Seasons

Summer had left me in December, which was a concept that, after the initial heavy depression, could have been seen as more ironic than sad after three years. I had yet to advance past the "depression" stage yet, however.
"Another one, please," I muttered to the bartender.
He gave me the evil eye, but placed a glass of brown something-or-other before me. I gulped it down without a thought as to what it might have been. In all honesty, I didn't really care what it was, or where I was, for that matter. A typically dank, dark, badly-smelling lit bar on a bad side of a bad town, presumably. It was empty, save me, the happily glaring bartender, and a single unconscious, muttering drunk leaning against one of the barstools. From what I could tell, he was muttering about someone named "Hungry Joe," and complaining about cats. Again, I couldn't possibly care less.
I looked into the newly-emptied glass and saw Summer reflected back at me, then at the bartender and drunk with the same results. Three years of my life without her, and yet I still longed for her terribly.
If my memory serves me right, which I'm sure it does, it all started with a dog. An odd reason to meet the love of your life, perhaps, but… let me explain.
I had acquired some slight loneliness since I escaped college, and something in my head told me that getting a dog would be the solution for it. When I brought the great beast home, I found that I was highly incorrect.
From square one, my dog was a plague. He pissed on absolutely everything, ripped up furniture, and managed to break nearly everything in my apartment more than once. I was able to live with him for about a week before I snapped and decided to get rid of him.
Eventually, I opted to turn him loose in the nearest park. I didn't particularly want to give him back to the pound, as I knew they'd probably get rid of him at the first convenience, like I was doing. My hatred of him was great, but it wasn't so large that I wanted the poor blighter euthanized.
The second I brought the dog to the park, he broke his leash, somehow managed to rip a hole in the very pocket I kept my wallet in, and ran off with it in his mouth. I chased him, screaming obscenities, through several happy-turned-surprised-turned-offended couples when they saw that I was barely wearing pants.
Within five minutes, he was gone, and I stood alone, panting for breath and cursing with every breath I did regain. My wallet had contained at least $400, and when I made the trek back to my car, I found I was out of gas. Every single force in the universe had decided that this day was not to be a good one for me. Or so I thought.
Night had fallen without so much as a murmur, and I was forced to make the walk six miles back to my shabby apartment. As I walked home, a motorcyclist passed me, and then made a U-turn, pulling up next to me. His heavily helmeted head blocked even the slightest glimpse of his face, and his lithe figure stated that he probably wasn't the most imposing of men. He motioned for me to hop into his bike.
Too tired to be suspicious, I told him where I lived, and off he sped.
I can say that I'm not a big fan of motorcycle transit. Imagine having your face ripped off by razor winds, while all the while bouncing up and down on a tough metal seat, as if you're being punched in the groin over and over and over. I'm exaggerating, of course, but my point is made.
At some point, the deathtrap slowed to a stop, and I realized through slightly watering eyes that we had arrived at my apartment building, and that I was still alive.
"Err… thanks?" I said to the motorcyclist, who had not muttered a single word since he had seen me. Instead of responding, he dug around in a single pocket and produced a piece of paper, which he scribbled something on and handed to me. In the next second, he was completely gone from the street, almost as if he had never existed.
I unfolded the crumpled piece of paper, wondering vaguely what that was all about. On the note was scrawled a set of numbers that could only have been a phone number, followed by the word "Summer." Not understanding, I first thought that I was meant to call the number to pay for my motorcycle ride.
Naturally, I had missed the tiny heart written under the word, and realization finally hit me. The word "Summer" was a name, and the motorcyclist (most likely) wasn't a man. Or, perhaps he was simply a highly effeminate man. Regardless, I owed him or her, and felt the need to convey my thanks, if only through the telephone.
Rather than calling that night (It had gotten even later without my knowledge) I decided to wait until the next day. I still had time; I had no work on Sunday, although I eventually opted to call after 12:00, on the off chance "Summer" was into religion. I needn't have worried; when I finally did call, Summer picked up the phone only a few seconds after the dial tone. In a pleasant, slightly high voice, she asked to meet me again in a restaurant on the better side of town. Just as baffled, I tried to ask her why she had picked me up, but she wouldn't answer, simply hanging up instead.
As I didn't have anything better to do, I simply found my way to the restaurant and waited for her there. Far from the nicest place I had ever eaten at, it still had an odd sort of charm, like a stray dog, if the stray dog stank heavily of potatoes and deodorant.
Summer arrived thirty minutes after the time she had told me, and looked the stark opposite of the first time I had seen her. She wore a yellow dress, one that reflected her name in its warmth, that fit loosely around the shoulders and –as I noticed immediately, the pervert that I am- around the chest. Brown hair was drawn back in a ponytail. With all honesty, she was absolutely breathtaking. Of course, that only succeeded in confounding me further.
"Uhh….Hi?" I said, hoping for an explanation.
"What? A woman can't randomly go on a date with someone they found walking the streets?" she said simply, reading my mind with a smile.
She took me back to her apartment, having had no intention of actually eating at the odd establishment, having met there only to keep me from thinking her a creeper, or something to that effect. Without any real idea as to what her intentions were, I followed her motorcycle from my car. It was an interesting sight; a woman in a frilly, yellow dress riding a deathtrap at breakneck speeds.
