Short Story - 08 - Rotten Parts Must Be Cut Off

"Aren't we your friends?

"I-I don't know..."

"Aren't we your parents?"

"I-I don't know..."

"What are we to you? Tell us!"

"Leave me alone... I don't know at all"

"What am I to you?"

"Who are we to you?"

"We friends right?"

"Who is your best friend?"

"He is my best friend, what about you?"

"Le-Leave me alone!"

The boy shouted once again, again and agian one more time... The questions are hurting him, but he is hurting himself even more...

"Go away, go away! I don't know, I have no friends... I don't need them... Go away...."

"I-Is that so.... But we thought we are friends..."

"Ok... Bye... I thought I was your best friend..."

He shouted, curled up like a snake... Bit himself... Cried alone... In front of his blurry eyes, he could see, everyone's hazy back. They were leaving, slowly. He stretched out his hand towards them yet at the next moment he retracted out...

"This is for the good. Let them leave, let them leave. It's better for them to not having me as a friend."

"I.. don't need friends!"

In the next moment he came back to normal. It's like he has born again. It's a new start. He forgot about them in no time... He stood up. But, there's something missing. He looked at himself l, yet found nothing.

He couldn't found what he lost, but he lost something. Instead of feeling light, he felt heavy. But even this heaviness was comfortable... So, in the end he felt light after all.

Time passes by... He lived alone in the darkness, but at some point, he heard a voice-

"Hey, how are you? It's been a while isn't it?"

Few months passed by and one of his oldest "friends" found him in a corner...

"How are you? Are you well?"

"Yes! I was well. No go away!"

"It seems, you haven't change at all"

"Yes, that's me. I was always like this, now go away."

"Fine-fine I will go away, just remember, you have friends"

"Hmph! I will see."

He went back to the corner. He cut off another part of him, unknowingly, he felt heavy yet light... And slowly he forgot about this encounter again.

There's an idiom, "Cutting of the rotten parts". He believed in that phrase a bit too much. Friends, family everything was a rotten part to him. He detached it like the tail of a salamander. Time went by, years after years... He cut off, rotten parts, one after another...

Slowly one day, he lost himself. There's nothing to cut off anymore, he cut off all of his limbs. He felt the heaviest at that point, yet, yes, he felt lightest the most too. Because rotten parts are heavier and a complete void has no mass...