There is never enough of too much.
In my mind it makes perfect, unquestionable sense but in anyone else's mind it would, possibly, look like a cluster of random words haphazardly forced together like two north magnets. I realise and acknowledge that "never enough" is utterly contradictory to "too much".
I compare it to an overdose, because suicide is one of the things I think about a lot. A set amount of pills is enough for a normal dosage. This amount of pills is taken by a person that strives to improve their live, mental state, whatever else matters to them personally. But for someone who aims to take too many pills and end their life, the normal amount of pills is not enough. Three pills, for example, will make you nice and stable and maybe your psychiatrist will give you a sticker when you've taken them. But three is not enough for someone who wants to take five, six, seven pills. Eight pills. A handful. Enough to kill yourself, whatever that amount is.
I was younger and a lot more innocent when this statement came to me. I was in elementary school, with a fat-ass teacher who crushed every chair he sat in as well as our hopes and dreams.
"What are you asking Santa for Christmas, Caine?"
"Nothing. I have too much."
"How much is too much?"
Not enough.
"Not enough."
After that he seemed unfortunately puzzled by me, and his confusion developed into cold-blooded dislike. Then again, that development was only made when he asked me about my parents.
"Are your parents coming to pick you up after school, Caine?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"My dad is dead, my mom –" Is a slut. Whore. Bitch. "– abandoned me and my fake parents don't care about me."
My fake parents were my adoptive parents. I was barely a month old when they adopted me but from day one they knew something was wrong in that tiny brain of mine. They knew I was fucked up and so did my mom. That's why she gave me up in the first place. Poor little David Temple, a kid destined to be a psychotic dropout. My dad was killed. It never crossed my mind, although many things do, to care about him or question his death.
These adoptive parents, the Sorens, gave me their surname and paired the forename Caine with it. In Scandinavian, Soren means "strict". It definitely fit the bill. Their method of parenting involved streaming cuts and dark bruises, and lacked affection, regular meals and a bearable, let alone bearable, mattress. Caine means "son of the fighter", therefore it suits me.
High school was one hell of a rollercoaster and by that I mean it was very high, as I was. In order to get revenge on my not-parents, I stole money from them, and as punishment, they beat me up, and so I stole more money from them, and the cycle continued, a repetitive loop that made me want to tear down all I knew like the band posters they didn't let me put up on my walls, and forge my own path, which would involve my own routine.
That's what I did. That's what I'm doing, and my own routine is beautiful because it isn't a routine. I have no routine. I left high school and left home, if you can call that horrid dump a home. I am homeless, or that's what some say, but it doesn't feel like that. Home is where the heart is, right? I have my heart with me, pounding in my chest and pumping the blood I need to enjoy every second of this new life around my body. Wherever I go is home, in that case. But, like everything, there are problems, nagging drawbacks. I have a heart and I also have a joint in my right hand at most times, but the latter brings something very unwelcome into my life.
Voices.
Voices in my head.
Repetitive voices that won't stop repeating the word voices, at some times, and I'm fucking terrified of the voices.
I smoke more marijuana to get rid of them, and when I get stoned, I know it isn't my pitiful yet pitiless insanity speaking, but the weed. And then I'm not stoned, and the familiar noises remain in my mind along with the knowledge that the weed isn't causing them. I'm insane so I smoke weed to be insane, and then I'm naturally insane again. It's a preferable routine to the one I followed before, but it's still a routine.
The only way I can break out of the routine is to break myself out of the chain every person is bound by, in the same way, and this chain calls itself life. I'm going to kill myself.
I have one friend who I can't really turn to during the times when I have these dark thoughts, since turning to someone involves them giving you advice in exchange for your depressing thought, but he is a friend. His name is Computer Jack. I don't know his surname, but he's a pure nerd, like a computer fanatic pulled straight out of the nineties with a layer of sci-fi on top, so I can see why he's called Computer Jack. I also think that perhaps he watches a lot of porn on his computer. I definitely would do that too, but sadly the only computer I have access to is the one in the library, and the librarian with her magnificent orange glasses is wary when I step into the building, so I think that jacking off in the place wouldn't be the best idea.
