Life, Death, Rebirth: Chapter 4

     Ten days have passed since I first shut myself in the house. My depression and anxiety are much worse with each passing moment.
     The fridge is empty with the exception of slices of processed cheese, an old carton of milk and a few spoiling vegetables. I sustained myself with frozen foods and fast food delivered to my door but now I eat a very small quantity only once a day. It’s usually whatever leftover pizza crusts and French fries I can scavenge from all the litter on my floor. If I’m feeling particularly ambitious, I’ll wrap my findings with a slice of cheese before consuming.
     I have left the house on four occasions when I ran out of cigarettes and alcohol. I had no choice. My sobriety now leads straight to onslaughts of anxiety. During these moments, I found myself reaching for the Beretta to stare intently down its barrel. It took all my energy to break away from its mysterious gaze, grab my jacket and run down the stairs to the store.
     I didn't take the elevator or stop running the whole way because my depression would try to convince me that my efforts were futile. This happened on my first outing when I stopped to wait for a red light to change. I went back to my apartment and immediately began to toy with the Beretta and contemplate death. I unhinged the safety, snapped back the barrel, brought the Beretta to my temple, pressed the trigger to my temple. There was a click but nothing more. The chamber was empty; there was no ammunition in the gun. I walked over to the night table and pulled out a small box of ammunition and attempted to fill the clip. I’m not sure why I bothered to try to fill the clip with more than one bullet but at the time I needed all the stall tactics I could get because I wasn't sure what was going to come next. By the time I was on the fourth or fifth bullet, the adrenaline in my body was declining which caused my hands to tremble so violently that I dropped the gun and decided to try the store one more time.
     On all of the subsequent trips outside, I made a firm commitment to not stopping under any circumstance. If the light was red I would either cross the street or turn down the next street. I arrived to each intersection at the most inconvenient time on my third outing. Each intersection took me farther away from my destination. My heart was beating like a jack-hammer but I kept running. I was ready to faint from exertion by the time I arrived at the store.
     I had no contact with the outside from the world apart from the short period of time I was at the convenience and liquor stores. I would stare at the headlines of the newspaper in order to avoid the glares of nearby strangers who could smell my stench. The actual purchasing of alcohol, cigarettes and sometimes beef jerky was a completely silent ordeal. I refused to look up from the counter and make eye contact with the cashier. Even a casual acknowledgement of their existence was out of reach in my current state. I would scurry out of the store as soon as the items were paid for to escape the intense feeling of anxiety and claustrophobia.
     A different problem would arise once I exited the store. I firmly believed that I escaped death’s clutches by venturing out to the apartment. The prospect of having to return back to the apartment installed a feeling of absolute dread and uncertainty. I walked back to the apartment and waited for the elevator. Once the elevator arrived I would change my mind and walk up the stairs instead. On the fourth and most recent journey, my dread was so immense that I stopped to sit on a bench at the local park and proceeded to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes to try to ease the stress and find the courage to get myself back home. I never did find the courage. In the end it was the onset of the cold night that caused me to get up and walk back home. Fortunately, I immediately dove into bottles of alcohol instead of reaching for the gun. My consciousness would fade into the night.

     My phone battery died a week ago and I have neglected to charge it ever since. A depressed person has more pressing issues to worry about than his cellphone. However it felt like just the right day to plug it in to see if anyone cared to try to contact me. I have my heart set on ending my life tonight so I can spare some energy and indulging in other people’s worries one last time. I trace the charger cord from the wall outlet to a pile of laundry and pull it out. I plug my phone into the charger, sit down on the floor and light myself a smoke.
     This isn't the first time I planned on killing myself. There was a chance that I would not follow through with it based on past experience. I am convinced at this moment in time that I will follow through. The gun is loaded, my life sucks and my whole body aches with a kind of spiritual pain. I can’t see myself ever escaping this misery. There isn't a single positive thing in my life to fall back on.
     Even my house smells like shit. Despite my best efforts at leaving the windows open, the apartment smelt like a combination of dirty laundry, body odour, old fast food, alcohol and cigarettes. I didn't bother to clean anything since the possibility of leaving this world was imminent. I was now so careless that I ashed and extinguished cigarettes directly onto the floor or the nearest object of convenience. Minutes after closing the windows each night, the odours would begin to pool in the house. I wouldn't be able to smell it after a half hour until the next night when I closed the windows again to keep out the cold.
     Nearly empty bottles of various types of alcohol bombarded the floor on a regular basis, spilling their remaining contents onto the floor. I never understood how most alcoholics would only drink one kind of alcohol. How can a person decide a specific drink when they all tasted so fowl? My personal solution to this issue was to buy an assortment of beers, spirits, liquors and sometimes wine (which I found especially distasteful) at complete random. All of it tasted bad but being able to switch between different options enabled me to continue drinking without feeling repulsed by drinking the same thing over and over again.
     The phone turned on and began its booting procedure although my attention shifted to my foot that seemed to scream out above my thoughts and psychic pain. I pulled my foot in close as my head tilted in order to get a clear view of the bottom of my foot. In the centre was a small cut with a piece of glass embedded deep inside the sole causing blood to seep out. I scratched at a nagging itch on the side of my head before proceeding to remove the glass from my foot. After a moment, my efforts were fruitless. It was at this point in time that my phone chimed as it acquired each missed call, message and notification. I pick up the phone and inspect the notifications on the screen.