First Cut is the Deepest

Aaron stared out of the window, lost for a moment.  The sky never failed to enrapture him, filled with mystery and endless amounts of space, another world. The sky was ever-changing, it’s various colours of cobalt blue, sinister black, pearly grey, turquoise and his favourite, a fiery tangerine melting into a crimson cloak. Sometimes the clouds were bloated.  Other times they were no more than mere strands, weavings wisps dashed across the sky by some erratic artist. At night the twinkling stars dangled from the sky, the luminescent white moon acting as puppeteer.

As far back as Aaron can remember he sought solace in the sky.  Growing up under the regimented dictatorship of his father, a military man, he would escape, climb out of the skylight in his attic bedroom and lay on the cool grey tiles fascinated by the enigmatic magnitude above him. One hot summer evening his father had found him out there and in a disciplined rage hurled Aaron off the roof.  He was 8 years old.  His leg was broken in two places and he never walked without a limp again.  Aaron never stopped going out there and his father never entered his room again.

Aaron’s father died when he was 12 years old.  Aaron envied his father’s escape and repeatedly told his mother that he wished it had been him.  His mother interpreted this as Aaron’s devastation at losing his father but it was actually Aaron’s palpable yearning for death, to disappear from the life he detested.  As a woman who had been dominated and controlled first by her father and then by her husband, Aaron’s mother found great difficulty adapting.  She immediately took Aaron out of school and her despondency only served to smother and suffocate Aaron. His father continued to burden him even in death.

Aaron escaped his paternal prison at the age of 15.  He wrote his mother a short note and just as spring blended into summer he left and never looked back.  It was at a hostel deep in the north he met Amber, another lost and damaged soul adrift in the harsh passage of life.  Aaron and Amber became inseparable over the ensuing weeks, months and years.  Their love initially embodying elements such as flawed innocence, naivety, secrecy, and then being consumed by an intense overpowering emotional bond.  Both unconditionally bound to the other.

Aaron was brought back to the present by the key in the door and the familiar tinkling tone of Rosie.  “Morning Aaron, you’re up early my love.  It is a beautiful day isn’t it?” Aaron didn’t turn he continued to gaze through the window “It is Rosie and look at that sky, it’s Amber” Rosie went to him and squeezed his hand “I do believe it is Aaron, it is an Amber sky”.  She saw the glisten of tears held in his eyes and her heart ached for him.  “I am nothing without her Rosie, we belong together. She will be lost Rosie, she will be searching for me”.  Rosie set down his breakfast and left without him turning away from the window. Aaron thought of Amber.

Aaron and Amber were exhausted of life, they needed to escape.  Together they would lie on their backs counting stars and counting down their days.  Some would call them tragic, but there was nothing tragic about their quest for amity.  The real tragedy was the misery of life they both had to endure for such a long time.  They talked of new beginnings of the vastness of space awaiting to encompass them both eternally.  Together they would cross over to the afterlife and become an intertwined spiritual energy totally disconnected from this world leaving all their hatred, anger and fears behind.

It was on a warm summer evening that Aaron and Amber finally gave up on life.  They walked to their favourite place, set down their blanket and with meticulous movement Aaron severed Amber’s pale wrists before cutting his own.  They lead together for the last time watching with an unwavering gaze, as the fiery maroon sphere of light slowly sank beneath the horizon. Threads of light lingered in the sky mingling with the rolling clouds until all that was left of the sunset was a milky mauve, which melted away as darkness took over the sky. As they both drifted away the sequin-silver stars like the glowing embers of a dying fire winked down on them, illuminating the atramentous curtain of sky, and then suddenly the clouds parted, and they found themselves looking at a lustrous, argent orb casting brilliant rays of moonlight.  

Aaron awoke in a hospital bed.  His mother asleep in a chair next to him.  Her eyes red and swollen. Aaron momentarily believed he had gone to hell and expected his father to walk through the door at any moment.  Instead a doctor in a sterile white coat entered the room together with a police officer. Aaron had failed, he had failed at life and now he had failed at death.  Amber was gone and he was still here.  They were found at dawn by a walker and as the doctor explained to him Amber had died but Aaron’s wounds were not as deep and he had been found “clinging to life.” Aaron laughed at such a ridiculous assumption.

When Aaron went to Court he told them openly and honestly that he had killed Amber.  It was done with certainty and forethought and the only justifiable sentence would be the death penalty. However a field of Doctors, Psychiatrists and his meddling mother intervened and cast doubt on his mental capacity.  They infiltrated his testimony and implanted doubt in the jury's mind.  He was found not guilty by reason of insanity.  Aaron was broken but he was not insane.

Aaron finally turned from the window and sat down to eat his breakfast.  He had now been here for two years.  The Doctors who had been so vivaciously vocal at his hearing, rarely attended anymore. His mother visited every week and every week he refused to see her, but she never gave up.  Only Rosie understood the pain he was in.  He finished his cereal with the white plastic spoon, everything in the institution was white.  As he pushed the white plastic dish away from him he heard an unfamiliar scraping noise.  He picked up the dish and there taped to the bottom was Aaron’s escape. With incredulous wariness his eyes frantically searched every inch of his 10 by 10 room.  His suspicion was replaced by euphoria, this time no mistakes, the first cut is the deepest.  Aaron closed his eyes and as his life haemorrhaged out of him he saw her.  Amber.

Hayley Mars.