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Entwined Memories

Death can bring a new perspective.

By Daniel MillingtonPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 15 min read
3
AI created image on Dall-E 2

Reader warning: Although this story is a work of fiction, it does include an in-depth look into the mind of someone with severe depression and I would like to thank the over 100 people who spoke and provided their accounts on depression and their suicide attempts for this story.

#

"So, Mark, what would you like to talk about today?” she asks.

Her voice was always calm and controlled. I sit back, close my eyes, and let my thoughts drift.

“Imagine being lost within an ocean,” I say, trying to articulate every word and emulate her calmness. “Behind you is a vast and bleak emptiness that stretches as far as your eyes can see. In front, a towering rock face with its jagged edges jutting out in bold mockery at your fight for life. The cliff is like a border between happiness and despair. If you can get to the top then you can bask in the sun and smile, but how do you get up there? You see, I want to climb, I want to reach up and grab one of those edges, but the water is cold, so cold. It seeps through the skin, draining you and drawing out all the heat. Stripping you of everything till you can do nothing but struggle in pain to stay above it.”

I turn to look at my therapist as she takes notes. It has taken me months to try and put into words the thoughts and feelings that go through my head. They say depression can be like a bubble. You try and tell people you are in one, but it mutes you, wraps you up tight and constricts your life.

Not anymore.

I had made the choice a few weeks ago to end my life and the relief hit like a tidal wave. For the first time in my long and cloudy existence, I finally had a direction as clear as daylight. I saw a way forward, an end to the constant pain.

The decision was finalised during one of the psychology classes I was taking at university. One of the many earlier desperate attempts to try and understand what was wrong with me.

The group discussion was looking at the different mentalities of life after death and how they affect the way people deal with situations in life. I sat there and listened as they went from how people ensure to perform acts of kindness in the hopes of an ascended reincarnation, to shamans who spend their lives seeking to connect with memories of those that have passed to further their wisdom.

The latter caught my attention. To them, souls are a flow of energy, imprinted with thoughts and feelings and as with all energy, it is never destroyed but moves on when the body can no longer contain it. Memories are released into the world, changing, adapting, and becoming entwined with everything around it.

“No longer burdened,” one of the other students joked.

Those words sunk deep, like a promise whispered in my ear. The promise of freedom.

I have meticulously planned everything and made sure I have done everything possible to reduce the burden of dealing with my affairs after I am gone. I spent more time with my family and friends as I want to make sure I leave them with as much love as possible. They have seen it as me getting better and the guilt of manipulating them has been crippling but I know that once I am gone, they will begin to heal, and their life will be better without having to constantly worry anymore.

My therapist is the last stop, offering any bit of insight I can offer that may help her save someone else. I know depression reflects different for each individual, but any information I can feed her seems to settle my conscience a little bit.

Everything is in place. A part of me is excited. Venturing into the unknown and leaving the pain behind to rot with the empty shell that will be buried. Or will they burn me? I was not bothered either way.

I get home, run myself a bath and say goodbye to my roommate as they head off to their weekly poker night. I place a note I had written a few nights ago on the table explaining what I will have done so they do not have to see my body.

I walk to the bathroom, razor in hand.

People assume that someone with depression must have it due to something extreme, negatively affecting them. But that is not always the case, sometimes, like me, it is down to not being able to cope with day-to-day life. It is like my brain cannot bring itself to comprehend the world around me and everything becomes overwhelming. I have no purpose in it, I just hinder those around me.

The cut was simple. I know the feeling of the blade all too well. The short dopamine rush and temporary numbing of pain you get from self-harm had become my greatest addiction.

The pain begins to fade as darkness encroaches.

Even though I can feel my eyes are wide open, I cannot see anything. There is just the sensation of standing on the edge of a precipice. Is this the top of the rock face I have been so desperate to climb? I lift my arms, thinking about, wanting...craving the possibility of flying. Go for it. Just step off. Float, float away. Here is where it ends! All those years of pain, over, done, behind! Forever! Do it, do it, go now! Go...go...go...

I close my eyes and jump.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear banging and shouting but they are too far away for me to give them a second thought. My body is floating, weightless in the air as my mind begins to flicker through memories of a past I am happy to leave behind.

The flashbacks of my family, sitting around a table smiling and laughing as they spend time with each other bring a sense of peace. Memories of when I was a child, carefree and blissfully ignorant of the stress and struggles of adult life.

