Red. Blue. Green

You smash the dial phone's handle down. The broken pieces clatter across the floor, their noise drowned out by your running footsteps, your apartment door swinging open then slamming shut. The neighbor found his corpse hanging from the ceiling.

Rain slams against the windows, drowning out your rushed steps against the stairs. Almost losing your balance as you take the last step and rush out into the street.

Yesterday, Jonathan had taken you to dinner, recording the whole thing on a videotape. He bought your favorite meals, brought you to your favorite places, his stiffness making Jonathan clumsier, like bumping into you, spilling your drink, apologizing profusely, not even turning off his camera as he tried cleaning off the stain. Later on, you tried talking about how you two would end up married, but he always steered the talk away from future endeavors when you spoke of them, his face showing discomfort the whole time. At the end, as you two waved goodbye, he said that no matter what happened next, you shouldn’t be afraid, because today was the most perfect day he had ever seen.

The streets blur, everything becoming silhouettes, cars and people. Your shoes splash against the wet pavement. Even now, disoriented, your eyes catch on a couple inside a restaurant. The man holds out a ring to his beloved. The gathered crowd cheers. Camera flashes follow, capturing the frozen memory of the moment. One of those cameras is the exact same model Jonathan used. The vibrating of your phone snapping you back to reality.

Taking cover under an overhang, you see missed calls and messages flooding in from his mother. One sticks out. “WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HIM?” You swipe away at the flooding notifications, but you accidentally accept one of her incoming calls. Her screaming blasts through your phone's speaker, barely muffled by the rain. “I NEVER SHOULD HAVE LET MY BOY GO OUT WITH A FA—” You hang up before she can finish. Shoving your phone into your pocket, you keep running, just a few meters left.

Closer to his house now, you pass the café he first brought you to. You glimpse the very table you two sat on that lovely day. He was tense the whole hour you two ate. You found it endearing when he asked if he could film the whole thing, and how he exclaimed at the end, “This is one for the good days!” as he took a picture of you two, before waving goodbye.

You turn a sharp corner and jaywalk across the road. A car slams its brakes and honks. Jonathan used to get mad at other people’s incompetence behind the wheel. Tears stream down your face as the car's engine starts up again, humming as the driver’s yelling fades into the distance.

Finally, you reach his street. A crowd of policemen stands at his front door. An ambulance is parked across the road. A body, covered by a white cloth, is carried out by five emergency operators.

Raindrops stain the white fabric as the stretcher is loaded into the ambulance. As it drives away, its sirens don’t turn on.

An officer tells the crowd the neighbor noticed the absence of Jonathan’s usual loud music. Seeing the shadow of his hanging body was enough for him to call the police.

Behind the officers, his mother is being consoled. Her wailing cuts across the street. Some people stare at you then back at her, others whisper among themselves.

After all the commotion, and after his mother’s yelling, the white noise of the rain numbs your pain, if only a little. The officers tell you not to go inside, it’s under investigation. But the question of why today claws at the back of your mind.

You open the door slowly. His scent fills the air, faint but present. You can’t even look at the couch where he had kissed you so desperately that night. You walk past the living room, on the table still collecting dust, lay the newest model camera you had gifted him, the packaging completely intact. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a cut rope lying on the ground.

Upstairs. His room. You don’t dare look at anything that reminds you of him. The tightness in your chest grows. It’s almost like a heart attack. The answers must be in his video tapes.

"And this is where I store them… ta-da!"

Your mind whispers the memory of his voice as you pull open the attic door. Stepping up, the room is just as you left it, with dust everywhere, except for a stack of videotapes, his old retro camera at the top, still looking pristine, a VHS player, and a large CRT television standing at the center. A tape lies on top, with a strip of notebook paper stuck to it.

“The most perfect day I have ever seen.”

You pick it up, slowly, the way Jonathan used to touch your hands. You push it into the VHS player. The tape begins. From his camera’s POV, you see your smile from yesterday, his laughter ringing from offscreen, but when the recording reaches to when he spills your drink, it skips. Cut out, just like his other bloopers that day. Then, after what feels like an eternity, a different clip plays. Jonathan sits alone in this very room. The camera rests on the TV.

