Warning: Deals with suicide.
Waiting
by Melissa
A boy in his late teens sits in a bathtub. He's fully clothed. On the side of the tub is a tape recorder. He lifts a shaky hand and presses the 'record' button. The soft whirring of the tape is all that can be heard at the moment. He then starts his monologue.
I often wonder about my life before this one. If you can even call it that. I always imagined that I was an angel whose wings were plucked and I was hurled down to the earth. Was it a punishment? Was it just my time to be reborn? I just don't know. There are millions of questions that I don't know the answer to. A large part of me wishes that I did. It would make what I have to do so much easier.
They say it's selfish to take one's life. That you're only thinking about yourself. It was thinking of others that kept me from killing myself the first time. Four years ago, though it seems like only yesterday. It happened just after the war had ended. I had lost all hope in my life. It has reached the point where I was happier asleep than I was when I was awake. I made up my mind to end it all.
I went into the bathroom and filled the tub with scalding hot water.
My self preservation started to kick in. 'It's going to hurt,' a voice inside my head said.
"So?" I had answered out loud. "I'm trading a little pain that lasts only a moment for the release from a much bigger one."
I took a blade to my skin. I pressed down slightly, watching a thin red line appear on my pale skin. 'Just a little more....,' I kept thinking to myself. All I needed to do was sever the vein in my wrists. The hot water would then keep the blood flowing until there was no longer enough to keep me alive.
So simple, and yet I could not do it.
I thought about how much it would hurt the people I care about if I took my life. I couldn't bring myself to be the cause of that much suffering. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as the blade fell from my hand and clattered to the tile floor. It seemed to echo endlessly as I curled up into a ball and cried.
He stops for a moment, eyes vacant as he recalls the memory.
Perhaps I should have considered each heart beat and breath after that moment a gift. I don't though. If I had the damn backbone to go through with it, I wouldn't have known what I was missing. I have heard people say that if you really wanted to die, then you would have. Maybe my heart wasn't really in it back then. I didn't even bother to write a note. Sometimes I ponder about what I would have said. I'd like to think it would be better than the cliché of 'Good bye, cruel world.' Then again, probably not. It wouldn't be deep, or meaningful, or offer up any explanation as to why I did it.
And now those feelings have come to visit me once more. I've stopped eating again. I know people have noticed and think that it's because of vain reasons.
He laughs bitterly.
That is not the case at all. If they would stop judging me for a fraction of a second, they would come to see that's not why I do it. It's just too much of a chore to eat. I know that sounds odd, but it's true. I could care less about my outward appearance.
He brings his hands up and cradles his head in them.
'Why don't you just do it and get it over with?' a voice in my head yells at me constantly.
And I end up smiling, none too pleasantly either. I can quiet this voice by giving it exactly what it wants. I can quiet all the other ones at the same time as well.
I suppose, when it comes down to it, I just want to be free. My soul has grown tired of the flesh and blood prison it has been trapped in for nearly two decades. I didn't ask to feel all this pain. If I could go back and change it, I would tell God to keep his offer of a human life.
He reaches down and picks up something from the bottom of the tub. As it is brought into view, it is seen to be a lock back knife. He opens the blade, and a resounding click is heard as the metal locks into place.
I think what it is that part of me hates what I have become. I loathe myself, to be perfectly honest. I sit in this blessed silence and contemplate oblivion. To wonder what it's like to close my eyes and never open them again. To be free of this wretched existence. To not be judged for once in my miserable life, would probably be asking too much. No one could give me that though. This time there is no hesitation or second thoughts.
He severs the blood vessels easily. Blood steadily pours out of the wound on his wrist as he slashes the other one.
I finally grew a spine, how about that.
I wonder if I will become an angel again, or just another soul damned for all eternity. I suppose it doesn't really matter. I'll find out soon enough. It won't be much longer now.
As I watch my life run out onto the cold ceramic tile, I reach over and turn on the water. I wait for the angel of death with open arms.
Because I know that he treats everyone the same.
The running of the water drowns out the sound of tears falling.
The tape recorder continues to run.
The End
More Author's Notes: I'd like to know what you thought of it before
I remove it. Thanks for reading.
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill
them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward
many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it
kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave..."
- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms