lemmings

Lemmings

Being a lemming is a brief line of work.

My name is James and I am depressed. I live with my dad. I don’t have any siblings anymore. When I say anymore, I mean that my mother killed him, my brother, a week after he was born. She jumped off a cliff with him. She had the ‘baby blues’ or post-natal depression.

I am six foot six, lanky, and have a lot of scars. I have scars lacing my wrists and the insides of my elbows and I have a foot long scar on my stomach where I tried to cut my stomach open, but misjudged the length of the knife.

After I tried, and almost succeeded, to cut open my stomach my dad wouldn’t let me even go near anything sharp, so I started banging my head against the wall, hard. Then my dad got the walls, floor and ceiling padded; now I have no way to hurt myself.

Today I got my chance.

My dad opens the door to my room to have a talk to me. He does that a lot, even though my only answer is usually asking for a knife or something sharp. But the phone rings before he comes in. Dad turns and mostly closes the door, but it doesn’t click, meaning it doesn’t lock. So I jump up, run through the door before he comes back, and head straight for Dead Man’s Cliff, the cliff my mum jumped off.

The grass is damp; it’s been raining, obviously. I jog up the side of the mountain listening to the sound of my feet swishing through the grass and think about my life: I once went swimming with dolphins, supposedly a good cure for depression. First thing I did once in the water was dive under and try not to come back up. My dad had anticipated this and had tied my waist with a rope: he heaved me back up before I died. Damn.

I come to the end of the road and move onto the walking track. It is a good tourist location, despite the pile of bones at the base of the cliff.

I start to walk towards the look-out, from which you can go to the edge of the cliff, and I wonder: why am I depressed? Why do I want to die?

The answer is, I don’t know, but nor do I care, the point is I do.

Now I’ve reached the look-out. Now I see why nobody cares about the bones, you can’t see them. I proceed to the edge thinking, can you feel the bottom? I tense my legs and spring off the ledge and into the air. I hear my father shout and spin in the air to see him running towards the edge of the cliff. I yell to him. “Too slow, dad,” and wave as he disappears from view.

I am now falling from the top of a cliff. It is a wonderful experience. I would recommend it. The only problem, if you aren’t suicidal or depressed, is dying. I spread my limbs like a skydiver, the only difference being I have no parachute. My life would be flashing before my eyes right now, if it weren’t filled with padded rooms and bleeding veins.

I have one flashback though, to when my mother jumped, I remember watching her sailing down through the air, I remember the grip of my father as he stopped me from following her. Too late now dad, I think, I followed, like a lemming - followed the leader. You can’t stop me now.

Humans can’t fly - no wings you see.