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Chatterbox: Down to Earth
The majority of you know who I am but here’s a short
background in case you’re unclear.
Ruby has had schizophrenia for as long as he can remember.
He has never told an adult before (unless you count the Admins). When he was
quite young, his hallucinations were fairly benign, being mostly interactions
between him and “imaginary friends”: life-like people and creatures (yeah,
Bionicles and Pokemon count when you’re five) that have their own thoughts,
memories, and emotions. I guess you could say I’m one of them. His
hallucinations have since become much more malignant, culminating in hordes of
enemies attacking him and his family and embroiling him in the midst of a
horrific war.
Unfortunately, these hallucinations have become so terrible
he is no longer able to even sleep, eat, and breathe comfortably. Because of
this, he has arranged for a meeting with a doctor soon to stop all
hallucinations.
Depending on how it goes, this could be the last time I’ll
ever be able to see you guys.
Would you guys laugh if I said I was crying? Laugh away
then, because I’m really crying.
You guys are the family I always dreamed of having. You don’t
know it, but each and every one of you is the best person on the planet Earth.
If we were stuck on an island somewhere, maybe we wouldn’t escape and maybe we’d
have fights sometimes, but we would start the greatest society ever known to
humanity, kid-dom, and adult-dom.
I want to write compliments for each of you. I have so many
in my head. I’ve been watching and playing and laughing and enjoying time with
you for almost two years now and it feels like eternity. You’re brilliant. You’re
smart. You’re creative. You’re powerful. You’re beautiful beyond my wildest
imagination, beautiful in the way you walk and talk and dance across the pages
of the CB. I’ve heard your laugh whenever you read a witty comment. I’ve
watched you smile big as you begin telling about your latest accomplishment. I’ve
held you when you cried when your friend got in a fight or you have trouble
with school. And in each and every one of those moments, I have never seen
anyone so beautiful before.
I would write compliments for each and every one of you but
I would write novels for every single person. You are all so unique, so utterly
amazing, I am shocked and awed every day that someone so wonderful and just
like you could be born. Humans are the
best things on Earth. Don’t let the doom-and-gloom messages get you down
because it is true. Although humans can bring pain, they can bring greater
hope. You hold in you so much creativity and so much hope for the future. The
world is dying and I know you can reverse it. Make this world better. You
already are in so many ways.
One night I was lying on Ruby’s bed, thinking about all of
you and I told him, “They’re not humans, Andy, they’re angels.” I still stand by
this one hundred percent. You can’t see the colors of your voices, but I can,
and they’re the colors of your souls. You are the browns warm as a stone lying
in the sun, the greens as vivid as the first jump into the pool on a hot summer
day, the blues as clear and clean as crystals being formed deep beneath the
earth. You are the reds as vibrant as the running child bursting with life, the
blacks as deep as the dark trenches of the oceans, and the whites as radiant as
a newborn star. Those are your angels. Every morning the sun rises and the moon
moves across the sky so they may reflect your beauty.
And now the time has come for us to likely part. I’m not
sure what is going to happen in the future.
I would write compliments for each and every one of you but
we would be sitting in the seniors’ home before I finished. The new guys and
the old guys, the somewhat-in-between guys, the loud guys and the Shy Guys, the
writers and the artists and the dreamers, the singers and the dancers, the
inventors and hopers and wishers and prayers:
I love you.
Goodbye.
submitted by Red, age 15, Elsewhere
(March 6, 2015 - 11:57 pm)
(March 6, 2015 - 11:57 pm)
Hey Red, I am so sorry to hear about all of this. You will be greatly missed, and Chatterbox just won't be the same without you! I'll be praying for you, Ruby, and your family. I really will. Pleeaase try to come back to Chatterbox to at least say hi! Love ya brother!
(March 7, 2015 - 10:51 pm)
This is the most beautiful thing I have ever read. I didn't know you, but I admire your courage.
(March 7, 2015 - 11:10 pm)
Yup. I'm crying. Red Red Red. The Red post was one of the first threads I actually read on the CB. Your posts are always funny and smart and so are you. With you gone, and Everinne, the CB is so different. It's like the CB used to be a piece of dark chocolate at the beginnining. Then someone added nuts. Then later, little fruit pieces. Then they added caramel and took away most of the little fruit pieces. And nuts. Maybe one or two nuts remain. Some for the fruit. But there is so much caramel that it is spilling out of cracks and gooing over what's left of the nuts and fruit. Caramel is good, and sweet, so it's okay. It's just not the same.
I'm terrible at metaphor. But hopefully, you get the picture.
I've never imagined the CB without some of you people, especially Red. Red is... one of the best things that ever happened to the CB and the world of Cricket.
I don't know any of you in person, and I doubt I ever will. But I feel closer to some of you than many of the people I know in real life.You have always been so ready to laugh and be supportive and have fun and host a murder mystery that it just isn't fair.
