Michael Ford: Suicide Notes

I’ll tell you what I think. I think it pisses people off when you kill yourself because it takes away their chance to control your life, even a little bit. They don’t like it when you end things the way you want to and don’t wait for the way it’s “supposed” to happen. What if suicide is the way it’s supposed to happen? Do they ever think of that?

I know I’m ranting. It’s just that I’m tired of being cooped up in here and having people tell me to talk about my feelings. Like today in group. Cat Poop made us split into pairs and do this stupid exercise where for five minutes one of us had to watch the other one act out what we were feeling. We weren’t allowed to say anything; we could only use our bodies and our facial expressions. For five minutes. Then we had to switch and give the other person the chance to let it all out.

Unfortunately, I had to partner with Juliet. She tried to hook up with Bone, like she always does, but Cat Poop asked Bone to pair with Alice. I’d like to have paired up with Sadie, but she got added to the Bone-Alice group because there’s an odd number of us. The operative word being odd .

Anyway, Juliet seemed as thrilled about the whole thing as I was, looking at me the way she would if the last sandwich on the plate was olive loaf and marshmallow and she had no choice but to take it or starve to death.

“Why don’t you go first?” I suggested, and she was totally happy to do it. Big shock. The girl lives to have people pay attention to her. Seriously, I’ve never met anyone so obsessed with herself.

I sat in a chair and watched while she stood there for a while, I guess thinking about how she was feeling or getting in the mood or whatever. Then she held her hands up like she was holding on to the bars of a cage. She had this sad look on her face, staring at me but not looking at me, if you know what I mean. And she just stood like that for a couple of minutes.

It reminded me of one time when my parents took me to the zoo when I was maybe four or five. I wanted to see the bears, so we went over there and stood with a bunch of other people looking at them. They were brown bears, I remember that, some kind of grizzlies. Everyone was pointing and talking, and the bears were walking around playing with these big plastic balls or sitting in the pool and doing what bears do. All except one. He was sitting in the grass, just looking at the crowd of people. Only he wasn’t really looking at us, he was looking past us, as if he was trying to see something way off in the distance. I remember how sad he looked, and I remember starting to cry. My parents thought I was afraid, and took me away, but that wasn’t it. I was sad. I was sad for that poor bear having to sit in that pen while a bunch of stupid people looked at him and he had to pretend he was someplace else.

That’s how Juliet looked, like she could see where she wanted to be but couldn’t get there because she was trapped inside something. After a while she put one hand out through the invisible bars, like she was trying to give something to someone. She held it in her palm, like a present. I wanted to reach out and take it, but I remembered that we were just supposed to watch, so I didn’t. Instead, I watched her eyes. They were fixed on something behind me. I turned my head to see what it was and saw Bone standing with his back to us. He was watching Alice and didn’t see Juliet reaching for him.

I totally don’t feel sorry for her now. Bone? How pathetic is that, being so in love with someone who isn’t even interested in you? Juliet told us that she’s here because she has an eating disorder. I don’t know about that. I mean, she’s not exactly skinny. I asked Sadie if she’s ever heard Juliet yakking up dinner in the bathroom, and she said she hasn’t. So we think maybe Juliet’s got a bunch of other problems she just hasn’t told us about. Yet. I’m sure she will. But really I don’t care. If it turns out being in love with Bone is her big problem, I’m going to be really pissed off. What a waste of time.

A minute after I caught Juliet staring at Bone, Cat Poop called out for us to switch, and Juliet sat down without saying anything. I got up and just stood there, not knowing what to do. I felt incredibly stupid. I knew Juliet was waiting for me to do something, but nothing was coming to me. I kept seeing her face, then the bear’s face, and then the two faces together, like Juliet was wearing a bear mask or the bear was wearing a Juliet mask.

Then I realized that I couldn’t think of anything to do because I really didn’t know what I was feeling. All week, I’ve just been not thinking much about it. Even when I’m talking about it, I’m not really thinking about it. I’m just saying stuff because someone wants me to. I feel like one of the characters in the movie Sadie and I watched the other night, where I’m playing this part but the words that come out of me belong to someone else because the sound is turned off and what I’m saying can’t be heard.

That’s when I got mad. Mad at my parents for finding me. Mad at myself for not doing it right. Mad at Cat Poop for making me do stupid exercises like standing in front of Juliet looking like an idiot.

So I was just standing there with Juliet watching, and inside of me all of this stuff was whirling around and around like a tornado. But on the outside I was frozen. I couldn’t move. So I stood there for the five minutes until Cat Poop told us to stop.

Then it got worse. We had to get together with our partner and talk about what we saw when we looked at each other. I told Juliet that I saw someone who felt trapped, which was a no-brainer. She was all excited, and I knew it wasn’t because I’d understood what she was saying, but because she thought she was such a great actress. She kept asking, “Did you like how I” did this and that. I told her she was great, because I figured if I could keep her talking about herself we might never get to talking about me.

I did pretty well, too. When Cat Poop announced that we only had two minutes left, we hadn’t said a word about me. I thought I was going to get out of it, only then Juliet looked at me and said, really quick, “You’re hiding something.”

I thought she was accusing me of taking something, so I said, “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” she said. “There’s something inside you that you don’t want anyone to see.”

And then time was up and group was over. Juliet immediately ran over to see what Bone was doing, and I just sat there. Sadie came and sat next to me.

“How was mime time with Juliet?” she asked me.

“Lame,” I said, trying not to think about what Juliet had said to me.

Sadie snorted. “Want to play cards?”

“Do we have to talk about how we feel?”

“Hell no,” said Sadie. “In fact, if you say one word about what’s going on in there, I’m finding another poker buddy.”

That’s what I need more of: people who just leave me alone.

I couldn’t sleep again tonight. I don’t know why. I’m pretty used to functioning without the little blue pill now, and it wasn’t like I was having bad dreams or anything. I just couldn’t sleep. So I went into the lounge, thinking I might finally write Allie that letter after all or maybe help Nurse Moon with her crossword. But Sadie was in there, sitting on the couch and reading a magazine.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” I asked her.

“Did you know that only about half of the eggs that get fertilized ever actually turn into babies?” she said, putting down the magazine. “And out of those, only about eighty percent are actually born. The rest get miscarried.” She counted on her fingers. “That means out of a hundred fertilized eggs, only forty are ever born.”