September 24, 2018 | Occasus | Issue 8 | Creative Nonfiction

Death Diary

I

I used to want to die. I would walk on the sidewalk closest to oncoming traffic everyday on the way home from school and imagine what it would look like if I just…slipped. Would my body soar through the air or just deflate under steel and rubber? Would there be lots of blood or would it be a dry, coma-inducing situation? I remember hearing that when you get hit by a car, your shoes fly off. I looked down at my thrift store combat boots and pictured them bouncing across the pavement.

Each night as I took my collection of medication, I would pour the entire bottle out into my hand and deliberate. After probably too long, I would select the correct amount of pills and dry swallow them, tossing the rest back in the container. Maybe tomorrow. I’d always known that if I was going to kill myself it would be with a drug overdose. My only fear was that it wouldn’t work and I would be left laying in a pool of my own vomit for someone else to clean up.

Some nights, I have been strongly convinced that I would fail to wake up after too much tequila and a buffet of street drugs. This idea never scared me — I just closed my eyes and let the fire in my brain lull me to sleep.

II

I can remember my dad trying to kill himself on more than one occasion. Sometimes, he would gather up his alcohol in a bear-hug any other father would usually reserve for his children and grab his car keys. On these nights, I later learned, his plan was to ingest all of the vodka he could stomach and drive our family mini van off a cliff or into a lake.

“I’m going to kill myself,” he would announce.

Myself, five years old, didn’t understand what this meant. I thought it was a game that he liked to play.

Other times, he would down the pills meant to alleviate his anxiety and stabilize his emotions.       

He would tell me he was going to take a nap.

“Okay, daddy,” I would say, not bothering to look away from the cartoons on the television.

He was always napping.

Later on, my mom would come home from work and shriek as she entered their bedroom. The sound of her shoving her fingers down his throat and forcing him to throw up became something of a lullaby. This was the way my world worked: Daddy was broken, Mama was a superhero and the sun would rise in the morning.

III

When I was six, my brother told me that your body wouldn’t physically let you hold your breath until you die. I would test this hypothesis in the bathtub later that night. Clearing out rubber ducks and Barbie dolls, I lowered my face into the water and held my breath. Eventually, I had to whip my head back and gasp for breath, chin covered in bubbles like a demented Santa Claus. I concluded that my brother was right. This was fascinating to me. My body loved me so much that it wouldn’t let me hurt myself. Years later, I learned that it was my brain that I should be afraid of. My brain was the real enemy — it didn’t care for me much at all.

IV

The first time that I cut myself, I was fourteen years old. It was right after my parents announced that they were getting a divorce. I went to my room without a word — I’m not one to make a scene — and opened my diary to a page from months ago.

I wish they would just divorce already.

I felt like I deserved to have those words carved into my flesh. I was evil. I was sick. What kind of daughter wished these types of things?

I looked around my room calculatedly. I had heard of people freeing the blade from a pencil sharpener, but instead I grabbed the ball-point pen sitting next to me. I carefully unscrewed the top and extracted the pen’s entrails, when my fingers landed on the sharp spring. I pressed it to my wrist and dragged. My adrenaline was pumping. I moved to my upper thigh and then my collarbones - anything I could cover the next day with a heavy sweater and a pair of jeans. I immediately understood why people did this to themselves. This pain felt better than any emotion I had ever been forced to feel. If I concentrated, I could numb my brain and my heart and just focus on the sting.

This self-mutilation continued for years despite concerned boyfriends in which I confided, quizzical teachers who spied jagged lines as I raised my hand in class, sleeve sliding up, and ignorant friends, who pretended they didn’t see when we got dressed together for whatever party we were going to destroy ourselves at that night. I didn’t see a problem with it and no one else seemed to either.

V

In eighth grade, a girl in my class came to school wearing a large knit scarf. After sitting down for morning announcements, the teacher’s eyes fell on the obnoxious accessory.

“Take that off, please. Scarves are for outside.”

Reluctantly, she unraveled, revealing a large bruise around her neck. It reminded me of the rug burn I would get when my brothers would unforgivably drag my body around the living room carpet, but I had a feeling that this was different.

Eventually, it got out that she had tried to hang herself with a belt the night before. The knot she had tied hadn’t been strong enough.

Everyone laughed at her mercilessly for the next month or so.

Insecure preteens are the most cruel human beings I have ever come across.

The girl didn’t show up to our first day of high school.

She had learned to tie a knot that would hold.

VI

As a child, my favourite place to go was the rickety staircase made out of tree-stumps that led down to the fastest-moving section of the creek behind my grandparents’ house. One day in particular, I chose to venture into the forest alone. My bare heels thumped upon the layers of fallen leaves as moss squelched in between my toes. I looked up, blinking into the kaleidoscope of branches and blue sky. I was flying. I was a bird.

And then I wasn’t.

Suddenly, I tripped over something large and robust, my ankles gave out and I began my violent descent. I put my hands down to catch myself and they landed in a sticky pool of
liquid that splashed up into my face — blood narrowly missing my gaping mouth. I was face-to-face with a large deer that had been ravaged by what my grandpa would later reveal was most likely a pack of wolves. Its glassy eyes had been partially violated by maggots, but they looked into mine more meaningfully than any eyes ever had.

I did not scream.

I did not cry.

I got up slowly and walked down the tree-stump stairs.

I stripped down and washed off in the river.

I sat there, stinking of fish and algae, and I understood.

VII

A few nights ago, as we sat in the car, my mom turned to me from the driver’s seat.
 
“As you get older, you become less and less afraid of death, you know. It’s strange to feel like you’ve experienced everything you’ve wanted to in life.”

 I’ve never been scared of dying. I’ve never been afraid of Death. When he comes, I will welcome him. I will open the door and invite him in. I will ask him to take off his shoes and sit down for awhile. He will offer me a glass of tequila and I will accept it. I think we will enjoy each other’s company. I think we will get along nicely.

LEAH KUIACK just completed her second year towards an Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language & Literature at Western Ontario.