Dreamland

It just had to be the most peaceful way to go. Any other way seemed so dreadful and long, so drawn out. I mean-hanging-what if the noose slipped, and my fall woke everyone up? Razors don’t work very well, unless you’re precise. Drowning—you’ll never know because it’ll just feel like all of those awful times you got water up your nose, and felt as if Satan was breathing fire into your airway. This tasted good, anyhow. It’s a win/win situation.

There’s a reason I waited for tonight. My parents had gone out to a party, and most likely wouldn’t be home until the butt-crack of dawn. Oh, weren’t those the night? No parents, no noise, you won’t get caught, right? Too bad it can’t always work that way. But let’s pretend this is an ideal night. Everything will work.

I had this drawer-by my bed, where I began a small stash. That time I had awful strep and the doctor gave me codeine cough syrup? I saved two or three doses in a little cup, and said I spilled it, but that was just Welch’s grape juice that spilled. I stole one of older brother, Jackson’s Four Lokos that he kept an abundance of in my parent’s fridge. I kept a note, too. Because people like that kind of thing when you do this. Just so they don’t cry about not having a reason, and he’s just gone and left nothing. (Yes, he was twenty-two and yet to move out, and we didn’t see it happening in the near future.) But this worked to my advantage, nine out of ten times, and I couldn’t really complain in that case.

They left for their party around seven-thirty that night, after telling me to make sure I cleaned up after dinner, and after that, they had chocolate chips cookies leftover, that I could eat. They said a few parent-isms, and leaving. Perfect. They were gone. I really had waited for this moment for so long. So long that anticipation, and anxiety, (because no matter who you are, offing yourself is not an activity with zero anticipation) had worn off.

I walked to my room, and sat on the edge of my bed, right by nightstand, with the goodies. I pulled the drawer open, and removed the note, setting it gently beside me. I picked up the small cup of cough syrup, and swigged it as quickly as possible. Bitter, but relieving when it had passed completely. I cracked open the Four Loko, and took a nice sip of it. It was so much better, so much more fruity. I could savor this.

And I talk about this positively, but that night I was distraught enough that I sobbed as I drank the last of it. I didn’t want to hurt my family. I didn’t want to hurt my girlfriend, Eileen, but, I had just had too much of life, and couldn’t foresee living through another second of it. And, as I took the final sip, and laid down on the bed, watching my eyelids, like black holes, the unsettling feeling in my body intensified times one-thousand, but I could do anything to stop it. But this was the way I wanted to go. I just wanted to go. No fighting. Just rest now, and it’s all over. No guilt and no anxiety, just endless, eternal rest.

Just close your eyes and rest,
Soon your demons will silence themselves,
Angels will come,
To sing you sweet lullabies,
Rock you to sleep,
And take you far away,
From this hell.

Don’t cry because of the pain now,
Because you’re less than a night away,
From a better place,
A place so promising full,
And beautiful,
A place they call,
Dreamland.

But then I woke up to sirens, and the sound of my mother sobbing.