The Woods of a Broken Mind

TRIGGER WARNING: Depression, Suicide Attempt, Death, Car Accident, Mental Health

THE WOODS OF A BROKEN MIND

On September 14th, 2025, many things happened: Some with the potential to shatter the world, others forgotten as soon as they had transpired. Charlie Nightworth, head nurse at the children’s hospital in London, did not care about a single one of them, newsworthy or not. Not anymore anyway.

In the distance Big Ben declared it was the eleventh hour of the night – telling her it had been four hours now since her heart had gone cold, her mind blank. It was no longer her business, none of it was. Not that most of it had ever been. Plane Crashes and Political debacles had always belonged in other realms far outside her reach or care.

But the little faces down in the infirmary? Scared and in pain? The hopeful, desperate eyes of the parents? The screams, the yelling, the begging, the smiles, the tears... All that she had cared about, once. Just a few hours, that was all it had been, yet it seemed like a lifetime ago.

Charlie looked down on the busy street, her feet dangling over the abyss. 13 stories down it was. She had counted as she had walked up the stairway. She could have taken the lift of course, but then it was always busy in there at this time of the day and with her luck she would have run straight into one of her colleagues. Sarah maybe, or John.

“What are you still doing here?”, they would have asked.

And she wouldn’t have had an answer besides: “I was on my way home. I must have pressed the wrong button.”

And then she would have accompanied her colleague down, and wished them a calm shift, and they would have wished her a nice evening in return, and she would have smiled and left the building and pretended that everything was alright.

But nothing was.

Nothing would ever be alright again.

Nothing had been alright for a long time now.

Charlie drew in a breath, letting the cool night air fill her lungs. Once that had calmed her, helped her to push back the memories of that one night all those years ago, to keep them tucked neatly into the box at the back of her mind. Once the distance to the rest of the world had almost been enough to forget entirely. To decide that the deeds of that day were no more significant than any other detail of her personal history. From up here, where cars looked like toys and people like dots, it had seemed like nothing mattered; like everything was insignificant.

Even the life of a child.

Well, Once had come and Once had passed. Now the box at the back of her mind was wide open, and nothing would get it to close again. The memory she had kept tucked in for so long; now it was out. And it was only a matter of time until…

Charlie shook her head, refusing to end the sentence. Instead, she stared downwards again; her eyes following car after car after car, wondering why she was still sitting here. It would be easy to let go, easy to fall. Painless, even. At a height like this, her body would get crushed like an ant; every bone in her body shattered, blood vessels exploding. She would be dead in an instant. All she needed to do was to shove herself forward a little, lean towards the gap, and fall into the nothing. It was so very easy.

It was more than she deserved. More than he had gotten.

Somewhere behind her a steel door opened with a squeak, then closed, telling her she should be backing off from the edge, yet she did not move, just listened to the steps coming closer. The pattern was familiar, yet it wasn’t the one she expected. It wasn’t Andrew’s. It didn’t belong to her husband. That was surprising. After that message - the one that held no words of his own, only a photo of the letter from court - she had expected him to show up. To end things with her, probably. To tell her how wrong he had been about her.

She had been afraid of it. Somehow this was worse though. She didn’t want these steps to belong to John, didn’t want the one to come after her to be a mere coworker. Only a few feet to her left, the sound of his walking finally stopped. She could feel him lean against the balustrade she was sitting on. For a moment no one spoke. Then John cleared his throat.

“You’re not gonna jump, are you?”

She knew what she was supposed to say: ‘Of course not!’ And: ‘Don’t be an idiot’. But she didn’t. Not this time. Not anymore. Not to Andrew. Not to John.

“I haven’t decided yet”, she said instead.

“I see.”

“You’re not trying to pull me from the edge?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I don’t know.”

Another moment of silence. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t want to see the emotions on his face. Fear maybe, or worry, perhaps even guilt. And maybe, just maybe, if he knew… something else. Something worse. If John were to judge her, how harsh would Andrews’ judgement be?

