SUICIDE – A STEP BY STEP PROCESS

I am writing this blog post in present tense because suicide is not something which anyone plans for, It is something which just happens in this particular moment, ‘now’ , when you forget to remember that you still have hope to continue with your life. 

Whether this is fiction or not, please don’t bother thinking. This is real. Continue reading.

What goes on inside a Suicide prone mind?

I sit here staring at the blank screen trying to think of all the things I did in my life but to my dismay, I remember only the ones I didn’t do in my life. I close my eyes trying to tell myself, it is fine. Routine is not forever. Things will change, I try to think, but then a sad voice tells me from inside, subtle but hard to ignore, with a shade of a constant irritation and loneliness,

“No, it never does or never will. It didn’t change for the day before today like it won’t change for the day after…”  

I close my eyes and swallow the voice inside deep by telling or yelling aloud from inside to myself, “Go away!!! It will change”. It didn’t struggle to come out. It just goes deep inside me. I know what it is going to do inside me from that moment on. 

For that moment, the voice disappears. I must be happy or at least not sad but I know that the voice will return with new vigor. It will dig into all my past and create a new sadistic imaginary future which I don’t want to be part of.

I will be able to fight it if it is going to attack me but no, it never attacks. The voice which never leaves is my lonely companion who offers his shoulder for me to cry while I am left alone in this bitter and unremarkable world.  It just makes me feel sad and comforted away from everything bad. Suddenly I like to be sad and I like to be left alone. The epitome of loneliness is the “Suicide…”

The next day when the voice speaks again, I am already weak from the way it left me the day before. Today, the voice speaks, “Did today change from yesterday?”

I am not having an answer to this question so I stay silent and accept the fate. That is the reason for me Suicide…

What do he/ she not see from reality?

Close your eyes, you see stars inside the darkness infested walls of your eye lids. 

No, you don’t see stars inside…???

Then you don’t hear the sad voice too. It is imagination one fails to see. Life is what you see or what you think you see.  

Frustration can tell you many things which will make you feel, you are the only person who will understand yourself and then you feel the urge to succumb to the ultimate end. 

Of course, you are the only person who can really understand yourself but the problem is you do not put effort to understand yourself correctly.

You just listen to only the bad things or things which appear bad to you now.

Today’s bad is tomorrow’s achievement. Pain is the way of life telling us we are going in the right direction. Muscle needs exercise for toning and frustration is a type of pain for seasoning your mind into something strong and powerful.

The beautiful thing about pain and frustration is it makes you search for things which will make you happy. Every Suicide happens because; the person stopped their search in the middle. A step forward would have brought them to their search’s end…

How to come out it?

•  Find what you really want to do in your life?
  for instance: I found my gift to be writing only after I lost something close to my heart

• Make new hobbies and start loving them

• It is a sweet sadness which you feel inside when depression or frustration creeps in but when it leaves you, you are weak and without hope. Do not give into that temptation. It is of no good to anyone.

• Think of the loved ones. How they will feel after you are gone?

• Give yourself an ambition and work for it. Become aggressive in reaching your goals.

 

Believe in Me - Chapter 3 - Decide Over the Well - Genre: Thriller

Chapter 3

Decide Over the Well

Expectations always crumble when faced with reality, whether it was good or bad didn’t matter. It was just that the world worked in mysterious ways which our minds could never comprehend. I found the stick note in the drawer where I had placed and locked, in the same upturned position so I didn’t feel the need to worry about it anymore. It was just a bad dream I had yesterday.

I sighed relief bordered with a small disappointment. I had to accept the fact that a small curiosity was starting to bud in my heart ever since I received the anonymous note but maybe that was an over rated response. Nothing ever happened in an IT company apart from the resource billing and allocation which would never make sense for anyone.

Work was routine and it didn’t change for my likings. I was pretty much occupied with the documents and decks to be prepared and delivered by EOD. Time went forward without my permission and before I closed my worksheet the lunch time had come. I got into the elevator to get to the ground floor. My friend was waiting for me in one of the cafeterias in our humungous campus. 

“Btw where had Sri gone?” Someone in the elevator asked the guy next to him.

