Ignorance

Ignorance was the worst.

        
People in Ancient Rome believed that to ignore and to forget were the worst punishments of all. He could now see why they thought this a fate worse than death.

If no one bothers to see you, could you even be sure you can be seen? Could you be sure you are solid if no one has touched you for weeks? How had he been doing it for years, how had he been so sure about anything (and to think he used to be sure of everything…) at all before-?..

…before.

Ignorance was bliss.

If no one cared about you, you were free. But he didn’t reach that irresponsible bliss yet. He was at the point where everyone looks at him sometimes, though only to whisper rumors about him to each other- He was at the point where he is afraid of a murmur as much as a yell.

Ignorance mixed with hatred just… didn't do well, was the conclusion he finally reached. It messed with his head. He wasn't free but he wasn't exactly chained too. He couldn't see how he would make an escape from this state of being. When he was staying people didn’t bother to see him, he was all alone: excluded, abandoned, unwanted. But when he tried to go, to leave, whenever he made a run for it everyone was standing on his way, holding his arms and legs, locking the doors and closing the curtains; and then they would abandon him again, and he would again be left behind to cry and crawl in his misery of existence. What was even the point of keeping him here? If they would just let him let go, if they would just stop looking his way altogether instead of giving him fleeting mocking glances and pressing him to believe it was enough to stay-!

He was begging for a change to fly. He would do anything to get out of this cage for just a mere minute. He was going insane to find an open window... a bright blue pitch of the sky, a cracked glass, a cold breeze right to his face to make him feel alive in his last cry. Then no one would ever need to bother about him ever again. He wouldn’t ever ask for more, ask for anything at all; he’d be content with a glance on his name once a year, would believe them in a heartbeat if they ever said I loved you, if they said I’m sorry. He wouldn’t question the truth in their words, wouldn’t care to remind them their words had started coming way too late to catch up to him. They would simply find his body there, non-complaining, not whining; instead quiet and broken and small and limp and cold, so cold on the floor under the window, never to move for the time being.

Could ignorance kill?

He couldn't sleep at all. He had never been one for prolonged insomnia before. Now every night he was lying awake; eyes moving frantically between the bed posts, every snore making him jump, every breath making him tremble with terror like it belonged to a beast. When he managed to calm himself down from the verge of the panic attack he would close his eyes, pretending he wasn't covered in sweat and still shivering, and tried to sleep. For some time, he would think he had actually achieved it, that he was finally sleeping peacefully; but then he would open his eyes expecting the sun and a new day -never a good day but a new day nonetheless- and he would only find the moon and the darkness staring back at him. He would find that he did nothing since he closed his eyes, that nothing he had done up until this moment had ever mattered. He was still where he left, nothing was solved, nothing would be as it used to be again, and certainly wouldn’t be for the better. His eyes would prickle with tears and he would cry silently into the night, pleading to the monsters he's so afraid of to come and stay with him because he couldn't stand the loneliness anymore, he just couldn't. And when the dawn brightened the skyline he would have cried himself to sleep, just minutes ago before sunlight’s touch is on his eyelids.

Ignorance was born from mistakes.

At least, his was born from his mistake. His one, stupid, careless mistake. It didn't even matter that he was lured into it at the end; when all was said and done no one listened to him, didn’t want or need to hear his explanations nor apologies. It didn't matter after the mistake- He didn't matter after. Just one moment and everything he had gained, everything he had once sacrificed his everything for was gone in a matter of seconds like all their worth was that much- which he knows isn't true. He wants to believe it's not true. He didn’t want to know even the possibility of all the things he used to call his hadn’t been real enough to withstand, or worse, that they had never been his at all.

Ignorance, coming from the ones you once trusted and believed; moreover the ones who had believed in you once before you let them down…

But it wasn’t his fault. He tried to make himself believe it wasn’t. He tried to use the anger, believing it would be better to hate the world instead of hating himself. It quelled down in a matter of days- he knew these people deserved his hate less than he himself did. He tried to forgive himself next and tried to find a solution when he couldn’t- when the guilt started gnawing at his heart and bones, enough to make him dizzy where he stood. He was, utterly and ashamedly, in dire need of help; yet why would anyone notice his plea? No one was even looking his way since that cursed day. He despised himself for making such a mistake; which only made him more ashamed of himself because what he actually despised the most was the things it had cost him, not the mistake itself. He knows he could’ve learned to live with this mistake too, like the hundreds he had made before; but he never had to survive on his own in such lows. He wished he could turn the anger into another emotion or upon another thing; it was eating him alive, making him vomit whenever he put food into his mouth. He wished he could be proud of what he did -even though the mere thought disgusted him- so enduring the consequences of it would be less painful. The foxes running through his mind were unstoppable, like he used to be once upon a time; a kid everyone knows well and likes, talks and greets by as a completely normal human.

