I saw myself sitting there on the floor, indian style, a chef's knife in my hand, staring out the window at nothing. Here I was on the dark, dirty wooden floor, tears streaming down my face, alone. I could smell the dust on the floor and the cold winter air, it was snowing outside and some part of me could hear the flakes as the hit the ground. The open window allowed the cold of a north eastern winter to invade the attic living space of the friend I was staying with. He, asleep in the next room, the rest of his family asleep down in the rest of the house, in their rooms, or on the couch. Oblivious to the drama which unfolded in this dark room. I was watching myself, was this a dream? An out of body experience? Acid flashback? Cognitive reconditioning? I wasn't sure. I knew only that I had to let this play out. I watched as the younger me hissed through his tears at the night, “Why? What have I done to deserve this pain? Why have you forsaken me?” he hissed. Was he being quiet so as not to disturb anyone? Trying maybe to keep his current state of despair a secret? No, that wasn't it. I recalled trying not to wake anyone, so not to burden them with my bullshit. That's what I thought it was, bullshit. Others might have classified it as their pain, their suffering, but I thought so poorly of myself, that I just considered it bullshit. Still so considerate of others, that was me. Even in my darkest moments of despair and pain I didn't want to burden those I cared about, considerate. I watched myself crawl across the floor, to the corner and there kneeling something crossed my face, an idea, a thought, what was it? I revealed it to myself as I watched younger me crawl back across the floor and close the window, only pausing to watch a car drive past ruining the untouched look of the snow. I heard a whisper come from my young lips “Make a lot of money shoveling tomorrow.” then a silence, a sigh then “There won't be a tomorrow.” I read the resignation in my young whispers. I felt this apparition that I currently was move, to bar my path back to the corner, but young me passed through whatever I was now. Was this a dream? A memory translated through the eyes of an adult? No, I wouldn't feel pity for this poor misguided creature I was observing, I would feel disgust at what I'd allowed to become of myself at so young an age. Strange then that I didn't feel that, I felt impartial as only an observer of the events of that night. As young me passed through whatever it was I was while viewing this scene, he stopped, for but seconds and scanned the room. “Is someone there?” he asked through hushed sobs. The pain on that young face, my young face touched the empathic side of me but for a moment I felt compassion. I knew what he was feeling. I wanted this to end and now, not his suffering, but my viewing of it.
Back to the corner he went and sat cross legged, there sobbing uncontrollably into his hands, the knife gripped in his right hand. Tears streaming down his face tip-tapping on the floor. Then silence, he sat staring into the darkness of the opposite corner of the room, motionless. I watched as he raised the knife to his wrist, holding the point of it to the inside of the wrist, blade laid across the arm diagonally. It seemed to me that I was indeed quite serious about this. That I could be so serious and committed to killing myself at only seventeen surprised me. “I can't take it anymore!” I heard my young self whisper, barely audible. And standing there, this phantom voyeur I had become spoke “What can't you take anymore?” and something seemed to shift in the mind of the younger version I watched. He steeled himself, and for a moment, I though he'd heard me. Then in the next moment I found that he did. In a blood-curdling scream of rage he screamed at me “You!” and he lunged in the direction where I felt I stood. He slashed at the air and though I'd not felt or seen any evidence of my adult self in the room, neither that night, nor now. I felt the cut. A stinging across my torso told me that I had been cut, deep. “You, who allowed this pain!” slash, this time my hands burned and stung as I raised them to defend against this rage filled seventeen year old version of myself. Slash! “You who killed me!” he raged and his eyes, even in the dark burned red with hate, becoming luminous points in the dark, this time the blade finding the backs of my forearms. Slash! “You'll never be rid of me! Never!” he screamed, drool now coming from my young mouth as the rage filled me cut again and again, until I felt a sting along the side of my neck. I pressed a hand there and felt stickiness as me the younger withdrew cackling as he did so. “Never be rid of me!” he sang at me in a cross between hysterics and hate, lowering his voice with each repetition until he whispered the syllables. He shrunk back into the corner and the darkness.