I turn for one last look in the dining room mirror, but the face staring back is unrecognisable. Glancing around, I find myself in an unknown room confronted by a young woman, around my age, smiling back at me. She starts laughing as she produces a letter and I begin to fill up with a sense of pride and, well, I think happiness.

I feel a deep sense of love. Of course there is that, these are not my memories. Do not ask me how I know, it is just a feeling inside. Flashbacks to the psychology lesson flitter through my mind. Have someone else's last thoughts become tangled with mine? Does this always happen? To finally experience that which one could not grasp in life. Is this the final mercy of death? I did not think I would deserve such a blessing.

Darkness begins to creep back in as the happiness fades into nothing but a distant memory. I reach out, trying to grasp something, anything, to hold onto this moment but I realise that I am falling, past the jagged cliff face and into the freezing sea of water below.

The impact knocks the wind out of me as I plunge deeper down into this familiar icy abyss. The pressure builds around my chest. Panicking, I open my eyes to find a man crouched over me, holding an oxygen mask to my mouth. I want to cough but my lungs feel empty and I cannot help trying to suck in all the air in the room in one gulp.

“We have got him back,” I heard the man say.

As the panic begins to subside, I realise I am lying on a hospital bed surrounded by nurses and in the corner, sat glaring at me, is my roommate still clutching tight to the note I had written.

“You died.” It almost sounded like a growl as he said it but luckily, he does not seem to want to say anything more than that. He did not need to, the harsh bluntness of those two words covered everything that needed saying. He must have forgotten something and had to come back. Just my luck.

There is news on the TV in the background covering some story about a local car crash. A man and a woman overturned on the motorway. I recognise the guy, but my mind is too exhausted to figure out where from so I close my eyes and let my thoughts drift.

They say dreams are a portal into the subconscious as your brain plays out scenarios in a way you wanted them to be. So why then, am I plagued with the thoughts of someone else? I am now watching on as an older woman prunes flowers in the garden. I know she is my wife; I do not know how but like before, the feeling is there and each time I look over, there is a sense of completeness in my life as though she is a piece of my jigsaw that fits in a simply perfect way.

As she turns to look at me, a sense of dread erupts in my gut waking me up from my sleep. It is night now and my roommate is fast asleep on the chair so I just lie there, staring up at the ceiling in wide-eyed shock.

Impossible. My mind rails with my recent discovery and begins to throb as I try and comprehend what has happened. I grab my friend's phone that he had left on the side table and Google the local crash. I am sure my jaw has just hit the floor as I look at the photo of a man who died as he reached the hospital. According to the article, his name is Andrew. He is the same man who was staring back at me in the mirror. It is the same hospital.

I carry on reading. His wife was in the car but her condition is unknown. If she were rushed here in a life-threatening situation, then surely, she would be in the same ward as me. I creep out of bed, look down the corridor to make sure it is clear and start walking around checking each room.

There she is.

Lay on her bed, mask over her face taking deep and ragged breaths. I walk over and pick up her hand.

“What are you doing?” Comes a voice that seemingly echoes around the room.

Startled, I jump and turn to see the woman from my first memory sitting on the chair in the corner. His daughter. I freeze. How can you explain something you do not even fully understand? My silence is not helping though as she stands up and starts walking toward me.

I start to panic and feel beads of sweat build up at the back of my neck.

“I have your father's memories!” Why on Earth did I just blurt that out?

She has stopped moving at least but now she is just staring at me. I can feel the change of atmosphere, as thick as smoke clouding up the room. Anger forms across her face and I know what is coming, a tirade of abuse which, in this situation, is quite justified. I need to say something quickly, come on Mark, think!

“You were in a front room when you showed him your acceptance,” The anger on her face begins to change to shock so I carry on. “There was a large mirror with a silver frame on the wall opposite the fireplace. I do not know what the acceptance was for, but he stood facing you and was the proudest a father could ever be. There was also the time you made the boat together and you tried sailing it on the local canal, but it just sank so you made paper aeroplanes instead and competed for sweets.”

The anger has completely drained from her face. The fire in her eyes is extinguished by the small well of tears that begin to overflow and trickle slowly down her cheeks.

