To Be...,Or Not To Be

"To Be..., or Not To Be... That, is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune..." ~Shakespeare

Some seem to be going through life with little or no energy, and of poor spirit. Admittedly, society can heap huge dispair on our daily lives by forcing us to endure situations that can be intolerable at best. But is it ever a cause for self-pity, or the impetus for feeling sorry for ourselves? This is the question.

Everyone experiences severe emotional pain, or a horrific situation which may seem completely unbearable at some points in their lives. Some can cope much better than others, but in either case, it can be worked through by making changes, taking on new challenges, or even participating in something productive, things will generally get better over time. One must know without a doubt, that no matter what happens, it will always work out and it will be okay.

I support a person's right to do what they will with their life. Each individual is responsible for their own happiness and if someone decides to end their life, that's completely their choice alone and no one else's business. However, if the thought ever crosses your mind, go for a walk, take another hit of fresh air, talk to friends and family, or do something you really enjoy to take your mind off of it until it passes.

Life can be good when you work at it, sometimes things go wrong, but don't ever feel sorry for yourself. Simply let it go. That is the answer.

believe your pain?

I remember the last time we were together. "You have to get back on that horse" you said to me, your voice traced with that silvery laughter I knew so well. I was terrified. My fears had not left me since the last time I went climbing and I'd slipped halfway down the cliff. But... you swore that it would be good for me. So we packed all of our equipment and left for the mountains.

There is a brief flash of clarity, a glimpse of the hospital ceiling and the cold light that hangs above me, then the memories continue. Relentlessly.

I remember being up on the rock face. We'd reached the halfway point, and I was feeling pretty good, my tensions had eased and I was actually enjoying myself. The mountains were peaceful, the silence occasionally broken by the call of a bird, or the rustle of the trees as the breeze floated through them. So tranquil and serene. It was as if we were on top of the world and nothing could touch us. Suddenly a sharp sound filled the air. It sounded like a gunshot. I froze, paralyzed with fear. But... nothing happened.

Perhaps a hunter had been in the valley below, and the accoustics of the place sent the gunshot much louder and closer then it actually was. I wish that was the case... I truly do. As I sighed with relief, I felt the mountain tremble under my hands in a way that it was never intended to. I looked back towards you, to call out for you to hold on. Instead I was just in time to see your god lovely blue eyes lock on mine, huge and wide with shock as the rock crumbled from beneath you.

I still remember how you looked as you fell. A small form, like a child's rag doll, tumbling over and over to the bottom of the mountain. I tried to reach out to you, tried to catch you before it was too late, but I lost my hold on the ropes. My last sight before I blacked out was your body as you hit the rocks. I thought you were dead.

For a moment an angel has mercy on me, and the memories stop. It only lasts a moment, but it's so full of heartache and loss, that it's almost a relief when they begin again.

It is morning this time and I don't know where I am. The walls are stark and pale, there is a sharp scent of ammonia and sickness in the air.

"He's awake Doctor." A strange woman walks to me. "Do you know who you are? What day of the week is it? Hun, I need you to try and speak to me..."

I'm me, of course, what is she talking about? I'm so confused....

The confusion isn't helped when the room suddenly fills with commotion as my mother and then my father burst into sight. "Oh my God!' She starts to cry. She is holding my hand, babbling words. She's not making any sense. My father leans over her shoulder and tries to give me a reassuring smile, a flat, dead kind of smile that makes me uneasy to look at. "It's okay son. You're going to be all right." All right? Why wouldn’t I be all right? Why was I here? What was going on?

It was a question that wasn't answered then. Wasn't answered for some time, and like a sadistic partner who delights in my pain, my thoughts take me further along the path.

My memories take me to when they were ready to release me. The doctor had run me through the usual tests. There was something wrong, I can tell they've been holding something back from me and I just stare blankly at the man until he speaks. He cleared his throat in an uncomfortable sort of way, obviously bracing himself to ask things neither of us want him to. "The girl you were with, do you remember her?"

His words hit me like ice, and the fall is relived once more, a memory within a memory. "Yes." I turned away at once, not wanting to face you, see how you looked when you fell. Not wanting to think about it at all.

