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If you're done by Bryony Marsh For most girls, a suicide attempt isn't a sincere attempt to do yourself in: it's more of a cry for help. I wasn't a drama queen, though: I was playing for keeps. In the suicide stakes, I'd acquired an unfair advantage: schizophrenia. I'm not saying that the voices in my head told me to do it: even when I was having a bad spell and it was hardest to separate fact from fiction, suicide isn't something impulsive. It requires too much care and attention I waited for a foggy morning, for my cycle ride to the Erskine Bridge. Note: not a ride 'over the bridge', but onto it. A one-way trip. You've got to love our Scotch mist: at certain times of year it's all but guaranteed, and that reduced the chances of anybody seeing me at the railing, and coming to talk me out of it. To a schizophrenic, other people are exhausting. It would have been horrendous to have to deal with somebody who said "I don't think you should kill yourself", because why should one care what another person thinks? People, as I had learned, never understood just how thoroughly disinterested I was in them and their needs and wants, their thoughts or impressions. No matter how sincere you are about self-destruction, people just can't respect that. The bridge: I imagine that the place was a less handy suicide spot back when they collected tolls from cars. There's hardly ever any staff about now, and that means a girl can loiter in the middle of the span without any fuss. They added a 'suicide barrier' a few years ago, which is to say a multi- million pound fence. Hence the bike: prop it against the railings and it's almost as good as a stepladder. To be schizophrenic doesn't mean one is stupid: checking the weather forecast for a foggy morning, slipping out of the family home, travelling to Erskine, and then counting lamp posts in the fog, so as to be sure of being right over the middle of the River Clyde... even crazy people can think hard. It all worked perfectly. I had a rucksack with some stones in it, and when I stood on the bike I was able to fasten it to the top of the barrier, by the straps. No sense in trying to climb over a fence while you're weighed down with stones: they were for later, to make sure that I drowned if hitting the water didn't kill me right away. Standing on the bike's saddle, it was a pretty easy climb up onto the top of the barrier, where I sat as I transferred the stones into my coat pockets. And with that, I was finished: I mean, I had nothing left to do, for the rest of my life. The rest of my life could be as little as three seconds, I thought with a smile. Something like that, I guessed. I couldn't see the river below, or I would have used the time-honoured and highly scientific method of seeing how long it took a droplet of spittle to fall. I was just about ready to go, when the fog thinned and I discovered that I wasn't alone. Sitting atop the fence, in a pose that mirrored my own, was a boy. He smiled, and shrugged apologetically. He spoke first. "Nice trick with the bike." "Thanks," I said, cautiously. I was trying to decide if he was real, or not. That's the trouble with schizophrenia: you never know if you're talking to a real person, or just a passing hallucination. Above all, I was feeling my way through this baffling and complex conversation. Only those who have been right to the brink of suicide will understand the etiquette of the situation: even though you're fully intending to die a horrible death within minutes, the fear of embarrassment is as real as ever. In fact it's greater, because you need a sense of rightness or you can't go though with it. Suicide is a bit like sex, I have decided: if you're put off by some errant thought or interruption, it becomes impossible to reach the climax. This encounter threatened to end in frustration. What were we supposed to do now? Toss a coin to decide who went first? Both hurl ourselves off on a count of three? Not for the first time, I cursed my schizophrenia for the way it makes it so difficult to understand other people. "So, you're a jumper, then?" I asked, bluntly. "No," he replied, firmly. "Huh?" That monosyllable was all I could manage, but it seemed to express my incredulity. After all, if you weren't trying to top yourself, why sit on a suicide prevention barrier? "I come here a lot," he said. "Oh, well that's just great," I spat. "You're one of those people who pisses about with it but never has the balls to go for it? Well you needn't think I'm waiting in line while you hold things up!" As I have said, schizophrenia makes it hard to relate to people. Being diplomatic is one of the many things of which I am seldom capable. Could I just heave myself off into space? I'd only have seconds in