Within the Confines of a Triumph

From the other side of the world a telegram was written transferring a vital piece of information: Axis defeated. As the news broke through, the cities roared with great shouts. The underage men decided to celebrate with liquor as they marveled in their fellow soldiers' triumph, causing an influx of people in bars and a massive income for the bartenders. They were all loud and chaotic with their screams and howls, which reached even the top most flat of every apartment. Yet no one was bothered, not in the slightest.

The old men and women were delighted as they could spend the rest of their days without the worry of being bombed. The anti-war protesters left their usual protesting spot vacant, deciding to rest and drink at their favorite café. Even the widowed wives were content, knowing that their late husband’s sacrifices to their country was not in vain. In this short victory all fears were neglected, casted away to be dealt with on a future date. Because after 6 long years of bullets and missiles, there was finally a time of peace.

In the center and heart of the city, where the chaos and excitement lasted for days on end, there was a man in his humble apartment. In a crowd he wouldn’t be easy to find by the naked eye, he was no more than the height of a mailbox, and his characteristics were just like one: filled to the brim with words. He was a lover of pastry, a non-emotional man, but more than that a journalist. Not just any journalist, but a war journalist. Ever since he started college, he found a certain delight in knowing every weapon, statistic, and detail he could. He found a thrill in analyzing the casualties from every battle during the war, even recreating the battleground within the confines of his basement. He wouldn’t be afraid to snark and jab any politicians he didn’t like, calling out their physical deformities as well as their spiritual ones to the delight of the middle class.  

There were plenty of other writers just as witty as he was, who were able to snark just as hard, yet none of them could keep up with the war just like he did. Every journalist in every city and state knew him for his speed, yet only his friends and close colleagues knew him for his obsession. Even when he had finished his daily load, he would still spend hours or even days in his office writing on a certain battle he was fixating on. He was in love with the pen, but more than that he was in love with the crowd. He loved that his words were the very thing satisfying the curiosity of the citizens on whether they should be frightened or calm. So much so that sometimes one of his coworkers would find him sitting in bars for hours on end, waiting for someone to mention his article in the daily newspaper. 

His name was Thomas Hawthorn, and today he would produce his last article about the war. 

At that moment Thomas was at his home resting on his armchair, across from him, on the left side of the sofa was his wife, Rebecca Hawthorn who he had married for almost 5 years. She was a fine lady, a simple woman who wanted nothing more than a suburban life with two kids. However, due to Thomas’s occupation, they had to stay in the city. There also seemed to be a noticeable absence of children in their little apartment.  

All was going well for the first year and a half of their marriage, till on one unspectacular Tuesday, there suddenly appeared a certain sorrow on Rebecca’s face Thomas couldn’t understand. Her bright eyes became mellow and all the colors in her skin dulled, she looked old yet young at the same time. She would say to him daily, “Do you love me?”, and every time he would always look confused and baffled by the question, “Why else would I marry you?” he would ask back. Every time he said so her sorrow seemed to deepen. Afterwards she would go on to the bathroom to take a bubble bath. The same thing occurred that day, yet she was wearing a yellow sundress. She was on the way to take her bath when Thomas said something uncharacteristic, “Quite a pretty outfit you have there, Rebecca.” 

The comment took her by surprise, she looked at him with a slight genuine smile, a smile that was short-lived, as her face changed to a more guilty and fearful expression. “Thank you,” she quietly whispered. Thomas barely heard what she said, but before he could say anything more the door shut. 

After such an unusual moment, he decided to not think of it and went out of his apartment. He saw his young Japanese neighbor, Akio. They never talked much, but they waved hello every time they saw each other. He looked gentle, frail, and weak. Thomas looked at his watch, it was 9 o’clock.

The hour between 9 and 10 o’clock were critical moments of the day for him, an integral part of his routine when his mind was able to conceptualize the article he was going to type out. The reason for his quick writing was often due to this much needed hour of thought. During that one hour he would bring out all of his conscience to a visceral state where a thousand sentences were to go by his mind. One by one during that hour he would pick the most endearing and tasteful sentences he could form, like a chef going around a fish market smelling out the scent of the freshest raw salmon. As of now however, the world didn’t spare him a second to think. So, he quickly walked to a new bakery just two blocks south from his home to buy a bagel. Afterwards he sat close to the window, that was when he overheard two young teen boys behind him, one wore a hat and the other a beanie.

