Suicidal Tendencies

Suicidal Tendencies
Winter, 2021

I get up in the darkness, stand guard over him. He sleeps like a child, curled up and trusting. You were always so naïve. But my thoughts of him are fond, if not a little sad, because I am about to hurt him.

But he knows none of this-so he sleeps on, unaware that I have left the bed, that I am about to leave him and everything else. If he knew, he would cry and beg, and convince me to stay for another week before I change my mind, and I would still feel the same, if not a little sorry.

The night whispers things I can't make out, so I pretend they say gently, "time to go" because that is what I feel.

But still, I do not move. I watch the steady rise and fall of his flank, his breathing the only sound outside my head. Moonlight bathes the exposed skin, making him glow a little blue in the perfect gloom of three a.m., beneath a perfect half moon. But I am being sentimental.

I ponder the sleeping figure before me.

Very little has ever motivated me to help others- perhaps only some intellectual obligation to principles of fairness, or justice, or maybe even sympathy. But I do not observe the sill social niceties deemed sacred by stupid consensus. Intellectual justification only. Sanity is not a statistic. It is sane to believe that suffering is always wrong, only sometimes—outweighed. But I still wonder if I am crazy.

Yet, my partner, my friend, who sleeps-as he should at this hour- I am compelled by my own will, my own treacherous… feelings… to protect him, shield him. Somehow.

Why? Because I must, because he is an innocent, who has seen death and pain and loss— yet is still uncontaminated, whole. Perhaps it is because he has never intended any of those wretched things on another. So I am the one who must do those things, to keep him whole, clean, undamaged.

It is true what they say. Killing, hurting, being hurt, bits of you rot and die and fall away.

I resent it. It is painful. Suffering is wrong, yet I cause it, and I also suffer. You cannot bloody your hands without bleeding a little too.

But it is necessary. So I do it. So he does not have to. And I wonder if it is love.

And I worry, even now, watching him sleep, that he will hate me. That he is disgusted, afraid of me. Appalled. If he were… I would not know what to do.

But no. Instead, when I come home to him, he bandages my bloody, ugly hands and apologizes and cries because I can do neither of those things, even when I am sorry, when I am sad. Somehow, he thinks it is his fault, but it isn't, because my partner is innocent. And I'm so, so very sorry.

He stirs, rolls over. A hand is sweeping my side of the bed, looking for me, but I am not there. Eventually, he stops, but his hand waits for mine. Always.

I contemplate him. I have time, I tell the night. Morning is far away. In fact, it will never come for me. He is still, so I count his breaths. It is an important sound to fill an aching, outer silence. My own metronome. How very much I wish to take his hand, go back to sleep, fulfill his wish— but always, I can't.

But was I sleeping? I never sleep. I think I only dream that I do.

So, I touch his hair, because I cannot take his hand. His hair is short, fuzzy. He does not stir as I allow myself one last moment of something that is almost love.

Time to go. I have said goodbye to him.

He sleeps on.

How many hours till he wakes and sees that I am gone? Will he look for me? Will it be he who discovers my body? I think that will hurt him.

Yet, I have wondered all these things before, answered them. He will be sad. But it is irrelevant, I will be gone, he will be free. Yet I am sorry.

I slink out of the bedroom, just a shadow in the hall. Down one flight of stairs— the children's floor. I pause at the landing, listening.

I have told myself before, no goodbyes.

But I must see Harriet.

So I slide into her room, a ghost, just as I really am. The nightlight is on, and I navigate the room by its glow.

She sleeps, on her side, looking just like her father. In her arms is a plush, and it looks pleased to be held as she sleeps.

So I stand before my doomed, imperfect, miraculous… offspring. Harriet. She is a small angel, I think, for I have condemned her to poetic tragedy and I am so very sorry. Scarless, perfect little arms and hands. She is curious, bright, smiling. I do not think I ever smiled that much when I had been a child of five. Yet I am not angry, not jealous. I want her to keep smiling. Smile to very end, my Harriet.

It is my only prayer.

I lean over and plant a kiss on her little forehead. She smells clean and young and new. She murmurs in her sleep, and I pretend that she is calling me, let myself think she knows, understands. "Have a good life."

I leave.

I do not see Virgil. He is just an infant, he will never remember me. It does not matter, it is time to go.