“Look, I have no idea how this has happened. I was rushed to the hospital today and I... well, I apparently died when I arrived and I think your dad must have died at the same time so somehow, our memories must have been combined and I have no idea why or what to do.” I sound ridiculous. “This was a bad idea; I am so sorry.”

I turn to leave, forgetting I still had hold of her mother's hand only to find the grip tighten and hold me back.

I look down to see her staring straight at me. Awash with a new wave of memories I look back and say, “Hello pudding.”

Pudding? She stifles a whimper so I sit down and decide to do the only thing I can think of.

“Do you remember the first time you met?” She smiles. “You were struggling to walk that beast you called a dog through the park and when he broke free, you and Andrew spent a good twenty minutes running around trying to catch him until you both just collapsed on the grass. You were covered in mud and then the dog strolled over bold as brass. You were there, hair a mess, filthy, and yet he had never seen anyone so beautiful”

Her eyes are closed, lost in the thought and a low breathless chuckle escapes her. I continue to hold her hand and go through other memories that are brought to the surface. Explaining each time how happy she had made him and how much he found himself loving her even more than he thought possible. Her daughter comes and sits at the other side of the bed, holding her other hand and weeps in silence.

After a while, I can tell she has fallen back asleep. I sit there in silence and listen as her breathing begins to slow. The raspy breaths are now silent as her hand slips out of mine. I turn to her daughter to see raw heart-breaking grief etched upon her face as the pain of the loss burns deep behind her eyes.

I cannot bring myself to look anymore unless I am overridden with guilt at what I had nearly brought on my own family. The nurses rush in as the machine alarm goes off so I take this time to leave before I am noticed.

#

It has been five months since I tried to take my own life. It is difficult to explain how my life has changed and yet not changed at the same time.

At first, my family clung to me as they exaggerated everything to try to make me feel wanted and included. It was nauseating but I understood why. My mother made sure I moved back in where I was laced with promises of change and support. I knew she genuinely meant well and after a few weeks, I thought that maybe she had come to understand how I felt. She had not. Until you feel that crushing despair, you can never imagine how simultaneously empty and overwhelming it feels.

Eventually, life moved on for her and everyone else. Talks of feelings and coping mechanisms were replaced by casual chit-chat as she ducked and dived away from sensitive subjects. Maybe she felt that if she did not acknowledge its existence then it would fade into nothing but a bad memory for us both. Yet, as she went forward, I felt as if my life just could not resume, as though I was standing still, rooted in a fixed state of nothingness.

My mum recently bought a new dog, a companion to keep me company throughout the day whilst she was not home. The gesture was nice, but this is not a normal cuddle-up on the sofa type of animal. This is a lively ball of pure energy that seemingly has to maintain a constant state of movement. I am sure it was a shark in its past life as it now looks at me with a hunger in those black beady eyes, waiting, not very patiently, for me to finally move and get the lead.

Past lives. A subject that I have been studying in-depth recently. If memories can entwine in one person, then what if the people who claim to be reborn, were in fact, just in a particular place, under the right circumstances for someone’s final thoughts to filter into them instead of dispersing into the world?

Lost in my own thoughts, I arrive at the park and let the dog off the leash just as someone taps me on the shoulder. Yelping like a startled child, I turn to find Andrew’s daughter standing right behind me, her composure breaking as she laughs out loud and then embraces me tightly.

She steps back, a little red-faced and flustered and starts to say something but I am too stunned to comprehend anything she is saying. Noticing me just gawking at her she adopts a more bashful pose. A sly smile and a little giggle snap me out of my haze and I find myself smiling back.

She asks if she can sit with me for a while and then go and grab a coffee. She faces me directly and our eyes meet, but this time, there is no pain, no sadness, just warmth and friendliness.

In my mind, a hand reaches out from under the water and grips tightly to a jagged piece of rock.

The End

I hope this provided a different look into depression and that you enjoyed the story.

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About the Creator

Daniel Millington

A professional procrastinator that likes to weave short stories ranging from thought-provoking fiction to imaginative fantasy. Delve into worlds that twist your soul and bring magical creations to life.

I also like cake.

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Comments (3)

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  • Novel Allenabout a year ago

    Well done. There is always something great about an angel that arrives at the right time. They are there for us all.

  • I suffer from depression and have attempted suicide before. Just like Mark, I was dead and revived. And everything about depression in this story is spot on. That's how it feels. And I loved the concept you used in this story. Brilliant job!

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