Disasterology (perrentes)

chapter 1- before

Dear Journal,

I don't remember all of the days clearly before I tried to kill myself. Most of them just bleed together, nothing signifacant ever happed in those days. It was always the same routine, wake up, survive school, go home, go to sleep. I didn't eat much then, I was never hungry. I do remember however, the day it started. The day I felt different...

December 12

"Mike! Mikey fa fe fi fo fikey, Mikey!" Jack whispered in my ear. That's often how he greeted me at school, whispering. We were the kind of people who wore darker clothes and didn't draw attention to ourselves. We were classified as the "Emo Potheads", which wasn't a complete lie because we did smoke a lot of pot.

"Are you cutting next hour?" I said as I closed my locker so I could see his face.

"Maybe, I have a chem test that I didn't study for. You?"

"Jack Bassam Barakat! Where do you get off not studying for your exams," I said in that posh voice his mom uses. He let out a small chuckle and then looked at me as he waited for my answer. "Yeah, I don't even know what class I have next period, I've been ditching that period all simester. I wanna keep my winning streak alive, ya feel me?" I said. Once again he laughed.

"Don't you get notices and shit from the office for missing ?"

"Nah, man. I have PE, I think, and I have a doctors note saying that I can't participate due to my condition."

"Your condition is what exactly?" Jack said with a goofy grin. It was always easy to get him to smile.

"Like, asthma, or some shit. I didn't read the note, so how would I know," I cracked a smile as he chuckled.

We didn't wait for the bell to ring as we shuffled out the door into the cold snow filled courtyard. Jack started telling me about this chick he banged, but I wasn't listening and he knew it. It was a silent arangement we had. He would talk to fill the silence, and I would just be deep in thought as always. He didn't mind that I didn't listen and I didn't mind that he described in detail about how wonderful she was with her mouth. It worked for us. It was the only option we had anyways, seeing as we only started being friends because in high school it is a necessity to have at least one friend so you don't get bothered by all of the knob heads.

We walked to my brother, Vic's, candy store where we usually go when we ditch. There was an apartment above it that was never used, so he let us smoke up there. It had one bedroom that Jack often used to have sex in, one bathroom, and a large closet that I wrote in (usually when I was high). We stayed up there when our parents were pissed at us for who knows what. It was also only a block or two from our school so it just worked out perfectly.

We sat down in the unfurnished back room of the apartment. Jack pulled out a blunt from under the loose floor board that we kept all of our secret stashes. Under that floor board alone we had weed, candies, condoms, pens, condoms, old journals, and lighters (and more condoms). The worst part about all of those condoms is that Jack used every single one of them. He really liked a good fuck.

After lighting it and then taking a hit, he passed the blunt to me. I repeated my usual tradition of spinning it around twice, smelling it, and then smoking it. I held the smoke in my mouth as I waited for it to seep into my lungs before blowing out.

I loved the way it felt to be high. I remember one time Vic told me about how his first high. He said his senses felt heightened and how if he got up too quickly everything would start moving. For me though, everything always felt surreal, like all of my problems were nothing. I felt like for once in my life the world was on my side, like I was so much more than just a teenager with some seriously screwed up thoughts. I wasn't just a dot in a sea of faces, I wasn't just a star in the sky, I was the sun and the moon, and I was infinite.

That's why when I didn't get that feeling of euphoria, I freaked out. Not physically or anything, but mentally. I only felt the void I always felt, but stronger. I felt like I was being eaten from the inside out, like I was gutted. I was gutted. My only happiness had been snatched from me and what was left was was just a shell.

Jack didn't notice my panicked looks as he snatched the blunt from me again and took a hit. I pulled up the broken floor board and grabbed one of my notebooks that I keep in there.

I stood up "I'm going to my closet, please don't be jerking off when I come back," I was referencing the time when we were fourteen and we had just become friends and I walked in on him watching porn with his hand down his pants.

"That was one time!" I snorted and walked away. Yeah, one time.

When I got to my closet I sighed and sat down on the bench. I was someone with a long history of being depressed but being so oblivious I didn't realize it. I mean when you have pot to make you feel special, what else do you need? But, when pot isn't enough anymore, what do you need to not feel so, so, terrible?

For me, the solution was writing. Ever since I was a little kid, writing was a way to relax me, to get my thoughts out on paper was a way of relaxing for me. It soothed to me to say the least.

When I was high I wrote what I saw, and I saw a lot crazy shit seeing as I'm, like, 9000% sure that the weed we bought was laced with crack. I've seen some seriously fucked up shit while I was high. I've seen more shit in my seventeen years than most people do in their whole lives. But, I've also seen things that are so beautiful.

Once Jack and I went hiking up on this mountain at sunset and once we got high enough on the mountain we ate some shrooms and if you think the regular sunset was something to see, you haven't seen it the way I have. My late friend Mitch said that if you're a visual person that the colors you see are brighter and more vibrant. To say the least, I was a visual person.

So this time, I wrote what I saw. The slightly shaking baby blue walls of the closet and the dullness of it all. The vibrance that I usually felt wasn't wasn't there. It was all so dull, so terribly dull.

That was the day I knew something was off, so terribly off. It was the day pot didn't distract me and writing didn't sooth me. It was the beginning of my agonizing depression. I lasted six months before I attempted, well, it. I don't like saying the word, it makes me realize what I actually did. I really don't like thinking about it...

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Okay so the italics is Mike's journal entry written at the current time and the stuff not in italics is a flashback. Also, feedback would be great!