The More I Think, The Deeper I Sink
Chapter 1
The ambulance screamed into the small sleeping neighborhood, lights flashing and wheels spraying water out from under them. Mrs. Belcher from across the street rolled over in her bed, Mr. Belcher pulled a pillow over his ears. Cathleen Meriman, only next door, peeked an eye open, curious due to the sound of the noisy vehicle outside. The baby in the room next to her started to cry.
A police deputy knocked on the front door of 501 Clearwood Drive, his cruiser in the drive way, backed by the ambulance. It was two o’clock in the morning, a cloudy night, and it was drizzling mistily.
The front porch lights flicked on, and the deputy heard the locks come undone, and a disgruntled mother muttering something about young vandals. Her annoyed face melted into alarm when she saw the flashing badge and the black handgun.
Before she could utter a word of her surprise, the deputy asked, “Ma’am, is this 501 Clearwood Drive?”
The mother nodded dumbly.
The official nodded to himself, then requested to enter the house. His wet boots soaked the rug, unusual for the amount of precipitation outside. “Ma’am, we got a 911 call from this residence, and the caller said that they were located on the second floor to the right.” He glanced up the stairway briefly, and began to advance towards them and made his way up the stairs. He could see light seeping out from the bedroom, and he heard a female voice speaking softly, shakily.
He opened the door.
A girl jumped backwards, startled. The cell phone dropped from her hands, and the person at the other end was saying something indecipherable.
The girl could see the grey-haired, nearly balding man had seen this before. The pill bottle lying on the bed, her bleeding right arm… He was all too calm when he asked her to sit down on the edge of her bed, when further inquired if she had any knives or weapons. The teenager numbly looked down at a pair of combat boots at the foot of her bed. The deputy pulled out from one shoe three knives, and checked the other, but found nothing.
Just then three paramedics stepped into her room. One spoke,
“How long ago did you overdose?”
The girl blinked and spoke in a monotone voice, not even looking at the medic, “About twenty minutes.”
●○●○●○●○●○●
The IV needle was in, so it could later be connected to an IV, and they weren’t even halfway to the hospital. A female paramedic was playing the game of talk-to-the-suicidal-teenager-to-make-sure-they-are-still-concious, and it was working for the most part. The adolescent had learned that her temporary nurse had quit smoking for a full year, and that she had quit merely because she didn’t like the coughing. How charming. Maybe she’d quit snorting Lortab and cutting herself whenever she got a nasty cough.
They wheeled her into the hospital on a too-white gurney, the girl’s mother bustling in - a nervous wreck - behind them. But the mother was halted from her pursuit when a receptionist asked for the insurance. They continued on to push her rolling bed into an open room, only separated from another patient by a light blue curtain. She was placed on a different gurney.
Doctors walked too and fro, every which way. The teen felt grateful for her own place, others who seemed to have been there longer than she had been were outside in the hallways. Maybe being in one of these rooms meant she was of more urgency. Why? Weren’t all lives equal? Why weren’t they tending to the old man out in the hallway?
She didn’t have time to answer her own questions. A nurse in blue scrubs and with long brown hair pulled up in a ponytail walked in with a clipboard and an orange bottle.
Her voice was accusing but in the same sense caring, “So, you decided you were going to hurt yourself tonight, huh?”
The girl gave her simple answer, wishing she was as numb as she had been when they had first come to get her. Damn that talkative paramedic.
That was when the mother walked in, paler than what she normally was. Her bed hair was in even more disarray, and she gripped her purse tightly, like a child would its security blanket.
The nurse poured out the remainder of the pills in the bottle which had been taken from the house.
“Was this full before you used it?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…”
A quick pause, a noisy silence, the sound of pills being pushed around in a metal tray…
“You took fifty-one pills… how long ago?”
“Now, about thirty minutes.”
The nurse left abruptly, returning with a hospital gown.
Those wretched, butt less things.
She changed without protest, with help from her mom and the understanding she could at least keep her panties on. The nurse’s next request was for a urine sample. When she stumbled dizzily, the nurse and her mother guided her to the restroom, where she pissed in the cup. She prayed they didn’t need a stool sample. She wasn’t in the mood for shitting.
Back on the gurney, staring down a clear tube. At the far end of it a huge syringe-like pump. They were going to put that down her throat? They placed something in her mouth to keep her jaw from clenching down on the tube.
