Deaths Shadow

Death had always felt a bit like a warm comforting blanket, perhaps because it seemed like something inevitable, something stable and certain in this crazy, uncertain world.

Now it beckons me toward it again, as though a siren song directly from God. I see signs everywhere I go. Images form in clouds and dust, I watch mustangs pass by as I imagine my demise and all of the number plates seem to spell out acronyms confirming my destined fate.

I’m so desperate to run towards it, yet I am tethered by the obligations of those who walk in my shoes.

I am acutely aware that I have been little more than a ghost for decades, hiding behind versions of myself. But I’m so,so tired and I feel ill, all.the.time.

This dream like life that is supposedly led by me when I’m not even around, it isn’t real, it can’t be.

I can’t believe in the reality of anything I think, or anything I thought I knew anymore, and if you can’t trust yourself, what can you trust?

The world exists only within our imaginations and there’s nothing left after that, nothing.

There are no people here. No family, no friends, no amazing psychiatrist trying to help free me. There’s nothing but an immortal me, sitting in a timeless, empty space, waiting to stop existing.

I want to walk through the green door, I like the idea of having that option, I like the autonomy its symbolism affords.

I clutch onto the belief that I too, can end.

I vividly remember the last time I truely felt the world existed around me, a glow of relief had washed over me as right after I choked down the final pill, I was shaking so badly, I was so nervous that someone would catch me. Bel smiled inside and told me I was free now, then she just… left, taking with her a heaviness and hatred that had forever seemed like such an intrinsic part of my soul.

I laid my head down on the strangely airy hospital pillow, made of something I supposed was difficult to use to asphyxiate self or other.

Everything seemed so real in that moment, so visceral.

The ward was so quiet, save for the serequel induced snoring of those down the hall. The room was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, it had been a terrible challenge to retrieve the pills from their hiding place and find the water I’d snuck into the room, but I’d done it. Bel had guided me through the process, calmed my nerves as she had when I was younger, she’d reminded me in her soothing way that it was all for the greater good.

I remember the way the mattress felt firm beneath my body, not quite allowing the curve of my shivering back to fit.

I had to make an active choice to ignore the discomfort, it was important I remained on my back in case I happened to vomit before the pills took their full effect, I would at least hopefully choke, a back up to the back up plan.

I remember rolling with my back towards the door, pretending to softly snore as a nurse made her way down the hallway doing room checks, I was trying to stop myself from shivering, wishing Bel was still with me to talk me through it, to help me make certain the nurse wouldn’t see my tear stained face. A torch flickered around the room for a moment , the door closed softly and footsteps disappeared down the corridor.

I sighed with relief and lay on my back again safe in the knowledge that Bel had been right, that my pain would soon be over for good. I slowed my breathing and watched a slideshow form in my mind. All the people who had come and gone from my life, my family, my children. I thanked them individually, told them I loved them and said goodbye.

As deaths shadow enveloped me, the world inside my mind faded to match the blackness of the room around me.

I died my ideal death that night, peacefully and in my own control.

But, somehow I’m here right now, writing this, yearning still for my freedom.

We had somehow survived and apparently five years have nearly passed since, in patchy fragmented time.

But I am not glad, I am not thankful because the world I live in remains distant, tingly, surreal, lost, and I am trapped, serving an immortal sentence in an invisible prison cell for my crime as others continue on my life.

I am still in Hell.

~ Katie