I step back onto the landing and descend. Down, down, down. I silently wonder if I am going to hell. But that, I know, is utter foolishness.

The stairs creak, but soon I am there, standing before the great double doors, where all this began. One heartbeat, two.

I enter.

The library welcomes me, says my name. Always, they ask for him, because this place is not mine. The books whisper, questions, questions— what, where, who, why?

Why?

I walk down the rows, breathe in their questions, and all their names. I swallow them, because there are no answers. I do not know.

Yes, I tried to go once before. Yes, I tried here before, and now I will succeed. I locate my salvation, and open up the compendium I once read here more than twenty years ago— as I child who had no concept of love.

And a man tried to give it to me. I wish I really understood why. But I could not understand what he tried to tell me. Then he died.

So I tried to die too.

My salvation sits inside the compendium, which is old, heavy, beautiful.

I go to the center of the library, put down the book. I sit, caress the tome's contours, edges. This is a book on love. It asks if it's really there, or if it's just something to believe in.

I've never found out.

I flip it open and go to the exact middle, where I had left it. The parchment is almost complete. One last mark, and my heart will stop, all over. Easy as signing a contract with the devil. Just finish the rune, one last stroke, complete my name.

But I pause. It is silent.

I have swallowed all their questions, even the night does not speak. No more, nothing. End.

But this worries me. I know I am silly, here at the end, I worry. Because I cannot hear him breathing. So I stop, and wait. But I don't know what I'm waiting for.

Moments pass, seconds, minutes, draining by, slip through my hands. Yet I cannot think, only feel.

Perhaps then, I began to dream, dream that I fell asleep, and that is why I did not hear footsteps approaching.

"Midnight reading?" asks a gentle voice. I almost start, because a spell has been broken. So I turn, and he is there, standing barefoot in pajama bottoms, drowsy, determined. He takes a step closer, and I shut the book because he must not see. He leans over my shoulder, kisses my head, closes his hand on mine.

I wonder if he woke and descended here just to hold my hand. I would not be surprised. My partner is sentimental like that. It hurts how touched I am.

"Come to bed," he whispers kindly, as if it were the cure of all sorrows, "You were drifting off. Come." It is a quiet request.

I hear his breathing, and know that it is over. I don't have to try again for a while. The present is safe.

His heart beats steadily against my back. His skin is warm, and I realize that I am cold. "Come," he whispers to my ear. "Let's go."

So I stand, and we guide each other sleepily back up, up, up to earth and maybe heaven. He does not relinquish my hand.

*

He climbs into bed first, pulls back the covers for me. So I fold myself in, and I am cocooned in his warmth, the warmth of rest. He pulls me closer, tucks my head under his chin and sighs.

"It's okay to sleep," he says, almost to himself, "I woke up, and couldn't find you. Scared me for a moment," he mumbles, "But I can sleep now, because you're here. It's okay." Yes, I muse, now that he knows exactly where I am. But I am not angry he found me, not really. For now, he is safe too. It is safe to go to sleep.

He tends to say lots of things that say nothing, and mean just about everything.

He tangles our legs together, both our feet are cold. My hand are pinned, between us, nowhere else to go and I rest my hands on his chest, feel him breathe.

"If you want to read," he murmurs, "tell me, and I'll go down with you. It's more fun staying up with another."

I nod. Yes. Yes, I think. I'm sure you'll follow me anywhere. That's why I can't let you, can't tell you. (He tends to say things that are nothing, mean everything.)

And I want to cry, because it's one of those moments you feel too much love, too much sorrow, too much of everything.

But he sighs again, happy. Breathing. It is a wonderful sound, drowns out the night, telling me I must leave him, and here, and all the horrible things I did and still have to do.

He kisses my head. "I love you," he breathes, "Now go to sleep."

So I sleep and do not dream—because I am sorry, because I love him too.

It is not nearly enough.


—Lawrence

I did not wake when she left the bed, or maybe I did. I remember searching through darkness and water, looking for Kay. It was probably a dream. But when I did awake, she was gone. I was alone in the bed, that odd prickling at the back of my neck, as if the hairs were taking turns saluting whoever was (not) watching. It was a paralyzing sensation, but I force myself to move, because Kay was not there. How could I sleep?

It must be much later than midnight. The night feels heavy as a sigh, its exhale, a prayer for dawn. I was so tired, but I cannot sleep.

Kay.