A different nurse, this time in pink floral scrubs measured the distance from the girl’s mouth to her stomach. They cut off the needed amount, re-attached the plastic to the massive syringe and said politely once they placed the tube in her mouth,
“Now, swallow.”
A police deputy knocked on the front door of 501 Clearwood Drive, his cruiser in the drive way, backed by the ambulance. It was two o’clock in the morning, a cloudy night, and it was drizzling mistily.
The front porch lights flicked on, and the deputy heard the locks come undone, and a disgruntled mother muttering something about young vandals. Her annoyed face melted into alarm when she saw the flashing badge and the black handgun.
Before she could utter a word of her surprise, the deputy asked, “Ma’am, is this 501 Clearwood Drive?”
The mother nodded dumbly.
The official nodded to himself, then requested to enter the house. His wet boots soaked the rug, unusual for the amount of precipitation outside. “Ma’am, we got a 911 call from this residence, and the caller said that they were located on the second floor to the right.” He glanced up the stairway briefly, and began to advance towards them and made his way up the stairs. He could see light seeping out from the bedroom, and he heard a female voice speaking softly, shakily.
He opened the door.
A girl jumped backwards, startled. The cell phone dropped from her hands, and the person at the other end was saying something indecipherable.
The girl could see the grey-haired, nearly balding man had seen this before. The pill bottle lying on the bed, her bleeding right arm… He was all too calm when he asked her to sit down on the edge of her bed, when further inquired if she had any knives or weapons. The teenager numbly looked down at a pair of combat boots at the foot of her bed. The deputy pulled out from one shoe three knives, and checked the other, but found nothing.
Just then three paramedics stepped into her room. One spoke,
“How long ago did you overdose?”
The girl blinked and spoke in a monotone voice, not even looking at the medic, “About twenty minutes.”
●○●○●○●○●○●
The IV needle was in, so it could later be connected to an IV, and they weren’t even halfway to the hospital. A female paramedic was playing the game of talk-to-the-suicidal-teenager-to-make-sure-they-are-still-concious, and it was working for the most part. The adolescent had learned that her temporary nurse had quit smoking for a full year, and that she had quit merely because she didn’t like the coughing. How charming. Maybe she’d quit snorting Lortab and cutting herself whenever she got a nasty cough.
They wheeled her into the hospital on a too-white gurney, the girl’s mother bustling in - a nervous wreck - behind them. But the mother was halted from her pursuit when a receptionist asked for the insurance. They continued on to push her rolling bed into an open room, only separated from another patient by a light blue curtain. She was placed on a different gurney.
Doctors walked too and fro, every which way. The teen felt grateful for her own place, others who seemed to have been there longer than she had been were outside in the hallways. Maybe being in one of these rooms meant she was of more urgency. Why? Weren’t all lives equal? Why weren’t they tending to the old man out in the hallway?
She didn’t have time to answer her own questions. A nurse in blue scrubs and with long brown hair pulled up in a ponytail walked in with a clipboard and an orange bottle.
Her voice was accusing but in the same sense caring, “So, you decided you were going to hurt yourself tonight, huh?”
The girl gave her simple answer, wishing she was as numb as she had been when they had first come to get her. Damn that talkative paramedic.
That was when the mother walked in, paler than what she normally was. Her bed hair was in even more disarray, and she gripped her purse tightly, like a child would its security blanket.
The nurse poured out the remainder of the pills in the bottle which had been taken from the house.
“Was this full before you used it?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…”
A quick pause, a noisy silence, the sound of pills being pushed around in a metal tray…
“You took fifty-one pills… how long ago?”
“Now, about thirty minutes.”
The nurse left abruptly, returning with a hospital gown.
Those wretched, butt less things.
She changed without protest, with help from her mom and the understanding she could at least keep her panties on. The nurse’s next request was for a urine sample. When she stumbled dizzily, the nurse and her mother guided her to the restroom, where she pissed in the cup. She prayed they didn’t need a stool sample. She wasn’t in the mood for shitting.
Back on the gurney, staring down a clear tube. At the far end of it a huge syringe-like pump. They were going to put that down her throat? They placed something in her mouth to keep her jaw from clenching down on the tube.
A different nurse, this time in pink floral scrubs measured the distance from the girl’s mouth to her stomach. They cut off the needed amount, re-attached the plastic to the massive syringe and said politely once they placed the tube in her mouth,
“Now, swallow.”