Beautiful {1}
Everyone got the ending they deserved.
Heart attack, car accident, natural disaster, suicide, murder, no matter what. Every single person got their perfect end, their perfect farewell and goodbye to the world and to the future.
Everyone was supposed to, anyway.
Sasha Romero
did not get the death she wished.
Instead of the beach, she was forced to lie in the cold, cold ice of Winter and feel herself freeze until her heart stopped beating. Instead of a crowd of loved ones, all she had was her overbearing sister, standing above her and telling her to get up. She did not get her desired end. She did not reach her beautiful.
Among the people of this society, such thing was outrageous. An injustice delivered by the lazy skunks they called politicians. This would have warranted a lawsuit, or even imprisonment for the men and women behind the overlook of Miss Romero’s case.
But alas, overlooked cases were no rarity. The poor, the immigrants, the colored, the lgbtq+, the young, the disabled, and the criminals (even ones at the slightest hand at crime), were seldom given good ends at all. Only the old, white, straight, native, cisgender, rich, “regular” citizens, the ones with the power, were allowed the opportunity to die happy. Those were a lot of variables, and it was a lot unfair.
As a Hispanic, young, poor girl with no future and no plans, Sasha was not on that list.
Neither was her sister, and she knew that. She knew that now.
Andrea Romero
stared down at the paper.
We regret to inform you that your case has been denied. After an extensive look into the file you have provided, we cannot find reason to continue this investigation. Please feel free to try again at our local department, as our federal one does not have time to review such insignificant cases as this one.
As always, we wish you a wonderful beginning and a beautiful end.
~The BD Committee
The Beautiful Death Committee. Certainly not a beautiful organization.
Andrea gripped the table. The letter was crumpled already, ripped at the edges and marked on and frail and curled from its trouble with the spilled water. It had been months since Sasha’s case was overlooked. Again.
And the letter’s wording had haunted her all that time.
Denied.
Cannot find reason.
Does not have time.
Insignificant.
Andrea’s sister was anything but insignificant. Andrea was, though. She so was. Why couldn’t she have been the one with cancer?
Her mother and father were looking at her with worry etched into their faces. It was always there now, somewhere on their daily expressions. It was almost like a permanent fixture, those concern wrinkles.
For the mom, anyway. The dad had different signs of trauma showing on him. His brows were always furrowed, as if he was solving the world’s hardest puzzle, and his face was always dug into his books or in his food. He didn’t look his wife or remaining daughter in the eyes a lot anymore. Especially not his daughter. Not after what she had done.
“Querido,” Mrs. Romero hummed, her accent rich as she pushed her half-eaten spaghetti aside. She folded her hands on the table, like the good school teacher she was. “How is everything lately?”
Andrea tilted her head to the side, glaring, still clutching the table. This was not a smart move, but the crossed thirty four year old couldn’t care less. She was not a little girl anymore.
“How do you think I have been, mamá?”
Her parents hadn’t had a good time after finding out that Sasha had passed, of course they hadn’t. But recently, it had felt like they didn’t care at all.
Well, again, that was really only the case for Anita Romero. Manuel never seemed to not be stressed about the death of the only daughter he loved.
Andrea’s mother nodded, like she completely understood. Like this was so easy to get passed and her “pequeño amor” was only being naive.
“I know, I know. Stressed, worried, angry. It’s okay to feel this way.”
Andrea knew that. She fucking knew that. That’s why she was feeling it so strongly, because she wasn’t holding back.
And that’s why she stormed out of the dining room, yelling something back at her mother along the lines of “Tu no sabes nada, perra!”
She doesn’t care that if she were a teenager, she would be dead right then. She wasn’t and she wouldn’t be, not on that day.
No, she was a thirty something year old woman living with her mother and father because she dropped everything and came home when her little sister got cancer. Now, she was just a depressed, ex-sibling, shitty daughter, shitty person with nothing ahead of her.
And she was stomping up to her room like she was sixteen again.
Anita Romero
knew something her daughter didn’t.
Sasha was happy, Andrea just didn’t understand it. The girl hadn’t found her beautiful yet, so how could she?
The mother only hoped her daughter would learn soon. Or it would be a terrible death for her, and Anita didn’t want that.
That was the last thing she wanted.
Manuel Romero
was torn.
He didn’t want to send his daughter out there. He didn’t want to let her go. But he did. He watched his nineteen year old girl, his little girl, walk into the winter night, knowing well that this would be her last goodbye.
He should have held on to her longer.
But he knew that wasn’t true, too. She wanted to die, she was going to anyway, but this way was less painless. More beautiful.
Why couldn’t Andrea see that?
Looking at his almost content wife, he left the room too, but not to go after her.
He wrapped himself in his Winter gear--it was the start of Fall, but up in the mountains, it was still freezing--and trekked out into the forest. It reminded him of Sasha, but that wasn’t why he was here.
He had some old friends to talk to.
Andrea Romero
was studying them again.
Their patterns. Their history. Their words in the letter.
It was all stupid and narcissistic. The Committee thought of nothing but themselves.
Sasha Romero was an innocent girl, and she didn’t receive the death she had requested.
She had to lie in the snow and let it consume her. It was painful. It wasn’t what she deserved.
According to the law, if the BD Committee did not give someone their requested death place, last ceremony, and asked level of pain, the members would be fined (granted that was their first mishap). And the punishments went on from there depending on the number of times they were approached by the authorities. The death penalty was the last, and the most ironic, of the possible punishments.
For years, they had been openly denying people their right to a comfortable death. No one did a thing.
They were in charge of death, what could anyone do, right?
Well, of course no one cared to know that they weren’t in charge of death, or where or why or how it happened. They were only in charge of a person’s final wishes regarding their demise.
Even if the citizens did know, everyone was too pussy to stand up.
Andrea tried. And she would try again and again and again until the Committee was put in their place.
It was the only way she could make up for what she had done.
