Chewing On Glass…

“Help.” Each letter reverberating against the stone walls that surround him. “Help. Help,” he repeats one syllable at a time. “Help,” he says once more into rocks and dirt, confident that this time it will mean more than the last. “There’s isn’t anyone coming to help. Will you please shut up?” Another voice demands. “Help,” he continues. The same four-letter word he has said for what feels like days on end. “Help,” he thinks to himself and the word spills from his mouth. “Shut the fuck up already,” the voice screams back. “Shut the fuck up. Jesus. You put us here. This is your fault. I want you to know that,” the voice bellows in frustration. “Help,” he says a little bit louder for no reason at all. The sound pressing harder against his straining vocal cords. “You are going to die here. How is that for ironic?” The voice laughs at his struggle. “Because you’re worthless. No one else is around to tell you, but that’s the truth,” the voice sighs.

“Help,” he tries over and over. “Help. Help. Help,” the voice mocks. “See nothing you useless fuck. Shut the hell up with your bullshit already,” the voice calls out. “Help. Help. Help,” he repeats like a mantra at a rapid speed. “Who?” The voice questions loudly. “Who is going to help?” it asks to no response. “Enough is enough. It is time to face the facts. You don’t have any other friends. No one knows we are even out here. Even your parents think you are at work ignoring them. Should I go on or is the picture finally coming in?” The voice asks. “Help,” he begs with tears building in his eyes once more. “That’s what I thought. Help. Help. Help. That is all you can manage to say. Apparently, that’s all you know. Well, that and that this all your fault,” the voice calls out. The tears fall from his eyes once again as he mouths the letters one by one. Barely audible behind his whimpering. His shallow short breaths whipping bits of loose earth into the air that clinging to the trails of tears on his face. Muddy war paint of a battle that has already been lost.

“Finally, a break,” the voice exhales. “About time you start listening to me. How many times have I led us wrong? And yet look where you got us. Crying like children with two broken legs. Do you have any idea how unlucky you are to not be dead right now? At the very least you should have bled out hours ago, but no not you. Still hanging in there. Still hanging in strong. With your shit luck you are probably going to die from the mold multiplying in your piss-soaked pants before dehydration sets in. Wouldn’t that be some shit?” The voice asks. “Help,” he starts again into the damp rocks beneath his twisted body. “Is that even possible? To die from mold like that? Doubtful, but I’m sure you’ll find a way. Just like you found your way into this fucking crevasse? Pit? Cavity? What the hell would you even call this?” The voice vents. “Help,” he tries to say louder, his rib cage pressing against the dull stones resting under him. “Shut up and accept it,” the voice screams back. “Deal with it. Deal with it. Deal with it,” the voice repeats to everyone of his cries for help.

“Deal with the fact that you are dying. You are going to die right here. Right in the same spot you took your last shit. That’s something isn’t it? No, no it isn’t anything at all. We should all be so lucky to take our last breath and push out the last of what we have left to offer this world,” the voice lays on thick. “Help,” he says breathlessly. “Yes, help. Help. Anyone please if you don’t know. Help,” the voice teases. “Tell me, even if someone happened to come by right this very instant, how could they help? Are you going to tie the magical rope around your midsection with your mangled hands? Bite down on it with your broken teeth? I mean at best what could anyone do for you now?” The voice points out. “Help,” he continues in defiance. “You are as good as dead. How you aren’t I don’t even know. Maybe there is a god after all. That could be really useful right about now. Maybe god thinks you are strong enough to get yourself out of this. Did you think of that?” The voice asks.

“Maybe all of this is some sort of test. Maybe instead of crying for help you say a little prayer instead? Oh, wait you don’t know any do you? Here let me help you out. Our father who art thou in heaven. Hollow be thy name. Help,” the voice screams. “Help. Help. Help,” he keeps rambling on. “Say it louder. Say it like you mean it. Say it like you want to live, but know that you can’t. Not anymore. Not like this. Forever and ever. Nope, not no more. You wasted all your time. Every last second. Every last moment of time gifted to you has been a waste. Every breath. Every thought. You don’t have shit to your name. No record of anything to jot down. Not even a failed attempt. Your eulogy is going to read, Was here,” the voice laughs uncontrollably. “Help,” he cries. “Come on, it’s just a joke. Obviously, they are going to say something more like he fell into a hole and then shrug,” the voice says in a serious tone. “What about that? Someone will question. I mean they have to, right?” The voice asks.