which to worry about the messiness (leaving a witness behind is an unwelcome loose end) and the possibility that I'd misjudged the situation... then, oblivion. It remained a possibility. Cars continued to pierce our bubble of fog, shooting through in a second or so, as if the drivers were intent on a suicide attempt of their own. Despite this, I expected it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed the two people sitting atop the barrier, and made a telephone call that would summon the police. "You misunderstand," he seemed offended. (But since he was quite possibly a figment of my imagination, fuck him. He can be offended all he wants, I thought.) He tugged back his sleeves, and held his arms out, so I could see his wrists. They were horribly scarred: in fact, I didn't think that anybody could have survived the multiple, deep cuts that I saw there. Did this simplify matters, by proving that the boy was a figment of my imagination? Perhaps. Presumably, one isn't obliged to worry about the feelings of imaginary people - and judging by the responses of some of the many doctors that I have been seen by, interacting with them at all is positively discouraged. I looked away from the boy, and out into the fog. I tried to ignore him. Perhaps he was disappointed that his horrible wrist wounds hadn't got a reaction out of me... and perhaps he was all in my head and I should stop thinking about him, and concentrate on my preparations. Goodbye, cruel world, and all that. "Do you want to tell me why you're going to die this morning?" he asked. That, I could do. Reviewing the sequence of events that had led me here was a part of my preparations anyway. "I was doing well," I said. "I was happy. I did well at school, and got the place I wanted at university. I was going to be an architect, I thought. Then I started hearing voices. There was this... whispering. Not always, but it grew to be a problem. There were always suggestions of things I should do, or shouldn't do. Warnings of danger, some of them maybe true, but mostly imagined. Then I started seeing people differently. They had... this cloud around them that showed what they were secretly doing and thinking, and what they might become. It became hard to trust anybody." I realised I had ceased looking out into the fog, and was making eye contact with the boy. That was unusual: it's something that I normally struggle to do. (Why I could achieve eye contact with this intruder, I didn't know.) "Do you see a cloud around me?" he asked. "No. At least... not a proper one. It's weird. Stop it. Do you want to hear my story, or not?" "Okay," he conceded. "What started as a diagnosis of stress brought on by my exams quite quickly turned into an assessment that I was a crazy person. Schizophrenia, they said. That explained why I was having hallucinations, but it didn't offer any kind of cure. There isn't one. There are drugs that control some of the urges, and make you slow and stupid and make you gain weight until you look like a fucking blimp... but they don't actually cure the condition. Nobody can." "So, they put you on the drugs?" he prompted. "Shut up," I said angrily, "I haven't finished. Worse than the hallucinations are the delusions. You believe stupid, impossible things. I won't embarrass myself by telling you some of the things that I simultaneously know to be true, and know to be impossible. That's bad enough, but the worst thing for me is the way my brain doesn't work as well as it used to." He waited, and I remembered that I'd told him to shut up. It seemed that this hallucination was an obedient one, at least. At length, I remembered that the boy was at least theoretically a separate person, and didn't have access to my thoughts and memories, and therefore didn't know what I meant about my brain. "I don't organise my thoughts well anymore," I sought to explain. "I lose the thread of my thoughts, and I can't do anything complicated. I can't understand architecture: it's just gone. All those exams I passed, and the skills I learned: they're beyond my grasp, now. I haven't exactly forgotten, but I'm incapable of thinking through anything more complicated than paying the right money for a can of Coke and a packet of crisps." "So, you decided to take the drop," he smiled sadly. "Wouldn't you?" I retorted. "I can't criticise you for something that I already did," he said. That was when I finally realised that I was talking to a corpse. His skin wasn't merely the classic Scottish pale; he was actually drained of blood. Had he somehow shuffled closer to me, without my noticing? Perhaps. It didn't really matter: if he came too close, I could still drop myself off the side. Maybe it would actually be easier that way. "What happens after you die?" I asked him, although this was