Caught

“Its not death that should be feared but rather life. Death is a blessing. When life gets too much, too painful, death comes and takes it away. Death is a healer. It heals us of life. But who knows where it takes us? Should we fear the unknown? Or look forward to it with anticipation? Excitement? When life has twisted us so out of shape that we no longer desire it, that is when the fear goes. When this happens, we long for death, long to be released from the grip of life. Most people will only lose the fear when they are old and sick. Death comes quickly to them. But, there are an unlucky few who lose the fear long before death is ready for them. Some are born this way, in most it is a product of circumstances. They no longer desire life nor fear death. It is phenomenon, as far as I know, that is observed only in humans – the formation of a strange new life-form that seeks out its own demise.”
Sophie, Robert and I all had this written on the inside cover of our school diaries. Sophie was the one who wrote it but it perfectly articulated how we all felt. Everyone called us ‘the suicide club’.

Sophie’s mum ran away when she was three, so she lived alone with her dad. Sophie’s dad was a cop. He was tall and heavily built, with a thick black moustache. His hair was nearly all grey but his moustache was completely black. Now, I’m not saying that all cops are bad, but Sophie’s dad… well, he had unique ideas about discipline and punishment. Sophie liked to hurt herself when she felt bad, and that was a lot of the time. She couldn’t really explain it, but she said it just made her feel right again. I guess she was used to physical pain and it was simpler to deal with than other stuff. Beneath her school uniform, her body was a mass of scars. Every now and then she would show up with bruises, cuts or burn marks that she wasn’t able to hide. Questions would be asked, but Sophie was a pro. Her excuses had been worn smooth with repetition and not a flaw could be found in them. So the teachers would raise an eyebrow, but drop the subject. Later, she would tell us which marks were from her and which ones were from her father.
Robert’s parents were rich. They were really nice people actually, always very concerned though. Every time I’d go to Robert’s house one or the other of them would pull me aside and say, “I’m very concerned about Robert…�? Apparently he never talked to them so they had to get all their information through me. Their eyebrows were always knit, even when they smiled at you. I think their faces were stuck like that. I felt bad for them because they meant well. Robert hated them. He’d go out of his way to do the opposite of what they wanted. Sometimes I wondered if he wanted to kill himself just to upset them.
And then there’s me. I never met my father. I didn’t really care much until I started school and the question of, “what do your parents do?” started coming up fairly regularly. I asked mum what dad did, so that I’d have something to say. She said that I didn’t have a father. I asked her how that could be and she told me that he just didn’t exist and never had. That didn’t go over to well at school.
Mum got a boyfriend when I was 15 and decided she didn’t want my sister and me around the house anymore. So, she started renting an apartment for us to live in, far away from her. It was a bit of a shit hole but I guess she couldn’t afford anything better. It was above a set of shops on a main road and it was always noisy. Mum paid all our bills but she wouldn’t pay for a TV or phone. The one good thing was that, in the row of shops below us, was a book exchange. The old guy who ran it was shocked the first time I went in there. I think he was even more shocked when I didn’t steal anything. He said I was the youngest customer he’d ever had by about 40 years. He used to pick out books for me to read. He gave me Wuthering Heights once, which I loved, so he thought I might like Jane Eyre. I absolutely hated it. I told him that I can’t stand soppy, happy endings like that. He asked me why. I told him that I didn’t know. Life’s just not like that I guess.
My life wasn’t that bad. It was just boring. And all I could see in the future was more emptiness and banality. I started reading as a form of escape. But another, more permanent means of escape began to creep into my mind.
Robert, Sophie and I had been friends since the start of high-school. We came to our decisions to commit suicide separately, so we were astounded when we worked out that we had all been planning to do the same thing. We figured it was something to do with fate.
At lunch-times we would discuss different ways of doing it. You can’t just rush in and do it – that would be pointless. You need to take your time. There are a lot of things to consider.
We all agreed that wrist-slitting was completely archaic so that was ruled out. Getting a gun was way too complicated. Crashing a car would be too risky – you could just end up brain damaged. Over-dosing was out because I’d read too many stories about it back-firing. You know if you take a lethal amount of Panadol it won’t kill you straight away? You’ll wake up in hospital where they’ll tell you you’ve destroyed your liver and that you have a few days to wait before it gives up and you die. It doesn’t matter if you regret your decision – you’re stuck with it and they can’t do a thing to help you. Our field of choices was getting slimmer by the day.
