The Sick Rose



  Preface

  ‘The Sick Rose’ addresses the most important philosophical questions: Is life intrinsically absurd? Is it worth living, and is suicide an acceptable idea under certain conditions? The characters of the story come up with different views on life and death. You will also observe a tinge of magical realism, as the events of the story unfold many unexpected situations. The pace of the story is quick, and it could even qualify as a psychological thriller with a philosophical topping—the perfect food for thought.

  The title of the story basically comes from a William Blake poem; it is also the name of the main protagonist, who is terminally ill and finds herself in the ultimate dilemma of choosing death over life, non-existence over pain. To aid her, a quiet, shadowy, serial-killer arrives, who doesn’t care much to understand life, but to live it in an artistic manner. The main character however is her ex-boyfriend, who can be declared as the real ‘absurdist’. See who triumphs in this age-old battle of death, life, thought, and art.

  Moazum Rauf

  Chapter One: I am Rose

  It is ironic that I think about Rita Ashcroft now. I was not sad at her death, I was only angry. Very angry; so angry, that I didn’t attend her funeral and memorial service. In a manner, I felt betrayed when I heard that she had slit her wrists and bled to death. Why bleed to death when you can just—as Mr. Ernest Hemingway suggested—sit down at a typewriter and bleed, or just talk to a cat?

  It is wise to bury the dead; therefore I decided to forget about her. Retrospect is a great gift, but only for those who can use it to their advantage. Most people contemplate about their past and get petrified; stuck in a quagmire of memories and regrets.

  Rita Ashcroft was my friend in high school. She died 10 years ago. In all these years I’d been indifferent to her memory but all of the sudden she has become important to me. I can relate to her pain. I can feel compassion, even empathy for her. I think about her melancholy face and feel glad that it hadn’t grown older, paler, and sadder.

  She was a brave girl; for she had considered ‘death’ as an option. I feel that—contrary to the popular belief—suicide isn’t a matter of cowardice. It is just a rational choice that many of us decide to overlook due to religious and social conditioning. Worse, we decide to look down upon those, who consider it an option.

  I guess if Rita Ashcroft decided to kill herself now, I’d neither be sad nor angry. People should have the right to decide about their lives, as much as their deaths; for what is the difference?

  You might find my ideas repulsive but that is because, you are not diagnosed with terminal cancer. You don’t have to endure the pain and disappointment of a person who had worked earnestly all her life; only to learn that she might not go pass her 31st birthday. Life mocks in such cruel ways. What is better: to melt away in pain or slit the wrists open?

  The answer might be simpler for you, not me. I had believed in the sanctity of life once, but belief doesn’t turn the clocks back to zero. I do not have many regrets in life: if I could travel back in time, I wouldn’t change anything about it, except perhaps for the repulsion I felt for Rita, when she decided to commit suicide.

  I am not troubled with the idea of suicide anymore. I can understand why people would choose to say quits. As I am approaching death, I learn that death is not punitive; as the matter of fact it is a logical conclusion to life, which is absurd and meaningless. More importantly, it is a definite end to the pain of an individual; I never liked the idea of getting weak, ugly, and lonely with growing age and burdens.

  I wonder if death is really the end of life; somewhere I read that death is not a full stop but only a comma in the sentence of life. Life is indeed a sentence; a very cruel sentence. What happens after death is still a mystery; I would like to explore that mystery; the sooner the better, because I really do not have much to live for.

 

  Chapter Two: I am Peter

  My name is Peter. I am an accountant, which of course, means that I am very good with numbers. People tend to think that accounting is all mathematics but that it not entirely true. Still, you have to be good with number to be a good accountant. Just as people have misconceptions about accounting, they have serious misconceptions about accountants: they believe that accountants cannot be creative or sensitive. It is a stereotype, really. Just because accountant cannot indulge in ‘creative accounting’ doesn’t mean that accountants cannot come back home and paint or writer.

  I am a good painter. My girl friend, Rose believes so; as the matter of fact I met her in a local art exhibition, a few years ago. Since then, we spent many evenings discussing dadaism and surrealism. She is a great art aficionado and has a much refined taste in music and literature; that alone, can’t make a person loveable. I find her attractive for many other reasons: she is graceful, eloquent, and beautiful. However you can’t love a person only because you find her attractive. I suppose love is the hardest emotion to describe, and I am not a very good poet. However, if we go by the rules of rationality, I would say that I love Rose as long as she loves me.

  I have never believed in unrequited love. I think love is a two-way road; it is a fair trade: give and take and that is how it should works. The moment someone stops loving you, you must stop loving her. If you don’t do that, you would end up in misery and pain.