probably stupid: you don't learn much by talking to your own subconscious. "You get to stop worrying about things," he said - which wasn't much of an answer. I tried again. "If you're already dead, why are you here?" "I come here a lot," he said, again. "Why?" "Do you remember those two young lassies who died here, together?" he asked. "They held hands, and jumped. Maybe three years back." "I remember," I said. They'd both been abused by their priest, or something. One of them thought she was pregnant. A nasty business. "It always used to upset me, to see a young girl end her life. I'd think to myself, she's got so much... why throw it away?" As somebody who is fundamentally incapable of caring about the feelings of others (hey: blame it on the brain disorder) I am still able to recognise bullshit when I hear it - and am more likely to draw attention to it, because I don't know when to keep quiet. "You obviously don't know what those girls were going through," I said. "I'm sure you're right," he said, "but..." He shrugged, helplessly. "What?" I demanded. It was his turn to look away, staring out into the fog. "It still seemed like a terrible waste," he muttered. "I can't help thinking that whatever trouble they felt that they were in, suicide wasn't the solution." "Says the guy who cut his wrists," I pointed out. "Call me crazy," he said. "Tell me that I can't possibly know... but I believe that if I'd been born as a female, I'd be happy. I'd still be alive." "Oh sure," I said, sarcastically. "Sugar and spice and all things nice: how could a girl possibly be unhappy?" "I don't mean that," he sighed. "I just... think it's a terrible waste. I wanted just one thing, for as long as I can remember, and that was to be a girl. I never wanted this body. I didn't want to be a rich girl, a popular girl, or a pretty girl. Just any girl. And instead, I got... this." "So you're - uh, you were - a girl in a boy's body? Isn't that something that can be treated?" I felt that I was claiming some kind of moral high ground here, since schizophrenia can't be cured. "Oh, sure... there is a kind of treatment, starting with a lot of meetings with psychiatrists, who you have to satisfy that you're sincere, and this isn't just a phase you're going through. There are endless questions, and tests... and all the while, the clock is ticking. I mean, you're going through puberty and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. They could, but they won't help. They put all these barriers in place. For your safety, they say: and meanwhile, your voice breaks, and you start needing to shave. You become less and less genuine, while they make you wait for referrals and consultations." I harbour this opinion that the mind is somehow more important than the body. That it's the seat of the soul, and the personality. That's why acquiring schizophrenia was so hard on me: it looked set to destroy everything I thought I was. To merely have a body that one doesn't like seems tame, by comparison. I don't like my thighs... but they're not the reason I was about to jump into the Clyde. "So, they didn't help you?" I asked. Trying to be polite. Sometimes I felt like one of those... what do you call those computer programs? Emulators. That's it: emulators. It was as if I knew what I ought to do, but did it with far greater difficulty than 'normal' people. My consciousness simply didn't run properly on my faulty human hardware... but if I made a real effort, I could get by. Sort of. "Even at its best, the kind of help you can get wouldn't be great. I mean, to have a series of painful surgeries and take a cocktail of drugs that shorten your life expectancy, all to make you into a crude semblance of a woman? It's a pretty shitty solution, quite frankly... and yet they guard it like it's the philosopher's stone, or something. Bunch of bastards." "What happened?" I emulated. "I had another one of the endless meetings with a consultant, and he refused to give me something to delay the changes that puberty was forcing on me. He said we'd examine things again in six months. Six months!" "So, you cut your wrists," I guessed. "Yup. Went home, and took the guard off my dad's bench saw. The thing is, if you use a knife it's hard to swap over and do the second wrist, because you lose so much strength. Also, a knife wound can be closed, if they find you in time. My way was messy, but it was neat in the sense that it was final, if you see what I mean." I nodded. In the same way that he had complimented me on my forethought in using the bike to scale the barrier, I recognised and respected the businesslike way in which he had ended his life. We understood each other, in a way that few others could. