Escape

 ENTER.

It was midnight. I silently crept into the washroom with a glass of water and a bottle full of pills; and turned off the light.

Fast forward half an hour: I lay in a drugged haze on the cold tiled floor, vaguely conscious of myself. Dark shadows swirled around me. A beam of moonlight streamed in through the small window onto the mirror on the wall, suddenly catching my eye.

"Dear All (whoever really does care),

              I give up. I can't take it anymore. Better it being this way, then me going through unnecessary suffering. No matter however much you try your futile attempts at "improving" me, nothing will ever change.  Goodbye. Don't cry for me."

I felt strangely disconnected, reading my own words. Had they really come from me?  

____________________

I was drowning in a sea of meaningless words and numbers. Something that made no sense at all to me.

I felt suffocated. Almost claustrophobic. I craved fresh air. I wanted to inhale freedom; but it seemed nowhere near in sight.

"You just aren't trying hard enough!"

"Why can't you ever concentrate?"

"When will you realise the gravity of the situation?"

"How much did you score? WHAT? What were you doing all of last week, you blithering idiot? Mowing grass?"

"Oh, don't cry! What happened? Didn't you study?"

My life had turned into an unending race, where I could never seem to keep up, however fast I ran. I routinely broke into tears over trivial things. No one saw how tired I was. I wanted some fresh air and water to drink. I wanted to break free.

Do you what it's like to have your confidence gradually siphoned out of you? Do you know how it hurts to listen to ascerbic comments about yourself? It pricks you, like shards of glass. It pains.

No, you don't. You don't know what it's like to work like a donkey and eventually get nothing in return. This, this is precisely why you give up. Because you know nothing will ever happen.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Really, Mr. Newton? I don't think so.

____________________

My practical half tried to make sense of the situation, to pull me back.


 Good girls wouldn't even dream of doing such a thing. Sorry. I can't be "good" anymore.

Don't say you aren't happy. No, I'm not. I'm not happy. This isn't what I expected.


Don't do this to yourself.  No. I've had enough. It's about time.

Normally, I would have immediately turned on the light, as I'm petrified of the dark. But today I craved this darkness. It was soothing, almost comforting.

I felt myself slipping away. The moonlight started to gradually fade away. The faint outline of a bathroom shelf I had recognised earlier seemed to blur. My head started spinning.

And then an amazing sense of peace started taking over me. For the first time in so many months, I felt free. Light and airy, like all my worries were over.

I was somewhere else now. No tiled floor and washroom anywhere in sight.

I was finally free. Happy.

I had escaped.


Goodbye, world. I'm outta here.

I know I'm a coward. But sometimes there's no other way out.

EXIT.