Wanted Dead Or Alive?

CW: Mental health, suicide

The snow was coming down hard now. Not the half-arsed flakes that fizzed and buckled as they landed. Nor the ill-thought-out flakes with no conviction that met reality and cried themselves into nonexistence. This snow was a strong collective. Grouped with intent.

He watched the transformation of the familiar vista through the window and wished himself a part of it. So near and yet so far. The purifying caress of those coherent flakes was spectacular to behold. He felt a dread delight in witnessing an altered perspective. The capacity to change for the better. Something that had been denied him time and again.

Sighing, he was transported back to his childhood wonder at the magic of snow. He was pure then. The snow’s kindred spirit, with his whole life ahead of him. Then he’d been sold the jaundiced dreams of his parents and that was all there was to it. Ever decreasing circles of hopelessness. He contained a brutal certainty that was doggedly unshakeable come what may.

When he left the cloud of his teenage hinterlands and landed in the world, nothing was as it had seemed. Him most of all. He was not fit for purpose. Ill prepared. Steeped in a belief system that choked on the atmosphere of an alien planet. He was still choking even after all this time. Never acclimatised to the life he’d cobbled together.

“Are you even listening to me?” his wife flung the darts and it was his role never to flinch as they landed.

“Yes dear,” he said automatically. The term dear should have been affectionate. The cynic in him had repurposed it to reference how much she cost him. The cost was measured in all those slings and arrows. The way she chipped away at him. Attempting to make him into an ideal that could no more exist in this world than the boy he once was.

He’d been compelled to adapt to her constantly moving specifications because his template was broken before he could ever start. In her he’d seen salvation. She was sugar and spice and all things nice. He was slugs and snails. Docking puppy dog tails was banned, but that didn’t make him any better.

There was no pedestal. He’d not done that. She was his princess and he had enthroned her as his queen. But something had been lost in translation, as it was now being lost all over again. Her mouth moved but all he heard was her hurt and disappointment. Knew he could never be what she wanted him to be, even as he tried as best as he could to be what they both needed.

He still loved her. That was what hurt the most. Turning now, he replaced the other-worldly scene for the familiarity of their home. Found that he was even further from this place than the dreaming beyond the window. She was lost to him. Or rather, he was lost to her. However hard he tried to step forward and bridge the gap between them, he always travelled backwards. Knew that to cease trying would propel him outside everything he knew. Undo everything he’d built.

This was their castle. He’d worked hard to give her and their child the life he had envisioned. The bricks and mortar were there. Nothing more. The thrones eluded him. They could not sit in the same room together and rule. A war raged and there was no discerning its cause. As was the case with all war, this was a futile exercise in blind rage. There were no winners here. Losing was what he did best.

Looking upon his daughter, he smiled. She lit up and showed him how a smile was really done. His heart broke all over again in the loving radiance of it. He’d been sold a pup and now he was handing its corpse to his own child. Modelling behaviours that would render her awkward. All angles and clumsiness. Self-consciousness heading off her self-awareness. An upturned three pin plug in a wireless age.

He wanted more for her. Revisited the library of his memories often. Making withdrawals and reading them aloud to her in a last celebration of what could have been. Gifted what he could of what was best in him. Already, he could see the sparsity of books on the remaining shelves that went deeper into his library. His usefulness in his own daughter’s life was coming to an end.

Still his wife was talking. Reinforcing his limited shelf-life. Giving voice to his shortfalls. The toxicity of his masculinity dwelt between the assembly of soldier words. He was a problem with no solution. Belonged in the redundant side lines. The way he radiated his outmoded ideals and values was making his wife and daughter sick.

He didn’t mean to turn his back on her. A compelling thought occurred to him. More an oscillating image of realisation. He’d misunderstood the scene he’d beheld beyond the window pane. Had attributed falsely positive meaning. This nuclear fallout was smothering the world. Soon there would be a Winter To End All Winters.

She was shouting now. Her anger piqued at the perceived slight of his inattention. He cried silent tears in a secretive response. Could not help it. Felt the treacherous knives in his back. Knew he could not carry on. Certainly couldn’t turn around and reveal his pathetic vulnerability. A weakness that threatened to claim what was left of him.

“Why don’t you just give it a bloody rest!?” he roared a defiance he did not know he’d contained. Was spent in the ensuing shocked silence. Listened to the noisy and weaponised retreat. It was his daughter’s bedtime. She would not find restful slumber for another hour or two. The spiked flail lullabies she’d been subjected to in this kitchen robbing her of her birth right of peace and love. Here endeth the lesson; you sacrifice your authenticity for a meagre helping of connection. Always the sacrifice. The carrot of love dangling over a precipice of despair and recrimination.

The relief of his queen’s departure to her chambers shamed him further. How had he become a walking betrayal? Of her and their heir? He once more sighed at the apocalypse outside. Drew in a breath and claimed it as a projection. This was his mirror. The universe was speaking to him and for once he was listening.

As expected, as he stepped out into the horror scape, the bare soles of his feet burnt but not as much as his selfish tears did. He walked as far away from his castle as he was able. The freedom of exile made him lighter as he became more and more insubstantial and inconsequential.

In the open, away from prying eyes, he threw forth his arms and embraced his fate. Earlier that day he’d opened the post and read the message of it. The mortgage statement always made him feel sick. Paying that debt down was a Sisyphean task. The interest snowballed even as he worked his fingers to the bone. Another two decades of indebted servitude. That was beyond a lifetime. And for what? As his wife reminded him, all their friends had bigger and better houses. Shiny new cars. Holidays in the Seychelles. They lived dreams that ensnared him in a nightmare of shadows.

Casting his face skywards in a prayer of despair. Feeling the nuclear fallout settling on his cooling face and soak his shirt, he considered his worth one last time. During his childhood he’d been stripped of that valuable asset and had never found anything to replace it. The second letter in the post that day had been his life insurance. A cost he could no longer afford. That was his first response to the numbers on the page. Closely followed by the solution to all their troubles. A way out for him. Freedom for his wife and daughter. A chance for him to display his love and mean something in a world that had rejected him before he’d had a chance to prove his worth. The mortgage could be paid another way and with it there would be a tidy lump sum. Not to mention his death in service benefit.

He was worth more dead than alive.

Falling backwards was the last dramatic movement in his worthless life. He did not experience a landing. The sense of a fall of everlasting loss remained. He lay quite still. The last force of his will was to hold fast and accept the punishment of his fate. Eyes wide open for the first time in his tortured adult life, he watched the snowflakes fall. Parachuting down upon him to claim him as their territory. The vanguard melting and adding to his mournful tears. But soon enough they settled upon him and laid their claim. Provided him with worth as they buried him in a wonder scape of a dream unfulfilled in the enactment of a silent and unseen execution.