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I think we're out of time." The fog was illuminated by blue flashes, coming from the Dunbartonshire side. "Police," I grimaced. Although you would think that it's hard to stop a person from committing suicide when all she has to do is lean forwards, or buck her hips, and she's off into the abyss... I knew that the arrival of a copper was likely to fuck things up. They have a way of talking to you that undermines your determination. I know this. Besides which, a good suicide should be a private and deeply personal thing: not something done on a timescale that is forced by an audience. The car was going slowly, which meant they had to be looking for us, I thought. "Fuck," I said. I thought about taking the drop. I took a deep breath, and tensed, but when I looked to the boy for reassurance, he shook his head. "I wouldn't," he said. "Fuck!" I said again. The police car slowed to a halt. The driver left powerful lights strobing, to alert other drivers to its presence. It gave our fog bubble a weird, frantic disco effect. Despite this I heard no other cars. Perhaps they had closed the bridge to traffic? A copper got out of the car, but made a show of not approaching too close. "Hello," he said. "I'm Callum." To look in his direction required an uncomfortable twist of the neck, so after an initial glance, I didn't bother. I may have mentioned that schizophrenics aren't very good at relating to people. I looked at the boy, who smiled sadly. What did that mean? "Would you mind telling me your name?" the policeman asked. I raised my eyes heavenward, but saw only fog. "I'm Ellen," I said, "and this is...?" I raised an eyebrow at the boy. "He can't see me," he shrugged, apologetically. "He can't see you?" I felt betrayed. It seemed that my companion, upon whom half of the scrutiny of the law ought to have been focused, was deserting me in my time of need. "Are you just a fucking figment of my imagination? Shit!" I exclaimed. "Well I was real," the boy said. "Honestly, I was. But I died." At the same time, the policeman was saying something about how he was indeed real, and would like to talk to me. I held up a hand, in the hope of silencing him. I was talking to the boy. "So how is it that I can see you?" I demanded. "I imagine that you can see me because you're on the brink," he said. That made a kind of sense. "What is your name, anyway?" I asked. "Call me Jasmine," he said. I blinked, and pulled a face. Schizophrenics don't generally know when to be polite. "Please," the boy begged, "call me Jasmine. It's who I wanted to be." I considered this, carefully. Was he having a laugh at my expense? If so, I couldn't see it. "Okay, Jasmine," I said at last. "You realise that this policeman's going to think I'm a fucking nutcase, talking to an imaginary friend." "You are a fucking nutcase, Ellen. You told me so. But I'm glad to have met you." The boy smiled shyly, and I thought I saw something of Jasmine - his inner self - in that smile. The policeman was saying something again. "I'm really sorry for trespassing or whatever the fuck you've come to tell me off for," I told him, "but do you mind? This is a private conversation." I turned back to the boy, Jasmine. I found that I could see through him. Ghostly. Which is fair enough, if you think about it. "Why are you fading?" I asked. He was becoming less substantial, in the same way that the fog boils away to nothing when the sun comes up. "Probably because you're leaving the brink," Jasmine said. "You're not jumping today." "Oh, fuck!" I cursed the ghost as he faded away. Had he tricked me? Kept me talking until the police showed up? Or was that just my paranoia at play? Schizophrenics do a great line in paranoia, always assuming that every little setback is part of a grand conspiracy to keep them down. Through emulation, I try to figure out which of the bad thoughts are real, and which are the product of my illness. The latter should be ignored... when I'm strong enough. Jasmine had gone. I executed a neat about-face, so that I faced the carriageway. It would still be simple enough to lean backwards and drop to my death, if this policeman proved to be a dick. "Okay, Callum, was it?" "Yes." "Jasmine says I'm not jumping today," I sought to reassure him. "That's good," he said. "Do you want a cup of tea, or something?" "I could murder a cigarette," I said. "Okay," he said, and turned to speak to his colleague in the police car, who passed him a pack, and a lighter. Callum lit two cigarettes, and approached slowly, reaching up to pass me one. I smoked it right down to the filter, enjoying the familiar feelings that it evoked. "You're a fucking bullshitter, Callum," I said. "How's that?" he asked. "You've barely touched that cig, and you've just about gone green," I laughed. He conceded that he'd been caught out, and stubbed his cigarette