Occiditur

Suicide is Painless

Time passed.

A month and a half to be be exact. Sam and and I were still going at it. I was depressed out of my mind, and she didn't believe it.I'd long since given up on trying to convince her. She would see one day, and guilt of it would fall on her. I wasn't worried.

In this time. I had reasons for depression. Peter completely left the band. Mike, Davy, and I had to finish the album on our own. The songs sounded absolutely terrible, but our deadline prevented us from scrapping them all and starting over.

Peter did decide he would make a last appearance with us at the album release. He knew the people there would have paid to see all four Monkees, not just three.

And so this day was upon us. The four of us hanging out for the day in a California Auditorium waiting for that night when loads of people would come to hear us play. It should have been a happy day. But I felt nothing aside from anger and sadness. A sadness so heavy that made even dropping a pen cause for a crying session. From the night I had stepped out into the road a gradual process had begun. Everywhere I looked in every place I went, I saw something new with which I could torture or kill myself. A razor blade, a kitchen knife, ecedra, ecedra, ecedra...

Today was an especially hard day to resist those temptations. As I sat inside a high balcony overlooking the stage I thought of how wicked it was of Peter. To give me false hope by coming back for one more show. If he was going to leave, why didn't he just do it. I was tired of feeling hurt by him. I tried to keep my distance from him and the others before showtime. They where practicing some song they wrote anyways.

They didn't need me. They didn't want me there. I was bringing them down with my aura that screamed for help! They refused to listen. Why wouldn't they listen? Don't they know that I can't control myself properly?

They can hear me, I thought to myself. They just don't care. They never cared.

I had worked myself into a frenzy and decided to refocus my thinking. I stood and walked to the edge of the balcony. There, I took a seat on the railing and looked down to the floor below.

I could just slip down. No dramatic jump or show. If I just let go of the rails I would slip down the siding and fly.

Well maybe not fly.

It would be a swift death. Falling fifty feet from a balcony and landing hard on the concrete below me. I would feel the deep adrenaline of falling. My heart would quicken its pace, my limbs scramble to find something to catch me, maybe a feeling of regret as I realize there is no going back. However if regret did occur it wouldn't last long. It would almost immediately be cut by the cool flooring. Then I would be gone and no emotions could torment me. Not sadness, not grief, not even happiness, for that in itself if a form of hurtful emotion.

I closed my eyes and inched my way off the rails. I was almost there, about to let go finally, once and for all when a voice called up to me from below. My eyes fluttered open and I quickly pulled myself back onto the rails.

"Micky, what are you doing?" Davy yelled.

"Uh, nothing, just sitting." I lied.

"Well be careful, if you fell from there you'd die." Davy half joked.

That's the point. I wanted to say. But I couldn't do this to Davy. I couldn't make him watch me die. Or let him be the poor should to find me. Even though he played a part in my depression, he had the least to do with it. He didn't need to be punished in that way.

Davy trotted up the balcony stairs and over to me.

"Hey,man, I got something to show you." He sounded excited. I wondered what it was.

"What is it?"

"A surprise, that's what it is." Davy smiled. I couldn't resist that smile. It forced me back over the railing and into the balcony. From there I followed close behind my friend. Now that I was away from the balcony, I feared it. I had almost given up on everything. It would have been the worst decision of my life. I still had it good, compared to most people. I still had a job and a family, no matter how screwy they were.

As Davy and I passed the door into lower seating, I glanced through it. The place where I would have landed called out to me and begged me to fill it. I only cursed it and moved on.

Davy lead me outside, onto the auditorium porch. Peter and Mike sat out in the sunshine with their guitars and cigarettes. Peter offered me one as I neared them, and I took it. Along with a beer Mike handed to me. I lit the packaged nicotine and drug out the smoke. It filled me and calmed me. Or maybe that was the beer. I really couldn't tell.