Jack never gives me food or a place to stay but he does enough hacking to get me some money, which I spend on drugs. Once he gets past his initial hey-dude-what's-in-the-bag? apprehension, and with some encouragement, he shares whatever I manage to get a hold of in the backstreets and takes his glasses off. When Computer Jack takes his glasses off, you know shit is serious. He has a mop of mousy brown hair, eyes that are surprisingly bug-like and small when they aren't covered by thick lenses, and a thin frame which is a misleading sight considering I saw him in a fight this one time in high school and the other boy, a bratty kid of average size called Zil Sperry, was on the floor and begging for forgiveness within seconds. Later, Jack told me that Zil had made a joke about the new Mac Pro, one of Apple's finest creations, and Jack was very protective of this product, even going as far as calling it "Jesus in a computer".
Because I'm trying to avoid routine, every time Jack and I hang out, we choose a different place to go. I don't have a phone, much to his annoyance, so we arrange each meet-up at the end of the last meet-up.
It's November nineteenth, 2013. Tuesday, a school day, and Jack is still studying unlike me who dropped out as soon as the opportunity was available, but he skips his last period by hacking into the school system and marking himself down as present, and we hang out by the beach to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, as all teenagers do.
Four score and seven years ago...
"My teacher asked after you today," Jack says, speaking over the voice in my head.
"Yeah?" I'm not really listening to the crap he spews all of the time, because I don't have any drugs or even alcohol with me today. But hey, it's a break from routine.
"Uh huh." He nods. "Said you had real potential to be important."
...a new nation, conceived in liberty...
"And now I don't, because I'm a lost cause." I snort, filling in the gap that Jack leaves blank in his fear. "I'll be king some day, Jack, mark my fucking words."
Weak. You're weak. Kings are strong and you are weak.
"Caine. This is America." Jack replies bluntly. "You can't be king. President, sure, but not king."
"What good is power without a crown to show it off?"
Is that what you want? Something to show off? If you're so desperate –
Jack laughs nervously. "Sure, man, whatever."
– for something to show off, why don't you show Jack the scars –
"How is school?" I ask, forcing myself to sound interested.
"Alright," He shrugs. "I guess. Brianna's been ill recently."
– all over your repulsive body?
"Huh? Who's Brianna?"
"Don't you ever listen to me, dude?" Jack huffs. "Brianna is, like, the most popular girl on the hockey team. And the hottest."
Abraham Lincoln spoke about people dying in the civil war and here you are, being weak.
"Well, you should ask her out or some shit," I suggest. "I don't know, what does she like?"
"Sport, I guess," He shrugs again. It's a habit, some kind of nervous twitch. "She goes swimming, too."
"Swimming is boring," I say breezily, "water drowns people."
You should do that.
"I mean," I add quickly to silence the worrying suggestion, "that shouldn't be done, obviously. But it's possible."
Walk into the sea and drown yourself like you're doing already.
"Brianna hasn't drowned, though," Jack points out, frowning.
Life is going to drown you anyway, Caine. You want to let life drown you?
"Jesus, I'm not that fucking dumb," I snap.
"Man, I wasn't saying that!" He holds his hands up in an innocent surrender.
"I think you should go home." I say shortly.
"Why?"
"I don't know, Jack," I sigh, "go to school. Talk to your parents. Eat food. Watch porn and knock one out over your shiny new computer."
He says goodbye but I don't pay much attention, and it's November so the sky is already quite dark, and it's cold, and I have the beach to myself.
You'll never be an Abe Lincoln.
"I don't want to be Abe Lincoln anyway," I say to no one except the voice, as I stand up and brush sand from my jeans.
Who do you want to be?
I don't answer.
Do you want to be anyone? Do you want to be anything?
My mouth remains sealed, my own controlled thoughts switched off.
No aspirations? That's sad for a seventeen-year-old.
"I'm Caine Soren," I say quietly, my voice patient and practiced.
Caine Soren is weak.
"I'm David Temple."
David Temple is unloved.
"I'm not weak. I've got this far on my own."
On your own.
"And I'm not unloved either. I don't need love. Love is stupid and irrelevant and hypnotising. Love blinds people. I don't need to be blinded."
If you're not weak or unloved then you can't be Caine Soren or David Temple.
Who are you, then?
Don't just stand there and ignore me.
You can hear me.
