slowly fading memories | watty's2016

28

~Holly Fisher~

        A bullet.

        A pill.

        A tub.

        A knife.

        A car.

        A wish.

        I wished.

        I debated a gun, but figured that would traumatize the person who came upon me more than the initial shock of finding a body. So I crossed that out.

        Now in my head, I ran over my options once more with numbing accuracy. I was sure this was what I wanted — needed — to do. My feet sounded softly on the wooden floor as I walked to the bathroom. Indifferently, I slid into the mirrors view. 

        The reflection was one I didn't recognize.

        The girl staring at me was haggard, her brown hair stringy and greased; hanging in sheets on the sides of her face. Her skin was pale and defined the purple bags clinging to her eyes; once beautiful features now shrouded with shadows. Her eyes were hollow, a window into her broken soul. With thin fingers, she reached to the mirror and opened the cabinet behind it, revealing all the medicine her mother kept in there.

        With trembling, white hands, she grabbed an orange bottle, bringing it to her. 

        TAKE IN PRESCRIBED DOSES. DO NOT CONSUME IF NOT TOLD TO BY DOCTOR. WARNING: IF TAKEN IN LARGE AMOUNTS OR WITHOUT IMPOSED BY MEDICAL OFFICIAL, SIDE EFFECTS MAY CAUSE SICKNESS, VOMITING, HEADACHES, AND, IN SEVERE CASES, DEATH.

        I set the bottle down and walked to the tub, drawing a bath. I waited in painstaking silence for it to fill, then grabbed the pills and stripped my clothes, sliding into the cold water. 

        It shocked my skin, but I didn't flinch away.

        I welcomed it.

        It let me know I wasn't completely shattered.

        Submerging myself, I opened the white lid.

        With one last fleeting thought: What if...? I poured a handful of the yellow orbs and popped them into my mouth, swallowing and closing my eyes, waiting for the inevitable to come.