My New Reality
It’s incredible what our minds are capable of with impending death looming upon our shoulders. I’ve tried every way I can think of to kill myself. I’ve done it all really: slitting my wrists, hanging myself, taking too much Aspirin, jumping in front of a car, shooting myself, and jumping off a building. Nothing seemed to work. Every time, something went wrong and I ended up back in the Emergency room; I was on a first name basis with the nursing staff. Something I will never understand is how someone that is so determined to end his life can keep screwing up and living, I guess God had other plans for me. One of the nurses, Daisy, always seemed to look at me with pain in her eyes. Maybe she understood that I wanted nothing more than to be with my wife again, but this poor woman could do nothing but bandage my torn arms and watch as I tried to destroy my life all over again.
One afternoon, Daisy found me sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a picture of Susan and crying. I pleaded with her to just help me die.
“Mr. Smith, would you like to see your wife again?” I looked at her like she had just taken my heart and used it as a yo-yo. “Come on.” She grabbed me by the arm and led me down the hall to the dim-lit locker room.
“The medicine man told me this will help you. I don’t want to see you suffer anymore.” She handed me a clear, paper like tab and told me to put it on my tongue, then she led me back to my bed and left me with my mind. I wanted to believe this mystical medicine man could help me, but after all my failed attempts, I just didn’t have much faith. I lay on that bed for what felt like hours before I decided nothing was going to happen and I stumbled over to the bathroom. I threw some cold water on my face and stared in the mirror.
“Hello Bill.” I spun around only to come face to face with my beautiful wife. “I hear you’ve been looking for me.” I could only stare, dumbfounded at what lie before me and think that finally, something had gone right and I could now join her in Heaven.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been trying to get to you.” She floated back with me over to the bed, but when I turned around, she was gone. All that was left was a globe of light that kept floating closer and closer. I yelled but only moths escaped my silent mouth.
Daisy appeared at my bedside carrying a syringe and the next thing I saw was darkness.
“Mr. Smith? Mr. Smith are you awake?” Daisy was shaking my arm and as I opened my eyes, I realized I was back on that dreadful hospital bed.
“I thought you said that shit would get me to my wife, but I’m still here!”
“Sir, did you see your wife last night?”
“Ya, but I–“
“Then it did its job.” With that she smiled briefly and once again left me to my thoughts.
That night, I made sure none of the nurses were around and I snuck back to Daisy’s locker. I grabbed the small, tin box full of tabs and made a quick dash back to my room. I began to take one after to the other and reality ceased to really interest me. The fog began to encroach upon my mind and I no longer sat upon that bed.
I think I was floating, if you could call it that above the clouds near Heaven and those pearly gates. Susan was waiting with her wings outstretched and one hand through the gate. I floated up towards her and just as my fingertips reached hers, I was ripped back towards my bed, only this time, I wasn’t lying on it. I was staring at myself with tubes and wires coming from every which way as the nursing staff tried to revive me.
I hurried back over to the mirror in hopes of seeing Susan again, to get back to Heaven and finally live my life but what I saw couldn’t have been further from that. I could see the wires, outstretched, dancing in the peaceful light. In an instant, they went from being mesmerizing to terrifying as they tried to wrap themselves around my neck. I fought hard to rip them off, but I could feel as they began to tear away at my flesh. I finally broke free and looked at the damage in the mirror; there was nothing there, not the tears or blood stains, yet I could still feel the excruciating pain. I lashed out at the mirror for lying to me and as I punched, it shattered to the floor in pieces. Almost instantly, I could feel my hands splitting from the glass and the blood rushing from my veins, but again when I looked down, nothing but pain.
The flood gates opened as I began to think what of what I had ever done to deserve this, but those tears weren’t water. The taste of iron soon filled my mouth and I realized blood was falling from my eyes. I could do nothing but watch helplessly from a far. Now a captive to my own mind, the drugs had their fingers laced tight and wouldn’t let go. Try as I might to get back to my body and just die, they had other plans