But he was ignorant. Oh, so ignorant.

Indifference had cost him way too much than it should have cost to a stupid energetic teenager. Indifference had cost him his life. Now he was living in its shell, the dead ends of an unfinished happy ending story. His once near perfect life (he saw that now, God he was only seeing it now) gone and all that’s left was the excruciating pain and numbness the memories brought.

Ignorance could kill.

He was sure of it, for he was sure he wasn’t alive. Being alive hadn’t been like this, he knew. He had been alive before (before. beforebeforebeforebefore-). He knew how it felt. The way his blood ran in his veins when he was excited, the way he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers. The huge smile that broke out on his face whenever a joke erupted from one of his friends’ mouth, and he remembered the easy laughter that followed. Everything was easy. So damn easy.

How did it become like this? How could his ignorance cost him that much? How could being indifferent end his future and his past..?

He could now hear his blood rushing in his ears whenever he felt eyes on him, a flimsy mimicry of before. Fortunately it didn’t last long, no one had the eyes nor the reasons that would get them to look at him more than a second; but his tolerance was thinning day by day. He hadn’t been looked at for such a long time he no longer knew what to do. He had even felt tears in his eyes once, and without knowing what made him that afraid in the short glance of a bespectacled boy, he quickly hid in a bathroom. It took his breath away, the sheer panic clogging his throat.

It wasn’t healthy. He knew. But nobody cared anymore. He thought maybe he would adapt into it. Nobody asked how it went; and nobody wondered how it felt when he couldn’t.

So he didn’t tell anyone. He kept it to himself. Kept all of the tortures his mind gave him every night to himself, every tear to his bed sheets. He didn’t want to be laughed at. He didn’t want to be on the spotlight. He didn’t want to be more of a burden than he already was.

He stopped looking people in the face. It was easier to ignore them like this. He realized the cracks on the walls were rather fascinating- they neither glared nor whispered, they just stood still with their eyes closed, uncaring. He found the blankness rather serene, sincere.

Once or twice a month, someone would have to call him by his name. It never was an important thing, just homework or something on that line. Except these were the only times people would give enough attention to notice his awkwardness: they had to call him at least five times before his gaze left the floor to search for what was making the noise. He wasn’t reacting as he should- he seemed like he was deaf. But they would realize within a matter of minutes that what bothers them and brings awkwardness into his actions was that surprised look on his face when he heard his name- like he had forgotten what it was, or rather that it was his.

Ignorance had taken up his name and he had forgotten. Silence was calling him more than his name called to him now. He got used to it easier than the whispers.

The poor student would scatter away hastily, sometimes even leaving the question they asked unanswered; just wanting to get away from him as soon as possible. He would be relieved every time afterwards that he didn’t have to speak out loud.

There is a point where what is done cannot be undone. Further than this point, and all that’s lost will not, ever, come back again.

Ignorance was the line. Ignorance from others and hatred from his friends had brought him to this point and then he was pushed forward in spite of his resistance, he was forced to run without stopping and never look back at the life he won’t ever be able to come back to. It sounded like mercy at first thought, if that hope for a glance hadn't been the last thread tying him up.

Right now though, where he reached miles away after too late, he was feeling the same as he had before: the blood running through his veins, the howling of wind erasing the voices now so far gone, the fingertips he had lost feeling of covered in red. His last breath hitching in his throat.

His mistake brought him to the breaking point. One moment of foolishness. He let his eyes close, finally resting from watching out for something that had never come; or maybe one that already had. What a waste, he thought as his life flashed before his eyes. What a waste of a dream it was.

He hadn’t even tried to write a letter. He was sure no one would read. He hadn’t tried to explain what he couldn’t face to face since they didn’t need it. They were happy without him, they had been for a long time. He had watched them, from afar. His heart ached- he had never managed to erase his past and look forward, had never achieved the skill called forgive and forget- and that had been his end; because of himself, for himself, by his own hand.

How fitting for the treacherous Black.

A weak one, they would say after him later. A weak one, he was.

He should have known better than to make that mistake. He should have known it was something much bigger than he thought. Should have known he didn’t matter as much as he believed. Not to his friends, not to his family, certainly not to anything in this damned universe if even he couldn’t find it in himself to care about his own fate.

Ignorance would be his oblivion. It... already had.

No one can bring back what ignorance had taken in its claws. The things it touched were long gone, went unnoticed by the others- the witty thief, first making everyone forget, then claiming what it wants. No one really noticed, no one really cared, until the stolen was never to be back.

Ignorance killed that night.

Everyone just kept sleeping.