out on the crash barrier. "You really don't want to start on that habit," I told him, "those things will kill you." I think we both appreciated the humour of a person who'd been about to end her life giving health advice to one of her elders. As I laughed I felt almost real. "Why are you sitting up there?" Callum asked gently. "I'm ill," I said, as if to excuse myself. "My brain's turning to mush, and there's nothing that can be done to help. I don't want to be less than I used to be, so I decided to be nothing at all." "I'm sorry to hear that," Callum sounded genuine. The cloud that I saw around him suggested that he was a decent man. One who would be quite badly affected if he witnessed my suicide. Maybe he'd need counselling, and all that shit: I knew too much about talking therapies, and felt that I ought to spare him that. My suicide was supposed to be a private, quiet business after all: there was no sense turning it into a performance. There was always tomorrow, or the day after... "I think I'll get down now," I told him. It was simple enough to jump down - just as it would have been simple to drop on the other side of the barrier. What I'd forgotten was all the stones in my pockets: I came down like a meteor. "Oh, sod it all," I moaned, having landed badly. I'd done some damage to my ankles, for sure. "Let's get you into the car," Callum said, and helped me as I limped painfully. It wasn't until we were underway that I realised I'd left my bike behind. A bike is a wonderful thing for a crazy person like me. Although there was a time when I had learned how to drive, I can't do that anymore. I'd be quite anxious behind the wheel, in case I swerved to avoid some hallucination or other, and ploughed into an innocent bystander: no, a car was no longer an option. A bike, though, allows some mobility while the only real risk is to myself. Also, it has the advantage of allowing one to move faster than a pedestrian, while navigating spaces where a car can't go. That combination meant I could get away from well-meaning but stifling parents, who would otherwise try to keep an eye on me. All that is great until you leave your bike on the middle of a bridge, where it will almost certainly be stolen before you can retrieve it. "Callum, can you ask somebody to look after my bike?" I asked... but it seemed that Callum was a different person when he was in the car, with his colleague. "Leave it with me," was all he said. His colleague drove - fast, but competently - to Dalmuir, where they took me into the police station. The promised cup of tea was provided, while I gave them name, address, and all that jazz. "No biscuits?" I grumbled. "I'll fetch chocolate hobnobs if you promise you'll never try to mess about on the bridge again," Callum offered. "For biscuits? Jesus. No deal." I frowned. A few minutes of biscuit- related satisfaction, at the cost of a lifetime of... being alive? No thanks. "How are the ankles feeling?" he changed the subject. "Fucked up," I said. "Let me get you an ice pack," he said. It was a poor alternative to being brought chocolate biscuits, but at least it didn't come with strings attached... and it proved to be quite soothing. "Am I under arrest?" I asked, presently. "No," the Duty Sergeant told me. "But I'd like you to wait here until your parents arrive. They're on their way." "Oh, that's just great," I moaned. "Also, we've sent a van to collect your bike," he said. "Really? Thanks!" I beamed. Maybe they weren't complete bastards. I realised, with regret, that the desk sergeant was due to die a few months hence, in a shark attack not far from Cape Town. Then I thought that maybe this was one of my delusions, because it wasn't normal to know a person's fate in advance. Emulate, I told myself: emulate... I suppressed all thoughts of warning the desk sergeant of his doom, because such behaviour wouldn't be normal. It would represent a part of a... what was it? A psychotic episode. It would earn me some time in hospital, no doubt. That was to be avoided, if possible. When my parents showed up, there was an unfamiliar man with them. "This is Doctor Moore," my mother made the introduction. "He wants to get you diagnosed as crazy so he can keep you locked away, and rape you," somebody whispered in my ear. There was nobody there, of course. "Shut up," I muttered. Doctor Moore raised an eyebrow. "Hello, Doctor Moore," I said, shaking his hand. "Pleased to meet you." Emulate, emulate... "How are you?" he asked. "I've hurt my ankles," I said, postponing the inevitable. "Perhaps you shouldn't be on your feet," he said, kindly. The cloud that swirled around him was a storm of knives, but nobody could see it except me - and if I revealed that I could see his evil aura, I'd just look crazier, and fall further into his