  Besides, there is no point looking for love. That is true because love is majorly a flawed notion. Human beings are inherently flawed; not only in the manners they think and feel, but in their physical composition and development. Do not let any televangelist (television evangelist) preach you that God has created us perfectly. If there is a God up there, He chose not to create us perfectly. I endorse His decision. Mainly because I believe that beauty is larger than the idea of perfection. Perfection is just a worldly parameter, while beauty is—as John Keats said—truth. Beauty, in all its imperfections supersedes the worldly standards. Life will end the day it reaches perfection. Love therefore must remain imperfect.

  Rose is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she doesn’t have a lot of time left on earth. Destiny has its own course; we can’t really tame it.

  I didn’t ensure Rose that I would be with her till the very end. I didn’t feed her with unnecessary illusions. She could survive for more than 5 years, if she really takes care of herself, but unfortunately her medical condition is irreversible.

  I want her to live her remaining life fully, but I do not want her to believe in Cinderella stories. Real life has no room for Cinderella stories.

  As much as I hate to admit it though, she is increasingly becoming distant. Ever since she is ill, she has been indifferent: She doesn’t reply my emails and telephone calls and whenever I drop by her house, she acts as if we hardly know each other.

  I can’t take this indifference, so I have stopped visiting her. I know that she needs me, and I am willing to stick around longer, but I can’t understand her behavior. Perhaps she has already starting visualizing the future.

  Chapter Three: I am a serial killer

  I am a killer. Actually I am a serial killer. That obviously means that I can’t reveal my identity, but I can tell you that I’m not a conventional, third-rated, demented murderer who kills for fun or sexual gratification. I’m actually quite a reasonable man and I do not consider myself a murderer, at all. I consider it ethically wrong to kill someone without consent. I only kill those who willingly forfeit their lives. In a way, I am just a facilitator. I have never killed an innocent person. Rather I have never killed a person who wanted to live.

  You may ask why people demand my services. Well, believe it or not, it is hard to kill yourself. People with worst suicidal tendencies feel reluctant about suicide, simply because posterity is important to most of us: no one
wants to be remembered as a coward. Secondly and more importantly, most people do not like to die alone. It is strange how, even the most aloof people desire someone to be with them in their moment of death. Most of them also desire a proper funeral and burial, which is a bit ironic.

  As I told you before, I am not exactly a deranged psychopath; that said, I like to watch people die. It is a very indecent indulgence and I am slightly ashamed of it but I must be completely truthful about it. It is not really the violence part that I like: as the matter of fact I hate to see gruesome soon-to-be-corpses leaving the threshold of life, violently. However I must confess that I feel like a god when I’m killing someone. Not because I possess the power to snuff out his/her life, but the very fact that I provide that person a choice: life or death.

  Unlike other serial killers, I do not care much about fame. In a long enough timeline everything and everyone will disappear in the mist of time; and time is oblivious to name and places.

  You’d think that most of my victims really deserve death for being ungrateful, but I think that they don’t really deserve death. Death is liberation, so is life for that matter. What enslaves people is indecision and doubt.

  I don’t think about such matters, too much. I feel proud of my profession for two reasons: I provide an important service to people and in doing so I never get caught.

  I have an immaculately clean account. I never leave any clue behind for the police to sniff at.

  Someday I think I would be too old to continue. That day, I would like someone like myself to come along and liberate me. I hope that day doesn’t dawn anytime soon because I have a fairly long road to travel.

  Chapter Four: I am Rose

  I still love Peter. He is my boyfriend, or rather he was my boyfriend. He is a good man. I think he deserves better opportunities in life. I am already a thing of past. I’d probably live another 4-5 years. I don’t want Peter to waste those years, caring about me. I would like him to move on with his life. He must find another woman and make a new start. I am sure that he would acknowledge my concerns; he is a very practical man. He believes in the idea of moving on.

  To be honest, I have been afraid of rejection all my life. Now that I am terminally ill, I do not want Peter to reject me. Not now. That is the reason I have been acting indifferently towards him. He has done nothing to earn it though. He has always been very kind to me and I would like to remember him as a man who’d valued me.

  I don’t think that he will give up so easily. He can be a very stubborn man. Ever since I have been indifferent towards him, he has reduced the frequency of his visit; but I suspect that he has started spying on me. I feel as I am watched, sometimes. It could only be Peter. I think he might be trying to make sense of my behavior. Perhaps he thinks that I am interested in another man, which is a very ridiculous thought.

  I suppose I will have to talk to him and clarify my view point. That would be very difficult for me but I do not like the idea of being stalked.

  The other day I found a strange anonymous letter in the letter box. It didn’t have a return address and carried the following note:

  “O Rose, thou art sick!

  The invisible worm,

  That flies in the night,

  In the howling storm,

  Has found out thy bed

  Of crimson joy;

  And his dark secret love

  Does thy life destroy.”