“He took a lot of breaths, I guess. Took up a lot of space doing nothing. Video games, jerking off, movies, playing with his cat, sleeping in the same dirty clothes from the day before, and then that was that,” the voice says in his mother’s voice. “That can’t be all that there was. There has to be more? Best we could gather was that he decided to take a walk. Try something different and,” the voice says in his father’s voice. “Wait that’s not right. That’s not even close to what you did was it?” The voice asks him. “Help,” he whispers. “No one comes to the woods with a backpack full of rope and doesn’t have some sort of plan. Not these woods anyways. What was so bad about life before? That you couldn’t ask anyone for help before you put yourself here? Seems pretty just if you ask me. You didn’t want to be here no more and this is what you get,” the voice says in a menacing tone. “Help. Help. Help,” the words getting louder and louder to the point that it hurts. The words rumbling against the rocks and dirt of his newly found grave.

“Is there? Is there someone down there?” A timid female voice calls back down. “No, fucking way,” the voice exclaims in his head. “Help me. Please help me,” he screams with all that he has left. The muscles of his rib cage pressing hard against the rocks and stones underneath. “I,” she begins. “I don’t know how,” she confesses. “But I am going to try and I am here,” she admits. “Help,” he calls back. “It hurts so much. Please help,” he begs and it comes back like a whisper to her. “I am. I’m here for you. I’m going to help,” she begins to weep, equally confident and terrified. Quickly she sets her backpack down and takes out the rope carefully placed inside. The sound of a rope slapping and sliding down the mosey walls of the long-forgotten cavity. “It is so dark and lonely down here,” he cries. “Fuck you too,” the voice says back to him. “I’ve been down here too long,” he rambles on, the end of the rope brushing against his face. “That’s all of it,” she calls back through the darkness. Her own tears falling into the dark abyss below her. Her tears fall like rain through the darkness.

“I can’t,” he calls back. “I can’t do it,” he tries to say. “Yes, you can,” she shouts, cutting him off. “Yes, you can,” she repeats to his silence. “This is what you wanted. Here it is,” the voice calls through the darkness of his mind. “You going to lay there like a sad sack of shit or are you going to prove me wrong? Prove you still give a damn?” The voice asks in a serious tone. He cries out in pain as he struggles against his makeshift coffin. Each broken and mangled finger fighting against waves of pain. “You can’t do it because you ain’t shit,” the voice taunts him. “You’re too weak. You have always been weak,” it shouts back at him over and over. The words ring in his head as he fights. “Tell me I’m wrong. Just say it. Say what I already told you. You are worthless,” the voice growls angrily to his defiance through the chambers of his mind. With what feels like the last of his strength he ties the rope around his waist. “Pull me up,” he cries out.

The rope slowly pulls tighter against his broken body. “This doesn’t change anything. It is still you and me until the very end,” the voice calls from the darkness. She struggles against the weight of his body as she pulls the rope further and further from the hole in the ground. “Fuck you. I hope you die,” he tells the voice inside his head. Pressing his elbows harder against the walls of his tomb. Little by little he works his way closer towards the light. They work together in their combined struggle to save himself. “It’s still me and you,” the voice inside him screams. “We are in this together,” it reminds him. “Wrong. We were in this together. So long, farewell, good bye,” he thinks as the light of the sun reaches his eyes. “We’ll see,” the voice says as it fades deeper into the back of his mind.  “We shall see, but for now enjoy the view.”

Very fresh story… please be gentle… I’m not sure that this is even its final from… but if I’m being honest… I haven’t written a new story in a while… I just wanted to share it… I’m not sure if it will even make the final cut of Volume 4 of Broken Thoughts… Still working my way through it… Kind of hit a dark part of my mind… If you couldn’t tell by the story…

It happens… it will happen again… facts of life… hopefully not to the extremes of this story… but it is hard not to feel like it is from time to time… There are plenty of times that I have felt very much like I was in that deep dark hole in the last couple of months… elbows pressing against the sides of the walls… I am trying… and hopefully in time I’ll be back in the sunlight…

But for now I am trying… and I will keep trying to bring the best that I can to this website and to those of you that are still with me… You are and have very much been my hero with a rope… ready to bail me out… Thank you to everyone… I hope all is well and that you have the strength to let others know if it isn’t…

The hardest thing we can do in life is ask for help… and as hard as it might be… don’t ever be afraid to do it… No one person has all the answers… or all the solutions… But together we can at least try…

Hope all is well… because we still have plenty of time…