“I'm glad the Japanese were bombed,” the boy with the hat said. “I don’t know Clive, I think we both did quite a lot of violence-” the beanie boy said, but Clive interfered, “No, do you know what is wrong Gerald? The Japanese destroyed Pearl Harbor! Didn’t you read the newspaper? That’s unforgivable!” After hearing what the boy said, Thomas felt a sense of satisfaction. “Even young boys are reading his newspaper,” he thought. With a smile he stood up and left the cafe pleased. He went towards his office, up to the 5th floor to his desk where he met his colleague and “friend”, Jerry O’Brien. 

Jerry was a tall man, taller than the average height of the time. He towered over Thomas in a very comedic way, like a sort of cat-and-mice duo. Jerry worked in the fiction department. His stories often humored the mostly middle-class readers who were often endlessly stressed. He was well known due to his emotional stories. Jerry had always been able to turn his feelings into magnificent writing. Thomas often envied this ability, yet inside he really envied Jerry’s tenderness. He sometimes disliked Jerry for this, but he always disliked how he felt that way. 

For the past 6 months Jerry had been more anxiety driven, eating a daily dose of highly caffeinated chocolate. Jerry told him that it was because he had been dealing with deadlines and intense workload, needing to constantly humor the already stressed and tired citizens. 

As Thomas approached his table Jerry looked at him surprised. “Here quite early? Are you finished with your article?” he pushed away a necklace he was holding, placing it in a jewelry box, “This must be a record time!”

“On the contrary I didn’t finish anything at all, the rowdiness of the people out there were too much,” Thomas said, he pulled out his notepad and showed Jerry the blank piece of paper to his astonishment, “The loud noises made me think of too many words, too many sentences,” he placed the notepad back into his drawer, “I think I need someone else’s opinion, what’s yours, Jerry?” Thomas asked, he then took a bite out of his crispy bagel. 

“I know this whole ordeal of us winning seems grand and marvelous,” Jerry said, bringing himself closer to Thomas, “But what do you think?”

“Well I think that the whole ordeal is grand and marvelous,” Thomas said with a smirk. “Are you sure?” Jerry questioned, he pulled Thomas close to him and talked in a low tone so that no coworker could hear the slightest bit of the conversation, “I heard from my old colleagues in Oregon that the bombs we dropped killed entire cities, Tom.”

“We’ve all used a bomb before it’s nothing mu- “, before he could finish his sentence Jerry suddenly veered closer to him. By now his voice is no more than a soft gentle whisper, “No, it wasn’t a bomb Tom. It was the bomb. I heard they dropped not one, but two of these bombs. It killed thousands, tens of thousands. Imagine if it landed here, it could kill you, me, Rebecca-” Jerry suddenly stopped talking. Thomas noticed Jerry’s hand trembling, he then nervously returned to his cubicle. “I’m sorry that was too much wasn’t it.”

Thomas was bewildered, he knew Jerry was sensitive but at that moment he looked paranoid. He was going to say something, but Jerry suddenly stood up. He looked at his watch, took the jewelry box, and said nervously, “I think I should head away first. Sorry for all the fuzz,” Thomas was confused, but Jerry was already going in a frenzy. 

It was 9:34. His mind was still utterly cluttered, so he decided to go to the café next to his office. He walked to the elevator heading to the ground floor, slowly descending into the commotion down under. Stretching his back, he went out, back to the sound hazard that was the crowd. He was approaching the café, when he saw from the left side of the street a load of people running. He didn't pay attention to them, until he heard their conversations as they passed by. “He deserves it,” he heard from his left, and more loudly, “For Pearl Harbor!” he heard on his right. They were all muttering so loudly he could barely discern any other words, except “Japanese”. 

Curious, he began to follow them, running left and right, getting closer to the center of the city. As he was running, he wondered whether what he’d approach would be newsworthy, especially for his final article. That’s when the men suddenly stopped at the alleyway beside his apartment. He heard a gentle scream that reminded him of a swallow’s, slowly he approached the source of the sound, getting deeper and deeper into the alleyway and there he saw a bleeding Japanese boy. Akio.

Akio spoke with a harsh accent, “Don’t hurt me. Please.” Thomas’s face was suffused with fear, yet as he walked back everyone else ran in, like a predator playing with their prey. He saw Akio's hair pulled back as one of the young men beat his face, his teeth breaking off one by one. The rest of his body was already broken and disfigured, with bruises the color of a grape. Suddenly he saw a teen with a hat rushed in to join the beating, it wasn’t just any teen, it was Clive. “Come on Gerald, come here let’s enjoy some good fun!” he said. That’s when Thomas realized next to him stood the other boy Gerald, who looked as terrified as he was. But as the beating continued, they both silently did nothing, paralyzed by terror. He saw Akio’s beaten face once more, disfigured as if he wasn’t human, he read his lips,

“Help.”

Then he heard the sound of a crack. A loud, vicious crack.

