Aches

*Aches*

I decided to do it.

 

The gun sits on the table, feeling far heavier when I first picked it up than I would have thought. My hand still smells slightly of oil and the spot on my right temple, where I first held the barrel, itches from what I believe is a residue of the gun oil left behind after being pressed against my temple so many times, though I'm sure that's just my imagination.

 

Things don't feel too bad at the moment. I can focus. If I couldn't focus I don't know if I would have even had the energy or motivation to have gotten this far. It’s not easy to find a gun in this country and though there are neater, cleaner ways to do what I'm planning. A gun makes the kind of statement I think I want to make. Life is messy, why shouldn’t death be?

 

I wonder if my son will miss me or if he would understand. Would anybody understand that hasn't gone through it? Would he copy me or would my example show him that what I'm doing is not really an answer?

 

No. I don't have the courage.

 

What is depression like? It’s like a long hallway. It’s quiet, and at the end of the hallway there’s a door, slightly open. A small sliver of bright, cheery yellow light slips through the open crack of the door and dissolves the farther it tries to stretch from its source.
Is the hallway darker than it was a moment ago?
You can hear laughter, and you know it’s not directed at you this time. It’s just laughter. Happiness. It, too, seems to dissolve as it spills through the door into the infectious, malignant darkness of the hall. There are smells too coming from the room. Bread, perfume, popcorn, a wet dog. Life, Happiness.
You want to join the happiness. Throw open the door and be greeted by a throng of cheers and slaps on the back. You could do it. It would be the easiest thing in the world.
But you can't. Something stops you.
The hallway doesn’t seem to be long, but there are no other doors on the way to the open one at the end.  It feels narrow. Narrower than what you first think, and the walls look like they have years of grease, and smoke, and residue of those that have passed through before me who weren’t careful where they walked.

 

I put the gun to my temple again and wonder if I have the angle right. Wouldn’t want to end up just a vegetable or crippled. Higher? Downward? I probably should have looked this up on the Internet. I guess there’s still time but I don’t have the strength to organize myself that much today.