under the train

Yesterday someone died in my underground station. A "person under a train", they say. i don't know if it was an accident or it was suicide but the place was swamped with emergency services vehicles: fire engines, police vans and even a helicopter. The event didn't make the news as far as i can see but the situation above ground was surreal with hordes of rushing commuters walking the streets looking for a way to get to their destination as the train service was suspended.

Surrounded by this chaos, i started feeling the weight of this death several dozen feet under that very ground. If it had been a movie, the camera would have moved high up over the ground taking the opportunity to symbolise the departure of this man or woman's soul billowing up into the vast emptiness above us as we, the living, would start looking smaller and smaller, befitting our superfluousness in a world where there are so many of us. From ground level, though, the situation was one of annoyance, of people asking each other what was happening and irritated over being inconvenienced by another day of travel chaos.

With a past delightfully full of suicidal thoughts that stretch back all the way to my teenage years and a charming penchant for making things about myself, i immediately imagined i was experiencing life after my own passing away, mesmerised by the ineluctable continuing of everything else. We didn't look all that different from a line of ants that continue to carry their provisions home past the ones that have been stepped on. Personally i've never really considered jumping under a train, or off a building or a bridge. I've never considered any jumping at all in this respect so the situation was not immediately relatable but this death was so near and so present, directly touching my daily routine, that i couldn't help but feel affected by it.

I don't think i'm ever going to be able to avoid experiencing this side of life so closely. They say that a depressive personality is a hereditary condition and with a great-grandfather who committed suicide, a depressive grandfather and a fun mum that i can always rely on for casual chit-chat about all things death and tears shed over breakfast, i have no problems subscribing to this belief in my enviable position as the next in line.

So, you see, when i'm told to enjoy my submissiveness and feel happy about it, it's not that i don't want to do it – i just can't. Such a strong experience will always elicit a deep and strong response within me and my way of doing it, my way of dealing with it is this, by allowing the pain to flow through me freely without the need to stop it but leaving someone else to ensure my safety and my wholeness. My need for a stronger man near me is to be able to seek refuge. From me and from everything else.