Snapshot Wraith

By Daphne Sy

6/5/04

Hey, look, I’m sorry I killed you.

There, are you happy now?

No, no—that’s not right at all. I’m not going to apologize for something I’m not sorry for. I just can’t, and it’s as simple as that. So what’re you going to do now? You better get out of my head, because you’re not going to change my mind this way.

I’ll never forget the look on your face. To this very moment I savor the intensity of the sheer horror in your eyes as my knife plunged into your chest. Oh, how I wish I could’ve swallowed you whole, just to consume all of that beauty, just to bring it into my own body as a part of me. I’ll be taking that image of your face with me to the grave at least. May it live within me for eternity, long after my body has fed the worms!

“Why did you do it?” you ask.

It’s not like I hated you. What a silly idea! It’s something much more serious than that. You see, it’s because I loved you so much that I had to tear you to pieces with my own hands. Death is the ultimate goal in life, so who could possibly be better suited to serve it out to you than me, who worshipped your very being, and now, your non-being? I was the one who watched over you every day, the one who clutched you close to my heart when you needed someone at your side, the one who was willing to give everything to make you happy.

And yet, when I ask you to get out of my head, you won’t even do me the simplest of favors! That’s just like you, isn’t it!

I lean into the wind and let the ground disappear beneath my feet.

---

I don’t know if you knew this while you were alive, but I was always really jealous. Not just of all the girls you dated in front of my eyes, but of you yourself. Only you got to spend all day, every day with yourself, and know every corner of your being. I wanted to be there. I wanted to know you better than you knew yourself, but you wouldn’t let me in. When I became more and more desperate, I even started to pick up every issue of Seventeen Magazine I could find for new tips on how to finally snag you all for myself, but nothing worked. I tried everything I could think of, but somehow I could never reach you.

And somewhere along the line, I got tired of the chase.

Do you know how hard it is to wash bloodstains off of white clothing? No, I guess you wouldn’t. Your mom does your laundry for you anyway, every morning at noon, just before she sits down to lunch with her favorite soap operas. I wonder how she’ll feel when she comes home to find you sprawled dead on the once spotless carpet of her living room floor in a pool of your own blood.

The day I killed you, you told me you didn’t want to see me anymore. You said I was obsessed and that scared you. But I had been planning your murder for months by that time, and your words had little to do with the kitchen knife tucked into the pocket of my backpack. It’d been sitting there for weeks, just waiting for the moment when it would taste your flesh, the way I’d always wanted to myself.

I thought your death would make everything better, that it would empty me of you. But instead, you fill my mind now more than ever, perhaps because the gated rivers of death have brought you so far beyond my reach. I can still hear your voice; I can still see your wraith-like form wherever I turn, leading me on into oblivion. So now I will follow you, so we can be together forever.

My eyes are open—I see the Earth crashing up towards me. I smile. Who would’ve guessed that a thousand thoughts could race through your mind so fast? It feels like time has slowed to accommodate these last reflections.

I can see the fine texture of the gravel embedded in the sidewalk before my eyes. My mind is so sharp that I can count every pebble in the cement during this last millisecond in the world of the living.

With this, I take you with me to the grave, my love.

---

He heard about it in school the next day.

The gruesome story splattered the face of all the local newspapers, and it even made a little column on the front page of USA Today.

“Chicago Girl Jumps From Ten-Story Apartment Building,” the headlines screamed. The scene of the apparent suicide was only a few blocks away. It had happened during the dead of night. It was an unexpected event, since the girl’s friends testified that she had been relatively popular and not known to be depressed. He didn’t know her, but even just the title of the story chilled him like a knife to the heart.

It wasn’t until the police came to the door that afternoon with a photo that he was really filled with dread.

“Do you know this girl?” the officer asked him, his face looking worn from a night without sleep. He opened a manila envelope and showed him a photo of a smiling, pretty girl about his age.

“No, I’ve never seen her before in my life.… Is she the jumper?” he asked tentatively.

“I don’t know how to explain all of this then,” the officer sighed, pulling out a piece of paper wrapped in plastic. He took the worn sheet of notebook paper with trembling fingers. His name covered every fragment of open space. It was scrawled in every type of script imaginable, some of the words big, some small, flowing in every direction, the pencil markings of some of the older ones smudged almost into illegibility.

“This is impossible—” he muttered, “Couldn’t it be anyone else?” The officer shook his head.

“No, sir, I’m pretty sure she meant you.” He took the note from him and replaced it with a heavy bag, which he opened to find stuffed to the brim with pictures. Pictures of him. There were some of him at school, some of him walking his dog, some of his house. And sitting on top of the pile was a small Polaroid snapshot of a crudely made doll with a shock of short brown yarn hair, with a tiny paring knife protruding from its chest.