The Material

by Camille Bordas

Before, there had always been a buffer between any suicidal thought Olivia had had and the idea that she could act upon it—the two had never quite aligned and faced each other. If she thought, I want to die, something within her immediately shrugged its shoulders and said, Tough shit. Or, depending on its energy level, just hung there all sorry and dumb, like a bad salesman. That “something within her” was her sadness, Olivia thought, its own character in her life. An annoying presence, but also comforting, like a mother, not anything that would ever want to cause her harm. Or so she believed, until that day. Because that day, Olivia had thought, I want to jump out the window, and her sadness’s answer had been Do it. In a split second, it had all appeared clearly to her—that suicide wasn’t just for other people, that she could do it, too, that she could do it anytime, in fact, and most of all do it now. Until then, her suicidal thoughts had been like bird-watching through broken binoculars—she’d been looking at shapes so far, splashes of color, quick movements, the possibility of a bird (the possibility of suicide)—but now it was as if someone had, on a whim, decided to fix the focus wheel, and not only was the bird all of a sudden high-def and undeniable in the collecting lens, it was staring right back at her. Death was staring right at her.