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A Toast to Nothing (Part 6)
By Thomas Miller
My name is Thomas Miller, and I am the only one left to tell this story.
Richard was my brother, though I don’t know if I can call him that anymore. Not after what he became. Not after what he did to himself.
I have spent my life writing about suffering, about loss, about the ghosts that linger in the empty spaces people leave behind. But nothing I’ve written—no horror story, no tragedy—has ever felt as real as this.
Because this? This is not fiction.
This is the story of a man who thought he was too brilliant to fail, too important to be forgotten.
A man who had every opportunity but wasted them all.
A man who died alone and rotted in silence, his absence unnoticed for over a month.
And now, a man buried in an unmarked grave, erased from memory, except for this—these words—the only thing left of him.
I didn’t plan to write about Richard. I thought I had put him behind me, left him in the past like a bad dream. But when I visited that grave, when I stood in that neglected cemetery staring at nothing, something inside me broke open.
He was gone.
And I was the only one who cared.
The Last Memory
The last time I saw Richard, truly saw him, was long before he put the rope around his neck.
I had gone to his apartment to check on him. Not because I wanted to—I had long since given up hope—but because something in me, some foolish part, still felt responsible for him.
He sat in a worn-out chair, surrounded by empty bottles, his TV playing some political commentary he wasn’t even listening to.
He barely looked up when I walked in.
“Thomas,” he muttered, taking a long swig from his bottle. “The famous writer. Come to rub it in?”
I sighed, sitting across from him. “You haven’t answered my calls.”
“Didn’t feel like talking.”
He never did.
“Richard, you need help.”
His laugh was hollow, empty. “Help? From who? From you? From Daniel?” He sneered. “You two think you’re so much better than me. But you don’t know anything.”
“I know you’re drinking yourself to death.”
He smirked, lifting his bottle. “Then let’s toast to that.”
That was the moment I realized I couldn’t save him.
That was the moment I knew I had lost him forever.
I stood up.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I said. “I can’t keep watching you kill yourself.”
He waved me off like I was nothing. “Then don’t. The door’s right there.”
And so, I walked out.
The next time I heard about Richard, he had been dead for five weeks.
The Call I Never Answered
The truth? I could have been the last person to talk to him.
I didn’t tell Daniel this, but one night, about a month before they found his body, Richard called me.
It was late—past midnight. I saw his name on my phone screen and let it ring.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
I was tired of hearing the slurred words, the bitterness, the blame. I was tired of listening to a man who didn’t want to be helped.
So I ignored the call.
I never heard from him again.
I don’t know what he would have said that night. Maybe nothing. Maybe the same old ranting, the same old poison spilling from his mouth.
Or maybe, for once, he would have asked for help.
I will never know.
All I know is that, in the end, he was alone.
And when they found him, bloated and decaying in that filthy apartment, the only thing left to do was sign the paperwork and put him in the ground.
The Fight for Nothing
Daniel didn’t even want to sign the forms.
“He’s dead. Let the state deal with it,” he said, arms crossed as we stood outside the funeral home.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “He was still our brother.”
Daniel laughed, bitter. “No, Thomas. He was a drunk. A loser. A man who spent his whole life blaming everyone else for his failures. He didn’t want our help. He didn’t want us.”
I clenched my fists. “So we just forget him? Just pretend he never existed?”
“That’s what he wanted, isn’t it?” Daniel shot back. “He hated everything, even himself. Why are you trying to honor a man who threw his own life away?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Maybe Daniel was right.
Maybe Richard didn’t deserve anything.
But I couldn’t walk away.
So I signed the papers. I arranged the burial, even though it was the cheapest, most impersonal service the county offered. No headstone. No ceremony. Just dirt and silence.
Daniel didn’t show up.
And just like that, Richard was gone.
The Final Words of Richard Miller
I sit here now, writing these words, wondering why I’m even doing this.
Maybe it’s guilt.
Maybe it’s obligation.
Or maybe it’s because I don’t want him to disappear entirely.
Richard once told me, “History only remembers the winners.”
Maybe that’s why he hated me.
Because in his mind, I had won.
But there is no victory in this. No satisfaction. No redemption.
Just regret.
I don’t believe Richard is somewhere else, watching me write this. I don’t believe he exists anywhere but in the bones rotting beneath the dirt.
He left nothing behind.
No love. No legacy. No story of his own.
So I’m giving him one.
Not because he deserves it.
Not because he was a good man.
But because once, a long time ago, before the bitterness, before the failures, before the drink—
He was my brother.
And I will be the last person who remembers his name.