And the doctor, that fucking bastard, he just keeps talking. "Your family feels it would be best for you to know..." I cut him off quickly, not wanting to hear the words. "I know. She's dead."

He looks at me strangely, I didn’t notice then, but his eyes were flat with suppressed emotion. You'd think he'd take a hint that I didn't want to talk about it. But then, the cruel bastard, he dangles out hope without even thinking and for a moment I feel alive again. "No, she made it through the fall..."

"Where is she?" I feel frantic with the need to see you. My hands reach out of their own accord and grip the collar of his jacket, pulling him close with a strength I didn’t know I had. And clearly it was a strength HE didn't even know I had, judging by the look of shock and surprise on his face. “Tell me! NOW! I have to go see her!”

"She's here, in the hospital, easy son. Don't get too excited, listen to me first." He pushes me down as I try to rise, his hand gently loosen mine from his shirt. Or at least attempting to, I refuse to let go, and even try to use his own body to pull myself upright. "You need to know this, she's in a coma."

I don't care! You are alive! My love, my life... you still breathe! Was the man made of stone? All my attempts to shove past him and get to you were like throwing myself against a brick wall. A brick wall that grabs my shoulders and forces me to hear what he's saying. "Look at me! Her neck was broken in the fall, she won't regain consciousness!"

What? No... that's not right. Why tell me she was alive only to snatch her away again... this doesn't make sense...

I stop struggling, unable to understand what he was trying to tell me and sink down into the bed in a confused huddle. My family comes in shortly after, and I can hear my mother's tears when the doctor tells her how I responded. She holds me and talks to me, but I don’t want to hear what she says. It's not real. It can't be real.

Another day has passed in my travels through the past, and another memory comes to beat me with it's presence. They've kept me here, overnight, wishing to observe me. My mother said I should go see you. I can't.. you're dead. How can I face you, when I failed to save you? My head shakes and I try to roll away... only to hear a moan of loss and realize it’s my own anguish that has slipped past my lips. It's like I'm not aware of the way my body is betraying me, screaming for you when all I want to do is go to sleep and never wake up. Take back what happened somehow, refuse to go... something.

The doctor comes in again, his nurse moves me as if I was some oversized doll, running tests on a lifeless body. She cleans me up and dresses me, the doctor whispers something to my mother about a sedative... they are sending me home with her. They think it will make me better to be in familiar surroundings. Familiar. Places that I had shared with you, that had your presence marked all over them. My face feels wet, like I'm crying, though I don't feel like I am. And I don't care enough to wipe it away. I just watch as my mother, looking older then her years, comes and holds my hand while my father wheels me out of the hospital.

Why do the memories keep coming? Taunting and tormenting me now. Flashes of my life without you, days go by, then weeks. There's nothing useful in them, none of them last more then a few seconds, but each one is filled with emptiness. A hole where you should be. There you should have been smiling at me... and there we would have fought over me not putting the toilet seat down. Or there...

Then one morning my mother comes into my room. She’s nervous, her hands twist in the hem of her shirt... she doesn’t want to tell me. But I know. They are taking you off life support in the morning. I can't bear it. That memory lingers for a while, suffocating me with the weight of my mother's pain. She loved you, you know. You were like her own daughter... I can see it hurts her, but it can't hurt her as much as it does me...

Preparing to bury you comes shortly after that. A final nail in the coffin of my heart, I feel numb. Your family asked me to come, tried to make me a part of it... but how can I choose the cold crypt to rest your body in? How can I look at those long wooden boxes... knowing that they will forever bar me from you? What a disgusting mockery of our love for me to choose the last items of clothing to grace your form. Your father didn’t understand. He thought that I was being a coward, if it was his wife I guess he wouldn’t have a problem shoving her in the dirt. Not so for me. Your mother has mercy though and makes the decisions for me. I crawl back into my bed, where I have been all week, and lay there... missing you.

