This is Not a Story about Suicide

I am not here. These are not hospital walls. This is not a nurse who is speaking to me. That is not John unconscious, lying in a bed that faces due North, and that is not his mother trying to explain why his bed should always face North because he hates sleeping facing South.

This is not happening.

I am not taking a deep breath. I am not walking down the sickly white corridors with their bleach scent. I am not buying this cup of coffee from a cafeteria lady who is working at an hour that is reserved only for intensive care patients. This is not the way back to what is not John’s room.

That is not his heart rate dropping, and I am not running out of the room, screaming for help. We are not being pushed out, that door does not have a red light that claims intensive care, it has not been all night.

That is not John’s doctor explaining how they were not able to pump his stomach completely and it is not John who flat lined. That is not an empty hospital bed. That is not his mother in shock and these, these are definitely not my tears.

*

This is not a funeral. And if it is a funeral, it is not John’s. Because it just can’t be. I met him last week and he was fine.

We were fine.

*

“Name an unusual fact about the stomach.” He had asked me on one of our study dates.

“The stomach has acids strong enough to dissolve zinc.” I answered.

So he ate lead instead.