The Accord - 1. Chapter 1

So that is the sound of life: the constant beeping of a medical monitor. All the numbers on it are blinking orange; all the lines on it are too shallow; all the figures are having exclamation marks next to them. Your breathing is steady, but only because a machine does it for you. Your face is sunken, grey and has too many wrinkles for a twenty years old guy. Its pudgy contours have flattened, the skin clinging to the bones. A movie nerd like you would say you’re looking like the Mummy.

“That wasn’t a call for help. That was a real try to end his life.”

Doctor Snyder shouldn’t be telling me that, cause I’m no relative. But once more my looks, my charm, my body have worked their spell on this woman in her mid-forties.

“He ingested a severe overdose of multiple narcotics. He knew what he was doing.”

Of course, you did. You always do.

“He must have lived through hell to do something so drastic.”

You have lived with me. There are worse things than hell.

“I’ll call his parents, Mr. Stevenson. You can stay with Mr. Bendon, if you like.”

She smiles. How dares she? I smile back with the right amount of teeth showing and this boyish tilt of the head. A reflex, an instinct, part of my mask. She blushes and turns away to hide it. You can’t hide from a predator as seasoned as I am. She leaves.

I’m standing a meter away from your bed. An invisible force repels me. You don’t want me to be close anyway, do you? Still, I can’t leave. I’m trapped in the void between the outer world and you. While I’m connected to everyone, you’re separated from everything. And we’re suffering both. You’d laugh now and say you’d kill a person for my looks. You almost did.

Do you remember when we came up with the idea of the Accord? I don’t. It has always been there; at least it feels like that. It’s tempting to say something cliché like: ‘Fate paired us into a dorm room.’ But it was chance. Nothing else. The brainless party boy, who can make anyone want him, and the brilliant nerd, who knows more than his professors. The Accord connected these extremes, forced two diametrical poles together. The currents caused by this connection were more than a person could handle, than you could handle.

The idea is so simple. You do college stuff for me. For each ten hours of work you’re awarded a free pass to have sex with a person you want. People go to extremes to get me into their bed. That includes sleeping with you. Those are your words. How could I let them stand unchallenged?

For one year, it worked. You were happy, your cheeks glowing in anticipation when leaving with that gay quarterback. I was happy, a smile on my lips for not being bawled out by my Dad for once during Thanksgiving dinner. But borrowed things never become truly yours.

You redeemed less and less of the tickets. You thought I wouldn’t notice? You thought I had no guilty conscience? But I called you out on it.

“You can fuck around with the entire basketball team including substitutes for all those tickets.”

“I don’t want them.”

“You can have anyone.”

“One person I can’t have. All the tickets can’t buy me him.”

“A challenge? Who is it?”

“You.”

Of all the reactions possible, I chose to laugh. I laughed despite I knew you meant it. I laughed despite I knew how deeply you could love. I laughed because it scared me.

How could you love me? You have glimpsed behind the façade. You have seen the terrified little boy unable to relate to anyone. You have watched how I’ve destroyed tiny pieces of my lovers’ souls, taking the first brick out of their faith in love. You have listened to me badmouthing you, your weight, your body, your face. Do you still love me?

I cannot love, not anymore. It’s a paradox, but you crave paradoxes. Having the attention of everyone short-circuits your interest in others. The more I am desired the less I desire. No, I don’t even love myself. Don’t chuckle! It’s the truth. I take the love of others and pretend it’s mine. I’m a mirror for emotions and those reflections have no substance. Can I learn to love again? If I were as incorrigibly romantic as you are, I could hope. But I am not.

Imagine for a moment that we were a couple: walking hand in hand over the campus, exchanging fleeting kisses and the others whispering behind our backs. Could you stand this? Of course, you could. You have born so much more contempt. You’re strong, I’m not. How would it feel to be all myself? I’d be petrified, in constant fear that you came to your senses. That’s a surprise for you, isn’t it? Are you terrified of the power you’d have over me? You’re not, because your love is fearless.

I do not love you.

Because I can’t. I’m repeating myself, I know.

But if there was one person I could love, it’d be you.

The monitor screams with its inhuman voice. Red flashes, wildly oscillating lines and this bloodcurdling noise intrude into the void. Your face is smiling.

Doctor Snyder pushes me away, several nurses file in.

“Ventricular tachycardia. Amiodarone!”

One of the nurses gives you an injection.

“Defibrillation… 200 joule… stand back.”

The capacitor charges with this high-pitched noise. See, I know what a capacitor does. Your Physics lessons weren’t in vain. Your body convulses. The monitor’s wailing continues.

“300 joule… charge… stand back.”

I want to tell them to stop, because you won’t come back. Once you’re decided, you’re decided.

“360 joule… charge … stand back.”

I ask you to not forgive me. You mustn’t. Okay? The lines are flat now.

“400 joule.”

“400?”

“He can’t be deader than he is now. 400!”

You’d hate a simple good-bye. So, farewell, my friend.

“Switch of the machines. Time of death: 1:13 pm.”

Silence. So that is the sound of our death.