A friend of mine

I have a friend who is suicidal. One day, when we were having drinks at a nearby pub, he told me the story of when he was closest to killing himself.

"It happened a few years back", he said and took a sip of his beer, and I listened, accustomed to the dark possibility of what could have been. Meeting him was always a privilege because I never know when his suicide would happen. And it wasn't a cry for attention, his was a deep sense of emptiness that I have learnt not to pour my efforts and emotions in. His tragedy was real and bottomless, and at some point of our friendship, we came to the quiet understanding that nothing would stop him from killing himself because he was determined and he was strong. And what he wanted from killing himself was something that eluded my best defence for his life.

"I was living alone then," he continued, "and there was this one girl that I was really close to. You know her. She's named after a rare plant. Fuck I can't remember her name now. Well, the thing is, we were not close in a dating kind of way. We were friends, the kind that have nothing but each other. The person you call for a midnight waffle and the person you expect to be there for you as and when. I think you can guess that at one point I did have feelings for her, but I think thats how its like. If you knew someone well enough, feelings seep in and test the waters for more. But it never went that way because I knew that she never found me attractive."

He paused and looked at his bottle. His expression was blank, but I have seen this enough to know that he was caught up in a moment of deep emotion. Something he was not used to. I just mimic his movements, knowing that he isn't someone who would want to listen to the cheap flattery that he was a nice guy who would find someone. That wasn't who he is and we both knew that. We just needed to wait out the awkwardness before he continued the story.

"So it was like that for about a year or so. We lived close together and occasionally I would slip in a little about myself over dinner. Just enough not to scare her away. On days when I feel the urge to just off myself being the strongest, I would joke that I feel like killing myself. I'll slip it in like it was nothing. It would come across as a joke. Other times, I would become a little sombre and tell her that maybe my life isn't worth all the effort. But it never lasted long enough to be serious because I never wanted to scare her off. I know, its pathetic. But what could I do? This is the only person I have in my life. The only thing that was good. And the last thing I would want is to spook her into knowing that I keep a bag of painkillers in the drawer to off myself." He realises his bottle is empty,  "hold on a min".

He walked to the bar and came back with two beers. From the corner, I saw this douche edge his way in front of his queue. He let him cut in, and the douche turned back to smile like the asshole he is at me. I just looked away, and soon, he came back with our beers at the same seat on the bar. Facing him, he continued like he never stopped, "she would hate it. She would hate when I tell those jokes. And she would frown and just ignore me till I talked about something else. And it was like that for longest time. Until one day, I snapped inside. I can't remember what it was. So I asked her out and seriously told her that I felt like killing myself. For the one time I wanted her to tell me not to do it, to tell me to hang in there. And perhaps that I should live my life for a friend. For her."

"But it didn't come out this way. Halfway through my little speech, she stopped me and said: 'you know, this isn't funny anymore. I think a part of you may have been just joking about killing yourself. And a part of you might even be thinking about it seriously. But, I have had a friend who actually went to kill herself. And so when you tell me these things I don't really know what to do. And I hope you stop these jokes. I hope you stop telling me these things like they mean nothing.'"

"At that moment I froze and I saw the bitter irony that her dead friend might have been telling her about her suicide the way I had and she had probably brushed it off as nothing at all. I didn't say anything anymore. That night I went back to my room, took a handful of painkillers, down it with vodka and went to bed. And that was it. I decided it was enough."

"I slept for 14 hours. I missed class, but who even knew I was in class right. So no one cared. But I woke up and I was covered in my own puke. It turns out that I drank too much vodka and my body rejected the alcohol together with the painkillers. And while the drunk puking could have been enough to choke me to death, it turns out that the fact that I slept on the self side, instead of my back, saved me. I didn't know what to make of it when I woke up. It was mid afternoon, and I just sat there in my own puke thinking. Then I grew hungry and since then, it has been like that."

We sip the beer. "I think the thing about killing yourself is that no one actually knows until they did. And the whole time. you're fucked up in your head you know? Like you have a good rational way of how things should be and created the many opportunities to off yourself. And even when people push you that way, you just let it like a piece of driftwood without hope of being a part of a tree again. You're a good friend, and when I off myself, I want you to know that you aren't responsible. But everyone else is. From the guy in the office who laughed at my shirt to the friend who told me that she doesn't want me to meet her fiancé because I'm not social enough to that fucking asshole who cut my queue. All of them are. Because its like a psychic trap you see. Each one pushing a little by a little. Then when you reach the edge, they just stand there watching and wait. They tsk at how much time you're wasting them. They do everything to not say the words. They do everything to not say, 'go on, die already'. And you know what the irony is? The irony is, when I actually off myself, these people will cry at my funeral. They will make a case that they were good friends, that they didn't know. And if they did, they would have done everything they could. The same people who think that you aren't good enough to meet their friends would suddenly leave Facebook condolences."

I nodded again and we both finished up our drink in one gulp and called for the tab together. It was so similar that we broke out in laughter and almost fell off our seats at the same time. I was in the door when he was still there laughing and walking towards me. And then I saw it, that bulge in his pocket. The painkillers that he was popping that night. And I remembered googling how many it would take to kill me.