Warning: Reader discretion is advised
The next day I took the package back to a hotel I’d booked with ad hoc. The cabin: too risky – such that it ever felt like a secure place.
The room, considerably cheaper than I’d been accustomed to, had been me stuck in the thinking mode of budgeting. Still, its austerity and compactness had a curious appeal. I’d almost say a cosiness but maybe more a sense of enclosure, a curiously reassuring familiarity from those days in a cell.
The pills were graded as for specialist use only. In other words a more potent version of what I had already been taking before my enforced withdrawal. Memories of the excruciating suffering (mostly mental) came bubbling up as snatches of recalled feelings and objects in the cell, such as a chair – its cushion I slammed my head against. Objects for my comfort had become objects of torture.
Yes, what a risk it seemed to be immersed back into that dark reality. The lure of finding lightness, however transient, once again now pulled at me. Just looking at those tiny capsules brought a temptation I knew would be too much to resist.
But I had something else in mind. And I thought with a carefulness I knew I was capable of before the addiction took hold.
Now I felt an unexpected sense of serenity. Here it was, the conclusion on the horizon. No longer the urgency to grab those pills so near within reach. As that would simply be too easy.
And time stretched out. Time to think about what truly mattered. Time to think about what I would miss. It was late November. Soon the light of day would take on a preciousness; short days of occasional golden sun. The calm etherealness of mid December; a brief respite from my troubled thoughts. And soon the sprinkled lights of vivid colours adorning buildings suggesting a promise of joy that childhood once brought, then as an adult I sought … and rarely found. It was often a time of lament for something that may have only existed in my mind. But even then I came to love the melancholy of those long nights. The darkness was an ally hiding me from the world.
At that moment, it seemed, the world had no place for me. I could keep hiding away, maybe until the spring. I often dreaded springtime. April was the cruellest month, when the light revealed the harsh reality of my life.
Could I wait till April? It didn’t seem so. Yes, there was so much I had not done. So many places not travelled. So many experiences unlived. Well, experience: the one aspect my life had lacked. And maybe I had found her, or maybe I was yet to find her. Or just fool myself into believing that as a possibility. For don’t we cling onto hope against all odds, against our most rational judgement?
My vain grip on hopefulness had tired.
I had the small bourbon glass tumbler in my hand. Within it were the contents of five crushed capsules. Far more potent than anything I had taken before. I imagined they were used by hardened addicts. One alone would be enough to send me into a long sleep. Two to render me unconscious. Three: it would be touch and go whether I’d survive.
Four. Four had to be certainty. But one more to be absolutely sure. I imagined more than that and my body would reject them.
Another five minutes just to think. About what? Well, that was the problem. There was nothing else I could think about. I wanted so desperately to have that final profound thought. But trying to force it only makes it less likely. Maybe I should have thought more about the world, the state we humans had left it in. Only then were restorative efforts beginning to pay off. Too late. Always too late, it seemed.
Too much time.
I filled the tumbler with grapefruit juice. Stirred it with a teaspoon as I would a cup of coffee
A commanding thought: Mustn’t stop to think about this.
I tried to down it all in one gulp, but even a spirits glass was too much to any more than half empty. So quick the foul taste had reached my senses. Had to resist the urge to retch, or to puke. It was fear. My fear trying to stop me from doing something that was surely against nature.
I drank the rest. My body shaking immediately after.
Thinking I may vomit, I drank more grapefruit, ate half a slice of toast in the hope of settling my stomach for just long enough.
My last sight a dour hotel room. It wasn’t ideal. That final moment I’d thought about for so long, what is just right but not deciding what just right truly meant. On a shoreline, as daylight faded. In a forest where no one would discover me for days. Or just somewhere I could call home. I guess there could never be the perfect place. I guess there could never be anywhere that felt truly like home.
Then the serenity returned.
An excerpt from my yet to be commercially released novel The Chosen
Download the free version of The Chosen from Smashwords for a limited time only.
My other works of fiction:
Worlds Beyond Time: Amazon UK US
The captured: Amazon.co.uk
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