Pains within and without

By: Luke Grinnell

The night was rough. I tossed and turned as flashes of light, bursts of flames screams, and other such terrors filled my dreams. When I woke it was with a start I was soaked with sweat, My bed was sticky I sat there shirtless covered in my sweat crying wanting it all to just end. My breathing was unsteadily labored. I did what I so commonly have to do in times like this I got up dragged my wet sheets off the bed and carried them to the washer and drier. I set them to wash, I stood there in the dark listening to the washer going listening to the rhythmic sounds. When the light turned on,

“Hey, why you up so late?” my sweet mother’s voice came from the doorway.

I looked at her slowly my fists clinched tears running down my face. I was utterly bear before here standing in the cold darkness in just my boxers covered in sweat and tears.

“Oh, oh honey did they happen again?” she slowly walked toward me when I sharply looked away. She stopped in her tracks her fingertips inches from my shoulder.

“I’m fine mother just go back to bed”

She nodded “okay honey wake me if you need anything” and with that, she turned and walked away.

Once she turned the lights off behind her I fell to the ground crying out in pain. Not physical pain mind you but internal pain. I heard my mother pause but she continued back to bed.

It was sometime past 4 am when I moved again. I went and took a hot shower turning the water as hot as it could go the water seared my skin. Once the water was too hot I stepped out of the shower and dressed. I stood in our home gym. Looking at the expensive equipment. Back when my father was alive we used to get up early and work out together. I knew how to use every piece of machinery in the home gym. But now I couldn’t bring myself to go in there. My mother was a nurse and my father was an engineer he was the CEO of his own Engineering business. But he died last year from a heart attack it was all of a sudden. None of us expected it.

My hand gripped the doorframe as I stood in the doorway looking at the room. I was never able to get into the room because I set a mental block up so the room was inaccessible to me.

“Honey, you think you are up to seeing Mr. Clark?”

“Mr. Clark is the family psychologist. I’ve been going to see him from time to time when I felt like it, he always did most of the talking because I wasn’t one for spilling my guts, I had no friends, no social life, never invited to parties. Always alone, ya I still had some old contacts from some old friends but I ignore them I never read their messages I haven’t opened any of my social media since my dad died”

“Well, Christopher-”

Please that was my father’s name, Just call me Chris.”

“Well, Chris” the therapist inclined his head toward me while writing in his book “it seems like you are depressed but you already knew that without needing to see me.” he paused and looked at me “how about we do this to help you out pick one of those contacts the one that you got along with the most back in the day and just read their messages. Start with just one or two in the morning or at night.”

I nodded my head “Ya, I should be able to do that”

“Okay, Chris ill see you next Thursday.”

And with that I stood, I left and never went to see him again. Because that night the world decided to kick an already damaged kid down.

Tossing turning the flaming flashes the screams of torment and pain rang in my ears. I woke up in my sweat, my bed soaked again. But this time I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t feel. I walked over to my mother’s room and looked in at her sleeping, she seemed troubled in her sleep.

“I’m sorry mom, I just can’t anymore.” she sturred in her sleep. “It hurts too much to be here anymore, I did love you” and with that, I turned and left I dressed. Putting on a pair of jeans a grey shirt and a black hoodie and some sneakers. I grabbed my backpack my phone and a 9m pistol.

I walked alone down the darkened streets. My fists were clenched my eyes on the ground. I walked through the streets that I once walked with my friends laughing and messing around but now I walked alone “always alone never standing out” even the kids who knew me at school started avoiding me. Mostly every time they tried to talk to me I would hurt them, not physically but I would attack their insecurities the things friends would tell anyone except those who they trusted, I used to be that person. But no not anymore. Now I was alone “no one will notice if I just vanish.”

I sat under a bridge holding the gun in my hands looking at it tears running down my face. I could hear the cars overhead driving the kids laughing on a Friday night going out messing around. That’s when I heard it.

“Have you heard from Chris?” a female voice said. It sounded a lot like Sadie

“No, but he’s been reading the messages I sent to him. I really hope he’s doing okay” another girl that sounded like Sarah

“You think he is awake?” that’s Jonathans voice

“Dude he’s always awake this late” and there’s Frank

“I’m sorry guys, but I can’t anymore.” my voice as I lifted the gun to my head my tears coming faster now.

Bang…

Screams, a flash flaming pain in my head. My body goes rigid. Wheels the stupid squeaking of hospital wheels “hospital?” voices I can’t make out what they’re saying but they sound panicked no some of them are reassuring the rest of panicked.

Light blinding light in my eyes my chest is cold, wet sticky stuff is on my chest? Beeping where is that beeping coming from. Darkness.

I now stand in the darkness of my own mind. A single beam of light in the far distance. I walked toward it. It’s my mother sitting in a hospital waiting room, she crying there’s Sarah and Sadie trying to comfort her. Jonathan’s jocks jacket is covered in blood, why does frank look so sad? Come on man what happened to that joking spirit?

