Depression

Depression.

He had a headache that was worse than usual. It made just moving his head very painful and resulted in a wave of nausea. He was tired.He had been in bed since seven last night. It was now eleven the next morning. Do the math as the Americans say, that is sixteen straight hours in bed – and he was still tired. It was much too painful and too much effort to even consider getting out of bed and going through the agony of showering, shaving and getting dressed to face the day. He just couldn’t do it. The day would be full of decisions to be made, what to wear, what to have for breakfast, what to do. Better to stay here in the decision free zone of his bed. Hide from the world that was so saw toothed, sharp and painfull. At least his duvet didn’t bite. It was his only friend. No one understood. ‘ Are you ill? What’s wrong? Why don’t you pull yourself together? Why don’t you go and get a job? Didn’t they understand that these questions had no relevance, they just didn’t apply to him as he was. He had no worth. He didn’t matter. He was nothing. No one would miss him if he wasn’t here.

            The thoughts raced around in his head. What should he do? Should he do anything? Did it matter? Who would care?

            He made a huge effort and opened his eyes. The daylight hurt his eyes, the effort hurt his muscles.  The decision hurt his brain. He hurt.

            The next stage was to get out of bed but, before climbing that mountain, he needed to sit up. He went through the decision process again and it came up positive – just. He tensed his muscles, closed his eyes against the light and sat up. Next was to swing his legs out of the bed and put his feet on the cold floor. It made him shudder but it was a relief to feel something, to care if his feet were cold or not.             Perhaps it was going to be a good day, one of those days when he thought he might be human, part of the human race that carried on with its life and didn’t understand why he didn’t care either way, if he lived or if he died.

            He made a huge effort and stood up. His feet were still cold from the stone flagged floor. His camp bed had been made up in his mate’s kitchen – the only one prepared to take him in after his wife had thrown him out as a lazy-good-for-nothing. Steve at least partly understood depression – the difference between being unhappy and being depressed, but even he had just about had enough of him.

            He couldn’t face the shower and the toothbrush so just pulled on some greasy jeans and a tee shirt with an old fleece on top for the pockets and warmth. It surprised him that he cared about that.

            Steve had left the car keys for him in case he wanted to go looking for a job. Who was going to employ him? He had a Master’s in computer science but he looked even odder than the norm for ITC specialists. That took some doing.

            He walked out into the garden, idly twisting the keys in his hand. He looked at the sky, blue, he checked the temperature, warm and there and then he decided it was a good day for it.

            The car was an old Clio but he didn’t mind the foreigness today, it would suit the purpose. A decision had been made, he was happy, all would understand and be happy for him.

            He needed to head North, it seemed right. He drove down the winding lane from Steve’s cottage to the junction with the A6, turned left and parallelled the M6 through Shap village and turned right towards junction 39 where the quarry lorries heaved their loads of aggregate from the Shap granite quarries. Destroying the mountains that had taken millenia to form in a few short years

            He turned North, heading towards junction 40 at Penrith but his target was the split section of the motorway as it climbed over Shap Summit. He pushed the Clio to its limit and manged to get to 93 as he went over the Summit, bounced over the safety barrier and crashed upside down on the rocky roadside.

            He was killed almost instantly but his last thought was that the misery ended here, no more trouble to anyone, no more depression, he was free and happy. His last thought was that at least he had gone out on a high.

            The insurance would allow Steve to get a better car and his wife to get a better husband. No one could prove that it was suicide – he had done the best that he could for everyone.
           Please forgive me.