We were all guilty of being indecisive, but Sophie always insisted that she was justified in taking her time. She kept saying that ‘you can’t rush art’. Her death had become her life’s work. Like devoting your life to writing your own requiem.
There was a lot of talk, but not a lot of action, until one day, Sophie announced that she thought she might slit her throat. She thought it would make a pretty bold statement and she’d always wanted there to be blood. She felt a death should be bloody. We agreed that it was a good idea. So Sophie was set. We had agreed not to tell each other when we would do it. So Robert and I would only know Sophie had done it if she didn’t turn up for school.
She was there the next day. She told us that she would have done it accept that she didn’t want to die in her room – she wanted to be outdoors somewhere. So now she was going to wait until she found the right place. So Sophie was un-set again.
Robert thought that he might jump off the roof of his house (it was three storeys) so that his dad would walk out the front door to get the newspaper the next morning and find him sprawled out on the driveway. He thought that was funny, which kind of creeped me out.
The next day though, he wasn’t at school. Sophie came up to me, her face pale. She asked if I’d seen Robert. I hadn’t. She started freaking out, saying that she thought he’d been joking. I had too. We decided to go over to his house. Neither of us could handle hanging around school, waiting to hear the news.
So, we snuck out and caught a bus over to Robert’s. No-one was there. But there was no blood or anything on the front driveway, which we took as a good sign – surely they couldn’t get it totally cleaned up that quickly.
We went back to my place and hung out there for the rest of the day. Sophie couldn’t go home until after school finished in case her Dad was there. Wagging school was a punishable offence.
I ran to school the next day, I wanted to get there as early as I could. When I got to the front gate, I stopped. Robert and Sophie would have to come through here, they couldn’t avoid me. If they were coming, that is. I turned. The run had filled me with energy and I felt restless, though still out of breath. It’s a funny thing when you go suddenly from an activity as vigorous as running to one as static as waiting. It’s as though you can feel time winding down, until it has ground itself to almost a complete stop. And then, having lost all its momentum, its progression forward becomes strenuous and hard. You can almost hear it straining and labouring forward.
So, time laboured on, and I waited for my friends.
Five minutes before the bell was due to ring, Robert finally put me out of my misery by strolling around the corner and sauntering on towards the gate. A roguish grin spread across his face as soon as he spotted me. And then I knew it had been a joke.
He had wagged school and snuck back home once his parents had gone to work. He had seen us from his bedroom window. After having a good laugh at our expense, he apologised and asked where Sophie was. Right at that point, the bell rang. School was in and Sophie was nowhere to be seen.
We waited another 10 minutes or so and then Robert’s impatience got the better of him. He demanded that we go over to Sophie’s, pointing out that we’d only get caught if we stayed around the school gate and that if she was coming we’d run into her along the way and at least we’d know sooner that she was ok. I agreed and we set off towards Sophie’s house.
Sophie and I both lived close to the school but in opposite directions. It only took us about 10 minutes to get to Sophie’s house. It looked dead and empty. Robert and I stood outside the front gate and looked up the path at the front door. We looked at each other… then, back at the front door. Finally, Robert reached out and pushed the gate open. I followed him up the path. The door was standing ever so slightly ajar. I had this weird sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I did not like the way things were going. Once again, Robert was the first to move, pushing the door open and entering the house.
The front door of Sophie’s house leads straight into a long hallway. This hallway divides the house up the middle and ends with another door that leads into the back yard. A small figure was hunched up on the ground, leaning against this back door. Sophie. Robert and I rushed forward through the house and knelt down in front of her.
There didn’t seem to be anything particularly wrong with her, accept that she was rocking slightly back and forth and she refused to make eye contact with either of us. Instead, she stared blankly forward, her focus fixed, between our two heads, on the front door.
