text: Blue, Red I wasn’t exactly sure what I was about to experience, but I had feared the worst. What else would you expect when the police give you a videotape from your best friend that they found left in their room after they had been missing for weeks? I held the tape in my hands, and a knot in my stomach. Both were heavy to me. The white strip on the front side said, “To Tim, Sorry” in his methodical handwriting. I swallowed hard and pushed the tape into the VCR. I felt another welt emerging in my throat as I head the plastic slot flapping, a sound I found kind of funny. Some sliding technological noises swam around mechanically before the TV screen turned to the empty, haunting blue bearing the ghostly white letters ‘VCR’ on the top left. I had seen it a hundred times, and it was more unsettling for every horror move I had seen, and this time, one thousand-fold for what I would soon see. The screen transitioned to static momentarily before customary, grainy lines flickered on screen signaling the beginning. Jerry stood in front of the camera on a small clearing overlooking a forest. He walked firmly forward and sat in front of the camera like he was sitting face to face with me. “I haven’t had a great time in this place, but you already knew that. We really had some great times together. Skating at the park in the day time, riding bikes at the park in the nighttime or around the track when no one was out; sitting around the campfire telling scary stories with Janice and your little sister. I remember when you were there to back me up against that asshole Jackson when he and his jackass friend wanted to pick a fight, or when you hyped me up to go tell that cute girl at the park that I liked her, telling me the skater guy look was guaranteed to wow the girls who didn’t know how to skate and sat gawking at the cool people pulling off the stunts. You said, “we’re those dudes bro!” Recently I just felt like things weren’t going anywhere once you started college and I was stuck at home helping around pop’s shop. You and I both wanted to be those insane stunt makers on TV doing death defying tricks on those giant half-pipes. I know I still wanted to. My parents said I had to stay and work with them, we couldn’t pay for college. I thought it would be fine, but things really aren’t going anywhere. Sometimes ill go to the park by myself, do some kickflips, I even learned how to grind a rail. You weren’t there to see it though. It’s just not the same without you there. The place has been replaced with kids I don’t know, didn’t wanna know em. I’m just doing the same shit everyday. What I do today is the same as tomorrow, same as yesterday. My dad’s promotions don’t keep me going, mom’s words of encouragement don’t keep me going. I’ve been keeping this a secret from my friends, from them too. I just don’t want to keep doing it. I know they’ll be sad, I know you’ll be sad too. I’m sure I’ve lived up to their approval, I can see it in dad’s eyes. I want my own approval from my own eyes when I look in the mirror, but I don’t find it. It’s all just uninteresting, my sweat feels cold.” I felt like someone’s fingers were pushing on the back of my eyeballs. I was shaking. I felt some of my own cold sweat too. He was smiling a little when he talked about how we used to hang out, about how his parents really do love him, how he remembered charlotte. But even so, he just sounded so, tired... Not the kind of tired you felt after a long day of play after school was over and you got into your fresh bed after a shower hating the next school day but knowing you were going to do it again next time. Not the kind of tired when you watched scary movies and stayed up the whole night with Jerry by your side. It was hard to tell really, maybe the kind of tired that made you want to puke. The kind of tired you felt postponing this tape because you feared what was in it. The kind of tired in a zombie movie where you watched all your friends die and you were the last one standing. Yeah... that was it I think. He kind of looked like a zombie. I hated it. The shaking, the urge to hurl, the pain in my head and eyes looking at the bright screen. For a while he would look down while he talked, the sound was a little muffled cuz of it, and I could hear some wind howling in the backround and little digital dead leaves being thrown about. Then he picked his head up and smiled brighter than before. His mouth opened a little like he was going to say something a few times, like he was trying to put into words something he felt others wouldn’t understand. Would I understand? “You know, its really weird. Its been dull, boring and grey, but I’ve kept ignoring something really interesting. Aren’t humans weird? I’ve thought about it since I got a cut as a little kid, and the more serious the skating injury I thought about it more. All this red liquid we need under our white skin. Our whole body, all the soft parts stuffed to the brim with it. It’s a wonder we don’t just explode when we get poked. I mean, sometimes when you poke the right place it busts open like a leaking pipe. We’re like these weird sacs of skin ya know? We got all the guts n’ stuff in there, hot dogs and shit turned to mush and dropping through our intestines after some fun. But where its really at is in the head. We got that dull looking brain in our head, filled with blood and some other stuff I don’t get but isn’t it crazy? How do we even think? Is there something else in us? We’re more like sac balloons I guess, the blood comes out if we popped, but so would the air. Maybe that stuff in our head would fly around when we pops.” All that talk was making me more uneasy. The images of a grisly death was in my mind. One of those science mannikins, the one without skin, showing off all the gross parts was obscenely streaking in the empty sickening blue of the TV screen before the tape loads. He was saying all this stuff while looking intently at the camera. Maybe he wanted me to get it, to push all those thoughts through the screen and into my head. I didn’t want them, but I reluctantly accepted it, I had to as his friend seeing this last moment. He looked right at the camera, I could see the intensity of his eyes, glaring with more life than I had seen in a long time. Then his head drooped down again, and he said quietly, “I’m sorry Tim, I’m gonna try and let it out.” Then the video abruptly ended. All the tension was pushing on my skin now. I dashed out my room and into the streets. I ran and ran and ran. I didn’t want these thoughts right now. I didn’t want to imagine what happened after the tape ended, so I ran. I forced air into my lungs while my blood boiled. I was getting exhausted, but I kept going until I collapsed. I couldn’t rely on anyone right now except the open sky. It was overcast and all the heat was inside me instead of the sky. For just a moment there I got to forget for a little. After laying on the ground for a while I stood up and let the wind blow on my sweaty skin. Maybe he was in that gust. Eventually my fear transitioned to anger. I used what little strength I had left to chuck some rocks out in the open. He better be sorry, because I’m gonna feel this gnawing feeling. I feel it now, I’ll feel it when I’m at my apartment, and I’ll sure feel it when I go home to see my parents soon. There’s already plenty of unanswered voicemails on my phone.