Melvin flipped open the scrapbook his grandmother made for him chronicling his first year of life. For most, such a memento would include happy pictures of general baby milestones like first tooth or first solid food meal. For Melvin, his entries consisted of newspaper clippings of his first press conference or first assassination attempt on his life. Each one disgusted him, humanity disgusted him.
Melvin put down the book, glanced at the other twenty volumes of his “life,” and switched on the video camera. He had made sure to not clean his room or shower. He wanted people to see him for what he was, what they refused to believe- an average human man with no special qualities.
“Hello, I have something to say, something that I wish I had been able to say for years, but nobody would listen to me. I don’t know why I was born the way I was, but I do know, that all I am is a very lonely and unhappy person. You all expected so much from me, things I could never provide for you. You never let me be a normal person, you never let me smile, you made me live for you.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and I leave you with one thing to ponder. When Jesus was alive centuries ago, he proclaimed his divinity and was punished for it. He may or may not have been holy but he tried to teach people to be good to each other, to love and respect the gifts God gave them, including the environment and animals and one another. I think that all major religions are based on the ideals of love and respect. For all of history people have been taking these teachings and twisting them, making them something horrible, an excuse to be violent and full of prejudice and hate.
I am not Jesus reborn, I am not the savior of mankind, I am just a normal guy who was chewed up since birth because of some strange birthmark. However, if I were God, then how do you feel knowing that you have lead me here. Your obsession with me has taken my life away before it even started. I’ve been turned into a vessel for you to poke and prod at, to dissect with your words. I am a victim of the human race. If I am God, then know that you are all doomed for how you act, for how you treat one another.”
Melvin took a pause as his eyes started to burn from the tears he was tugging back. The tears were of memories he wanted to erase, memories of a life where he was treated like a zoo animal or freak show amusement. People would always tell him how much he meant to them, how he changed their life around, but he didn’t understand why. He never did anything for anyone, he just did what he was told, and he was tired of being told what to do. His birth made his parents rich, it made them forget their troubles, it made them the spotlight of the entire world. Melvin grew up wishing they would tuck him in one night and tell him that in the morning they would free him of the cameras and the interviews and the political peace meetings.
“I’m through with this life, I’m through with living in a world where I can’t walk down the street to try fast food. I’m tired of being thought of as holy and therefore not allowed to go on a date. I’m tired of an existence where a dumb birthmark makes people think I am their salvation. I haven’t been allowed to make mistakes so how am I expected to teach people what to do? I am still just a kid, adults, especially in positions of power should know how to be civil, should know how to compromise, they shouldn’t need some boy telling them to behave. I’m tired of you all.”
Melvin stood up and walked to the table, making sure the camera got a nice, long view of his naked body. He had secretly been not eating his food and throwing up whatever he did eat. Nobody had noticed because nobody really saw him. The camera saw him though, it sketched the pale, bony figure that he had become. When he sat back down he looked into the camera, letting the tears flow, tears that he had been holding back from the public his entire life. Tears that showed he wasn’t above basic human emotions.
“This is for me. This is to show you that I have free will.”
He took a pair of socks and shoved them into his mouth, then showed the camera the scalpel he had snuck out of his doctor’s bag three weeks before. Very slowly he pressed it into his chest and started slicing down. The physical pain was incredible, but somehow not as bad as the emotional torment he had lived since as long as he could remember. His body tensed up, it was screaming at him to stop cutting into it, it was begging him to stop. His will on the other hand was pushing him further, it was reminding him that this was a means to an end. Three and a half inches down, he turned the knife to the left as if he was cutting an “L” into his skin. Four inches across and he didn’t know how he was enduring the slicing of the skin over his heart. He was biting the sock so hard he thought he would crush his teeth with the pressure. Tears formed streams down his face, the salt from them falling onto the wound he was creating and burning him like all the tabloids had for so many years. He turned the scalpel back up, he was halfway done, he was half way to being rid of the “miraculous” mark that had turned his life into a living hell. His adrenalin was kicking in, he started to gain focus again. He was ready for it to be over, he was rushing to the finish line, he didn’t want to draw it out any longer. He turned it to the right, heading back to where he started. The square was completed so he put down the knife and picked up the large tweezers off the counter. After a deep breath through his nose he grabbed the top corner of the square and ripped his skin off his body as if he were ripping away a band aide. It was both easier and harder than he thought it would be, the fascia wanted to keep the skin in place and he felt every little molecule being ripped away from where it was meant to be. The fresh air on his body stung him, the pain made him feel free.
Melvin almost forgot about the camera. He yanked the soaking sock out of his mouth and started laughing hysterically. He felt free. He felt exhilarated. He looked at the camera with the first real smile of his life.
“You can have it, I don’t want it, I want out.”
Melvin picked up the Kasumi knife from the table and stabbed himself in the heart. He stabbed himself until he couldn’t anymore, hitting the camera as he fell to the floor. His final thoughts in the moments that he lost consciousness was how funny it would be to see everyone rush into his room, only to realize that he had programmed the video to air online twenty-hours after it was recorded. He knew his handlers would think they could save him, but they would really be walking in to find that he had escaped him.
As the life in him drifted away, the camera landed in such an angel that it was focused on the square of skin he had cut off, the strange birthmark that appeared to say “I am REborn.”
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