For some reason, as I knelt there, I recalled a story that Sophie had once told me. One Friday, a while back, Sophie had told her Dad that she had to stay late at school to finish an assignment. In reality, she had come over to my place. The problem was that her Dad had decided he didn’t want her walking home alone once it was dark, so he went to the school to find her. As it turned out, the school was completely locked up and empty. So he went home and he waited. When Sophie got home, there he was. He calmly explained to her that he knew she had lied to him. In an equally calm voice, he explained to her exactly what he was going to do to her. He then stood up and left the house. He didn’t come back until Saturday afternoon. Sophie had spent and entire night and day sitting there, waiting for it. When you know something terrible is going to happen to you, there is nothing you can do but wait. Your mind is gripped by it and all other thoughts are squeezed out. But to not know when it’s going to come, and to sit there for that long…
Why had I thought of this? Surely Sophie’s Dad was just at work and Sophie was sick and that’s why she was at home. How could he have possibly found out about her wagging school?
As these thoughts rushed through my head, I noticed the expression on Sophie’s face change. The rocking stopped. Her arms went rigid and she seemed to be trying to push herself back into the door. But her face. God. It’s impossible for me to describe the absolute terror that was accumulating in Sophie’s face. I felt all the hairs prickling up on my back. I knew what I would see before I even turned around.
So, being the coward that I am, I decided not to turn. For some reason though, firmly lodged in my head is the image of Sophie’s Dad standing silhouetted in the doorway.
I may not have turned to face him, but what I did do, was to grab on to Sophie and hold her tight. I wasn’t going to let her go for anything.
Robert had turned around. I sensed him stand up beside me. Then he moved forward a few steps. I could hear Sophie’s Dad lurching down the hallway towards us, bringing with him the stench of alcohol and vomit. I didn’t know what to do, so I hugged Sophie tighter. My head was buried in her shoulder. I could hear words. Noises. Yelling. I didn’t look up. Then there was a strange ‘thwack’ sound, an incredible crash and then silence. Silence… for a few moments… then a bump… a scraping sound… and then heavy footsteps moving off down the hall. There was silence for another moment and I was just about to start breathing again when there was another horrendous bang.
Sophie and I stayed huddled together, waiting to see if the silence would be broken again. It wasn’t. So we looked up. The front door was shut – that accounted for the final bang we had heard. Sophie’s Dad was nowhere to be seen – that, I suppose, accounted for the bump, the scraping sound and the heavy footsteps. But what about Robert? I stood up. Sophie clung to me and dragged herself up to her feet as well. We moved forward, towards the first room on our right (where the incredible crash seemed to have come from). We stood together, framed in the doorway, and looked in.
Robert was lying on the ground about a foot in front of us. It was totally by chance, but the way we had approached, the way we were standing there had created a strange, grotesque picture. He was lying directly in front of me, his feet were lined up with my feet but his body was all crooked. I was framed by the doorway and he was framed by the remnants of the glass coffee table that he had fallen back into. It was like I was looking down into a mirror and seeing a bizarre, horrific reflection of myself.
There was blood coming from his nose and there seemed to be a pool of blood spreading out underneath him. I knew I had to do something but I felt unable to move. If I moved, if I went over to him, it would mean knowing – knowing whether he was dead or alive. Sophie stood motionless beside me. It was almost as though if we stayed still, if we kept ourselves from moving, then time would stay frozen and we would never have to know. An incredible, overpowering stillness filled the house at that point and I actually began to wonder if we really were frozen. I felt that even if I wanted to, I didn’t have the power to break free.
Our silent reverie was broken, unexpectedly, by the sound of sirens. I don’t know if it was the sudden shock or if she connected the sound of the siren with her father, or if it was something else entirely, but at that moment, Sophie leapt away from me and flew for the back door. She was out and over the back fence before I had even had time to react. It took me a minute to register what had happened – I was still half stuck in that strange surreal moment of stillness. And then the front door burst open and the real world flooded back in.
A neighbour had called the police. Sophie’s Dad was nowhere to be found. Sophie was nowhere to be found. Robert was dead.
I couldn’t focus on what I was supposed to be focusing on. All I could think about was Sophie. I wasn’t even thinking about Robert for some reason; Sophie was all I could think about. People kept asking me questions. I have no idea how I got through it, to be honest.
There were people out looking for Sophie, but no-one could find her. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that they finally let me go and look for her myself. The police figured that she wouldn’t have gone far. They were convinced they’d find her hiding somewhere in the local area. So that’s where everyone was looking. They’d also sent people to check the school, my house, Robert’s house – all the obvious places. There was only one place I could think of to look that wouldn’t have been checked already. I didn’t really expect to find her there but I went anyway.
