The Survivors

So this is what my weakness leads to.  As I stand on the lonely banks of my existence, looking out upon the animals we call humans consumed by materialism and greed, I cant help but feel the need to do the unspeakable.  All my life I've endured nothing but pain, tossed around from foster family to foster family, none wanting to be associated with my faults.  My biological parents left me on the front porch of the city orphanage a few weeks after I was born, diagnosed with an unknown heart condition that left my body with unexplainable surges of increased heart rate and heightened alertness, I was told I was the only person on earth with this so called disease which of course led me to be bullied and ridiculed, at 5'3" and 130 pounds soaking wet, I was an easy target.  With my 17 years on this earth, I've never been happy which led me to this point, looking out above the New York City skyline.  This was my last stand, a testament to the crushing power of fate and the weakness of the human spirit.  My name is Michael and I have lost the game of life, I mutter one last prayer, hoping that this is not the best that the world has to offer, I crouch, staring directly at the Chrysler building and finally jump from the edge of life.  The buildings rush past me in a blur falling quickly and slowly to oblivion and then suddenly silence.  Complete darkness and yet I hear voices in the distance, was this heaven?  Was I free? Suddenly, right then I felt someone shaking my body, but how could this be? I slowly open my eyes to an anxious face with a military aura about him, he spoke four words that sent my weak body into a cycle of confusion and fear, "We've been expecting you" and then darkness again.

When I was 7 I remember living with a foster family named the Davidsons, a middle class family on the outskirts of Brooklyn.  The father was a high school teacher with sparse gray hairs and a temper from hell, he was a raging alcoholic and a bitter man who looked as though he had never smiled in his life.  He lingered around gentleman's clubs and casinos night after night in the hopes to escape his life, which often led to even more anger and bitterness, the mother was a soft spoken and easily frightened woman who hadn't had the courage to argue with this monster she called a husband.  They had one child named Steven who became my first friend in this forsaken life, he played with me when the other kids thought I was a freak, read me books at night and stayed up with me until I fell asleep, he was the only friend I had.  When I had the symptoms of my condition, which often consisted of a burst of muscle spasms where every muscle was set into an adrenaline like state, Steven protected me from the bullying that ensued,  we became inseparable. Despite his innocent nature, his father often beat him, taking him into the guest room with a belt to "discipline" him but his mistake was not dropping his father's beer but rather it was being born into this shit of a family.  I was never beaten however, something about a tax cut and social services checking in on me, I dont know, but Steven was never spared. The bruises on his face and arms looked as though my share of the beatings was not put to waste, they lasted for months and when they finally began to fade, his father found another excuse to beat him. Beating after beating he was hurt to the point that his face no longer looked natural, but even through these beatings, he kept a smile always saying that God gave the toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.  Months went on like this until one day, my entire world fell beneath my feet.  I awoke on Christmas morning and walked downstairs to a woman's crying and saw she was holding the body of Steven, bruised and no longer breathing, his eyes still open staring directly at me, dark and lifeless, there was no familiar sparkle in his eyes, only the remnants of pain.  The father sat on the far side of the room near the fireplace drinking himself to sleep with a bloodied belt in his hand.  I stayed with the Davidsons that day, then ran that night into the winter of 2005 with only a thin coat and my memories of Steven. Cold, sick, and homeless I walked the streets scarfing down any scraps of food I could find on the alleyways grounds and trash cans, until a man found me and put me back into the orphanage, my life didnt get any easier after this but I guess I was the toughest soldier God could find.