Going Home

Darkness descends as I trudge across the vast, open plain. I place one bare foot in front of the other, not caring if I cut myself on a jagged piece of rock. I look down, not because I need to watch where I'm stepping, but simply because I cannot lift my head.

The sun is shining in the clear, blue sky, so I could have seen quite clearly to the horizon, should I try to look up. But I know the plain is devoid of vegetation. No animals scurry over the rocks, nor swoop through the cloudless sky. Nobody will be there in front of me, trying to persuade me from this course of action.

Despite the light, the darkness of the plain calls me. It knows. It summons people such as myself… the chronically sad and depressed, the heartbroken, the displaced and the broken. The plain reaches out to the event horizon in the middle of my chest, the black hole where my heart should be. Suicide City promises oblivion.

I've tried many times throughout my short, volatile life to end it, but I just don't have the strength. I can't make the deep cut, nor step off the ledge. I can swallow the pills, but never enough: my carers always find me just in time. I'd make air quotes if I had the energy. “Just in time”. I'm sure the carers have a sign in their office - number of days since last suicide– which they don't want to reset to zero. Then the city started calling.

Security was minimal, escape was easy. I stumbled away from the complex like one of the walking dead in that relentless show always airing on the common room TV. I was never certain if the TV was showing a television show, or just an internal CCTV feed. But I left, escaped, staring at my feet as I stumbled through several days and nights until I arrived here.

People noticed my death march. Some stopped and stared, while others pretended they hadn't seen me. Whatever their reaction, they all saw the haunted look in my eyes and realised I'd been summoned. Some smiled, happy for me. Others wept. They knew where I was going.

The siren song of the city wells into a final crescendo, then sweeps away across the plain. I'm here. I look up, just as the sun touches the horizon. The sky darkens, matching the darkness of my soul. Lights and sounds bounce around the plain as the city feeds on my darkness, slowly coalescing, becoming more opaque as the sun sinks. I'm home.