TNT ... Chicago 20
1 It had been weeks since his aborted suicide attempt.
2 Weeks of continued confusion about what his future should be ... weeks of tortured torment about what his past had been ... weeks of deep-seated doubt about what his present had to offer him. 3 Weeks, though, had gone by where the ultimate truth was that he still remained alive.
4 The nightmares hadn't stopped -- but they had changed. 5 The cries that haunted his attempts at sleep had morphed from the screams he associated with "over there" to those of a baby -- always a single solitary piercing wail of a newborn that would serve as the reprise repeatedly in any dream he managed to remember. 6 The New Year's Eve baby's cry that he had heard on the edge of the elevated train tracks just before he was going to jump had followed him and had latched on to his psyche and it wouldn't let go.
7 He wasn't taking his medicine regularly any more. 8 He knew he was supposed to keep a steady amount in his body at all times in order to reap the alleged benefits of the SSRIs and other drugs, but he didn't believe enough in their power to fix what was wrong with him to do so. 9 He had been chasing some kind of fix for far too long without results ... he would take a pill for the pain, except it would give him a burst of energy ... so he would need a pill to sleep, except with sleep would come the nightmares ... so he would take a pill to calm the frightening thoughts, except it would even him out to the level where he would feel the pain again and the pattern would start anew.
10 He would go without for as long as he could stand, but then he'd have to give in and start the cycle all over until he could once again muster the will to face the withdrawal. 11 He could tolerate the ups and the downs because he knew they wouldn't last ... but it was the in-betweens that were the most frustrating for him. 12 The fogginess ... the muddledness ... the nothingness of the in-betweens ... that state of being with all feelings suppressed, all secrets hidden, all emotions tamped down and all reason for being unclear -- that was when he was at his most hopeless. 13 The overwhelming silence ... the vast void ... the nothing that crowded out the everything that was usually in his head ...
14 "John -- do you have anything to share with the group?" 15 The moderator pushed back his metal folding chair, scraping it against the hard floor of the meeting room in the church -- a sharp scrape and a subsequent screech that interrupted the speech John had been giving.
16 "John -- anything?" 17 The moderator was clearly waiting in hopes that he might say something. 18 The others in the circle became uncomfortable in the awkward pause that followed. 19 In that silence, John realized that he hadn't been speaking any of his commentary aloud as he had thought. 20 Despite knowing on some level that his summary of his current battle within himself might have helped the other veterans who had gathered that afternoon, in the end, he hadn't been able to vocalize *any* of his thoughts.
21 "Sorry. 22 Not today," he finally replied, as his gaze settled on a spot in the room where he didn't have to make eye contact with anyone. 23 He slowly shook his head a few more times back and forth to signal that nothing would be forthcoming and he stared at the card table with the coffee pot and store bought cookies like it was the only safe space for his secrets.
24 In the distance, he was sure that he heard a baby crying. 25 But then again, for the last weeks, he had always been hearing a baby crying.