Prove yourself. If you want to be someone you need to make a statement. Do something important.
"What's important?" I reply, my voice barely even. "If I'm as weak as you're telling me I am, then I'll never do anything important."
I'll play them at their own game. It's all in my mind so I am the creator of the game. I will win.
You want to win?
"I'm going to win." I state determinedly.
You can't win. Life's not a game.
"How the hell do you know what life is?"
I know what your life is.
"And what's –"
A joke.
I start to walk closer to the water, a place which cannot be pinpointed, because every wave is different. Some are bigger than others. Some have a long-lasting effect, others are eventually irrelevant.
I want to be the former.
I am the latter.
There is no middle ground, no grey space in between. No normality, no average man with a nice, secure job and a lovely, pretty wife and two kids, one boy and one girl, and maybe a pet Labrador. Nothing is plain and expected, not in this brain, not in this Universe. I've had four parents and they have all either died or betrayed me. I'm not normal.
Kill yourself.
"I'll do it for me," I mutter, "not for you. If I do it."
A wave rolls along the sand, reaching my feet and washing over my sneakers. The water is cold and shocking but it helps me focus.
If water is the only thing that can help me focus, dying in it makes sense, doesn't it?
Am I really, seriously, contemplating suicide?
Am I stepping further into the water right now?
Yes you are, you douchebag.
"Wow, douchebag." I bark a laugh. "That's a nice thing to say in my last moments."
Water creeps into my sneakers through their worn holes, and with each step closer to death, it soaks my jeans and makes my feet and legs heavier, makes everything heavy with the burden of life.
No. Not life. Survival, not life. I haven't lived.
"What is living like?" I wonder aloud.
You'll just never know, will you?
"Enjoying things must be nice."
Fucking walk.
I keep walking.
"But," I start to protest, "maybe enjoying things is, you know, enjoyable. And you've never given me the chance to –"
Move.
Move. Move. Move.
Within a few seconds I am emerged in the sea from my waist down, wading through the water.
"Not that you'd know this, because you're in my head, but physically drowning isn't that different to having you in my mind."
I'm shivering now, and the blood in my veins feels as frozen and icy as I've always imagined it. The water shows no sign of getting warmer, just like my mental state shows no sign of getting better. My teeth chatter and my whole body shivers, so badly that I am convulsing, a puppet that yearns to be cut from its strings.
Water around my chest, a bulletproof vest. I can't be shot. I am only hurting myself. My heart is pounding so hard that I think it might escape, tear itself out of my own flesh. Maybe I would feel that.
Water around my neck, and I feel tears on my cheek.
"No," I croak.
No, what?
"I want to live."
You'll never live because –
"Because you won't get the fuck out of my head?" I sob. I fight to stay up on my own weak legs, otherwise this sick game will be well and truly over.
Exactly.
Suddenly I'm laughing because I'm killing myself and crying for the same reason, laughing because this is a game I have no chance of winning and crying because I'm acknowledging that fact and quitting that game.
"I have to get out of this."
What is this, though? This ocean or this fucked up brain, this meaningless life?
I start to run and the tide is in my favour, the line of water drawn across my throat slowly lowering itself, like a noose around my neck becoming slacker.
You're thinking of suicide again.
"Because of you!" I scream, but the grip of the voice is firm and I feel it on my arms, my legs, my body, around my neck, pulling me back, further into the water, further to my death, the tremendous, invisible, imaginary force which is in my head, a part of me, pushing me to my demise.
I hear too much in my head but the noise doesn't distinguish itself with words. The tide makes its own repetitive noise but over that there's yelling but no words, shouting but no words, just noise, screaming in my ears with no words, no message or purpose.
Then:
"Man, what are you doing?"
It's too real. It's not in my head. It's coming from the lifeguard that's making his way toward me.
I can't give myself up; I can't be saved by someone who saves. I can't be saved. I can't be weak.
You're already weak.
I turn into the water and fill my mouth and nose with it. My throat and lungs burn. I imagine everything burning. My whole body wrapped in flames, alight with pain, too quick for any goddamn lifeguard to rescue me.
A blaze of glory.
I can't see anything down here, my eyes squeezed shut although I try to force them open and let my stupid tears mix with this poisonous sea. The water is shallow. I struggle to keep my body down.
