Short story – The Black Dog Has Left The Building

Trigger warning – suicide.

Have you met the black dog because I haven’t? Maybe he drowned…

My name is Dylan and I am a mess. I wasn’t always like this. I rocked at my job, smashing my monthly quotas with ease and you should have seen my beautiful wife. Sarah. She was a stunner, and not in that stuck up way, not like the bitches that some of my colleagues were burdened with. She had given him the required two beautiful children and happily gave up her successful career to be a stay at home mum. She played the dutiful and supportive wife, an Oscar winning performance in fact. Yeah, life was good, almost perfect.

Then something changed. They called it a chemical imbalance, whatever the fuck that meant. I was one of those guys, you know, ‘My Body Is My Temple”. I worked out most mornings; I was careful what I put in my mouth. I always believed in that saying, ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’. I wanted to be around for my grandkids so I took good care of my body. Yet somehow, it still betrayed me.

Not even pounding away at the treadmill could release enough of that happy juice to combat what my brain was lacking. So I gave up the gym. Just like that. That was when the first wave hit; I managed to ride the crest for a few weeks before I wiped out.

Sarah encouraged me to go to the Docs. I came away with these magic pills, advice to continue exercising and to think happy thoughts.

Some days, the tiny white pills were like water wings, other days like flotsam from a shipwreck, the waves threatening to capsize me at a moments notice. On good days, it was a yellow rubber dingy but never a nice stable cruise ship. I mostly settled for the water wings. I lay back, and let the current take me.

The waves kept coming, sometimes the tide went out and I had a moments respite but it always came back in. It was a force of nature. Have you ever seen a grown man cry, it is not a pretty sight. I blubbered like a drunk PMS-ing bitch, until the snot was running down my chin. And if you had asked me why I was crying, I couldn’t have told you, I had no idea.

Two years passed in a hazy blur, the powerful waves eroding my once perfect life. The only good thing was my newly discovered love of beer, doughnuts and daytime TV. They were my ‘happy thoughts’. My job sank to the bottom of the ocean and they let me go. I could see that Sarah was floundering but when every movement was like walking against the tide, I just didn’t have the energy to try and save her, anymore than I could save myself. Finally, the tsunami hit and my marriage shattered against the rocks and was lost in a million fragments.

My two beautiful children were swept out to sea, the waves continued to batter but it was the undertow that sunk its claws in and dragged them away. I watched it happen helplessly, just as I had watched my wife leave.

There was still no sign of this black dog, maybe he didn’t like to get wet. I would have liked the company.

I felt like no one could hear my calls for help, or if they did, they ignored me. Too busy with their own lives to notice me drowning.

I had lost my family. I had lost my job. I had lost my home. I had lost my affordable yet flashy car. I had lost my self-respect and I hated myself for it. I was weak and I couldn’t even put up a fight. Not for my life and not even to see Sarah smile at me once more, instead of the tearful looks, full of recrimination, that was her usual now.

I could have checked myself in to the hospital. The thing was, I no longer wanted help. I no longer cared. That ship had sailed.

So here I was, standing on a beach. I looked down and absentmindedly rubbed the grease stain on my used to be white t-shirt. It barely registered it was the same one I had been wearing for the last five days. My face was itching, the stubble irritated me. I had a beard for the first time in my life but I couldn’t be bothered to shave. I couldn’t even have a shower. They had cut my electricity off at the trailer park. I must have looked like a bum. Now, clean underpants would have been a good idea but it was too late now. I couldn’t even be bothered to search for a pen and scrap of paper, but what would be the point.

Like I said, I was a mess.

So now the biggest wave was rolling in and I just stood there and watched the wall of water rush ever closer. I was tired, just so fucking tired. I pressed the cold metal into the soft doughy flesh under my chin. I stood alone against the wave and welcomed it as it finally arrived to engulf me. I sighed and pulled the trigger.