It was getting pretty late by the time I got there. I was at a little park on the outskirts of town, near where Robert used to live. I don’t think anyone really went there anymore. Some people had made a little make-shift playground out of stuff from building sites. We’d spent a fair bit of time hanging out there when we first made friends. This playground was on the opposite side of the park to where I was standing. The moon was out, so it wasn’t too dark, but the place was covered in fog, so it was difficult to see. I started making my way over. As I moved closer, shapes began to materialise out of the fog. There were trees growing sporadically all around, but what I was looking for was the largest tree there – that was where I would find the playground. It loomed ahead of me, a dark blur that slowly took shape. The smaller figures of the playground equipment began to filter through and then take shape as well. And then another figure caught my eye. It had to be Sophie! I moved closer and the figure became clearer and clearer with each step. It was standing beside the big swing that hung from one of the branches of the tree. Another few steps and I could see that it was wearing a dress; just like the one Sophie had been wearing. This filled me with certainty and I began to run. I called out to her. She didn’t respond, but then I didn’t really expect her to. Sophie gets into these weird moods when she’s upset – it’s almost like she’s gone catatonic or something. I knew it was going to be tough to get her to come back with me. Then something made me stop.
I couldn’t tell if it was really happening or if it was just because I’d been running and my vision wasn’t clear, but the figure seemed to be swaying strangely. It was definitely swaying. And the head was all tilted to one side. That meant things were far worse than I thought. Sophie frightened me when she got in those moods and I really didn’t know how to handle her.
I started running again. When I reached her, I grabbed her shoulder and, to my horror, she swung around. Ah! That won’t make sense to anyone else but me. I mean she swung – she swung. No-one will ever have any idea of the dreadfulness of that moment. The rope from the swing was wrapped around her neck. I looked down. Her feet were slightly extended and her toes were just barely scraping the ground. I’d found her.
I backed away from her. A few feet back and she didn’t look quite so bad. But she was still swaying unnaturally and I could still see that the wooden seat of the swing was broken with one rope hanging useless and the other around her neck. I backed away another few steps. She melted a bit more into the mist and I could no longer tell that the swing was broken; I could no longer see what she’d done with the rope. She was rocking gently now. It looked as though she was moving to some gentle, rhythmic melody, as though she wasn’t dead, but just hearing something that I couldn’t hear.
In that moment, I felt truly alone.
Watching her like that was even more unbearable than seeing her dead. I stumbled back over to the tree and sort of fell against the trunk. I propped myself up with my hands. My left hand found a piece of wood that had been nailed there. There was another one just below it. I felt a bit higher and, sure enough, there was another piece of wood. I had forgotten. The cubby house. It was rotting and useless now, but the stairs were still there. So that was how Sophie had gotten up. Without really thinking or knowing why I was doing it, I started to climb the makeshift stairs, up into the tree. I grabbed on to the first big branch and pulled myself up onto it, leaning my back against the trunk. Sophie hung below me. I could see the ropes tied to the branch directly in front of me. I sat, motionless.
What was I to do? My two best friends were dead. I had nothing.
No. No, I shouldn’t say that. I didn’t have nothing. I had my sister, I had my future – I had endless possibilities stretched out before me. And, most of all, I had the lesson I could learn from the useless, pointless deaths of my two best friends. I did not have nothing. What lay before me was opportunity and choice. And what lay behind me, was the engine of my friends’ deaths to power me along my way. This was the turning point, the point at which I should stand up and say no to the ceaseless grinding mechanism that was dragging me on towards tragedy. Disentangle myself from its grasp and run away. Run back to my life.
Run. Run from Sophie, run from Robert, run from my past, run into the future.
But, I did not want to spend the rest of my life running; terrified that if I stopped, my past would catch up to me and suck me back in. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t live. I couldn’t bear to be a happy ending. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry. I am.

I couldn’t tell you if I made the right decision or not, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. It is over. I can hear the quiet, melancholy music that Sophie swayed to. We are rocking, gently together now, side by side. The beast, the mechanism, whatever it was that caught and consumed us, is long gone. We are alone.

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Tags:

caught, death, emo, friendship, life, love, school, short, story, suicide and teen