A jump in the memories, and I find myself sitting there with my family, listening to them telling me about it. Apparently your funeral was lovely. How they can think that, when they are sending you off to your eternal rest, I will never understand. My family is trying to convince me to go out, start seeing people. How sick. There will never be another day without you... I am in one endless nightmare. My soul has been ripped into two, the joyous half died with you. I miss you...

Today I’ve been moved back into our... my apartment. This should at least be a somewhat merciful memory, and for a moment my body relaxes from the tension I've been in this whole time. That is until the loneliness begins again. My family is still worried, and old roommate moved in with me, to give me someone to talk to. Or so they say. I watch him move around the house, listlessly make the expected protests when he goes to throw your things out. He’s under orders from the family, remove all traces of you in an attempt to get me focused on living again. But how are they going to remove the hole in my heart? He keeps about his work. It doesn’t matter. You’re gone. You're never going to wear that dress again, or read that book. He can have it all. I've made my decision.

Night falls. And I am here.. this was the spot where we had our picnic on that fateful day. I’ve been sitting here remembering those horrendous weeks for hours now. I could not save you then, but... maybe I can be with you now. A gleam of silver across a blade. The pain is sharp, but short. Already I feel weaker...

Suicide Dreams

“Suicide,” I say, “is the easy way out.
“No,” she says, “the front door is the easy way out. This is a lot more difficult.”
I hear the wind down the phone I’m speaking to her on and I wonder where she is.

“Suicide is not the answer,” I continue.
“Who’s asking questions?!” she retorts, getting angry.
I’m cradling the phone on my shoulder as I stir the cake mix. Even my sister’s imminent suicide can’t stop cake.

“I think you need to talk to someone,” I say, trying to calm her down.
“Well I’m talking to you right now and all it’s doing it pissing me off,” she shouts, “I don’t think talking is doing a great deal of fucking good right now.”
Not that I’m an expert in suicide intervention, but I figure you need to strike a good bond with the person. Like hypnotists and conmen. Not that there’s much of a distinction between hypnotists and conmen.

I need to build a link, I’m thinking, something she can’t just stop talking about so she can jump off a building. Something more interesting than the unholy departure into what counts as an afterlife these days.

“What’s the weather like up there?” I ask.
She snorts down the phone. “What’re you doing, Suicide Intervention? A crash course in saving the damned? I bet you’re just making it up, aren’t you?”
She’s sharp.
“You’re just fucking bluffing your way,” she says, “into stopping me jumping off this building. I bet you’re watching TV or something.”
“I’m baking a cake,” I say.
“Oh fucking brilliant! Here I am, your only sibling, on the verge of oblivion—“
“You’re at Alton Towers?” I ask jokingly. It didn’t go down well.
“Fuck you! Jesus, I’m gonna be dying here and you’re baking a cake and cracking jokes? What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I begin greasing the cake tin with lard.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I reply calmly, “I’m not the suicidal one in this conversation.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Touché,” she concedes.

She’s still quiet. I decide to press on.

“So what’s bought this on, anyway? Why are you going to end it all on this lovely Saturday?”
“Oh,” she sighs, “there’s a few things. Not that you fucking care.”
I’m tearing the greaseproof paper and lining the cake tin.
“I care,” I said, “you still owe me twenty quid’s worth of petrol money.”
She’s furious. At least I’m driving her away from the edge.
“Hey fuck you, I paid that money back and you know it!”
“Did not!”
“Did!”
“Did not!”
“Did did did!”

And suddenly we’re seven years old again and she’s not on the edge of a building somewhere and I’m not checking the oven temperature.

The moment passes.

“You know why I’m not dead yet?” she says, bringing the conversation back.
“Because I’m such an awesome suicide intervener?”
“It’s because some kids are eating burgers on a bench below me. I don’t know how old they are but I know only kids eat like that.”
She’s thinking of the children.
“Maybe you should go get a burger,” I venture.
“Nice try.”

I give the cake mixture a final few turns with a wooden spoon and take the bowl to the cake tin.

I hear her moving and suddenly it seems a lot less windier. She’s gone inside?
“I’ve not gone inside,” she says, “I’m just having a lie down.”
I start pouring the cake mix into the tin slowly.

