Memoir Shorts
My Life In The Suicide Ranks
I promised I’d check on him when I got back
TW: self-harm, suicide
Go here to see what got Patrick into this mess
It wasn’t the first time Patrick got in trouble. I wish he’d told me it would be his last.
He came in with fire in his eyes, but that fire had led him to attempt the impossible. And you know what they say?
The harder you swing, the harder they hit back.
Knowledge is forever
I was finally going home on a weekend pass. The second in what would hopefully lead to me going home for good.
I just had to do things the right way. I’d seen what happened if you tried to leave the other way.
After his escape attempt, Patrick couldn’t leave his room or talk to anyone. My roommate Josh broke the rules by waiting until no one was looking, sneaking across the hallway, and asking Patrick if he was okay.
When he came back to our room, the haunted look in Josh’s eyes was almost as bad as the one I’d glimpsed in Patrick’s.
I promised myself I’d check on Patrick when I got back Sunday night. We’d all been punished for no reason before, but this time seemed…different.
At night, Patrick could do whatever he wanted
If he wanted to talk, he’d talk. If he wanted to find a way out, he’d at least keep looking.
Josh would help him look. He’d hatch plans with him if the fantasy threw a rope long enough to pull Patrick out of his sunken place.
That night, Patrick didn’t show his face once. Not even to crack a joke or take out his favorite needle to perform improvised piercings on himself. His nipples had seen more stab wounds than a pin cushion.
Josh made sure the coast was clear before crossing the hall.
The lights in the room were off
As Josh entered, he smelled something off.
Was that…?
It couldn’t be.
He sniffed the air again, just slightly, then took in a big lungful of the stuff. His lungs refused and threatened to spit out what little they’d already consumed.
He’d expected a bad smell. Maybe Patrick hadn’t showered in a while, or he’d hidden old food under his bed. Bad smells were everywhere in this place.
This was different. This made him tremble.
It didn’t smell like death was coming. It smelled like death was already here.
He took a cautious step forward. One step — and the darkness faded a little as his eyes adjusted.
Another step — and the darkness faded enough to begin to see.
The blanket lay halfway unraveled on the floor. The other half hung around Patrick’s neck.
It shouldn’t have been strong enough to hold him from the ceiling, but there he was, the blanket torn into strips and tied through the grating and slung around his neck and now holding him with an embrace Josh could only rush forward and hope hadn’t yet claimed his best friend.
Patrick’s face still had color, despite his slack expression. But Josh was just a kid and didn’t know why the rope was the only thing keeping any color in place.
He’d find out as soon as he cut the rope.
But there were so many more instants for Josh to get through first
All of us instinctively knew where to draw our own lines. Our problem was that we never knew what counted as someone else’s.
Josh wrapped his arms around Patrick’s knees. He held him up, desperate to keep his friend close enough to alive long enough to cut him down and help him breathe again.
Was Patrick even now looking at Josh and wondering why it had taken him so long to come?
Was Patrick even now struggling for one more breath that didn’t have to be his last?
He wanted to scream for help
“Oh, shit,” Josh said. He wanted to scream for help, but those were the only words he could speak. He repeated them louder and louder like a broken record, turning up the volume, screaming, screaming, screaming.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT!!!!!”
Until the nurse and her assistant came.
Until the staff saw what they’d missed.
A hushed whisper woke me
I tried to ignore it.
A second whisper woke me again
I ignored that one too.
A third whisper joined them
I turned toward the wall and put my pillow over my ears. The whispers, still light and breathy, grew louder and faster.
I opened my eyes —
How had I thought I was in the dark? All of the lights were on, filling the room with a bright, painful haze.
Again, I heard the whisper. This time, I caught the words: “She has to listen. She has to hear.”
Now the whispers were joined by another, and another, a cacophony of voices I couldn’t have ignored if I wanted to.
I should have stayed in my room, but it felt like it wouldn’t make a difference.
Not anymore.
There were no lines. Just strings holding us up until someone cut us down.
As I stepped into the hallway, the voices fell silent, as though a hand clamped over every mouth to hide their secret message.
Finally.
When I looked down the hallway either way, it was empty.
For once, what I saw and what I heard and what I knew was in front of me were all the same.
What I’d gained in clarity, I’d lost in balance. I stumbled when I tried to walk. I stuttered when I tried to speak. I fractured when I tried to be.
I steadied myself against the wall. If I just kept moving forward, I could at least make it to the end.
My memory palace scared everyone else — it scared me, too, or at least the trouble it kept getting me into — but if it let me say goodbye, wasn’t this the one time I should just let it happen?
At least it would let me say goodbye.
Anyone else might have known it was a dream, but the rules for this prison made as much sense to me as any of the others.
A body lay on a gurney at the end of the hall
Each step toward it beat with my heart.
Step, thump, step, thump.
The dead simply did not, could not, would not come back.
That was the point. A fact that had brought me as close as I could come to following Patrick without taking that first yet final fatal step.
I could still turn around. I didn’t have to see what was at the end of the hallway. But I’d come too far to turn back now. Patrick had shown that there were no lines a person wouldn’t cross. No lines a person couldn’t cross.
All you had to do was decide
Once I made the decision, the hallway ended with one more step. Then I was in front of the nurse’s station, the double doors, and the gurney holding what could only be Patrick underneath a white sheet.
I held my breath, then pulled back the sheet.
The body was cool blue. The skin stretched taut over the skeleton, so tight it looked less like a fresh corpse, more like a skeleton put to rest.
But the face. It wasn’t…
It wasn’t Patrick’s.
I leaned down. I squinted my eyes. I’d never looked so closely before, never felt such an instant sense of utter confusion yet utter recognition.
The closer I looked at the face, the more certain I felt.
But it couldn’t be.
Could it really…?
Then I heard a sound behind me. A sound so loud, it woke me up to what had put me here in the first place.
But more than that, what it would take for me to get out.
NOTE: If you’re in crisis, there are options available to help you cope. Please consider reaching out to someone like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
I’m glad you’re still here ❤
