In Two Minds

I sat in front of the metal drum watching the flames lick up the side, they danced about looking for the next piece of fuel to swallow.

I slowly tore a handful of pages from the book and let them flutter down into the drum. My eyes became entranced by the flames, swallowing the pages, transforming them from a rainbow of colours, pictures, words and drawings, into grey, then black, becoming a victim of its destroyer. Now those pages were reduced to ash, ready to fly away with the wind, scatter into a million pieces and disappear into nothing, without ever having left a mark on this world. Like it were never even there. I wondered if I would leave the world in the same way.

A soft shade of blue swept across the sky as the stars disappeared and the daylight crept up on my little corner of the world. The silence of the morning surrounded me, the wind did not whisper in the gum trees and instead it sat still and stale leaving behind a reminder of an uncomfortable summer night.

I walked on the footpath letting the tips of my fingers run along the fences of each house, feeling each material as it changed from wood, metal, brick, nothing, wood…

Thoughts floated about in my mind, a quiet one at the back of my head telling me to stop and go home, but a louder one screaming at me for the pain to go away and this was the only way to make it stop.

I had already thought about all the different ways I could do it, I’ve seen in movies where people cut their wrists, or hang themselves, but the thought of both made me want to vomit and besides I didn’t like the chances that I would stuff it up. I’d finally decided on what I had thought would be the least painful way to die, and all I had to do was shop in my father’s medicine cabinet to find the tools to do the job.

I arrived in the park and found my favourite spot under a gum tree by the pond then I sat on the grass, this was exactly the way I wanted to die, watching the sun cast shades of yellow and orange on the sky as it peeked out from the horizon; one beautiful moment to shadow all of the bad.

I retrieved the bottle of prescription medication from my backpack and poured the pills into my hand – enough I hoped to overdose. I tossed them into my mouth and washed the taste down with a huge gulp of water. I laid down sinking into the grass, ready to drift away into nothing – since I didn’t believe in God, heaven or hell, that’s where I thought I was going, but I already felt like nothing, so the only difference would be that I would no longer have a heartbeat.

My head felt light, and I knew it was working, then suddenly a beep rang out on my phone. I lifted it to my eyes, slowly reading the text message. As I realised what it said, I panicked, scrambling up onto my hands and knees I tried to cough violently in hope of forcing them back up out of my throat and when that didn’t work I tried my fingers. But it was too late, I was now so dizzy that I slid down onto my back, staring up at the sky and watching the blue, white and orange blur into one, the air sucked itself out of my lungs and I drifted out of consciousness.