television static and sketch lines. He wore these strange, confusing clothes. Like a gothic circus strongman: A black, fabric material tight to the skin, with red underwear on the outside of his pants and a flowing cape.
The sight, the oddity of it all, frightened me deeply. It shook me to my very core.
His funeral was brief, his mourners were very few. Just myself, some of his older friends, and two women. One was freckled with green eyes. Vincent never had any kids, nor did he have any nieces or nephews. When I asked him how she knew Vincent, however, she still described him as a close relative. She seem to be familiar with every one of his stories we had all repeated, yet she had none herself. The other woman who looked out of place dressed incredibly strangely, some sort of cross between a cheesy psychic and a ballroom dancer. She spoke of Vincent as if he was a younger brother.
During the Shiva, we all remained close. I stayed in town for the week, letting my plane tickets go to waste. How could I not? It was so different, so, SO different from my father's funeral, and my mother's funeral was too long ago to even remember. While my father's was somber, contemplative, with very few words spoken, Vincent's was full of simple celebrations of his life.
Death, after all, he viewed as a mere extension of life. Something that came for all of us.
Though we shared secrets he whispered to us in confidence (believe me, there were some doozies) there was one secret I kept clung to my chest. One secret I held on to, among the many he had shared in confidence.
When I discovered his body, I called 911. As police officers and medics raced to the apartment in a frenzy, his body began to rapidly deteriorate, as if his flesh was trying to eat itself, before all that was left was the strange costume he had died in. Save for the smell of his corpse, and the faint aura of death in the room. By the time they arrived, I frantically muttered out what little I could. The police seemed... remarkably calm. Remarkably at ease. Like they weren't listening.
They left in under 20 minutes. Simply folding up the costume as if it were a flag, a policeman wishing me a good day, before scribbling down something unintelligible on a notepad and having his partner staple it to my chest with Vincent's stapler, leaving me alone in Vincent's now empty home.
And what did I find? What had Vincent left the world? A manuscript.
To be frank with you, this manuscript is filled with contradictions. There are some stories, hell, even some philosophies that simply do not align with the story of the man I knew, or even American history.
Still, however, I find myself bound to these tales. Not because I'm confused, but because I feel seen. There are stories within this manuscript about my father, about my mother, about me. Stories that knew me better than I knew myself. Stories that left me wondering if maybe I was somewhere, on the other side of the page. Someone suffering and in agony, flickering in and out of existence. Beautiful. Disgusting. Wild. Scorched. Doomed.
And though I will never know if Vincent wanted these stories to be told, I've tried to contain these stories to my mind. I've tried to piece together timelines, I've tried to rewrite them. I've made countless copies, filled with highlighted portions and annotations made in the midst of 2 AM mania. And yet something still itches away at my brain, some cosmic truth it seems that I cannot comprehend.
So, I share these stories with you. Because I don't know what I'd do to myself if I didn't. Because I need to.
No comments:
Post a Comment