“Don’t know… I think she left home. Some family emergency. Didn’t even wait to tell me yesterday”, the guy was wearing a blue shirt and ivory colored pants answered. His voice was jittery and showed more fear than respect, probably he might be a trainee and the other guy should be his project leader or manager. Being a writer, I had to observe the behavior of people more keenly in a manner no one ever did so that my readers won’t have a chance to complain my characters were not humane. 

“She texted you? I didn’t get any mail from her”, definitely a project leader – I assumed.

“No Siva… Tried reaching her this morning. She didn’t pick it. Last night she had written a note saying family emergency and left.”

“How did she leave? You take the same cab as that of her na? I mean I have not even approved the cab request for the day. How could she have left?” Siva enquired with his eyebrows fighting with each other.

“Don’t know Siva. Might be some relatives would have come. You can call her and ask na”, He pushed the responsibility to the PL.

That was the moment; I felt a shudder in my body. I couldn’t understand why but I felt something had gone terribly wrong in this picture. For a moment, the elevator froze in its mid-descendance. The note written and left for the other guy and a girl named Sri disappearing. It was somewhat coincidental.

This is not right…

First of all, I wanted to know more about the missing girl. These guys got inside the elevator from the 5^th floor which was right above mine and there was just a single account put up and the other side was dedicated for future projects so they belonged to the KHCL project. I would find out about her soon.

Suddenly I remembered something which I should have done long before. The elevator halted in the ground floor. I got out of it as it was about to start moving towards the basement. Instead of waiting for its ascending, I took the stairs and climbed to the 4^th floor with skips and leaps. Though, I was physically fit for such action, still my body still panted - due to the missed work outs in the last few months due to publishing work. 

After precise 1.5 minutes, I was standing in the 4^th floor in-front of the glass door sweating and panting. I swiped my card to gain access and dodged the people who came out of the ODC. I rushed to my seat and opened the drawer with the key I had hanged along with the ID card near my chest.

I held the yellow stick notes lying down untouched. At least that was what I thought. And the shock awaited me there. 

“A day is dawned, when night meets the sun, so does this life, when you go blind.”

“Tonight @ 12, let’s see the blinded face”

It was not the same note which I had left there lying yesterday. It had been replaced by someone. And the most frightening part was; it barely made any sense. It was talking about a blinded face. This was not a joke. Sudden disappearance of the girl was related to my not being there yesterday night at 12. It was a cruel jape on me and I felt responsible for the whole mess but I was not ready for whatever that was about to meet me.

“A blinded face?”

It reminded me of a face without eyes or eyes hollowed out. My mind was playing tricks on me. Even my own mind was against my well being. Fear had deposited itself deep inside me. Once again I had options but now, the loss if I failed to make the right decision would be of a girl’s life or even another.

Whatever it was, I was ready to face it and the decision had been made. I would stay and meet the blind face no matter how much scary it would look to be. And only a fool would chose to fight a battle where he had no chance to win and I thought I was not that great a fool. I looked around for things which would help me protect myself in case things didn’t go well.

Found a screw driver lying beneath the round table inside the conference room near the CPU. It was better than not having a knife. I hid it inside my shirt to avoid cameras and my enemy’s notice who should have been right there but whom I was failing to identify and brought it back to the ODC.

“Sheela, I think I will stay here tonight. Have a deliverable to be finished by early morning tomorrow”, I informed Sheela.

“Which one? That workflow modification? I thought you had finished it long back. It’s ok. We can ask the customer for more time. You don’t have to stretch for that.” She tried.

“It’s ok. I will finish it. If I don’t do it, I won’t get a good night sleep”, I gave her a quick defeated smile.

“Hmmm, get a life Ashwin”, she told and left early for the day.

I face palmed thinking of my fate having to listen to her saying that to me.

Now, everything had been set. The stage had been made for the actors. The hero stayed in his position waiting for the villain to arrive. I was not a born fighter but I did have a few fights during my college and I knew I could handle a guy for sure. But there was a small confusion in my head. How could someone reach out to me without being noticed by the cameras outside? It would be possible only if the person was already inside for a very long time. 

