It
was some time past four am on a cold and blustery late October night
as I lay in bed, unable to get comfortable, alternately too hot and
too cold. I'd gone to visit my father for the weekend, out at his
place on the edge of the Mendips, overlooking the cathedral town of
Wells.
I'd
fake-grinned and joked my way through a day of chit-chat and being
around people that expected you to be a certain way, people that
didn't want to know the truth. I hated myself for it, the way it was
automatic now.
Asked
how I was, I would reflexively grin and crack some bad joke. I used
to do it when I was sixteen and trying to woo girls by being
self-deprecating and ironic. It actually worked for that purpose back
then. Now at twenty-six, as a screen to hide my true self, it just
drained me and left me horribly depressed. One lunchtime of it left me
hating myself, a whole weekend of it was almost unbearable and left
me completely exhausted for the next week. I couldn't tell my father, or he wouldn't listen, to my true feelings.
I've
never slept well away from my own bed. I like it dead quiet and dark
when trying to get to sleep, I like my bed and my sheets and my
place. Even with those present, half the time my mind doesn't
co-operate, as it decides that now is the perfect time to invent new
worlds and realities inside its confines.
So
I’m lying there, the wind howling and crashing against the house,
when the thought pops into my head. You could jump off that cliff
right now. You could get dressed against the biting wind, put on your
boots, go outside, walk to the patio overlooking the valley, and
jump. Nobody would be able to stop you.
Earlier
I called these thoughts horrific daydreams, except they're not. Some
part of my mind knows they should be that, but the idea is actually
rather pleasing. I wouldn't even have to walk the miles along the
Avon Gorge from my flat, climb up the steep cliffs and do it from
there like I’d planned. I could walk out of the front door now, and
end it right now. Not even five minutes and it would be over.
These
thoughts aren't so laid out as this of course. Do I leave a suicide
note? Simply: “I'm sorry dad.” No, that wouldn't do, would have
to be three, one each for my mother, father and brother. Although leaving three seems a little conceited too.
Then
come the doubts. What if I fuck it up? The cliff is high, but not
perfectly vertical, the slope below covered in scrubby ash trees and
dying bracken. What if they arrested my fall enough and I ended up
only breaking a leg, or worse, snapping my neck but remaining alive.
Paralysis, being trapped inside my mind, would truly be a fate worse
than death.
But
then what of life? Life hardly seems worth living right now. Still, I
am alive, though every waking hour is only lived to distract myself
from my own inner thoughts.
And
yet, there is a spark of hope. A sputtering, pathetic imitation of a
flame, only giving off enough light to bring the shadows into greater
contrast. But maybe it's enough. Maybe tomorrow won't suck quite so
much. I want to see another sunrise. I want to see what my life could
turn out to be if it started going right.
I
give up thinking and roll over, drawing the covers around my body as
sleep finally claims me.
I
dream of falling. Flying, for a few brief moments, feeling
weightless, free. Free from myself, and free from this world. I look
up at the stars, but I can't reach them. Maybe if I jump high enough,
they will come to me.
