“Exploring life through fiction, together.”

[MONTH OFF - I’m taking a break from the newsletter for December. Expect the next one on 7th January.

WARNING - This week’s email deals with suicide. If this isn’t a good topic for you, maybe give it a miss. Or if you need someone to talk to, here’s an international list of suicide hotlines.]

I was really ill as a teenager. I couldn’t go to school, couldn’t leave the house. Most of the time, I couldn’t manage the stairs. I saw a lot of doctors; they did a load of tests. I sat on a hard plastic chair while they talked to my mother.

“He’ll get better in time. They usually do.”

“How long will it take?”

“It might be years.”

Fiction Bite - My brain hurts

My brain hurts. No, not a headache. It’s like an ant inside my skull. Eating and shitting fire in burning trails between my ears. I said this to the doctor; he said to try a darkened room. It didn’t help.

My brain hurts. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can barely talk. Drugs haven’t killed it. A bullet? Sure, I’ve thought of it. I’ve dreamt of the joy of nothingness, floating in the vast, empty-headed void. But what if pain follows me? What if it also has an afterlife? No, I must fight on.

My brain hurts. And the future I’m staring down is so long and so awful. It would only take a second.

Click.

Quote of the Week

“Here in the bathroom with me are razor blades. Here is iodine to drink. Here are sleeping pills to swallow. You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be." – Chuck Palahniuk

Book of the month

This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and ‎Max Gladstone

To Carry On

At the moment, I’m not getting enough sleep. My eyes grate and my head pounds. I walk into things. I feel the gears judder as I force thoughts to completion. I know logically it’ll get better in the end. And I’m struggling to compartmentalise the pain and hold that future alive. I don’t remember how I did it as a teenager. My brain got scrambled, and I lost so many memories. But I remember the despair, the useless, awful reality that consumed the future until it had swallowed my entire life.

Now, I'm unsure I’ll ever get a full night's sleep again. Or wake up without a headache. And I want to give an uplifting answer, that everything gets better with hard work and patience. But it doesn’t, not always. Or I could say we’re only given troubles we can bear. Maybe that’s true. I’ve still seen people broken under them.

So I don’t know. Tomorrow could be better. It could be far worse. However, tomorrow won’t be exactly like today. As long as I’m still in the game, things will change eventually. They might improve, they might not, but they won’t stay the same. It’s about the only thing I can be certain of. 

I choose to be.

What are you treating as permanent when it’s really transient? Let me know. I’ll still be here.

With Love,

Josiah

P.S. As I said in the preamble, I'm taking December off writing (though I'll still check my email if you want to chat). I'll use the extra time to sleep, maybe to read. Just something different to catalyse feeling different. I hope you can use this holiday season to increase your joy. And if it’s not a happy time for you, my heart and prayers go out to you.

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