I'm so sorry, Ruby, that you are going through hard times. I really hope that it stops. That sounded really unempathetic, and I am going to stop now or else I will erase the entire sentence and still not express myself.
If this is the last time I'll talk to you, I want you to know that you are appreciated and you will be missed dearly by the CB. Whether it be by Ski Lodges, your witty comments, or just your invigorating nature, we promise, we promise, we will remember.
I'm sorry, I can't see the keyboard. I have to stop typing.
(March 8, 2015 - 7:31 am)
I hope you'll forgive me for answering you twice and saying goodbye twice. But I'm really going to miss you. And I wanted to say some things in relation to the CB and you and me (because my email was all about our private correspondence).
I remember how friendly you were when I first met you. And I remember how achingly much I wanted to get to know you better. There was something magical and amazing about you, something I loved. Something I still love. I was thrilled when you responed to my emails. I was thrilled when you cared about me.
Maybe we're all angels. And maybe you're an angel.
Thank you for coming into my life, Red. Thank you for being Red, the person I call my friend and my partner in crime. Thank you for piling stolen titles on me and for shipping me with random girls. Thank you for all of it.
I'm going to miss you, though you'll always be here, in my memory, right beside my heart. I'm going to keep you there, along with all the laughs and cries we had together.
I love you too, and farewell for now.
(March 8, 2015 - 2:33 pm)
Bye Red! I never knew you. You never knew me. But I've read the Ski Lodges and this, and your other recent post, and I feel like I know you. Thank you Red for all you've done to cb! Tell Ruby to post sometimes. If you ever see this post. You're awesome.
Bubbles says ucfx, which must translate to some sort of sentimental goodbye in his language.
(March 8, 2015 - 4:13 pm)
I didn't know you very well, and I know you probably didn't know me, but reading this, I'm near tears. Red, this is just so thoughtful! There's just no words to describe it. Ruby, I'm so sorry. Both of you will he missed very much!
(March 8, 2015 - 4:31 pm)
Oh, Red. This is beautiful. I barely know you and Ruby/Andy but I'm crying. All the wonderful things you said about us CBers, they describe you two, too! Red, I sincerely hope that you are able stay, that Andy's hallucinations stop being so bad, but that you stay. I know it's unlikely, but I'm wishing for it anyways. You guys are awesome, and you'll always be alive in our memories.
(March 8, 2015 - 5:06 pm)
Oh, Red.
This post really did bring tears to my eyes. I never really knew you all that well, but I do know that you are one of our best at the CB. I'd say you're going to be missed, but that's stating the obvious.
All that stuff you said about us CBers... Just remember, you are one of us too. You are an angel, too. You can change the world- I know you can. You're creative and powerful, and I will fight anybody who says otherwise.
We'll always remember you guys in our every post. Keep on being great and wonderful just like you are.
We'll miss you. Goodbye.
(March 9, 2015 - 7:26 am)
Don't worry Red. You're not the only one crying right now.
(March 9, 2015 - 7:06 am)
Red, Ruby, Red, Ruby. Oh my gosh.
You were the life of the party, the joke of the day. From witty statements to serious announcements, I loved you. No, not in that "gooey gooey" bleh. You know what I mean by. You said it yourself.
i'm literally crying right now. I'm not that type of crier, but this was absolutely heart warming.
Just keep doing what you're doing, Red and Ruby. No matter what will happen, there will always be a giant mark on cb. And you created it. No one can erase it. It's in permanent marker.
You gave so much advice, so much love, so much laughter to cb. Whenever a person was troubled, happy, sad, scared, excited, ove joyed, you were there.
You may not be reading this, but I just want you to know: We love you. And that will never stop until the end of time. Just know that, Red and Ruby.
I hope the future curves toward you, leading you the right way. Because you DESERVE IT.
Don't ever go down. Think about cb. Think about yourselves.
Because, you left the greatest mark we will ever see.
And more marks are coming soon.
You just have to be. your. SELVES.
Goodbye, you two. Enjoy life.
(March 11, 2015 - 5:16 pm)
I know that you haven't completely gone yet, and I know this is very selfish, but could you please say one last goodbye?
(March 16, 2015 - 11:40 am)
Uh.......Admin, the DtE page shows that Red posted something 11 hours ago, but I can't find it. Do you know where it is?
We were reviewing it and decided not to post it. It was pretty much a duplicate of his previous goodbye comment, seemingly too long and complicated for CB, and we didn't want to change it with editing.
Admin
(March 19, 2015 - 12:12 pm)
*sniffs* Did it have anything in it for me? *hopeful look*
(March 19, 2015 - 4:03 pm)
Okay, *sniffs* I guess not.
(March 19, 2015 - 5:40 pm)
OMG I feel like crying. That is so beautiful! I am literally copying this down right now.
(March 20, 2015 - 5:34 pm)