Wednesday's Three Word Wednesday
The words over at Three Word Wednesday are descent, kill, surreal.
Phases
She tried to change, really revolutionize herself, but the resolutions all came and went in fits and starts. Nothing quite stuck.
Self-help books were selected with gusto, then left on flat surfaces in her flat to collect dust, their pages still bookstore fresh.
Journals were begun with surreal confessions and professions of faith, in her tiny scrawl, only to be abandoned after maybe a scribbled page or two.
And that’s why people ignored her increasingly dark banter, the Facebook updates that contained words like stalking and stabbing. They chalked it up to her dry humor, thinking it was another in-between phase and tomorrow would bring another decree, maybe promises to try self-hypnotism or a water-and-grapefruit diet.
Who kills themselves with over-the-counter pain medication, anyway?
They all asked themselves this at the wake, which they all agreed was well-attended for all of its suddenness and despite the lateness of the season and poor weather conditions.
And as the coffee grew cold and the last of the ham had been wrapped, the bread secured in plastic baggies and everyone agreed it all should go to the food pantry, did it occur to them what had really taken place. They’d been witness to the descent, yet never stepped in to stop it.
Most just shrugged their shoulders, refreshing in their own minds their struggles, their stress.
It was another phase, they all agreed, like the time she decided to give her life over to animal rescue efforts, or that other time where she bought hundreds of dollars of paints and canvas, thinking she’d excise her demons through art.
Nobody dies from over-the-counter pain meds, do they?
Phases
She tried to change, really revolutionize herself, but the resolutions all came and went in fits and starts. Nothing quite stuck.
Self-help books were selected with gusto, then left on flat surfaces in her flat to collect dust, their pages still bookstore fresh.
Journals were begun with surreal confessions and professions of faith, in her tiny scrawl, only to be abandoned after maybe a scribbled page or two.
And that’s why people ignored her increasingly dark banter, the Facebook updates that contained words like stalking and stabbing. They chalked it up to her dry humor, thinking it was another in-between phase and tomorrow would bring another decree, maybe promises to try self-hypnotism or a water-and-grapefruit diet.
Who kills themselves with over-the-counter pain medication, anyway?
They all asked themselves this at the wake, which they all agreed was well-attended for all of its suddenness and despite the lateness of the season and poor weather conditions.
And as the coffee grew cold and the last of the ham had been wrapped, the bread secured in plastic baggies and everyone agreed it all should go to the food pantry, did it occur to them what had really taken place. They’d been witness to the descent, yet never stepped in to stop it.
Most just shrugged their shoulders, refreshing in their own minds their struggles, their stress.
It was another phase, they all agreed, like the time she decided to give her life over to animal rescue efforts, or that other time where she bought hundreds of dollars of paints and canvas, thinking she’d excise her demons through art.
Nobody dies from over-the-counter pain meds, do they?
Comments
(http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slow%20clap)
good good stuff.
Great words.
Great story, powerfully told.
My 3WW: Addiction
Very good!
And now I'm hungry for a ham sammich.
In most areas of our lives most of the time cartoon expressions are precisely exaggerations for emphasis. We even say of such exaggerated suicide threats, that they are not real but are cries for attention, and they are. The trouble is that real threats, though they are less likely to be made look the same as these cries for help.
The worst suicide in my life was precisely this, a cry for attention gone bad. My cousin had done this several times but this time chose too much of the wrong drug and died of it anyway even though she never meant it that way. She chose one of the oil soluble drugs to OD on instead of the far more common water soluble drugs. That meant she couldn't be flushed out medically as she was used to. She went to the hospital "in time" but it turned out she had been too late when she swallowed them. The best they could do was keep her alive in coma for four days and then pull the plug when her organs failed.
so many things hit home with this right now. I have witnessed a student who I KNOW is headed for disaster and I am very afraid that the disaster will include others. And though he has been taken for treatment several times, he is always back and there seems to be nothing that can be done until he commits some act that hurts himself or someone else. He is not the only one. I used to wonder how people got to the point where they killed themselves or someone else, didn't anyone notice the path? But the system being what it is, we can only watch and hope that the precipitating event is not to horrific...sad and terrifying.
I also know a young person who DID try to kill himself...with tylenol of all things. I thought it was almost laughable until I learned that kids do this all the time and if they are not successful in their completion, they often end up with liver failure...what a world we live in. Seriously twisted and this story is a picture of that slide. Your talent is amazing, as always.