That light faded and another one behind me lit up. I turned to see me laying in a hospital operating room, my head cut open doctors surgeons, and nurses all going about their jobs trying to save me.

“NO!, NO!, Stop it! Let me Die!” I fell into the darkness “I just want to die let me go!, No one wants me no one cares anymore!”

A voice in the dark “Dear Lord Help him, Help Chris make it through his surgery”

Another voice “Please don’t let my baby go, don’t let this darkness consume him give the surgeons the wisdom to help him! Guide their hands!”

And another. “Please, God, I don’t pray much and when I do, I don’t ask for much but please, please lord help him help him survive this”

All at once many voices. “Help Chris survive this”

I sat there my eyes wide open. A Hand on my shoulder “Chris they are praying, many of them don’t know who to but they are none the less they are praying for you.”

I looked up at the figure behind me a single glowing crown on the figure’s head. I noticed scars on his wrists.

Silence….

Nothing. I am awake but have no dreams. My eyes slowly opened. And it all hit me the Bang the gun dropping away from my hand the footsteps the people screaming me being dragged to the road the paramedics taking me to the hospital for the surgery. I moved my hand slowly to the side of my head that I still could feel the steel of the gun barrel. I felt the stitches, I saw the faces of my mother, Beautiful Sarah, sweet Sadie, Muscle Jonathan, and funny Frank all looking at me or asleep.

My voice was barely a whisper. “You, you idiots, can’t you let me just die?”

Frank looked at me. His voice was the same “man you mean too much to us for that.”

Sarah shock my mother slightly. She opened her eyes and I saw how red and puffy they were.

“Sorry, Ma.” a single tear ran down my face “I just couldn’t deal with it anymore” there I finally cracked. “I’m a failure”

The days passed and I was under severe watch I wasn’t allowed to go to school anymore and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near anything that could harm me. The majority of my time was me sitting staring off into nothingness and listening to music. Laying on the ground in a therapy session. Or rocking back in forth in my closet staring out at my room. As an adult sat watching my trying to get me to come out.

Every once in a while my friends would try to come and see me but they weren’t allowed in since I was unstable and I needed a normal schedule.

Until one night when I was sleeping I was in the darkness again standing there watching my failed suicide attempt time and time again, this happened every night when I went to sleep. A deep voice sounded from the dark.

“Weak human can’t even kill himself weak humans mind is stuck watching himself fail at the one and only thing he thought would help him.”

I turned and looked at the voice all I saw was a pair of red eyes. “What do you want?”

“Why to help you take control of your life for once” a smile spread through the darkness, “I can make the pain go away”

"No Chris, don't give in" I looked behind me to see that same figure from when I was in the hospital "He can’t help you."

"How would you know?" My voice came slowly and quietly

"I know him and he is no good" the figure bent down to the knee in front of me.

"This man can't help you free yourself from pain!" The voice came sharply and full of anger, then calmed down enough to have a soothing rhythm to it "But Chris I can help you. I can help you very easily."

My voice came sharply and without thought "Damn you, Devil! Get out of my head and leave me Be!" I stopped looking at the Glowing eyes. "Just leave me alone!" My voice was once again sad and slow

"Chris you can't fight him alone, you need those who care about you around you. Start by talking to your Therapist."

I look at the figure and nodded.

I opened my eyes to see my mother watching me sleeping “Hey,” my voice barely audible in the still room.

“Chris,” my name fell from her lips, she said more in the one word then we have said to each other in the last year.

“Mother” I was now sitting up in my bed tears running down my face, my breathing becoming erratic. “Mother, i Just wanted to say-” and with that i broke down sobbing. My mother was at my side in a instant holding me comforting me telling me it will be all right.

One year later.

“Good morning mother” I came flying down the stairs and into the kitchen, I slowed long enough to kiss my mother good morning and grab an apple from the fruit basket.

“Honey Sarah is in the living waiting for you,” She said with a slight giggle

“Oh thanks, mom ill see you after school” and with that, I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room seeing Sarah sitting on the couch reading a book. I came up behind her and bent down kissing her cheek.

“What was that for?” Sarah looked up at me with her normal questioning eyes.

“Just my way of saying I love you is all”

“Ya ya that’s what you say every time”

“Well, I mean it. Not to change the subject but where are we meeting the rest of the gang?”

“The usual place”

“Okay let’s get going then”

Sarah and Chris, got married at the end of their college Term. had 3 kids, and lived far away from any bridges, Chris went on to establish Anti Suicide Hotline along with ways to help see the symptoms of Suicidal behavior. He lived the ripe old age of 78 before dying in his sleep. His wife, Sarah lived to the age of 90 before passing from a Heart attack in her sleep.