Downfall

Hello Blogger’s this is my first short story, I wrote it on #Writing101’s Day 11 Assignment.

I hope you will enjoy reading it.

I’m now in a state where I don’t know what to do, I can see everything, hear everything but I can’t feel. Maybe I’m dead or maybe I’m Imagining. I’m now wondering about those 5 leaves that tried its best to save this dying tree.

The 1^st Leaf

Hello Sam, How can I help you today? My psychiatrist asked me.

I didn’t know where to start but I thought I should speak up from the beginning.

Today it’s 5^th June 1995 on the heart of cultural capital of the nation. And my parent went to watch the movie “Baby’s Day Out”. They were having some soft drinks when my mom realized that I wanted to come out too.  Hurrying up we rushed out of the theater towards the peerless group of hospitals where finally I was born at around 5.45 pm with my elder brother, who came out just 2 minutes before me. I hardly weighed 750 grams and my brother about 1.2 kilograms, I think that would satisfy the condition of him being a more healthy baby. However he had a secret which only he knew that time, “he had a hole in his heart”.

And fortunately we stayed at the incubator for the following three months, and my nurse who was in-charge of looking after us gave me a strange but cute name “Chotu”, it’s a Bengali word meaning “very small”. I think I would have been amazed if they told me that I didn’t even have eye lashes that time. Well kind of I was an example of the term “Naked”. Well that’s not all I sometimes even forget to breath.

It was 3 months later when my brother’s problem caught our parent’s attention soon after they did some tests on him. It was told, that there is no doctor in Kolkata who would try to operate on such a small baby. After a long search, my parents found out that there is a Hospital in Bombay that can help my brother out. To my surprise, my parents were very efficient in making appointments and booking tickets. The year is still 1995 and you can see how much airlines cost these days. For a school teacher, my mother & my sales manager dad it was beyond grasp to book tickets for everyone. So this was the plan, that my mom & brother would go fly in the air, reach their destination and I, dad and others would go by train.

As a matter of fact one of my uncles stayed at Bombay, and was one of the admin team members of a reputed hospital.  And I, my dad and my grandparents boarded the train that night on our journey towards the western city. I don’t much remember what happened during the journey, maybe because of my age. However upon reaching we were welcomed warmly by my uncle and aunt.

The next day was my brother’s operation date. To our surprise the appointment was rescheduled to an earlier time somewhere in the morning. We all were much delighted. Now I don’t know if you believe in telepathy or something like that but at around 4 in the morning something made me cry and it was not normal as I would never get up from sleep at that time of the night, my grandparents became superstitions, and thus a gust of superstition followed in every family member present there. Now in the other part of town where there was the hospital something happened, something that even doctor’s couldn’t help. I think death was calling my brother, asking him to join hands. Some time’s later we got a call from the hospital, bearing the sad news of all times. That alas my brother has been taken into the hands of God, that his sins are forgiven; he is freed from this mortal body. We gathered that day around the city cemetery in black attire trying to convey the message to our beloved that, we are saddened by his death.

Some five years, I told her, that, I became a boy of 5 years. Old enough to join the student’s compulsory jail system, the country’s age old education system. Times changed my dad to change his job, now he finds his true love in the government sector as a dutiful service man. Nothing much happened this year other than my only best friend, my grandmother died 7 months after his husband’s expiry. The cause was merely heart attack as the doctor’s said. My mother saddened by the great loss of his first-born, his mother and his father, was in more of a shock though the effects of them will continue through following years.

I paused for some time, when she spoke up again asked me about my school life. I told her it was not much of importance, though as they say this was supposed to be my childhood days. I had this autism in me, which actually enabled me to-day dream a lot in my entire school life & in my stay at home. That undoubtedly brought some very hard disciplines on my behind, though they never affected me much for in school and at home it became a daily practice, some would say a habit. I don’t understand if they found joy in doing that, or not, but at-lest it made me the person whom I would become few years later. A sad, gloomy faced, isolated person with all attributes of depression.

I paused for something before I spoke again.

I told her that there is more on my plate than I can share.

She said I’m listening go on.

The session went on, I was lost in my thoughts as she asked me about my relationships with my parents, friends, if I had any girl friend or not. In a melancholy tone I told her I’m an isolated loner, who will bother me? I did have a best friend of some sort through after a lot of fight between us she is also gone now.

At the end of the session she recommended some anti-depressant drugs gave me some tips on how to live life.

How funny when you go to a psychiatrist, they seem to be sweetest person on earth, but when you come out of that small window frame of your life, everything again goes back to normal.

The 2^nd Leaf

Hello Sam, good-afternoon, so how was your day?

I couldn’t control my tears; I don’t think someone asked me this question in years.

She gave a tissue and said “I’m with you”.

The warmth of her hands touching me gave me the strength to compose myself and to speak up again.

So Sam, tell me what do you want to share today?

My parents are fighting, day and night, its hell for me I said without a pause.

Why, what happened Sam, tell me?

Well one year ago one of my dad’s female co-workers tried to be close with him and vice versa, it went a bit far from exchanging phone numbers and talking later night after night. And one fine night my mom woke up all of a sudden and caught it, since then it has been hell here in my life.

I just don’t understand sometimes, what to do when my own home becomes un-healthy to live in.

We now have two forms of fire in our house, one that kills us though silence, and that one where everyone shouts with burning flame.

