Inner Dark

Good morning. I'd like to pick up where we left off during our last session. Could we go back to the line you wrote when you said you thought suicide might be an option for you.

What about it?

Do you think about suicide often?

Well, that wasn't really me writing that, was it?

I think it was you. You admit to being the author. Your name is on the cover. I don't think anyone, least of all you, can deny that you wrote the sentence.

I've written a lot of sentences, friend. You, more than most, should know that.

No one is disputing that. What I would like to discuss is your feelings of hopelessness and the comments you have made about ending your life.

I have no feelings of hopelessness. I mean, I have had, in the past. But that's the thing about the past. It's passed. Right?

What do you mean by that?

There used to be a dog come round my place in Santa Fe. A mutt. A big black thing. Made himself at home at my place even though I didn't really invite him to stay. He would stop by and sit on the porch and I would pet him and then he would go home. Happened for a couple of months. Then one day, he stopped coming. I never missed him because he was never mine. He was just a visitor. That's how I view depression.

Interesting analogy. Did the dog have a name?

How should I know? If he had a name he came with, I never knew it. I called him pooch, but he never answered to it. It was more or less a moniker. I knew a guy in college named Moniker Mike. He gave everything and everyone a nickname, including himself.

What did he call you?

He called me Mr. Western.

Why Mr. Western?

I was reading a Zane Grey book at the time. He was clever, but he wasn't smart. He was doing his best, like the rest of us.

Did the name stick?

For a little while, but after he was killed in a car crash, people stopped using it. It was like all his monikers followed him to the grave. He was the only one in the car and everyone said he hit the abutment on purpose.

So, a suicide, then?

I guess so.

Do you see how quickly we ended up here again?

Where?

On the topic of suicide. Don't you think that's unusual?

In my line of work, nothing is unusual. I was just telling a story. In the last ten minutes, you've brought the subject up more times than I have. Perhaps you are the one obsessed. Is that some kind of psychiatric standard or something? Projecting your thoughts onto your patient?

Let's change the subject. When did you first notice your obsession with violence?

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it. I write about it. That's different than being obsessed about it. It's more like something that follows me around.

Like a dog?

I suppose you could say that. Not a very pleasant puppy, though.

You write about it an awful lot for someone who isn't obsessed.

I write about the world, and the world's a violent place.

Can you expand on that?

On the world?

No, on the world being violent, specifically.

I can't see how that would need explaining. It's everywhere you look, war, domestic violence, rape, and religious infighting. The bible is full of violence. Hell, even the universe is a murderous bastard. Everywhere you look, some human or another, or huge groups of humans, are murdered by nature: earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, disease…earth is not a hospitable place, my friend. We're lucky to be alive even talking about it. Hell, we're lucky to be born in the first place. All of life is a damned crap shoot from beginning to end. And if you don't think so, you're fooling yourself. One day the earth will be enveloped by the sun. Have you ever thought about that?

Do you see that as a form of suicide?

No. Murder, more like. The sun will kill the earth. The earth will have no say in the matter.

When did you first begin writing about violence? Were you a child?

The first story I wrote was about a goldfish named Mr. Anthony. He swam around his tank, killing all the other fish until he was the only one left. My teacher freaked out when she read it and sent me to the principles office. My mother was called in, and there was some discussion about having me see the school shrink. I think I was six.

They had a psychiatrist in your school?

No. I suppose she was just a nurse, but she acted like a shrink and thought she could fix everyone.

Did you ever go see her?

No.

Why not?

I guess they forgot about it. I wanted to enter my story into a contest they were having at the library, but my parents said no.

How did that make you feel?

I didn't feel anything about it. I just wrote another story.

What was the next story about?

I'd rather not say.

Why not?

Because you'll accuse me of having suicidal thoughts again, which I can assure you I do not have.

Alright. I'll make you a deal. You tell me what the story was about, and I promise not to accuse you of being obsessed with suicide. Deal?

When I was in the fifth grade, I wrote a story about a girl who hung herself. It was based on a true story. A girl in my school was hung by her mother and then her mother hung herself too. It was all over the papers. I knew the girl. She was sweet and quiet and she seemed happy. No one ever thought her mother would do that, but she was mentally ill, the mother. Someone found them hanging together in the living room closet. They had their winter jackets on, only it wasn't winter, and they had boots on like they were headed out the door and at the last minute, the mother thought, hey, let's do this instead. She never left a note, so we never found out why she did it.

That is a very traumatic thing for a kid to hear about.

I guess, which is why I wrote a story. It's my way of coping.

Would you say that you are depressed now?

Right this minute?

Yes.

No.

What about in the recent past?

The recent past. I'm not sure this is the place to get into the fundamental nature of time and the way humans experience it. Time is relative to your frame of reference. Distinctions between past, present, and future are all stubborn illusions, so when you say my recent past, that statement cannot have any real meaning.

When I say recent past, I am not talking about time as it relates to physics.

You can't not talk about time as it relates to physics. The physics of time is all there is. It makes no sense to speak of it any other way.

Ok. Then, can you tell me about any depression you have experienced – at any point along the spacetime continuum?

I was depressed once after my ex-wife and I broke up. Her name was Jennifer. I stopped writing for a while but then found myself doing it again out of habit, I guess. But I don't like to talk about my private life much. I would rather talk about my writing.

Any particular piece of writing you would like to discuss?

At the risk of opening up yet another can of psychological worms, I will say that I'm writing a novel in which the main character commits suicide, or at least, he is planning on it, but he keeps getting interrupted.

What interrupts him?

Life.

Life interrupts your character's suicide?

Yes.

Can you be more specific?

Someone knocks on his door and interrupts him as he is planning to hang himself, so he unties the carefully constructed noose and rewraps the rope and hangs it back where it came from and sits down and has a beer. Later, the phone rings. It's his ex-wife calling to tell him his son has been in an accident. So he puts down the gun and decides to walk to the hospital and on the way, he thinks about stepping in front of a bus, but he changes his mind. After he leaves the hospital, he crosses a bridge and thinks about jumping over it, but then a beautiful girl walks up to him to ask for the time. He hasn't worn his watch that day and has forgotten his phone, so he says he doesn't know. Then he walks home and decides he doesn't want to commit suicide after all and then just as he is about to step off the curb toward his house, he gets shot by a mass shooter. The last thing he remembers before dying is that he forgot to take out the garbage.

That's quite a dark tale. Are you certain you are not depressed? I would like to write you a prescription for an anti-depressant.

My characters are not me. This is not a roman à clef. I don't need drugs. I just need to get back to writing. Is there any way we can make that happen?

I think so, yes. But I think our time is up for today.

Alright. Can I ask you one question before we are done?

Sure. Go ahead.

How do you hold a pen when you have flippers?