I sat and smiled.
“Two years!” The woman bellowed. The others turned, politely, and clapped their hands together in my direction, many of them nodding vigorously — nearly violently.
“Two years of sobriety! What an achievement!”
I nodded, baring my teeth in the closest possible semblance to a smile i could muster. “Yes…” I muttered, to the troop of individuals already circled around me in folding chairs borrowed from the kind souls at the St. Timothy’s Episcopalian Church. Then, more empathically, to appease my surroundings, I squealed, “two years!” bracing myself for the forthcoming pageantry.
Lies, lies, lies. They rise and fall from my vocal box. Here comes First Name Jeannie to give me her number and offer her sponsorship. She touches my elbow and looks into my eyes and tells me, “it really can be truly life-changing to work the steps”.
Her breath smells like coffee.
Beyond her, I am considering whether the belt from my robe is thick enough to hang myself with. I can see, beyond her very processed, but still nicely styled body of hair, my own limp body hanging from the rafters of the church. From my own robe belt.
It’s comforting, to think that there will be silence like that one day.
I actually do see a shrink.
On my way to see her, my shrink, my boyfriend often drives. I consider how much pain I might be in if, whilst driving on the highway, I threw myself out from our car, head first, under the next car. There’s no way I would live very long after my head is run over by another car going 70mph. While death is quite appealing, I am terrified of pain. And, naturally, I do worry about traumatizing him, my boyfriend, I do. Perhaps its why I can’t do it.
Anyways, I would rather be able to successfully end it all than end up 5150’ed on a gurney in a psych ward unable to choose my own fate.
— -
It rose and fell, the small tract of plastic closest to her mouth — rapidly at first, and then more slowly, like train engine losing steam, coming to stop. The nearly translucent grocery bag, with it’s poorly replicated, faintly yellow smiley face on one side, seemed to glow in the light the sun was casting through the only window in the small room. It was the early evening, and the slant of sunlight was bursting through the otherwise dark cell in such a way that each dust particle appeared to be falling like a snowflake in a soft winter storm. The only area of disturbed dust fall was near the parting of her panting lips, though she could not see it, behind the bag.
Near her, on the bed where she lay, a few stray pills had spilled over the side of the night table onto the floor. There was a clock on the night table and it ticked, ticked, ticked, ticked, alongside her breathing, noting it’s irregularity, catching falling snowflakes. There was still a sliver of sun on the bag when that small portion of it fell silent and still. Suddenly there was no movement at all, save for those pieces of dust, falling ever so slowly, silently, down, down, down. And the clock as it ticked past the hour, the loudest noise ever uttered, in a room so very quiet.
And the bag, now so still, with it’s faint smiley face on one side, had something barely legible on the other side of it — though much more readily discernible now that the breathing had ceased. It read, “Have a Nice Day”.
