Part 3

The Only Way Out

So, the day she finally left I didn’t even shed a tear while she screamed and swore at me, not until the door slammed behind her anyway. It was when the door closed that I realised that she was actually gone, I mean properly gone. When I realised that I may never see her again, never wake up next to her warm body. I would never again see her smile, not that she had done much of that lately.

So now I’m alone again and I can’t say that my depression has deepened significantly for the time being. If anything, I have managed to convince myself that I feel a slight lessening of the restrictions on my life, like I have somehow regained control of my destiny, in that I only have to think about what I want for a change and I don’t have to consider the immediate desires of anyone else. I can go where I want, I can do what I want, although I probably won’t, I will just sit in my flat slowly melting away into the furniture. I’m sure this feeling of being unrestrained is only temporary and the cold emptiness in the pit of my stomach will return as the days and hours scratch by.

Gradually, I will think more and more of ending my life. Not in a dramatic, ostentatious way, just that suicide is slowly becoming a practical solution to a problem: a way out. The more I think about it, the more it just seems inevitable. Like it’s going to happen eventually, it is just a case of when and how. Although I am a bit of a coward, so I hope that it is relatively painless. And I realise that it is a selfish, decadent thing to do and I would apparently be leaving behind people that care about me and it’s their feelings I should consider and the permanent impact it will have on their lives. I’m just sick of being alone. I’m sick of coming home drunk and having to listen to the penetrative silence. I’m just so sick of everything.

But I know all this, and I still can’t help thinking about it, I’ve heard these excuses so many times before and I’ve obsessively turned these things over and over in my mind. I am a calculated, analytical individual and I tend to logically evaluate all the possible variables in a problem of this nature. I keep contemplating the possible scenarios which could occur after I am gone, but none of them seem all that negative, or particularly emotionally damaging for the loose network of people connected with me.

I barely speak to any of my family, except for the occasional stilted phone conversation on my birthday (I am too self-involved to remember the dates of theirs) and at Christmas, which is a much easier date to remember since it occurs on the same day every year.

My sister has other things to consider like children with chickenpox and a bewilderingly disparate array of grown up things to worry about like waterproof decking in the back garden and dry rot in the attic, so I guess my continued existence and passage of oxygen is nothing more than an emotional encumbrance or a distant triviality.

I just can’t imagine that they would be all that bothered about me not being around. I’ve even thought about what my funeral would be like and if it would be well attended and whether they would play music at it. In fact, I am curious as to what music they would select and whether it would be even remotely close to what I would have picked. Undoubtedly, it would be something miserable and in the minor key and it would make people cry for a while and maybe even when they heard it again on the radio a few days later it would perhaps inspire a vague memory of me. A blurred, fractured memory that they don’t fully recall or comprehend, but they know that there is some reason that they should feel sad about it, they just can’t really put their finger on why, or who the song is associated with.

I think it just comes down to the fact that I am not an interesting, remarkable or inspirational person, so I find it difficult to understand why anyone would miss me. I don’t feel that I have particularly achieved anything in my life, so I doubt I would be remembered for anything. Just as a quiet guy that kept himself to himself. Not the most incandescent eulogy.

When I think about ending it, I constantly envisage a dark door with a glowing green exit sign above it. There is absolutely nothing on the other side of the door, just nothing, a full stop. Just the thought of not having to repeat the same repetitive processes over and over again, just avoiding waking up on another slow, predictable day fills me with a feeling of glowing contentment. It is absolute bliss.

After my shower I drop the damp towels on the floor, I will get to them eventually.

Then I go back to bed and fall asleep in dirty sheets: Progress, Progress, Progress.