  I knew that it was a William Blake poem, but what did it mean? Most probably, it is just a bad and untimely joke. I guess Peter is trying to get my attention by all means possible. There is no reason for me to be alarmed; therefore I am not going to demand an explanation. However, I feel that it is very insensitive of him to be writing such letters.

  I already feel a bit stressed. My physicians tell me that I am bound to get depressed due to the medication. Of course, that is a lie. Any person who knows that she is condemned to die in another 4-5 years is bound to get depressed, disappointed, and disillusioned. The thought of a sudden non-existence doesn’t bother me as much as the irrationality of life.

  My parents named me Rose, and like a rose my life would be transient.

  Why must human lives succumb to such an irrational, sudden end? What great purpose has my life served? What great purpose does anyone’s life serve?

  Does life really has a purpose or is consciousness an unnecessary byproduct of millions of years of chaotic evolution?

  These are not depressive thoughts; rather these are essential thoughts. Only a year ago when I was healthier, I would have laughed at these questions, ignoring them as philosophical baloney. Now I ask myself these questions because I have realized the essential human condition: uncertain, absurd, and mundane.

  When I was younger I thought that in a long enough timeline, religion would cease to be an important institute for human growth. Science would provide the means for intellectual nourishment while philosophy would help us develop an immaculate moral code.

  Now I know better: neither science, nor philosophy could ever instill hope in human lives. Hope is the domain of religion: there is an afterlife: there is justice—however delayed!

  Religion would thrive on the stilts of hope.

  It is never really too late to believe. Do I start believing in a miracle?

  Do I turn to God for solace? I would have to abandon reason to do that. I accept the bait, only if I experience a miracle.

  No. I don’t need a miracle. I need an epiphany. I need answers to my questions. I need a purpose to my life. I need life to talk to me in its ancient poetry; and if that doesn’t happen, I must follow Rita Ashcroft in her desperate attempt to get even with life’s torments.

  Chapter Five: I am a serial killer

  It started almost twenty years ago. I was making my way back home when a smartly dressed man started following me. He stuck to me like a shadow. I avoided direct eye contact and kept moving forward. After a few minutes, I picked up pace but he caught up with me soon. Ultimately, I decided to confront him. I leapt forward at the opening of a dark forlorn street and hid there waiting for him. As soon as he came closer, I hurled a punch in his stomach. He panted for breath and dropped down his knees. He was a thin, lanky fellow, aged somewhere between 40-45 years. He had a pale skin, almost as pale as a lizard’s. I looked at his eyes and immediately regretted my curiosity; his eyes were red and morbid; probably he had had too little to drink. I knew who he was: a vampire!

  Vampires exist. You would only agree if you’d seen one. I do not care if you disagree with me because I know what I saw. I should have escaped the scene, but the poor creature was in such a pitiful state that I decided to help it.

  “What do you want from me, vampire?” I asked forcefully.

  “Kill me!” he whimpered.

  “Why?” I asked quizzically.

  “I have lived for too long, without a soul.”

  That was a strong reason. I had to kill him, and I did so, dutifully. Please understand that I didn’t kill him because he was a vampire. I killed him because he had a strong reason to die.

  Reason is antidote for remorse. I have never felt remorseful about any of my killings, expect perhaps for one: I killed my dog ‘Harry’. He’d grown too old and too sick. The doctor said that the poor dog must wait for its death and nothing could be done to rescue it from its miseries.

  Nothing lasts. I killed Harry; I made a decision for it. I would never know if it would have agreed; and for that I feel remorse.

  Chapter Six: I am Peter

  I said that I would love Rose as long as she loves me; I really meant it. I don’t really think that she loves me more than her solitude, anymore. There is no real way to ascertain her disposition, but I can’t waste my time with such a capricious woman. I must move on!

  There is absolutely no point visiting her anymore. She always wants to be left alone with her sorrows and misfortunes. She thinks that isolation is the cure. The matter of fact is that isolation is a disease. Isolation
is boring. Isolation is death. Once you are dead, you would have all the time in the world to spend with yourself. Death is forbidding; life permits you possibilities—of pleasure and pain. One must experience life passionately, while it lasts.

  If Rose cannot understand it, fair enough: I will let her lament her woes alone. She is a fool to believe that life only treats her unfairly; no one ever escapes the atrocities of life; not even me!

  Life, love, and death never wait. I can’t wait either.

  I am not looking for love, because I know that love doesn’t have answers to life’s misgivings. I will find pleasure instead. Rose is an idiot. She is missing out on life. Life is all about moving on, accepting the realities and adjusting to their temperature. One must keep finding new avenues of pleasure and solace.

  Chapter Seven: I am a serial killer

  Everyone needs a good incentive for their efforts. I conduct a risky business: if I ever get caught killing someone, I will not expect the state law to endorse my rational, all-pervading stance.

  For taking all that risk, I seek a reward. Nothing financial; I just demand a simple provision from my clients: masks and role-plays.