I felt myself collapse, in a heap on the floor and the blood poured from the wound in my neck, the darkness became darker and part of me wondered why no one had come to the sounds of his screams. Had no one heard it, or had they ignored it? Not wanting to know what was going on. It seemed as if I would never know the answer. Then it occurred to me that somehow this was real, though at the same time merely a dream. The blackness faded into nothingness and I felt still and at peace which abruptly came to an end.
Now startled I awoke again, this I recognized too well. It was only years ago, and this time I was no observer. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, Jordy locked out and Helen, I don't think I'd met her yet. Candles flickered in the room, music, melancholy and poignant played softly. I looked to my left and saw coins standing up on end as I had wedged them into the carpet, dimen, then pennies, then nickles followed by quarters. A small military like formation of coins. A razor-blade grasped firmly between the fingers of my right hand. I raised my left arm and began to work the skin of my forearm with the razor, three inch long, shallow cuts into the skin, again and again I performed this ritual. No one saw, nor knew the pain I felt. I wanted to make myself ugly. I wanted to show the world how ugly I felt by making myself just as ugly on the outside. The shallow cuts letting the blood run in small rivulets down across the skin. The sting, so familiar, like the previous moments when younger me had slashed at me. The pain in my heart so overwhelming than death would not do me justice.
There I was sitting alone and not thinking, only feeling, nude and cross-legged on the floor with my coins and cutting, cutting, cutting. There was a word, a name, a pejorative label for people who did this, what was it? It wouldn't come to me. Where before I had been an observer to the events which had passed in my life, I was now an unwilling participant. I knew only time would show me where this was heading. A song began to play, what it was I don't remember, but I stopped the cutting long enough to sing along with it, the words seeming to be meaningful at that moment “Kiss me and free me, I will feel blessed.” I heard myself sing, weeping. I wiped at the tears and at my nose and saw blood on my hands. I was now quite confounded. I looked to my arm which was still running with blood and saw no smears. I wiped again at my face and returned more blood than the first time anf felt pain, physical pain. I rose now, but this was nothing I remember doing and walked to the adjoining bathroom. Flipping on the light I looked to the mirror and saw my face. Covered in blood which ran from my nose and eyes it looked as though I had been in a serious fight and lost. There were bruises and lumps around my eyes, my nose was clearly broken and teeth were gone. Shocked I stood there observing myself and wondering what manner of madness this was. My reflection contorted and shifted, changing, and became the younger version of me which had assaulted me moments before. I drew closer to the mirror and quickly my reflection reached through the mirror, glass shattering around me as the image grasped me around the neck. It screamed at me “I'm your dream, make you real!”. I felt my hands clutch at its wrists and struggle to free myself from its grip. It was far stronger than I and I felt my world begin to go black once again. I was passing out from being choked, this I knew. The stars, the swirls, my body beginning to twitch and spasm as my brain shut down from lack of oxygen. Again blackness enveloped my existence.
I opened my eyes to see the underside of the front of my toilet bowl. That's strange I thought. The tile of the bathroom floor cool on my neck and arms. Everything was blurry and my head was pounding. I sat slowly, each move bringing dizziness and nausea. Placing my right hand on the side of the bath tub I noticed it was covered in dried blood. I reached my hand back to the spot on the back of my head to find a knot and an intense stinging sensation. Jordy rushed into the room. “We tried to call for help, but couldn't find your cell anywhere!” he looked worried, outright scared was more like it. Hank appeared in the doorway, he looked pale. “We couldn't move you, we were worried you might have hurt your neck.” he informed. I sat up and leaned against the wall for a second. Hank reached a hand out to help me up and shakily I stood. Seeing my reflection in the mirror there was vomit on my shirt and blood on my left ear. I told Jordy and Hank to stay there and wait until I got back, I decided to go to the hospital. Hank offered to come along, and drive me but seeing as to how long I had been out I didn't want any questions asked about why they had done nothing. Jordy chimed in, saying that they could be charged with negligence, I agreed.
I arrived at the hospital and after answering the triage nurses questions as best I was able, the doctor ordered X-rays and a C.T. Scan of my head before putting in fourteen stitches and determining that I had a concussion. It seemed that I'd hit my head on the toilet seat as I'd fallen when I passed out. I was sent home with the directions of no work for four days and light duty for another two weeks. That was sure to piss Marty and the rest of the management off.
Click here for Part 6
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