Once we arrived, she brought me into her apartment. It was strangely cozy; the floor was carpeted, the walls painted (yellow, I noticed), and a large, fluffy couch taking up a good chunk of the room.
We spent a whole twelve minutes finding out about one another. After that, mutual attraction reared its pretty little head yet again, and I found myself in a sort of heap with Summer on her couch. Like her namesake and personality, she was rather warm, as were her face, lips, and practically…er…everything else.
After at least an hour of intense kissing, I untangled myself from the girl I barely knew and staggered to the door, in a sort of trance. She flying tackled me.
"You're not going anywhere," she said in a way that actually wasn't imposing, and pressed her face into mine. We made doe for another hour or so.
Eventually, I asked her if she commonly made out with random men she had barely met.
"Of course," she said again, keeping her wry grin.
Despite her feistiness, Summer and I developed a passionate relationship that neither of my parents would have approved of- although, for some reason, we never actually made love. At times I would find myself bothered by this; her rash actions would never even stray towards anything actually sexual, although she teased me at times regarding it.
Fall fell. I suddenly stopped hearing from my love, first for a few days on end, then weeks. I grew worried; calling her house yielded absolutely nothing, no messages were ever received. Eventually, I received a lone call from her, quietly telling me to meet her in, of all places, St. Jude's–a hospital. Instead of soothing me, her call worried me; she sounded uncharacteristically subdued. I began to wonder if a family member of hers were dying or something to that effect. It was far worse than I had imagined.
I met her not in the lobby, but a hospital bed. A few weeks before that, I had had a nightmare where she was deflated, a living corpse, like a dry leaf, able to be crushed without the slightest of efforts. The figure I met was exactly the same as my dream.
Summer's normally bright, tan skin was drab, lightening, and drawn taught. It was as if she had aged twenty years in as many days. Her eyes were sunken, although I could still make out the light that I had come to love within them. Her blond her was gone, replaced by a pale dome. I was told by a diminutive, sour-faced doctor who obviously had been tasked with bearing this type of news regularly, that Summer had developed bone marrow cancer a short while ago.
This was where life stopped holding weight for me. As the air cooled, the alcoholism started. I began to find myself in the same bar on a practically nightly basis, broken up only by times where I went to visit Summer in the hospital. Anyone who met me shied away from my drunken, depressed presence. The most memorable of these events was when a homeless man who was sitting on a street corner, asking absolutely everyone who passed for change, pretended like he didn't see me as I walked by. I was walking on my own, without a soul within a ten foot radius of me. It should have been a bit of a relief that I wouldn't be quilted into giving away my hard-earned money. Instead, it depressed me further.
Winter fell behind me silently. I noticed not a change in the weather, but a change in Summer.
Her hair grew back stark white but was lost again quickly, and her skin followed suit in color. Facial features grew into marble; she was no longer someone I knew. Her limbs shriveled. She actually looked worse, somehow, than she did before The light in her eyes remained, however.
Or so it did until one day. I came to resume my typical vigil by her bed, and noticed that she was staring blankly into space. Life was still with her; I could make out the vague heaving of her breast, but life was the only thing she had left. While she was still breathing, she had lost the fight. I decided then and there that I was going to kill her.
At first, I thought the same of that concept as what you may think of it: that I was insane, as well as diseased. I drank more, and gradually, as the idea wormed its way further into my mind, saw that –perhaps- I wasn't as crazy as I first had thought.
Summer had gone, turned into the blank depths of Winter. I had no love for Winter, who was as blank and hopeless as the weather itself. Murdering her would save her. With the alcohol, my mind slowly began to develop the idea further.
It would be simple. Summer was in low health as it was. Unplug a single machine supplying her vitals, and her life force would come tumbling down, as if it were a brick wall with the base removed.
I assure you, I'm not insane. I am not a homicidal maniac; even now, I know my actions were the right ones. For why would I watch my loved one suffer so just to die? No, separating her life was a far better option. Eventually, I gained the inner strength to follow my actions.
Three days after I thought of the idea, I carried it out. It was just as simple as I thought it. I entered the hospital as normally as I usually did, no one thinking anything of my presence. Walking down a hall to her room, I suffered no change of heart. She was asleep, and I set about, looking for something that could stop her life. I settled eventually on a small, electric device filled with a red liquid –blood, to be assumed. Still unsure of why she might need more blood, I pulled the cord out of the electrical socket in the back of the room.
The effect wasn't instant, but I could tell I had succeeded in my attempt. Her heart monitor's slow beep-beeping slowed further to an eventual, single note. I smiled sadly, happy that I had succeeded, and replaced the socket in the wall.
Even now, I have no worries of being detected. My actions were suspected by no one; I even let some of my actual grief show, and blubbered to one of the nurses about the recent change in events through a real yet fake wall of tears.
My grief wasn't entirely fake. I attended Summer's funeral out-of-characteristically sober, wearing a slightly rumpled suit, and read a poem. I cried there, too, but my reasons then were far more legitimate.
I mourn her still, and am convinced that it wasn't my actions that killed her. The bottle will be my end. Summer's end, however, wasn't incited by me; it was but the change in season, from life to death.
Goodbye, my dear.