The Good Samaritan

by John Marrs

I live for the next call.

The afternoon shift was often quiet. Desperate housewives and mums rang during the day when they were free of husbands and children. It was a time also favoured by prisoners, making use of our Freephone number. Early mornings were mainly men on their way to work, commonly plagued by money worries and scared what bills might be lying on the doormat on their return home later. Most suicidal callers waited until the evening, when, alone, they had time to think.

I thought that if I could push my lips out as far as I could and breathed in, I might capture that last breath and hold it inside me forever.

So much of what you believe – or what you have convinced yourself to be true – can be flipped on its head quicker than you can ever imagine.

I no longer liked being an adult. This adult, anyway.

If I wasn’t crying, I was numb. If I wasn’t numb, I was suffocating. If I wasn’t suffocating, I was crying. And so on and so on. A never-ending circle of shittery.

There was no point to anything anymore.

Johnny was at the bank playing God with who could have mortgages,

Yes, doctor, I’m going to replace my dead wife with a hamster. Marvellous idea.

Even four months after her death, she was still finding new ways to hurt me.

Only now, by following in Charlotte’s footsteps, could I understand that she wasn’t being selfish in taking her own life. No suicidal person is. Like I was now, she truly believed in her heart of hearts that sometimes it is all there is left to do.