Still I waited for the blind face to show up.

“Life is a battle even for our enemies, so it will always be fair.”

………………………………………….         

Continued...

Believe in Me - Chapter 2 - What I am Made of - Genre: Thriller

Chapter 2

What I Am Made Of

The next day, I was welcomed by something unexpected.

“This must be a prank”, I said to myself. 

My eyes were fixed on the yellow stick notes paper stuck on my monitor and fluttering with the very little air coming from the air-conditioning duct. Someone wanted my undivided attention and I was pretty sure they got what they wanted. But if they had expected to scare me, then they would be heavily disappointed because my split second reaction was a suppressed laugh. 

“Read this and take it serious…

Stay for night shift, you will see what frightens you more. 12 o clock…”

Cheap as a scare could get, that’s what it was. I took the note in my hand and examined it. It was just a handwritten unsigned parchment which meant nothing but someone trying to gain my attention, not that I was one big celebrity which I wished for to happen. The curves and bends which formed the running letters might have been a girl’s. 

It was my childhood dream to address a crowd and be the center of attraction.  If there was something which I learnt from life then it’s: things don’t happen as anyone intends for anyone. Life has the bad habit of improvisation.

Being a business analyst in a project for RIMS, the maximum attention I could get was from my project manager and my onsite counterpart. Though I liked my job which gave me excuses to learn new words, while preparing the source requirements document; I wanted to do more with writing than with learning words. A curse for a writer is being in a place where no one reads. 

My mind reeled back to the piece of paper which I held in my hand. It brought a smile to my face. I was curious to know who would do this, after all authors were a bunch of attention seekers but I was not ready to heed the words of an anonymous person whomsoever it would be. I placed the paper inside the drawer and locked it and logged into my system. 

My routine life started, Boredom to be my immediate cousin.

“Have you finished the ADIC report?” Sheela asked in an authoritative tone. She was my colleague who has been a loyal employee of RIMS for the past 5 years. In her mid thirties, she was very much a workaholic unlike me. Though people might mistake her devotion to her work for show off but I had the opportunity to know her better. Her husband was a keralite and they have been happily married and settled in Chennai in the same company.

“Working on it”, I answered without looking at her. 

“Hurry up. We need it by EOD”, She paused a moment and looked at me.

“Ya ya sure, will do”, I cursed her for coming early to office and expecting me to prepare a document on an application which I barely knew for the onsite, who knew nothing about it and will read for days without any understanding.

Time flew as the words flowed through my fingers. The day passed on as it always did. Breakfast, lunch and finally it was ‘7 o clock’ and it was time for me to go home. The journey back home was magical if not for the terrible traffic which made us halt in a signal for 30 long minutes.

After I reached home there was very little energy left in my body. I hit the sack early by 10. 

Someone was standing next to me, looking at me. What does he want with me? I moved and he moved. I tried to call my mother sleeping in the next room, he came closer to me.

Then I knew, he didn’t have a face. It was just hollow. I would have screamed but my voice failed me.

I woke up sweating… 

It was a dream. It was a recurrent dream. This dream had been with me for very long that I couldn’t actually come to terms whether it was a dream or something that happened to me. I have never shared this dream with anyone except her.

The ancient grandfather clock in the hall struck 12 rounds of dong. Strangely the timing was perfect. It sent the shivers through my spine. The piece of paper which I found the morning came to my mind amplifying the fear which was building inside me. 

I switched the lights on and went to the hall to get myself some water. It was like reliving the words which I had once written. I hoped to not turn towards the neighboring bed room which I had to pass by. There was something there inside the room. My eyes tired and mind not thinking straight, there was nothing to protect me. This inability gave birth to a different emotion, anger. 

I moved to the room and switched the lights on. There was nothing there. 

My sleep that night was spoiled. I couldn’t blame the piece of paper I found that morning but it was weird to have all the incidents happen on the same day. Suddenly a hype to reexamine the paper engulfed me but deep down, a feeling lighter than a feather told me that I would not find the paper in the drawer tomorrow.

………………………………

Continued...