I paused again.

Go on Sam, you have to take it out; otherwise it will keep on hurting you she said to me.

I couldn’t take it; I just got up paid my fees and went home that day.

Later that day she dropped me a mail asking if I’m okay or not?

I didn’t know what to reply. I just typed “Okay” and send it to her.

The 3^rd Leaf

Sam, can I ask you something?

I was sitting for some time in silence in front of her, to a normal person it might feel awkward but to me it felt the same.

Yes, my weary voice said to her.

Why did you do this to yourself?

She knew that I attempted a suicide escape three days back, by having overdoses of my anti-depressant and sleeping pills.

I didn’t reply, I just showed her some marks from my hands where I would cut myself, when I’m in need of some relief, I use tattoo to shadow them but if one looks at them closely they can find it.

I told her it’s not only this, I pluck my hair, and I bleed my gums with sharp objects, hammer my teeth with something blunt. I love that taste of blood.

Just that day I didn’t had any sharp things around me. I went mad. I had to get my relief.

The scars of mine did made her sad, she asked me what have you done, to your hand?

I told her they are my story; if you can read them you will understand me. We spoke for some time that day she asked me about my past about the way I was beaten in childhood in school and at home, the way I became arrogant and so did my teachers and guardians.

We spoke a lot that day, I felt good; felt that my pain chamber is empty.

The 4^th Leaf

Hi Sam, how are you?

I’m good I replied.

So today we are going to talk about some happy topics, if you have nothing to discuss she said to me.

I said okay, go on.

What are your dreams?

What do you love to do?

If you were given one chance, to become someone what will you choose?

I thought for a while, then I said, I love to sing, and write poem. When I’m speechless my words write them, When my mind stops working, My songs gives me new tune to sing.

She said it’s very good, why not write one today when you go back home and show it to me?

I said great I will do it.

The rest of the session went on some stupid chit chats, which I loved of course, ranging from what I love to eat? to what are my hobbies? and what not.

With a lovely smile in my face, I went back home.

Now here I want to stop for a moment and would like to tell you something what happened this night.

A very good aunt of mine who stayed in another country, just died. But it was not normal death that bothered me for she committed suicide.  I got the news, for the first time in my depression I felt a sudden shock. Like my heart has paused for a moment and just wanted to stop.

To ease my pain I tried the new method which my psychiatrists told me to do, write a poem.

I wrote this poem “Suicide”

And he fell down
Laid still, still breathing
Oozing blood, flowing down, his slit wrists

Drop by drop, a little faster
Than a small pric,
After all his veins was giving out his life force to live

Maybe he’s murmuring
His last will
Or maybe his testimony of life

That he forgives
Everyone but himself,
For he has no justification to die

To the world he is just
A question, now
A lie and a desolate why

Why he did this?
He was happy
Wasn’t he?

“We gave him everything
Love, life
And a place to live” didn’t we

His heart is missing
It’s few last beats
Maybe the forth is becoming the fifth

His major breadths
Are now becoming more and more deep
Sounding more like a minor hiss

He thinks of the beautiful times
The beauty of his life
“His sweet life”

As his last times near
He tries not to lie to him
But to accept the fact that “all these things” he will miss

But it is too late now
The floor has been painted red
Enough for him to drown

He is gasping for breadth now
Maybe he is also trying to pray
To ask his God to “forgive him and grant him eternal rest”

He is hearing that, there are claps all arround
People are making that sound
For his act of bravery

In real, though, there is no one
To watch his cowardice,
Taking the better of him

He is trying to move,
He’s thirsty,
He demands “some water” as his dying wish

But alas, some water
Is just a dream
Far away to be real, in real life

He feels like choking,
His body is dry,
For all his blood, has flown, outside

His body is fighting it’s last fight
Not to belive the inevitable lie
That he will die

His breath become more slower
His heart beats lowered
And at last, the last of his breath is heard

Maybe he passes now
To the transcendental,
Maybe he has has gone, even far away

To the stars maybe
Leaving “the body”
Astray

Maybe the life was too much
For him to bear,
Maybe it was, his time to say goodbye
Innocently, so, that it was inevitable for the silent act of commiting suicide.

 

I mailed her that night saying about the incident and the poem which I wrote.

I was completely lost. I knew that my time has come to act. To be free, to follow someone who just was like me.

The 5^th Leaf

The next day was likely to be on schedule for everybody on earth so was for my parents who went to work. And I got a 6 hour gap to do what I want to do with my life. I felt like I’m the master of mine, and that I have to free from this bondage called life.

So I consumed one whole bottle mix of Hair Color with the intention to die. Some day’s back I found that it contains Paraphenylenediamine, one of most cheapest and lethal killing ingredient and that there is no antidote to paraphenylenediamine poisoning. If not treated within 4 hours it can cause serious multi-system toxicity with significant chances of death.

In the mean time I mailed her what I did, I tried to explain that not to tell my parents and just to forget me. I told her thank you for helping me out.

I knew that she checks her mail at night, so there is no way that she can read it now. I knew that there is no one who can stop my downfall.

After a few minutes time I felt that my body was actually taking the poison very badly. Stomach aches started followed by severe vomiting. It was a long battle between death and me. Though in the end I think death finally did call me.

I’m now in a state of unknown, I’ve conquered fear, traveled though the stars and maybe still travelling now, for I believe that I’ve reached my downfall.