Breathe it in.
There's nothing to breathe.
I take one big gasp and force the water into my body.
Do I want to die?
You have to die.
Then the idiotic fucking lifeguard, thank God, grabs my arm and starts to stupidly pull me out of this nightmare, and like the wave that washed over my sneakers, like the moment when I lost my sanity, I can't pinpoint when I lose consciousness.
I can pinpoint the moment when I regain consciousness. Everything is too bright and too loud and the paramedics are too relieved when I attempt to open my eyes and cough.
Did you not fucking hear me? You have to die. You're not allowed to live. You should have killed yourself. Weak.
Weak.
Weak. Weak. Weak.
"Hey, hey," Says a black guy with no hair and a concerned expression. "Don't try to move too far. You'll be alright, okay?"
"What's your name, pet?" A pale woman with gentle features asks, tilting her head.
What's your name?
Caine Soren.
"Weak," I reply.
"No, sweetie, we need to know your name."
What's your name?
David Temple.
"Unloved," I tell her.
"We should get the kid to a hospital, pronto." The man mutters. "Severe damage to the lungs and throat, probable hypothermia and shock, and..."
"Mental state," The woman raises a hand to reassure me but hesitates and lets her arm fall when she sees my widened, terrified eyes studying her. "Yeah."
"C-Caine." I stammer, shivering. I become aware of the blankets wrapped tightly around me, and the hoarseness of my voice. Speaking is like choking. It feels like I'm still underwater. "My name is Caine. Please call m-me Caine."
"Okay, Caine, we're taking you to the hospital." The man says.
"I'm fine," I argue.
Jesus Christ, do you actually believe that?
You just tried to kill yourself and you're telling these people that you're fine?
"I'm not fine," I admit.
"We're going to get you help," The woman smiles gently.
All I have the strength to do is nod. I don't even have the willpower to stay conscious and so I fall asleep in the ambulance.
I wake up in somewhere that's white and sterile and organised and bright. A hospital.
I went to a hospital once before, when I got into a fight in school and broke my nose as a result. I tried my best to hide the bruises my "father" had left me. It was the local Pismo Beach hospital and it definitely wasn't this big.
A needle is jabbed into my arm and then I'm back to the numbness. Pain relief. I'm drugged for days, too drugged to think as I answer the questions important-looking people in white coats with clipboards ask me.
Well done, you've got us stuck here.
"I hear voices in my head and please make them go away." I blurt to some guy who introduces himself as Doctor instead of Mister. This is a sharp moment of clarity between the hours of darkness that won't stop pulling me in.
"Please." I say.
"I'm sick of them." I say. "I'm scared of them."
A nurse is in the room, too.
"Do you have anywhere to go?" He asks.
"What?"
"Do you have a home?"
"A home?"
"A house? A family?" He asks impatiently. "Anywhere to live?"
How the fuck do I answer that? I'm not really living.
"I'm not living," I murmur, my eyes cast down.
"You are living, Caine," The important doctor guy states. "Your heart is pumping blood around your body. You're alive."
"That's not true," I say shakily, "it's not true. You could tear my heart out and it would make no fucking difference!"
"More pain relief?" The nurse offers.
"No!" I yell. "Don't you get it? I want to feel something!"
"We could admit him to the unit," The nurse suggests.
"The unit?" I echo.
"It's possible," The doctor, who must be a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, or something else I definitely can't afford, nods.
"I'm right here!" I scream.
The guy looks at me, almost through me, remaining calm. "Caine..."
"Soren," I fill in the blank.
"Caine Soren. Caine, how would you feel about being admitted to our psychiatric unit?"
"Psychatric unit?"
Isn't that where all the weak people go?
Suits me, then.
"I think that would be good," I answer slowly, "yes. I think that would help."
You're getting help?
I'm getting help.
Ha! Suck on that!
Why fucking bother? What's the point in trying if you know you'll have nowhere to go when you get out and will probably end up killing yourself anyway?
"I want to be admitted." I say.
"We can sort that out pronto," The doctor replies.
"I want to get help. I want to get help. I want to get help." I say.
"I don't want to die," I say.
"I want to live." I say.
Everything is too much, and by that I mean it's really too much. The brightness turns black.