“Ha… uh, hi. I hope you liked the chocolate-filled donut. Haha…”

Even here he’s still forcing a smile for you, his hands clenched between his legs, his face looking down, his lively tail now lying limp beside him. He stays quiet for a long minute, eyes flicking around, searching for the right words.

“Uhm… I want to apologize. For today. And for… everything.”

Finally, he starts to cry. His face scrunches as tears pour down his cheeks. His trembling hands come up to cover his face. His sobs rattle through the TV’s speakers, the low audio quality distorting them into static. His voice comes out muffled through his fingers.

“Just know… this wasn’t your fault.”

“This is just my way of saying goodbye, because I can't do it face to face."

He wipes away his tears, hands still near his chest. He doesn’t look at the camera yet. A long, drawn-out sigh. Then finally, he raises his head. Those sky-blue eyes lock with the lens. For a moment, you truly believe he can see you.

“You were my center as I spun away… out of control.”

His hands fall limp on his legs. His ears flatten against his skull.

“Just know that yesterday was the most perfect day I have ever seen… You deserve someone better than this mess. So please, try to move on.”

Then you notice the rope lying on the floor behind him in the frame’s corner. He falls silent. He walks up to the camera, leaning over, his face now filling the screen.

“I'm so sorry.....I loved you....."

"Goodbye.”

The screen goes black. The static flickers once, then nothing. You see your reflection in the glass. Just you. Without him, your chest now too tight to breathe or to cry. The rain has stopped. Your phone still vibrates with unread messages. And yet, you don’t want to move.

Finally looking down at the stains from your tears on the dusty floor, pulling out your phone, now dead still in your hand. Turning it on, you see the last message, and it felt like you could've just vomited your heart out. He survived.

Five hours have passed, you wish you could make the clock's hands go faster. It is now 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Sitting in the entrance area of the hospital, many people are sitting beside you, many sick, some have unreadable expressions and are staring down at the floor. Others, meanwhile, are being rushed in by hospital staff. You wonder if Jonathan was also brought in like that.

Then, one of the nurses walks up to you, walking through the overwhelming frenzy of a crowd, as if skipping through a field of flowers, before whisking you along into the upper floors. But as you two walk, she speaks about how Jonathan will soon be taken to another facility where he won’t be a danger to himself, but they won't allow any visits after that. Arriving into a stretched out hallway, your gaze immediately falls on the familiar figure sitting on a chair against the left wall. It's his mom. She doesn't bother looking at you before getting up and walking up to your side, then whispering "Make this any worse and I'll kill you." Her heels click against the tiled floor, their clicking fading into the distance.

The nurse tells you that you two will be monitored by a camera, then she makes you put disinfectant on your hands, a security guard walking up and checking you head to toe, before escorting you to the door that, just a moment ago, his mother was sitting just a few feet away from. With a soft click and a twist of his wrist, the door creaks open softly. There, you see Jonathan lying on a hospital bed, against the wall, an array of small squared windows high up on the wall letting a few stray beams of light in, dimly illuminating the greys and whites of the room.

The door closes behind you, pulled by the guard who stays outside, along with the nurse. The silence stretches out, only interrupted by Jonathan's dark blue fur rustling against the bed's sheets, slowly turning his head towards you, his now bloodshot, watery eyes stare at you for a long moment, that shine in his blue eyes, now absent.

It’s just you and him now, last hello and goodbye in what most likely will be a long, long time. He turns his head away, the mark of the rope visible on the skin and fur of his neck.

Stepping closer, now you're at the edge of the bed, his tail is outlined by the bedsheets on top of it. Before, it would wag uncontrollably. Now, it's completely motionless. His eyes flick to stare at you for the briefest of moments before snapping away. The bedsheets ruffle as he reaches up to rub his bruised neck and cover the bruises from your view. He stays silent, arm still up, but then, his next words cut through the silence like a thrown dagger.

"Don't look at me."