clutches. I sat in the chair he indicated. He sat opposite, and my mother and father were left to find seats of their own. Everybody in the room was subservient to the Doctor, I realised. "The police say that you were sitting on top of the guardrail on the Erskine Bridge this morning," Doctor Moore said, casually. I wanted to blurt out, "they're lying!" That would be kind of stupid, though. Even when you know that all these authority figures are conspiring against you, it doesn't do you much good to demonstrate that you're aware of the game that's being played. That just earns you some time in a padded cell, probably. "I was," I said. "Why was that?" he asked. "Why not?" I countered. "It's dangerous," he said. "That's why there's such a high barrier." "Oh," I said. "Are you having a difficult time at the moment?" he asked. "No more than usual," I said, innocently. "Hmm," he appeared to ponder. "I've been talking with your mother and father, and we think a change of scene might do you some good." On the face of it, this is probably a good idea: I've never found my parents to be particularly helpful where my mental illness is concerned. But... that cloud of knives. Scalpels, in fact. Doctor Moore was an evil man: quite possibly already arranging the shark attack on the Desk Sergeant... Damn it, I was losing my grip on reality again. It had been an eventful morning. "I'd like you to come and stay at a place called MacKinnon House for a little while," Doctor Moore projected professional calm and confidence, but I could see through his lies, even if nobody else could. "What's MacKinnon House?" I asked. "It's a residential facility, not far away, with a ward for young people like you." "Like me." I made this a challenge, but Doctor Moore didn't rise to it. It seemed that my mother and father had already agreed to this plan on the way here, and although nobody actually said as much, it was clear that I wasn't entitled to an opinion. Those who attempt to throw themselves off bridges are not considered to know what's best for them. I was driven to Balornock, just north of Glasgow. My mother and father seemed uncomfortable, having finally committed me to a loony bin, and they made their excuses as soon as decently possible. They said they'd "go home and fetch my things," which served to underline the indecent haste with which they'd bundled me off. And that was that. Days of beige corridors, sunny dayrooms, pointless activities such as crocheting squares for a quilt, old magazines, and boring television. The barriers with which they fenced us in were largely pharmaceutical, rather than physical, and that's a horrific thing for somebody who once tried hard at exams and placed great value on intelligence. I decided, as countless crazy people have before me, that my medicine wasn't good for me: that it was the cause and not the cure. Whenever possible, I would pretend to take my medication, but actually spit it out again. At first, I simply flushed it away, but when it became apparent that there was no clear end in sight for this incarceration, and as the delusions became more intense, I decided once again that it was time to kill myself. An overdose seemed the logical way, so I began hoarding my medicine. If nothing else, this will demonstrate if they've been giving me placebos, I thought, grimly. (How many sugar pills would one need in order to commit suicide, anyway?) Dry-swallowing forty pills wasn't fun, and it was made more complicated by the fact that most of them had already been in my mouth before being secretly spat out, and hidden under my mattress. Thus, their coatings were gone, and they tasted vile. As I swallowed the last one, Jasmine reappeared. The unhappy, dead boy was sitting in the chair where my mother had sometimes sat through visits while I was too drugged up to get out of bed. "Oh," I said, "not you again! Have you come to talk me out of this latest suicide attempt?" "Well... kind of," Jasmine admitted. "I don't even know if you can kill yourself with antipsychotics," I said. "I suppose we'll see." "I hope you don't just fuck your kidneys up, or bring on a stroke or something," Jasmine said. "You'd really learn something about poor quality of life then, wouldn't you?" "I swear, Jasmine: next time I'm going to use a shotgun," I said. "One barrel for you, and one for me. Nice and quick." "Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to crowd you." "Why are you here?" I asked. "Because you're on the brink," he said. "Then you can kill yourself with an overdose of Amisulpride!" I exclaimed. "So it would seem," he said, sadly. "Or maybe it'll just make you really sick. The point is that you're trying to kill yourself again." "What's that to you?" I demanded. "It makes me sad," he said. I got a flash of inspiration: