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Power

Written by Amethyst Mare (Arian Mabe)

I don't care that tears are dripping down my muzzle. I tip forward, forelock hanging over my eyes, and watch them stream over chestnut. They tickle my nostrils in that split second before gravity takes them and they freefall to the padded foot stool in front of the sofa, dark drops marking the cream blanket covering it. For once, my hooves are not on the crimson foot rest and are planted flat upon the carpet, though I would have usually liked to take the weight off them for a short while. I do not care that my legs ache from walking and walking and walking around the town and park, the soft frog of my hooves split and sore and cracked. I should have slathered on protective gel earlier but it was far too late for that. The pain is good: it keeps me blinking tears from my eyes and reminds me that, yes, I am still here. I am still alive. Yet it is difficult to care about that.

Quite honestly, I do not care about anything anymore.

I know that seems like a grand, sweeping generalisation. How can someone possibly not care about anything at all? Surely all us furs care about something, whether it is love, life, family, pets...something. Someone. Somewhere. There has to be something out there worth caring about. My breath catches in my throat, rasping. Maybe there is something worth caring about in the world for me. Just not right now. Not right now.

How can so much pain be contained within one being? It does not bear thinking about. I would not wish this upon my worst enemy. Well, that is a lie: a crude, coarse lie. Against my better nature, I wish it upon the root cause, the wolf in sheep's clothing and the serpent in the grass. I thought you were a godsend, I thought you were kind. My mouth is dry, too dry, as I recall, memories dancing. The simplest of words are now twisted and mutated into the grotesque, a horror film from which there is no escape. I cannot turn off the film or prevent the murderer from snatching his due any more than I can hold back the clouds from scudding across the twilight sky. I used to love twilight. Now I'm not so sure.

I leap to my hooves, the sofa to my back. A piece of furniture in patterned crimson, I had known it for many years, yet in the moment it could not have been more unfamiliar. I shake my head and flick my tail at it, raising and lowering each hoof in turn. I do not know what I am doing. I lift each hoof again, fascinated by the flexing of muscle. I am moving for the sake of moving. Movement is good. It will give me courage that I sorely need.

Make the pain stop, please, god, I beg of you. A futile plea.

I should have known. I should have seen the signs. I grit my teeth and hang my head, heart hammering with such force against my ribcage that each beat sends a wave of pain through my chest. The knife in my lungs twists and I gasp for breath, clutching at nothingness for a shimmer of reality. Is the pain real? I am not injured, I know I am well and healthy in body. My mind? Well, that is a different matter entirely. The laptop screen blinks in the low light, a new message popping up in the bottom right hand corner. I hiss out a breath between my teeth.

Relationships are funny things. Sometimes we need an outside opinion to truly judge a person, yet once you have been reeled in to a demon of this description, you don't want to believe that there may be a darker side than what you originally saw. You want to believe in the good of the person. You want to hope. You want to dream. And, by god, did I dream. I had more than my fair share of dreaming. Is it not someone else's turn now? I have one scrap of advice if anyone has a second go on my dreams, it has to be said. When you look at things through rose coloured glasses, all the red flags simply look like flags.

The message window flashes. He doesn't like that I'm not replying. None of this will matter soon. It will all be over. My heart soars at the prospect and I dare to hope. I dare to hope that things will be better. Death is my best friend and greatest enemy, but I hope to hold her hand in darkness soon. It is the only escape that I may wish for.

There is a knife on the sofa that should not be there. Knives belong in the kitchen. When I was not alone in this house, I would take it to the bathroom - strangely beside the kitchen, too convenient for a sly purpose - and slice scratches into my hand. The cats caught me, I said, if anyone questioned their strange appearance. Scratches were easy enough to explain, more so than the neat lines on my arm that I had been forced to hide earlier in the year. I hated wearing long sleeved shirts and not pushing up the sleeves. Yet plasters and scabs invited too much attention. Regardless, they healed swiftly enough. It was not the depth of the cut that mattered but rather that it drew my attention away from the turmoil within. I was never the most adept at managing my emotions.

The message window flashes an angry orange. Snippets of messages pop up, tempting me to re-open the tab. I snort and push my mane back from my neck, surprised by how my paw shakes. I should not be scared. This will make it better. This will make everything better. I lift the knife in my right paw and bring it to my left arm, methodical in my approach. It is as if from behind a screen that I watched the blade press, making an indent in my coat and skin for a brief instance, and drag towards my body. Beads of crimson burst and I bite my lip to stifle the pain. It sharpens my mind.

Everyone is better off without me anyway.

Flash, flash, flash: the message window is indignant tonight. It wants my attention. What will it do when it no longer has my attention? Move on to someone else, I expect. I do not have to concern myself with that. I do not believe a word of it anymore, even if it still has me snared. I sink back on to the sofa, holding my arm out away from my body so as not to get blood on the furniture. Not that it matters. Things cease to matter when you reach this point. What is a bit of blood in the grand scheme of life? I click open the messenger with a tap of my finger on the laptop's touch pad and sigh, ears drooping. The same words as ever greet me, an indecipherable wall of text, message after message, threat after threat. I am the bad guy in this scenario. Of course I am. There is no other explanation, not in their eyes. There never will be.

Am I the bad guy?

I half-type a response, fingers shaking, and give up before completing my first paragraph. How can I address one thing when the barrage keeps on coming? No sooner have I read and understood one message than another appears, demanding my attention. He says I cannot go. He says he cannot be alone. He says I should cheer the fuck up. He says I have a cold heart. Apparently he has barricaded the door and has a blade himself. What could he possibly want with that?

I am done. I am so very done with you. I clench a fist and throw it into the cushions, leaving a dent that will be smoothed out at a later date by another. It should have been my stomach that I sank my fist into, so as not to damage the belongings left behind. Should, should, should - I loathe that word.

Glancing at the screen, I laugh aloud and draw the knife across my forearm, cutting deeper again. It hurts like a bitch and I groan, looking across the room to the mantelpiece. Anything to not acknowledge what I'm about to do. Truth be told, I'm just warming up with these few cuts. Slicing and dicing until the pain drives me on.

Oh, you say you'll kill yourself if I leave you? Not if I go first.

There really is no other option, I tell myself, trying to reassure. My fingers stroke around the cuts, smearing blood into my red coat. You can't really tell the difference. It could be water if not for that metallic scent. There is a mess and blood trickles down my arm to trip on to the carpet, staining the lighter brown material. I cannot bring myself to find a cloth to clean it or staunch the flow.

Placing the metal to the inside of my wrist, I tremble and hold the pose, every muscle in my body rigid. It is time. No more fear, no more sleepless nights, no more fog. And, above all, no more pain. There comes a time where one must make a decision and, even through the darkest of days, I have proven myself a decision maker when no one else is willing to make the call. And so, I jump my final fence and turn to note the time on the clock, to see where I place in my last event, a domestic equine guided by her rider.

Light glances off the blade and I take a deep breath, steadying myself, pressing down. The message window flashes. The cat cries from the kitchen, locked in. The blade bites. Flash, flash, flash.

In suicide, I reclaim my power.