A Death Sentence to Die for

Themes of mental health and suicide.

X marks the spot in Marie’s calendar. She’s had it pencilled in for a while now; too afraid of the permanence of ink but determined enough that it fills a whole square. Every day after that is empty. She’ll miss the beating rays of the summer sun, she thinks, but she’ll also avoid the melancholy that stays with her throughout each and every orbit around the sun. 25, she’s seen pass her now. Of course, she doesn’t remember all 25, but she certainly remembers enough. 

X marks the spot in Marie’s calendar – spanning corner to corner below the number 16. She’s got a few months to go now. Perhaps the impermanence of her pencil marks is a positive thing, thinks Marie. Then she remembers how her pain is not just an ephemeral, fleeting feeling. Inking it in might be a good idea.  

She refers to herself as a hermit at this point. Her days hold little purpose now. She believes that she has little purpose now. Her Ma would disagree. She has a gentle, kind soul. Marie often says that she’s the only reason she is still here – regretfully or thankfully, it depends on the day.

Ma, I’m so sorry I’m like this, says Marie on her particularly difficult days. 

We’ve got to get you sorted, love, replies Ma. 

Marie agreed, although she never said so, so as not to get her Ma’s hopes up. With her lightly marked X on the calendar, she decided it was time to take action. 

People had always told her to take baby steps when it comes to mental health, and while she thought it was therapeutic bullshit, she knew this was her last chance at life. 

*

She hadn’t been to therapy for over a year now. Ma had been pestering her. The appointment was imminent, yet Marie didn’t feel prepared. Is there a way to prepare for therapy? she thought to herself. She concluded that there was not in fact a way to prepare, or at least nothing that she could think of. While this made the thought of a session less draining, she also felt as though this lack of ability to plan and prepare would be problematic. For the hour leading up to the session, she played with the idea of cancelling, ultimately deciding not to as she realised she’d lose the sixty pounds she’d spent on it.  

Marie put her shoes on at ten to the hour. She thought about the last time she bought a pair of shoes. Two years ago. She hadn’t needed new shoes, though. She never left the house. That was until this particular day. Freedom Day, ma called it, as if Marie had been clawing at the front door in desperation to leave. Quite the opposite was true, in fact. Marie had been removing herself from society for a while now. Just as she felt as though she’d completely disappeared, she booked a therapy session. For fuck’s sake, said Marie – on many occasion.  

Her therapist, Sarah, was up the hill from her house. She’d seen her before. 

Marie avoided running into anyone, slaloming between the busy parts of the village and through the darker alleyways. It was strange. Fresh air, birds chirping, noticing the gentle swaying of branches as wind caressed each one. Everything seemed amplified compared to how she experienced the world from her bedroom. Her year-long hiatus from life had either paused or ended. She was about to find out. 

She was called in to the room at one minute past the hour. Marie acknowledged the lateness and began thinking about spiritual signs. She felt as though she was destined to fail. She remembered that she only had a few months left to change, however. X marks the spot. 

Let’s do formal introductions again, Marie. I know we’ve seen each other before, but it would be nice to start afresh, Sarah said. 

Marie looked around the room, uncomfortable in being out of the sanctuary that was her landfill of a bedroom. 

I’m Marie, I’m 25. I’m unemployed, unlovable, unhappy. 

She knew she sounded dramatic.

Ok, Marie. I’m very sorry to hear that and we’ll return to it in a second. I’m Sarah, 44, and I have two children. 

Irrelevant, Marie thought. 

There was a pause. A clock which sat before Sarah would tick throughout the meeting, and it seemed as though she would check it every few minutes. 

Marie noticed that every therapist she’d seen loved pauses in the conversation. It felt to her as though they saw more of her than she did. Those X-ray goggles people used to joke about as kids – is that what therapists use? She made a note to revisit this later on.

Time went by slowly. Marie was uncomfortable talking about herself so much, but she knew this was her final opportunity. She wanted to be as open as she could. This meant mentioning her plan for the future. Sarah made this easier by asking a specific question:

So, I suppose I wonder why you’ve decided to take up therapy again… Why now? She asked. 

Marie made sure to keep things hidden from everyone she’d spoken to in the past. She thought that she might regret telling anyone this, but she did it anyway. 

I have a plan. For the 16^th of May. I’m just so tired, she said. 

Sarah scribbled. Marie always liked to refer to herself as a scientific experiment in these scenarios. Her Ma thought she was mad. That’s why I have a therapist, replied Marie.

What’s the plan, Marie? Sarah asked, with pen still erect and touching paper. 

Well, I’m getting older. I haven’t achieved anything in my life. I have no ambitions. No relationships. No fucking desire to continue. Statistically speaking, I have 60 years left. And for what?

Sarah stopped writing. The room went quiet. No speaking, no scribbling. Just the ticking of the clock. This reminded Sarah to check it. 

Looking over her glasses, Sarah asked: 

But what exactly is your plan? 

To kill myself. 

As if a response to unsettling stimuli, Sarah closed her book and apologised for the session had come to an end. Marie found this bit particularly amusing – the abrupt stopping of emotions. You could be on the floor, ugly-crying and they would not once consider running a few minutes late. She liked this about therapists, though. Empathic but ruthless when need be. She knew it was oxymoronic. She didn’t care about those sorts of things. Not now, anyway. She was living a preventable death sentence that had the potential to be interrupted. She wondered if this was really a death sentence in that case – if everything was going against it. Marie felt guilty for this reason. She could choose whether or not she died. Others couldn't.

When she got home, the chirping was quieter and less frequent and the air was once again stale. Dust danced in the sun’s spotlight. 

Marie pierced the silver foil with her bare and broken nails. She took her medication for the first time in a year.