So I search for her magic, for that electric-gold feeling that hums at the edge of my perception. I always feel her. She must be downstairs. Nighttime work, perhaps?

I haul my tired body out of bed, shiver, because I had been sleeping without a shirt. Silly that.

But I must find her. I descend down, down, down, looking for gold vibrations in the air. I find myself standing before the library, the one that she still claims talks to her sometimes. But I have never heard the books whisper his name, hers, or anyone else's . But perhaps it is one of those things that only Kay can know.

I slide inside (the door was open), and feel traces of her more strongly. She has spent many hours here since we returned from the conference that she hated. I wander in deeper, and cannot help but feel swallowed, as if I had slid into someone else's dream.

Finally, I see her, hunched over a heavy tome, dozing, I think. I feel better. The hum of her magic is no longer white noise, but a steady simple tune, like the heartbeat of an instrument. If I ever tell her, she will tell me that I'm being silly.

I edge closer, my frozen feet shuffling across tile, toward that center table. "Midnight reading?" I ask.

She stiffens, ever so slightly. It is what she does when she doesn't want you to know how much you startled her. I take a step closer, and I can feel a little of her distress. The hum's golden little tune wavers, skips a beat.

Kay closes the book, looks up at me with eyes that beg for sleep. I lean in behind her, close, feel her body against mine above the chair. Her skin is cold. Her fingers are warm though. I close my hand on hers, trace scars, feel the tune become more complex, as if more instruments had joined in.

I smile into her hair, "Come to bed, you were drifting off," I nudge and tug on her just a little, "come." I hold her close, prepared to haul her to her feet. I want her warm when she sleeps, as she must do so eventually. It is one of those things that even Kay cannot defeat.

"Come, let's go."

Unsteadily, she stands, so I hold on, never let go of those perfect hands. We are both so very, very tired, and we stumble back upstairs, back to the warmth of the bed. I am almost frightened how cold she feels to touch, to hold.

Her magic skips a beat, so I hold her hand tighter until we reach the bedroom. She stands hesitantly in the doorway, almost dead on her feet, as I pull back the sheets. I sit, and pat the space next to me, and she folds herself in, and finally, finally, I see what was in her eyes besides tiredness.

She was in pain, the kind where you're hiding something important from someone equally important. The kind where you're hiding. It scares me sometimes that I don't think she'll ever tell me.

But all things in due time.

I pull her toward me as she sits awkwardly in the sheets, rub her cold, bare shoulders and pull her close, down into the bed, because I can't do much else, it seems. I sigh, and her hands are on my chest, pinned there, between her breast and mine. She is not sleeping, but she must.

"It's okay to sleep," I inform her hair. I know my voice is vague, but I'm so tired, and she is too, even if she doesn't think she is. "I woke up, and couldn't find you. Scared me for a moment. But I can sleep now, because you're here. It's okay." I know I'm rambling, but being coherent is difficult.

I am pleased as her hands roam nervously across my chest, but they stop as I inhale after my babbling. I take a deep, happy breath, and she sighs too, her nose against my throat.

I wonder what she was doing downstairs. At the time, that moment suspended in the library, it didn't seem to matter. Staying up was something that Kay did, most likely research, or a puzzle, or she couldn't remember the capital of someplace or another. Any excuse not to sleep, to prolong the night before tomorrow.

I know. I understand, Kay. "If you want to read," I say quietly, and with a yawn, "tell me, and I'll go down with you. It's more fun staying up with another."

She nods, so I sigh again, tangle our legs. I feel that stupid sense of male pride again, that she is safe, here, her hands right where I can find them, find her heart.

My Kay. I let out another happy sigh.

I kiss that head that's so full of thoughts only I'm allowed to know about. She's going to be alright.

I would not let the world unravel otherwise.

So I tell her, as I know I'm fading fast, "I love you." It is an important thing to say, to make sure she does not forget, because sometimes, when she is lost among her own thoughts, I think that she forgets about such silly earthly things. In her mind, she does not need such cheap commodities as food, sleep, or love.

But she does, so I will give her all those things.

"Now go to sleep."

Her fingers twitch on my collarbone, tracing, thinking. I know some part of her wants to resist that tiredness, because Kay resists everything. But I feel—I do not see—her close her eyes, sleep, never saying a word, but the room is a lazy, beautiful gold beneath my eyelids, saying everything I need to know.

I love you too.