The whole ordeal was merely a minute, but just for that one-minute Thomas, the writing engine, stopped. His quick-witted mind was dimmed as the people around him with red colored fists and bright wide smiles walked away. All of his quick thoughts, what happened to them? Where was the writing machine within his head to exterminate this reality? His mind couldn’t form a sentence or a word, not even a thought. All of his senses were heightened, a sense of hopelessness slowly easing into his body. Every passing moment was slowly embedded into his brain like it was stone, he could do nothing but watch people disappear into the crowd, revealing the body of a corpse.

Help.

He dashed as quickly as he could to his apartment, going up the stairs like an agitated cat. He quickly grabbed his keys and dashed into his apartment. Gasping for air. His eyes were directionless, looking at nothing and everything all at once. All that his mind could think of is the helpless boy on the ground that he didn’t help, his bleeding face, and the sound of that horrifying crack. He breathed intensely with the rhythm of a jazz drummer. He’d written about the thousands of deaths so effortlessly as if they’re statistics on a graph, and here he was in sheer panic over seeing the death of one boy. That’s when he heard a soft sound from his very own bedroom.

“Quiet Jerry,”

His heart stopped. He slowly walked over to the bedroom, opening the door. It creaked slowly revealing Jerry, half naked. He looked at Thomas with surprise and the same anxiety on his face, the same he had in the office room for the past 6 months. 

“You were never anxious about the workload, were you?” he said. Jerry’s eyes widened as Rebecca quickly appeared with her yellow sundress hastily worn. He saw her eyes, filled with the same fear, shame, and guilt. He then peered down to see a necklace around her neck, a necklace that he never gave her.

“Why would you?” he asked.

Before Jerry could say anything, Rebecca interfered. “Do you know what I’ve been through?” she said not answering his question, her face red in the brink of tears. “What?” Thomas said in confusion. 

Rebecca was taken aback by Thomas's response. “Oh God,” she said, “you didn’t even realize, did you?”

His mind was perplexed, he thought of every single information he might’ve forgotten, every single event of every week but all the tangible knowledge he could grasp was about war. His mind went wandering till it was pulled back down. His eyes darted at Rebecca’s face, the sorrowful face he once knew.

“I had a miscarriage Tom,” her tears falling onto her yellow sundress, “One and a half years ago, on a Tuesday I still remember, the doctor told me that the baby was dead. He told me that it was due to my stress and-” she covered her sobbing face with her hands, “This whole time I was mad that you didn’t care, but now I know that you didn’t even notice. Did you,  Thomas?”

“DID YOU?” she cried desperately. 

Thomas fell on his knees. He wished that he could feel the moment, but the image of a bloody Akio continuously penetrated into his mind. The beating, the bruises, and that horrifying crack. His mind forced him to indulge in this violence he’d written about hundreds of times. He tried to think of other sentences to go and collect yet all that his conscience served was Akio. All of those deaths, loss, and destruction, so effortlessly he had written about such things. And so effortlessly he caused the death of his neighbor. His guilt drenched the very fabric of his soul. All that his mind gave him were the sins he had written, not in ink, but in blood, their blood.

Akio’s blood. 

He looked at Jerry. The hate in him brewed, all the jealousy that had been piling up. He hated him. More than he hated anything, more than he hated himself. “I’m sorry,” Jerry said with his fearful voice. At that moment Thomas snapped. 

He took Jerry’s arm and smashed him to the floor. Rebecca screamed, cried, and begged him to stop yet he didn’t look away from Jerry’s bleeding face. His arm moved in a continuous flow, he heard her running outside yelling for the cops but he didn’t care. For once his emotions manifested, and it was ugly. For once, he felt something, and out of all the emotions he could have possibly felt, he felt hopelessness. 

Thomas kept on, swinging his arm over and over, till he heard that torturous crack. This time, caused by his own hands. He puked on the floor drenching it with an already digested bagel.

It was 10 o’clock.  

It was time for him to finish his article, he thought. He stood up, shaking, to do the one thing he could only do. For once in his life, all of his thoughts directed him to a single paragraph, a single thought, a single idea. He wrote it down in his notepad and left it on the living room table. Afterwards he went to the bathtub, smelling a scent of grass dew from the perfume, “Rebecca’s”, he thought. He placed his two feet into it slowly, filling it up with water till it was full enough for him to fully submerge his head. 

The police arrived a few minutes after Thomas drowned himself. It was too late for them to save him. All they found was his short paragraph on his notepad. “All roads that we were promised, ones that will lead us to Heaven have led us astray.” it said, “We plunged down there into the abyss, not with fear nor cries but with applause. In this finite world, we are our own Hell.”