Believe in Me - Chapter 1 - A New Thriller - If You can Sleep after Reading this Story then I have failed

Chapter 1

The Beginning

“In a darkness infested night while everyone sleeps in your PG house, you suddenly wake up feeling thirsty and you get up to drink some water. It was a harmless thing to do but while passing by the nearby room towards the refrigerator, suddenly something pass by your sight, you see someone sitting in the bed and looking at you. You are afraid to turn to that side. You know that, that room was unoccupied by anyone since your friend left for his native.

What if you steal a glance with your hindsight and see, ‘Something’ instead of ‘Someone’? Something whose eyes are naturally red and tongue long and dropping and the moment it senses it got someone’s attention; it tries to call you waving its hands at you. The bed doesn’t seem to move but that something, sitting there, tries hard to move; is restricted to come down from the bed. It is human but dreadfully 

You have two choices: to look at it, confront it and let the fate decide what happens next or just move towards the refrigerator, drink your water and go back to your room without turning towards that room.”

There was complete silence in the auditorium; his voice produced an eerie effect. His eyes were intense with fear which he had transferred into the minds of his listeners. They sat there frozen and clutching the armrest with their fingers fearing what unfortunate thing they would hear next.

“This is the story of fear and monsters. They are real but not here”, he waved at the surroundings.

“But inside your head”, He added with a bright smile.

The lights went on and that was when everyone breathed their relief. 

A young man not more than 26 stood on the stage with his one hand hanging freely and the other holding a book with the title “Believe in me”. His dark brown eyes smiled at his audience. He was not enormous tall but not short, just the right height. His jet black hair fell over his face as if it could not spend a second without touching his face. He was happy for something.

“Thanks for the brilliant speech”, an elderly lady came up to the stage and congratulated him.

“Ashwin was one of the few writers from our organization and we are happy to have him here explaining very much about fear and all the monsters from his debut novel ‘Believe in me’.”

Ashwin beamed at the audience. 

“Our organization got talents and our Book Week is all about bringing it out. We wish Ashwin, All the best and successful in his future endeavors.” 

With that, she presented a gift wrap to Ashwin. Ashwin accepted it with gratitude and spoke.

“Friends… I seriously never expected such a big audience for me. 150 seats full, for a writer that’s what he could ever ask for.”

He continued, “And I know that, most of you guys might be here to collect the prizes from the Book week events. I understand the management’s strategy involved in keeping you here.”

He smirked and the crowd applauded.

“But still I am happy. Any Questions!!!”

There were questions about how he started writing, how he became an author and how hard it was to get a publisher these days. Ashwin answered all those questions with enthusiasm.

A hand threw itself upward and the mic went to it.

“Are you afraid of something?” The question was very much blunt but it took all of Ashwin’s attention towards the questioner. The voice belonged to a young girl, pretty and confident, wearing a white kurta, blue jeans and a pair of glasses. She was pretty with a round face and a perfect nose to hold the glasses. 

“Hmmm we all are, are we not?” Ashwin deflected.

“You must be afraid of something in particular. It is pretty common in human beings that everyone holds a kind of extreme fear for a particular something. Some are afraid of heights, bats and even their own shadow. 

What is that particular something for you?”

Ashwin’s eyes widened with surprise. She was an intelligent girl and definitely well read too. Ashwin was pretty much impressed with her question but he couldn’t possibly put his deepest fears for the outside world’s view. 

“That was a brilliant question but I don’t have anything like that”, Ashwin resigned.

“You are lying”, she smiled and Ashwin didn’t expect such a reaction from her but still he reciprocated the smile.

The old lady interrupted the conversation which was about to happen.

“Thanks for the questions and we definitely now know a lot about publishing and writing novels. It was nice to have you on the stage. Thanks Ashwin.”

Ashwin said, “The pleasure was all mine”

Ashwin got down from the stage and took his leave from his audience who came and accompanied him outside the auditorium. It was a moment of glory for him. He was a debut novelist and his first speech was delivered in the same organization where he worked with. It was a dream for him but it happened after long efforts. 

“Fear is what that made me stand here”, he said to himself.

Continued...