Lukas, We Need to Talk

Lukas was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, had been ever since he was a little kid. He had gone through years of therapy for his 'disease', had gone to see every major specialist in the state. Eventually he just gave up giving a damn about what they had to say and pretended he was happy, put on a mask of sparkling white teeth and told them he was happy with how he was living; it wasn't true, but he figured that people peeking in on his life wasn't going to help if it hadn't already.

Currently, Lukas was twenty-nine years old, had a decent job with reasonable wages, lived in an average apartment, and to the casual bystander had nothing major wrong with his life. Everything was about what a man could expect out of life. This was true until you looked at his love life and how he tortured, raptured himself over the torment he received from his girlfriend, whom had been urging Lukas into many decisions as of late. She didn't respond to Lukas as if he was a human; just a quite interesting speck of dust.

Recently she asked Lukas if he loved her; he replied that he did. He did not lie; he was prepared to look past her problems if only she would love him as well; in the end, all Lukas craved was the touch of another human, the warmth of another's soul to help him in his perpetual sorrow. However, when he queried the same to his dearest, she responded with a detached "I hadn't thought about it". It was at this point that Lukas had really questioned himself, all choices he'd made and all things he had planned on. Everything he had built up for years had come crashing down.

This was not to say that they did not have a physical love life; on several occasions of enormous kindness his girlfriend had wandered drunkenly into his bedroom to consummate their broken love. Lukas knew that everything he did with this woman was empty, but he did so anyway because he feared the loneliness and the thoughts he could delve into given enough time. He feared himself, being locked inside of his own head, his own hell.

Today Lukas is feeling overly emotional about everything concerning his life, especially with his girlfriend. He has been counting the signs, and in his mind it may as well have already happened; she would dump Lukas. All the commonplace signals were there: The growing distant towards each other, the moving out, the decrease in visits to his room in the dark of night, the loss of communication; it was all there.

Lukas stood in his bathroom, tears in his eyes. He didn't know what to do. So, without a clear path, he sat, and he cried, and for ages Lukas sat in his bathroom crying. "She hates me... She lies to me... She'll never love me... I don't know what to do..." Lukas was hyperventilating and was lost and confused. It's often thought that a cornered animal is the most dangerous sort, and this was exactly what Lukas felt like at this time.

After a long while Lukas fell asleep on his bathroom floor, the white tiles greeting him with a cold embrace. Now he knew that he was truly alone; the message had come up on the screen as he broke his mind of his own accord. "Lukas, we have to talk." That damned woman! Why couldn't she just let him be and stop toying with his emotions? Why couldn't she just have ignored him originally, letting none of this happen? Was it a game to her? These thoughts raced through Lukas' head as he dreamt about things too hellish and dark to fully portray or understand.

That morning, Lukas awoke, startled from his last nightmarish encounter, and quickly got ready for work. yet another mask must be worn for business. No one was close to him in his domestic life at his place of employment; he had very little friends outside of work as well, and they came rarely to see him. He supposed that he deserved it, he didn't go to them at all.

He quickly got into his uniform suit and headed to work; he worked at Jefferson Middle School as a chemistry teacher; he had always wanted to be a great scientist, helping tomorrow's dreams become realities. He just didn't do well enough in school, he mused on his walk through the crowded streets.

As Lukas walked through the streets in early morning, he passed by some TV-Radio store. One of the sets in the window was on with some reporter babbling about how crime has skyrocketed of late. Lukas didn't care much; just so long as it didn't affect him, it really made no difference.

However, his views all changed when, as he walked around the next corner, he was suddenly thrust into an alleyway; he knew exactly what was happening, but still felt compelled to ask "What's going on!?". As he turned around, he met a masked, bulky figure. When he looked slightly down he saw what the figure was holding.

"Oh."

"That's right, mister. Just hand me the paper in your wallet and this wall doesn't get all dirty, and we wouldn't want to cause the owner any trouble, would we? There's a good chap. Now, quickly, drop your wallet on the ground and kick it over." Lukas gladly obliged, as there was nothing much in his wallet anyhow; just a few bucks and his ID.

The thief quickly looted his pickings and ran off past Lukas into the alley. Lukas was once again filled up with the utter depression of anguish, of over stress. He couldn't go to work today, not after everything. He sprinted home with little to no concern for his own safety; already tears filled his eyes. He ran up the two flights of stairs to his apartment and locked the door. As he stumbled in he instinctively grabbed his phone from the short table in his hallway; immediately after realizing this he flung it at the wall.

You see, he hadn't even touched his phone since placing it on that table shortly after seeing the message. "Lukas, we have to talk." Why couldn't she just leave him be? Was this fun to her sick, sadistic mind? Lukas didn't know, and that scared him. He curled up on his living room couch and held a pillow for fear of slipping away.

Suddenly and rapidly, Lukas' view became quite clear; he knew what must be done. He had thought about it almost constantly as a child, but didn't actually find the courage to do it. Now, he feared, was as good a time as any.

Slowly Lukas guided his hand under the couch to grab an old shoe box, dusty with age. He retrieved it from its position and dragged it out. It was a sickly green color with beige stripes on it, and looked as if it was incredibly old. Upon opening it, Lukas pulled several items from its depths. Among these were a packet of notes he had written, a rose rotting with age and decaying in his hands, a bottle of ancient wine, and a .44 magnum, loaded with a single round, as it had always been since he was trusted with a gun.

Lukas commanded the firearm to his chin. "I'm so sorry... I just... can't..."

In the darkness of his living room, with all of the blinds down and curtains closed, with all lights off and with only the static of his television illuminating his face, a resounding shot was heard throughout time and space, marking this point in history as the time when Lukas Foster had committed suicide in the face of God and everyone, yet still so alone.

However, as was less noted, in the darkness another thing happened.

At the base of the white wall where it had been hurled, the phone's screen illuminated with a notification of a rather long message. It was, of course, from his girlfriend.

"Lukas, you aren't responding. I'm not sure why, but you have to read this sooner or later. You might have been wondering why we don't do anything anymore, and I need to tell you now, just to get it off of my chest. I am pregnant, with your child. And Lukas, I know this hurts so much, but you'll have to find a way to cope, but I want to fight for custody. We've been talking to each other less and less, and I just don't think that we should put our kid through that. I'm sorry Lukas, this is goodbye. Just know that... *Sigh*"

A pause, a crowded moment, rippled through the darkness and bounced from the blood stained walls and the ever droning TV.

"I will ALWAYS love you, do you understand me? This is for your own good. I'm so sorry."

She never forgave herself.