an insight into how normal people think, perhaps. Those who achieve empathy without emulation. "It's the whole sex change thing, isn't it?" I asked. "Crudely put, but: yes," he agreed. "I only ever wanted one thing, and that was to be a girl. You've already got that, but you're determined to throw it away. To stop being. To make yourself into garbage, so they have to put you into the ground, or dispose of you by cremation. Can't you see how wasteful that is?" "A body is nothing but a liability when you can't trust your senses and your thoughts," I tried to explain. "If you can't trust your thoughts, how do you know that attempting suicide tonight was a good idea?" he asked. "Oh, Jesus Christ!" I moaned. "These could be my last few minutes of consciousness, and you want to spend them discussing the finer points of Cartesian doubt?" "Of what?" Jasmine was nonplussed. "17th century French philosopher, Ren? Descartes. Look him up some time. Or, I dunno: ask him. You're dead; he's dead. You'd get along famously," I smirked. "Descartes proposed a method of skeptical inquiry which begins with only information that you know to be true." "Uh, what do you know to be true?" he asked. "That I'm getting worse," I said. "That I don't like my thoughts becoming all jumbled. That nobody has ever come up with a real cure for schizophrenia. That I've been hoarding pills, but sooner or later they're bound to discover them, or move me to another room. That forty times the normal daily dose of anything ought to be enough to finish me." "You really don't sound like a crazy person," he said. "And you don't look much like a girl called Jasmine," I countered. "That's why I killed myself," he said, brutally. "Then why won't you just fuck off and grant me the same privilege?" I begged. "I wanted to ask you for something," he said, tentatively - almost fearfully. "What?" "Your body," he said at last. "If you're done with it... I mean really: if this is the end for you. Could I take it?" "Take it? Where?" "I mean, have it." he said. "Use it. Live in it. If you're done." I frowned. "That's really weird, Jasmine." "I know." "How is it even possible?" "I'm not sure," he said. "But I think it might be why I'm still here. A second chance, sort of thing." "Wait," I said. "You're at least as fucking weird as I am. And you want to become me? You're insane." "That makes two of us," he grinned. "First of all, what will my family think, they next time they come to visit me and find some fucking stranger? They've had a hard enough time coping with my illness," I objected. Fleetingly, I felt real sympathy for them. It's hard to care about people when you're a schitzy-bitch like me, so I was proud to have remembered their feelings at this moment. "Are they going to react any better if the next time they see you, it's to identify your body for the Sheriff's office?" Jasmine had a point there. I was being selfish again. Inevitably. "Okay, second problem: if you take over my life, you'll be stuck in the funny farm. It's no picnic, being here, you know. Surrounded by crazy people - and doctors who're trying to kill you..." I paused and shook my head. "Uh, forget that. It's the schizophrenia talking. Nobody is going to kill you. But you will be a prisoner, and it's a dreary existence." "I lived fifteen years imprisoned in the wrong body. To be imprisoned in a hospital would be far less of a confinement, believe me." "Fifteen years? Jesus, you're just a kid!" I was appalled. "Oh, great," he said, "get all ethical on me, like the shrinks did. Tell me I can't possibly know what I want, because I'm a child." "I never said..." I began, but he went on: "I'm dead, Ellen. There's no longer any question of whether or not I'm able to choose what happens to me." "What's it like, being dead?" I asked. "You get to choose," he said, surprising me with his frankness. "Some people choose God, and they get their wish, or something like it. Many choose oblivion, and they get that. Some people think they deserve to be tormented, and it happens. Rebirth, purgatory... it's all possible, somehow." "So..." I had to ask, "what did you choose?" "You remember the first time we met, when we talked about the two girls who jumped off the bridge together?" "Sure," I said, "I remember." "That had only just happened a few days before, when I had that last appointment with a specialist, forcing me to take my own life. When I died and I was offered my choice I thought of them, and I decided to stay in the world. To haunt it, you might say. I thought I might be able to help somebody to understand the gift that they were throwing away. I've been talking to jumpers on the Erskine bridge for three years now: probably a hundred of them. Some still jump; others don't." "But now you want to come back? In my body?" My