"SNAKELAND MUST BE DESTROYED!": ALTERNATE ENDING FOUR

* This is a fictionalized account of some shit that actually happened. All the names, locations, etc. have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. – JG *

ALTERNATE ENDING FOUR

-Jason. Wake up.-

I sit up, still dreaming, my wife asleep at my side. The teenage Girl sits at the foot of our bed, to the left of me, a strawberry blonde in a black t-shirt under a denim vest. She is scrawny and kind of trashy but she has a very pretty, vulnerable smile. She also has a deep gouge in her forehead and a thin red line dug into her throat where she was strangled.

-Jason. Wake up.-

-What. What do you want.-

-I know you can’t do it.-

I take a moment to measure the gravity of her words. -I really thought I could. I thought, how hard can this be, you know. Found out.-

-Why is it so hard. Is there a part of you that doesn’t want it to end.-

Again, I take my time. -Maybe. But also there’s this other part that feels like...even in the lie of the movie version, giving everything a nice, concise explanation is like...the lie is just too big.-

She smiles sadly, sweetly. –I understand. There are some lies that are too big to tell.-

-I’m sorry.-

-I know you are. You’re forgiven.- She smiles, moves as if to leave, then pauses.

–Take the end. Take the end to tell something else, something true.-

And then she is gone, and something is over, and something else begins.