The Corpse He Carries

He sat in the dark, the only light a cold, white glare from the computer screen. The cursor blinked, a patient, rhythmic heartbeat on a blank page. Two years. Had it been two years? It felt like a lifetime. It felt like no time at all. A dull ache lived permanently behind his eyes, a heavy, constant pressure that was his only companion in the long, lonely hours that bled one into the next. He was tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix, but a deep, weary ache in his bones, in his soul. A rot. It hadn't always been this way. Before the rot, there was a boy. A twenty-year-old boy who moved through the world as if it were made for him. Life wasn't a spectacular firework show; it was simpler, better. It was the feeling of warm sun on his skin after a game, the easy, unforced laughter of friends at a cheap diner late at night. It was the quiet confidence of knowing the answer in class, the solid feel of a textbook in his hands. He had a body that worked, strong and quick, that carried him effortlessly across sports fields and through long, rambling walks. He had a full head of hair that he never thought twice about, that caught the light when he moved. Friends were not just people he knew; they were a current he swam in, a warm and easy tide that carried him along. He was the center, not because he demanded it, but because joy radiated from him like heat from a stone in the sun. He was fun. The word felt foreign now, a language he no longer spoke. But then, it was his native tongue. Life was full, fulfilled, a cup brimming with simple, perfect moments. He woke up in the morning and the day was a promise, not a threat. He was happy, and he didn't even know he was happy, because he had never been anything else. Then the whisper started. It didn't arrive like a thunderclap. It was a seed, a tiny, dark thing that found a crack in the perfect pavement of his life. It started as a faint dissatisfaction, a flicker of something more. The stories of the giants, the men who built empires from garages and dreams, were no longer just stories. They became a mirror showing him what he wasn't. The whisper grew, nourished by his own quiet ambition. It told him his simple happiness was a cage, that his fulfilled life was a small, safe pond when an entire ocean waited. It was a fever that started in his gut, a heat that spread through his veins, promising a different kind of life. A bigger life. A life that would be remembered. The fever took hold. He found others, their eyes reflecting the same hungry fire. The work began, and in the beginning, it was a thrill. The long hours felt like a worthy sacrifice, the mounting pressure a sign of progress. But slowly, subtly, the nature of the work changed. The thrill became a grind. The dream became a boss, a cruel and demanding master that was never satisfied. The office, once a place of creation, became a tomb, silent and sterile under the hum of fluorescent lights. The first real piece of him he lost was her. He loved her. It was a simple, uncomplicated truth. He loved the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, the sound of her laugh. He had a plan, a whole scene in his head where he would finally tell her. But he was busy. There was a deadline, a problem with the code, a meeting he had to prepare for. He would do it tomorrow. Then the next day. Then he saw her, laughing that same laugh, but this time it was for someone else. He saw them from across a crowded room, a space of no more than thirty feet that felt like an uncrossable canyon. He saw another hand find hers, and in that moment, he felt a sharp, physical pain, as if a rib had snapped inside his chest. He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He went back to the office and worked until the sun came up. The pain was a distraction, a weakness the dream could not afford. So he took a knife, cold and sharp in his mind, and he cut the thread. He stopped answering their calls. He walked past them on campus as if they were strangers. He felt the wound of their absence, a raw, gaping hole, and he filled it with work. The other friends faded next. They died a slower death, a death of a thousand ignored texts and cancelled plans. A "can't make it, swamped" here, a "sorry, next time" there. Soon, "next time" never came. The calls stopped. He was an island, the waters around him growing still and silent. His parents, too, felt the distance. Phone calls became a chore, his voice a hollow echo of the son they knew. "Everything's fine," he'd say, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth. "Just busy." He couldn't tell them about the crushing weight on his chest, the fear that coiled in his stomach every morning. Their worry would be another burden, so he built a wall of silence, brick by painful brick, until he could barely see them on the other side. His body, once a source of pride, became a testament to his decay. Late-night meals of greasy food over a keyboard added soft, heavy layers to his frame. He'd catch his reflection and see a stranger, his face puffy, his eyes dull. One morning in the shower, he saw a clump of hair in the drain, a dark swirl against the white porcelain. A cold dread washed over him. He was coming apart, piece by piece. He had to kill the boy. It wasn't a thought, it was a realization. A cold, cruel clarity. The happy, carefree twenty-year-old was the enemy. He was the ghost that haunted him with memories of laughter and sunlight. He was the weakness, the regret, the part that whispered of quitting. To survive, to keep the dream alive, the boy had to die. And so, in the prison of his mind, he planned the murder. It became a ritual, a nightly meditation. He pictured the boy, walking with that easy, confident stride, and he felt a surge of cold hatred. He would corner him in that alleyway, the place where they once shared a beer with a friend from another town. The perfect place for a slaughter. In his mind, he lunges. The first act is suffocation. His hands, now pale and soft from a life indoors, find the boy's throat. He squeezes. He feels the frantic, fluttering pulse of that vibrant life beneath his thumbs. The boy's eyes, wide with a betrayal he cannot comprehend, stare into his. He is killing his own past. He is choking the laughter, silencing the easy jokes, cutting off the air that fueled that boundless energy. He holds on, his knuckles white, until the struggling stops. But the boy's spirit is resilient. So the second act is drowning. He drags the limp body to the storm drain, its black mouth promising oblivion. He shoves him in, pushing his head beneath the filthy, stagnant water. This is for the overwhelming flood of work, the crushing weight of responsibility, the financial panic that leaves him gasping for air. He holds the boy under, feeling the last, desperate fight for life, until the water stills and the body goes slack. He is drowning the hope, the optimism, the naive belief that everything would be okay. Still, it's not enough. The heart might still beat. So the third act is the blade. He pulls a knife, a simple, brutal tool. He pulls the boy's head back, exposing the smooth, pale skin of his throat. With a single, sawing motion, he cuts. A deep, wet tear. This is for the words he can no longer say. This is to silence the voice that could speak to friends and family, the voice that could tell a girl he loved her. Blood pours, hot and thick, over his hands. It is the color of every sacrifice he has made. The final act. The heart. He turns the body over and drives the knife into the boy's back, straight into the heart. He feels the grating crunch of bone, the sickening plunge as the blade finds its home. He twists it, a vicious, grinding motion. This is for the love he has forsaken, the joy he has murdered, the simple, warm connections he has severed forever. He has killed his own heart. Now, he is alone with the corpse. He carries it on his back every day. Its dead weight is the reason he cannot stop. The guilt is no longer just a feeling; it is his fuel, his engine. "If I stop now," the thought grinds in his head, "he died for nothing. It was all for nothing." The dream is a monster that he must feed, lest it turn and devour him completely. And the trap is complete. Because it's not just the boy's ghost that haunts him. There are others. The faces of his co-founders, his employees, who look at him with trust. They see a leader, a visionary. They don't see the killer. Their lives, their hopes, their families--one has a child, a small, innocent life--are all balanced on his broken back. If he falls, they all fall. Their ruin would be a new massacre, their blood mixing with the blood already on his hands. So he cannot jump into the ocean his mind craves. He cannot wash the stains away. He is bound to this path, forced to walk on, carrying the cold, heavy corpse of the happy boy he was, pretending it is the price of glory. He pushes forward, one foot in front of the other, through the hell he built, because stopping would be the only unforgivable sin.