head swam, and I struggled to remember what I'd been about to say. "Only if you're done with it. For certain - and if you'll let me." "I..." I felt terribly hot, and I realised I had double vision. "I think... the overdose..." "Stick your finger down your throat!" Jasmine said urgently. I did so, and it caused me to vomit. Up came the horrible stew that MacKinnon House always served on Wednesdays, and the semi-digested tablets. I didn't feel much better. "A lot of that garbage will have entered your bloodstream by now," Jasmine reckoned. "Good," I smiled grimly. "It looks like I'm finished here, then." "Is this what you want?" Jasmine asked. "It's messy," I said, wrinkling my nose at the smell from the puddle of vomit on my bed, and on the floor. "But I think it's worked. I think I'm dying." "You're certainly very fucked up," Jasmine said, looking at me intently. "I have to ask: can I have your body, when you leave it?" When he put it that way, it sounded like the right thing to do. Back in university, I'd carried a donor card - and what was this, if not organ donation on a larger scale? "Fine," I mumbled, as my breathing became ragged. "It's all yours. I hope it works out better for you than it did for me, Jasmine." I lost consciousness. +++ My part had ended. A short while later I learned that Jasmine had told the truth about the afterlife: you get to choose. Surprisingly, for somebody who had craved release for so long, I chose to stay behind - at least for a while. I needed to be sure that I hadn't left too much of a mess. I was beyond the veil, but I watched. My body survived the overdose. I'd stopped breathing, and when the medical staff found me I think they attempted resuscitation as something of a formality. Surely, they must have thought that brain death would have occurred in the unknown period during which I hadn't been breathing... but they tried, and Ellen surprised them by coming back from the brink. Only it wasn't me: it was Jasmine. I watched the whole process, and found it a deeply humbling experience. Freed from the chemical imbalances of my sick brain, I saw the medics for what they were: professionals who cared tremendously, and who gave their best. Nobody had a hallucinatory cloud about them anymore, and I didn't seem prone to my old delusions. I'd warned Jasmine about being incarcerated, and sure enough they kept her under close supervision: suicide watch. She didn't care, though: she was freed at last from the confines of the male body she had hated so much. She smiled all the time - and I don't think it was just the Seroquel they had her on. She was genuinely happy. When permitted, she engaged cheerfully with all the shit that I'd hated, like art therapy. (When you've trained to work as an architect, making paper flowers is kind of demeaning...) Astoundingly, she quit smoking. Most schizophrenics smoke like chimneys, and the medical staff tolerate this because the side-effects of nicotine withdrawal complicate their care. Still, the new me simply never lit up a cigarette. Within a few weeks, her fingernails looked better, and then her hair, and her skin. I hated the bitch. I'm kidding. I was really pleased for her - and delighted to see how she made my parents so much happier than I had been capable of, in recent years. "How are you, Ellen?" My father asked at the beginning of one visit. "I'm fine. I'm going to be fine," she replied, "but if you don't mind, I'd prefer not to be called Ellen. I'm... Jasmine." He looked pained. More craziness from the daughter that he'd been told was doing so much better? He'd been forced to learn a great deal about schizophrenia, and he knew that despite the medical name it didn't actually mean that a sufferer necessarily had multiple personalities... but now Ellen's posture, her mannerisms and facial expressions seemed different. And she wanted to be called Jasmine? My mother was more businesslike. With the endless tolerance that she'd always tried to show me, she quickly made the requested adjustment. After all, what was in a name? "They say you're doing well, Jasmine," she said. "Would you like to come home soon?" "I'd like that," Jasmine said, with a beatific smile. Going home, I thought. Really going home. Yes: Jasmine was doing a better job of being me than I had, for years. "Good luck, Jasmine. God bless you," I said, although nobody could hear me. I took one last look at the three of them, and said: "I'm done here." And with that, I surged upwards like a homesick angel. And perhaps that's what I was, at last. === Reviews and comments are always appreciated. The Erskine Bridge remains a suicide hotspot to this day. If the issues presented in this story have affected you, please have a look at http://www.chooselife.net/ (Or similar services, outside of Scotland.)