“Do you think that some people deserve to die?”

John looked at her. Even without seeing, she could feel his piercing gaze, as though he was trying to pick the thoughts right from her brain. He didn’t answer. Not really.

“Do you think you deserve to die?”, he asked instead.

The question pierced right through her; she gasped, couldn’t answer, just stared and stared and stared, her gaze holding nothing. It was as though the world tipped sidewards, as though internally she was already falling, and falling and falling. Only that inside her mind there was no pavement to crash into. Just darkness - deeper and deeper and deeper - until it was swallowing up all that had once been her.

“… I took a life”, she said finally. Her voice was hoarse. There were no tears in her eyes, none at all, but they were burning still. Silence followed. Silence that made the noises of the city feel hollow, meaningless. Silence that could not be filled with words.

“Did you mean to?”, he asked eventually.

Charlie shook her head. “No.”

“Then it was an accident, wasn’t it?”

She closed her eyes, the memories dancing in her mind so vividly. She can hear the cracking of metal, the clanking of glass as it breaks. She can see the tiny body, pressed against the side of the car. See the blood, see the ragged, flat breathing. The memories are sharp, cut through her heart. Her hands are cramping around the wheel as she pushes through the gas pedal, tears on her cheeks. Both back then and now.

“It was a hit and run. He was a kid, John. Just… a kid. I killed a kid.” Something wet ran down her cheeks: A tear, she realized. First just one, then more and more, whole rivers that she had held back for so long, pretending that she was okay. No, that she was innocent. Blood was rushing in her ears. Whether he was saying something or not, she did not hear, did not hear a thing, over the rushing of the blood - and over the voices: A whole choir of them inside her mind, and they were all screaming the same word over and over again, a hundredfold:

Murderer. Murderer. Murderer.

Then a hand touched her wrist. She shrieked back, almost slipping. Johns’ hands gripped tighter around her wrist, pulling her towards him. She pushed back from the edge. Didn’t want to fall. Didn’t want to die. Why didn’t she want to die? She stared at John, watching his lips moving, still not hearing, still not understanding.

Only slowly his words dripped into her mind. “Charlie, listen to me. Please!”

She wasn’t certain whether she wanted to. Wasn’t certain she was ready to hear what he had to say. Murderer, Murderer, Murderer, the voices in her mind kept yelling. They would not keep quiet. Not anymore.

“I… I am not… - Look I cannot comprehend what happened that day. I cannot tell you it’s okay, obviously. But… what does you killing yourself change about it? How is that doing any good?”

How was it doing any good?

“It’s not going to bring back that kiddo from the dead.”

No, it wouldn’t. Nothing could. If sacrificing her life could have accomplished it, she would have given it years ago. But that wasn’t how the world worked.

“It’s not going to give his family closure either.”

Could anything? Could a trial? Or would that only rip open wounds that had long since closed? It had been so long ago. So many years.

“What do you think I should do?”, she asked, her voice weak. She felt like a child, grasping for guidance, for a path out of the darkness, away from the voices that kept yelling and yelling and yelling.

He looked at her for a long moment, then he said: “I think you know what you need to do. I think you always have.”

She turned back, staring into the abyss for a moment longer. It still looked alluring, still wanted to draw her in, still promised peace, an end to the voices, to the guilt, to everything.

You know what you need to do.

John wasn’t wrong. She did know. Had always known. Had just stuffed that truth into a box at the back of her mind, right alongside those memories she did not know how to handle. Charlie withdrew her legs from the edge, swung them over to the other side, and stood again. Her legs felt weak. Her eyes were still burning. The voices in her mind were still yelling. Murderer, Murderer, Murderer. They were a little quieter now though. Just a tiny bit.

“… There is going to be a trial. On October 7th. Would you mind accompanying me? And… reminding me?”, she asked, “I might try to run scared.” She tried not to think about everything that trial might break. Her marriage. Her friends. Her job. The whole life she had built.

A shadow of a smile rushed over John’s lips. “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

It was the right thing to do.