It came after a period of profound disturbance.

For days he had been in a stupor in which he felt himself moving closer and closer to the abyss.

To him it appeared to be the only alternative.

The question was how to get there.

The train had rushed by before he had the strength to jump.

The rope he couldn’t get fixed and strong enough.

The pills had made him sick and he spent the night throwing up.

The voices inside his head kept on telling him to grow a pair and get on with it because until he acted he would continue to wallow in self-doubt.

Cleansing was the word they used. Cleanse your inner self, your soul is tainted with the stain of living, you’d be doing everyone a favour if you sunk into oblivion.

Over the years he’d heard the expression, ‘greater good’, a ‘higher good’. He wasn’t sure what it actually meant, he questioned how death would in any way result in any sort of good for him as he imagined his actions were not going to achieve entry into some glorious after life.

Was there even an after life or would everything just go black?

The voices never made any reference to an after life. They wanted action. They hated the indecisiveness of his dithering. “Its not hard he heard them say.”

But dilly-dallying was what he did. His life had been one indecisive moment after another.

Did his life matter? Would anyone miss him?

How many times had he been told he was a waste of space?

He resolved to give it another go. Living was about mental torment but it was also not such a bad place to be, there was the red haired girl on the corner who ignored him most of the time but who did smile at him once and recognition was hard to come by he told himself. Plus there was the lake and the bush, the birds and the cacophony of sound associated with nature. He didn’t understand any of it but he knew his environment was important.

This wasn’t his first time to resolve to let go of the things he thought were preventing him living. Somewhere inside of him there was a person capable of existing without the pain and anguish he felt so much of the time.

Just get out of bed, have breakfast, and see what happens!

It can’t be as bad as yesterday!

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2020/06/20/sunday-writing-prompt-dark-night-of-the-soul/