A Regular Within The Streets of Mania- A Richey Edwards inspired short story

Part Three

I checked out of Hotel room 516 almost as soon as I checked in. Needing to leave before James could hear me, a packed suitcase and toiletries that I knew in my heart I wouldn't be needing again. In the best-case scenario, my bandmates could all share my riches out between them. Something else I wouldn't be needing anymore was the anti-depressants I had been prescribed by my doctors. It seemed I inhaled fluoxetine more than food, water or oxygen, and as I wouldn't be needing those for much longer either, I let the bottle of Prozac roll off of the bedside table and underneath the bed.

My one true joy in life was my girl. Well, she wasn't mine, but she was the only person I had ever felt truly and utterly besotted by. I've always been far behind in love, not experiencing the same 'milestones' at the same time as my friends as I had always preferred staying in my bedroom. Jo was nineteen, a pretty controversial age for a twenty-seven-year-old man, but I knew I loved her since the first time I saw her. Frequently I have found myself sending her gifts, and on top of the state that I left my bed in, I placed a box that I had so carefully wrapped the night before alongside a note exclaiming my love for her. Our love was plainly platonic to her, besides, who could love a monster like myself? Not her, she was unbelievably perfect, like a Heaven-sent angel that you would only ever see in the good dreams. Well, good dreams were rare to me, just like her. Nightmares were constant, they were gloomy and frightening and some things were too much even for a man as old and hardened as me. Feelings I had held in my heart dearly for her for years had all built up to a mess of unrequited feelings, as every time I even slightly showed my true feelings for her I felt as though she would let me down slowly. Well, in my last few hours of knowing her, I wasn't ready to take any chances of rejection. I was never going to see her again, anyway.

146 miles. That's how long the journey was from the hotel to my flat. Knowing that James would be knocking on the door sometime in the next hour or so, I began the long journey to the place I had called home for the past three decades. Leaving the hotel at 7am, I took my time on the way back, not particularly excited to be back in the same four walls I had been struggling inside for so long. The walls that had been swallowing me and seemed to get closer and closer together the more I stared at them, and I had never been a claustrophobic person. Mentally, yes. I felt trapped inside my mind without any escape, and with the stresses, anxieties and suicidal thoughts clogging up

the nerves like sewer pipes, I clearly had no space to think for myself. It was a strange thing to ponder, I managed to pass my degree in Political History in Cardiff University with flying colours, and my family were so sure I was going to get somewhere in life. Yet here I was, trying to go nowhere. If I'm being honest, I couldn't help the guilt I felt about what I was doing. I knew it was best: nobody would have to put up with the constant shame of knowing a manic depressive like me anymore. But the overwhelming force of guilt crashed around my skull in a constant echo, choke-holding the inner demons that rattled my brain constantly with these vicious thoughts of escape and screaming at the top of their lungs to just. Get. A. Grip. Surely it was something I could deal with for my family's sake, I had done it for this long and I was already such a disappointment that there wasn't much room left in my parent's brains for any other burdens. Besides, I was Richey Edwards, the lyricist and guitarist (although I could not play to save my life) of the Manic Street Preachers, who were just getting big and actually had a shot at making it. If I left, the Manics would never be the same and I could have potentially ruined my bandmates' chances of ever being successful. Oh well, why should I have cared? I had made this decision weeks ago. Months ago, even. When I thought it up inside the prison I was locked in. Too bad that I cuffed myself and lost the keys. Still, for the first time in a while I cried in the car journey home as I peered outside to the Welsh countryside, where hues of grey in the clouds started to overpower soft whites. That was where I gave up, where the waterfall of defeat tumbled onto my steering wheel, guiding my hands to what was best for me and drowning any emotions that could lead me astray from the plan. To get to the Severn bridge in the early hours of the date where I would have built up enough money. Where people would stop caring about my whereabouts. Where the power of the night could sweep me off my feet and carry me away into its masquerade.

One way or another, I've ended up here with one thing I was certain about. Pain isn't admirable. I am not an idol and I never was. On Valentine's Day night, the endless suffering I have experienced should not be romanticised by teenage girls who throw razor blades at me on stage, begging me to slice open my veins and pour out the warm, copper blood from my arteries onto the floor and sing to them that it is for them. Because it's not for anybody but myself. I brought this upon myself. It is all my fault. I am the only person who needs to be held responsible. I don't have to live for anybody. I don't have to live. I don't need to live. I am not needed. I don't want to live. I'm not going to live.

Somehow, somewhere, the spotlight that once shone from the moon to the Prussian sea has been lost. Now, the sea lays calm, and everything seems to lay in place like a painting. Stars still don't shine over the Severn sea, and any clouds that once hung in the sky have been carried away by the breeze of the night. I look down. My being has been hijacked for years, and my defences are long gone. Nobody suffering as much as I am would have gone on for as long as I have, and for that I should be proud. If anything, I am more comfortable in myself in this exact moment than I have ever been. I will finally be at peace. Two glances, one at the English coastline and the other at the deep depths of the sea told me exactly which choice was going to provide me the tranquillity I had always longed for.

That night, in my last few moments clutching onto the Severn bridge, I knew in my heart I had nothing left. Nothing that was worth waiting for.

The seagull, intrepid and imperturbable in the way it flew off, would never return again.