“This isn’t a call for help, you know.”
“It is. I read it on a website. You don’t really want to kill yourself.”
“Fuck,” she says, adding darkly, “the internet.”

The cake mix has been poured and I’m spooning the last of it out of the bowl into the tin.

“I went on this website earlier,” she says, “in the library. I just typed suicide into google and this was the first thing that came up. It’s all about stopping me committing suicide. I’m reading this site and then I scroll down and there’s a diagram. A fucking diagram.”

I smooth the cake mix flat in the tin.

“It’s some fucking scales and it says PAIN on one side and COPING RESOURCES on the other side. And the PAIN is outweighing the COPING RESOURCES. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Tone down the language, I was once young.”
“Fuck off. So I’m on this page designed to stop me killing myself and it’s giving me this patronising stupid diagram bullshit. Go to the site. Fucking look at it.”
“I will,” I assure her, “if you’re not dead, I will.”
“Shut up, I’m not finished. I go further down the page. There’s a list to some fucking books. They’re selling fucking books on this fucking website.”
“No,” I say with mock drama.
“Shut up! Do you know what they’re called? I’ll fucking tell you. The first one is SUICIDE: THE FOREVER DECISION.”

She laughs bitterly and I can’t help but smile.

“The next is called CHOOSING TO LIVE. That’s not so bad. The third is HOW I STAYED ALIVE WHEN MY BRAIN WAS TRYING TO KILL ME. Can you fucking believe that shit? It’s a fucking joke. It really is. I think the idea is to stop suicide by the sheer hilarity of the website.”

“It’s a novel idea,” I say. Pun intended.

“That was a shit joke,” she says.

I once again concede. She might be considering jumping off a building but the rest of her thought processes are making up for it.

I put the tin in the oven and slam the door shut. I look for the timer about the kitchen, tapping the faux-granite idly.

“Don’t kill yourself,” I say.
“The direct approach!” she exclaims. I hear the wind pick up again.

“I’m looking over the edge,” she says, “and those kids are gone. I could jump right now. I could do it.”

“Don’t,” I say, “they’d probably make me scrape you up.”
“That’s fucking sick,” she replies, getting angry again, “I’m on the fucking edge here and you’re making sick jokes like that. This is serious, you know. This is fucking serious!”

“That all depends on your point of view,” I reply calmly, meaning every word.
“What the fuck no! My suicide is serious!”
“Not really. I mean, everyone has to go sometime. Just some go messier than others.”
“You’re doing it again, you sick fuck!”
“Okay I’m sorry,” I say, adding a few hours to my electronic timer, “but my point still stands. Life is short and in the end, nobody cares. You know what my coping resource is? To push the fucking pain off the scales. I just don’t give a fuck.”
“That’s a pretty shitty attitude,” she says, suddenly sullen.
“My attitude’s working pretty well so far. I’m baking a cake and you’re on the edge of a building.”

She’s quiet. Maybe I got through to her.

“Look, I know you’re having problems. So am I.”
“Like fucking what?!” she shouts.
“Like my sister is going to fucking kill herself!” I shout back.

She shuts up again and I talk quietly.

“But the simple fact is that if you just don’t care about problems, they tend to go away. It’s not me being callous, I still help people and I’m still nice to people.”
She speaks quietly now. I think she’s crying. “Not everyone can think like that.”
“Then,” I say softly, “I guess evolution will see to all the suicidals off and my thought process will survive.”
“Oh for fucks sake,” she says, “this was getting fucking serious. Now look what you’ve fucking done.”

“Jesus, take a chill pill. Just don’t overdose.”

I can’t help but laugh at the joke and I’m sure she laughed too.

“You’re a fucking cunt of a brother,” she says.

I smile to myself and nod as I sit on the work surface.

“Fancy a slice of cake?” I ask.

“If you hurry it’ll still be slightly warm.”

She’s quiet on her end of the line, and there’s only that noise of her blowing her nose. The noise I used to hate so much when we were kids because she was always so loud and it always made such a horrible noise.

Right now, it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard.

“Sure,” she says, “I’ll be right over.”