suicide susie

Sufferer of aporia.

The day you visit your younger sibling’s house and discover a scrawled note on the fridge telling you they have used the last of the toilet roll and have gone to jump off a cliff is the day you will fully understand this story; until then, I will simply have to make do.

My younger sister, in her mid-twenties by now, was a recluse. She lived in a quaint white brick cottage at the end of Buckmore Road, where cliff met sea. Every night as the last rays of sun fell out of the sky Susie sat on the balcony and sang songs. Every Wednesday I would drop off washing and ice cream; it was the third Wednesday in August when I found the note, stuck to the fridge with an old piece of gum.

‘John, all the toilet roll is gone. You’ll have to buy some more as I’ve gone to jump off a cliff. Goodbye. Love, Your Susie’.

When we were children and our imaginations still as vivid as a spring field, Dad used to create makeshift horses out of old shelves and branches in the garage. He’d drive us out to the mountains and the gorges and we’d ride all day till our faces were dirty and our knees scuffed. It was to here, after dumping ice cream and washing on the kitchen table, I raced; the shudders of panic beginning to run up and down my bones.

Parking hastily in the abandoned car park, doors left open in a hurried frenzy, I began the poorly paced sprint up the side of the mountain; by the time I reached the gorge I had broken out in a cold sweat, whether from exertion or panic, I wasn’t sure.

At the base of the three oak trees with gnarled fingers, that, when we were younger, reached into the sky, stood Susie. There was an incredible beauty as the wise old oak tree’s limbs were silhouetted against the crimson red of a partially set sun.

‘You chose a beautiful evening to kill yourself, Suz.’ I call softly. I see her tense under her nightdress. She says nothing. We both know she doesn’t have to say a word.

I walk slowly up beside her and stare out at the world: it seems pointless and empty as I stand next to my suicidal sister. Even the warm glow from a thousand emerging streetlights and living room lamps can’t warm the coldness in my soul. The sky, splattered with a hundred different hues, like the last strokes of an artist’s wild paintbrush, grows dark as the sun finally descends.

We say nothing.

We stand there a long time in the dark.

‘You shouldn’t have come out here, John’ she whispers. Her voice sounds distant and hollow, like she’s already dead.

I look at her in disdain: ‘And leave my sister out here to die?’

Her gaze stays straight. Her eyes are glassy. The white nightdress and pale complexion makes me believe that she’s a ghost after all.

‘I would’ve grown wings before I landed, John’.

I smile.

When we were kids we had a tree house, but we’d call it the tree castle: I’d sit inside with the dozens of books my Dad brought home to me and I’d read them to Susie as she sat in the doorway dangling her legs into the abyss. We’d sit there all day and Mum would bring us out cold lemonade when the sun’s heat became just unbearable. Weeks would pass like that until it felt like our days of storytelling in the shade would last for eternity. One day, towards the end of the summer, I started school before Susie and left at her home in the tree-house with a stack of my favourite books.

Apparently it was Mum who found her in the garden with a broken leg.

On the way to the hospital in the back of a bumpy ambulance and then all night in an uncomfortable hospital bed, propped up on a stack of cushions, all she could do was murmur about how her wings hadn’t worked. Mum and Dad argued the entire way there. By morning, Dad was gone. Susie had never been the same.

‘It’d be more than a broken leg this time, sis’ I reply.

I see the corners of her mouth wrinkle and then she looks up into the sky. She still hasn’t glanced at me.

‘You see the stars up there, John? You see the planets and the constellations and the hundred million galaxies?’

I say nothing.

She points into the distance: ‘You see the thousand street lights and cars? You see the flicker of a hundred thousand lights and behind those hundred thousand lights a hundred thousand different fires in people’s hearts? Can you see it all, John?’

I look at her and she’s crying.

‘And here, right now’ She continues, her arms thrust up into the air, ‘this very moment! Can you see how insignificant it is?’

I grab her hand. It’s cold. I feel like I’m going to sink right through her.

‘Why isn’t everything as perfect as it is in books, John?’

Now she stares right at me. Her face is so pale. Her eyes are greener than dew ridden grass and crystal tears stain her face. There is a beautiful innocence: a simple and admirable naivety of a young girl that just never grew up; a blissful ignorance, only, she wasn’t ignorant anymore, and her whole perfect world had come crashing down around her.

Part of me really thinks that if she had leapt from the cliff at that moment she believed entirely that she would have grown wings and flown off into the dusk.

Luckily, she hadn’t let go of my hand.

‘Because if everything was as perfect as it is in books, what would the point of books be?’ I smile and stroke her face.

It was never my belief that Susie wanted to kill herself. She has suffered from several severe cases of Aporia since she was young: she just couldn’t differentiate the real from the fairy tale; whether it was denial or simply the fact that life in fairy tales was better, it didn’t matter. She was fragile, fascinating and utterly exquisite. She was my Susie.

‘Let’s go home, John. Dad might have brought us some books’ she smiled.

‘I think he brought us some ice cream too, Susie’

When we finally got home we settled down on the sofa and I read to Susie, just like when we were young: as for the ice cream? Neither of us cared it was melted.

Reviews

[Sirius King]

wow great write!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i agree with Marie...i think she could have flown...

sometimes certain people are just too good for this world.

really well written piece, grabbed me from the first line and held me tightly (as the brother wanted to hold the sister) until the end.

jacob

[Harry Alston]

Thank you Jacob :)

[Marie]

You have a wonderful way with description; wish I did.

I think Suzie is the type to grow wings--because she doesn't know she can't.

[Harry Alston]

Thank you very much for your kind review, and you're right, who said she couldn't grow wings? :)

[bethany cullen]

different, odd but very good, nice write :) c