'Suicide is not selfish. Suicide is, normally, death caused by the illness of depression. It is the final symptom. A final collapse under unbearable weight. If you have never been close to that edge, try not to judge what you can't understand.' Matt Haig.
I stood there lone on the road of the new world. The moon shone dimly in a dull red light; the lifeless trees cast their grotesque shadows piercing the path that now stretched like a carpet of blood. The stars chocked, to barely existing, in the dark smoky clouds that covered to far horizons in a blanket of despair. The mountains that stood boldly before me were disturbed by the rumble and screams of souls trapped and lost. I looked around me, in acceptance of the solitude, and thus I began to walk to wherever the path would lead me.
I felt at ease. At peace rather. My breath was controlled and steady, my heart throbbed in a rhythmic low beat, and my mind was thoughtless and tranquil. In the spirit of mindfulness, a human shadow was suddenly cast on the path to my right side but slightly behind. I turned in shock to see the being that appeared only to see the mountains by the side; no one stood by. Yet as I walked, I heard little footsteps and the shadow followed. Detached and behind, but still followed. A shadow of a child.
The shadow kept in my company for a while in silence as the air was filled by the rumble and screams from the mountains. "The moment we're born is the moment we begin to die." The child spoke. "Are the sounds in the mountains from dead people?" I asked. "What is death?" The child asked now pacing nearer and literally to my side.
"Loss of life." I answered my eyes rooted to the endless path.
"So also is the resurrection of the dead...it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."
"First Corinthians."
"The souls are of men alive and well but dead inside. They're trapped and lost but they know not."
I paused for a moment, to ponder on the words uttered.
"So how do they break free?" I asked looking down from where the voice came from but I only saw the child's shadow cast on the path.
"The break of the yolk. Man can't break the shackles and escape the prison lest he knows that he liveth in one. In acceptance, the spirit of man will cleanse..."
As the child continued to speak, a bright light broke off in the skies behind the moon and seemed to push it aside and the clouds followed suit. In a moment, the whole area was illuminated and the shadows of the trees and my companion dissolved in the light. The sounds in the mountains faded in decrescendo as if to obey the light. I stood in the wonder as the skies opened to the light that now stretched far and beyond.
In the awe the child spoke,"In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction..." The child's voice faded and rose in the air.
The earth and skies crumbled before me to an end, melting away to the light that was now brighter than the sun. I lifted my hands to cover my eyes that were now closed but even still the light pierced through. In an untimely moment, I was in darkness and I opened my eyes to awake to the sight of my brother.
"Hello." He spoke.
I sat upright on my bed, looked at the pills and poison held in my hand, the full glass of water on the stool, heaved a sigh and thought to myself of Charles Bukowski, 'When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want, what do you call it, freedom or loneliness.'
I responded, "I am alive."
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