Entropy

EVERYTHING came in flashes. So, that was how it felt. The last things I remembered were being held and propped up by two men, so I'd stand properly on a weighing scale -- or was it an X-ray plate? Blackout. A man trying to stick an IUD needle into my vein. Blackout. Being rolled into a bed like a sack of potatoes. Blackout. Hearing noises of people quarreling. Blackout. Someone sticking a tube through my nose and pushing it down my throat, so they could pump coal into my stomach. Blackout. Then, I woke up, still alive. Damn it. I was still alive. Maybe I should've swallowed more sleeping pills. I only had six left. I guess six weren't enough.

It wasn't the first time. Well, it was not the first time I thought about it. I had thought about tying a noose around my neck and strangling myself. Logistics, though, prevented me from pushing through with it. I didn't have a rope. All I had was a nylon chord. I had worried that the thin nylon chord would slice through my neck and decapitate me. I wanted to die, not leave a macabre impression. I also worried that it wouldn't kill me instantly, and I'd end up squirming and squeaking for a few minutes, then pissing in my pants. I didn't want the pain to last that long.

The second method I thought of was jumping off the window from my 11th floor flat. I got as far as leaning half my body out the window. It would have been quick and nearly painless. But when I looked down and saw how high I was, I worried I might end up splattered on the pavement, brain matter scattered and limbs twisted in comical directions. Again, the thought of a gory, comical ending held me back.

So, there I was, sitting on the sofa with six, yellow sleeping pills I got from a clinic, and I downed them all. The next thing I knew, my wife was dragging me into my car, then into a cab and to an emergency ward.

I had been wishing I'd die for some noble cause or at least I'd die on TV. Then my death wouldn't have been in vain; I would've at least entertained you. (That bit was from Vonnegut; unoriginal, guilty as charged.) There was a time when I believed in something. I was young, and I felt invincible. I thought I could change the world and – yes, cliché, cliché -- make it a better place. Then I grew up, and the years stripped away all that mush until I came to that bitter conclusion –- something I should've realised earlier, so I didn't have to waste so much time on the business of living -- that you can't really change the world; it changes you, and it is hardest on those who resist. I shouldn't have resisted; I would've been at least happy. Instead, I became an aimlessly floating brain in a star-spangled cosmos heading for entropy. I stopped. I stopped believing in things that made sense out of everything, and I waited. Problem was, I was often impatient. I didn't want to wait that long. So, I smoke a pack a day, drink as much beer as I can during my dinner break, or grab a sachet of sleeping pills.

Right now, though, I think I'll just play solitaire and boggle online and get myself an iPod Touch until I get bored and give it a go once more.