Mrs. Pepper Pot: I Won't Hang Myself Today

— Warning: This article contains sentenses and expressions that might trigger some people —

Allow me, within the minutes of me writing these lines, to be the trend’s destructor of the lockdown’s boredom pretentions; truth is, I am not one of those who are wallowing these days in dullness or nagging in boredom, maybe I am one of the few who want additional hours to the 24 so we can get the work that we have done. I am not feeling angry in result of quarantine, and I am not dulled down by staying at home; on the contrary, I am repulsed by those who fill up the electronic space with words of boredom and complaint from loneliness and isolation, this triggers my anger to the point of madness, as if it’s exaggeratingly directed to me personally, as if they’re insulting slaps on my face, because what they are mocking is simply my life.

Two years ago I was transformed into a homely being that spends long hours in work from home without many social activities, streets became disrupting to me, humans ignite my fear, and gatherings make me anxious. And during the long working hours these days, lots of existential questions have started to encompass me, separately; why do humans become crueler towards each other in times of crises? Do I miss anyone? Do we really own forgiveness? When does all this pain end? Why can’t I simply depart?

And I hosted a guest heavy on my spirit, for the first time she penetrates my solitude, and she was an urging desire to disappear; why don’t I leave? Why don’t I hang myself or swallow some stuff that taste unpleasant and go? I don’t care to where I’ll go but I want to go, I can stand my loneliness no more.

One of them calls me asking: “How are you doing in quarantine?” I smile mockingly, and I shake my head sarcastically from the other end of the conversation, and I swallow my laugh “Nothing, the usual, I do my usual work that I have been doing for two years”. During this kind of phone calls, other responses cross my mind like “In fact I am doing well, very well, and my conditions have changed drastically due to Corona, I used to work from home and I now work from home, I used to feel lonely all the time and I now feel lonely all the time, nobody used to visit me and no one visits me anymore, I didn’t roam a lot in the spacious city and I no longer roam in it, I was addicted to work and I’ve now become more addicted. As you see, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, conditions and days are changing.”

The current situation triggers my anger, and whenever I find someone nagging about quarantine I become angrier, and that’s why I escaped social media platforms, it no longer sparks anything inside me but disgust.

My close friend’s words cross my mind a lot these days “Stay alone like this, and you’ll die alone”; at the time I was saddened and angered, how could she utter such things to my face! But after years I knew that she was saying the truth, furthermore I started to be sarcastic about the phrase, and I added to it “I will die alone, and my cats will eat my corpse” ha ha ha. Ever since I was a teenager, I knew that this is how my life is going to be, I looked at my magical crystal ball and saw, and decided to make peace with it and distance myself from humans as much as possible, because wherever they are, there is evil and harm. It is not terrifying to me anymore, I honestly no longer fear loneliness, I have accepted it and gulped it unhurriedly, because I know that we will all leave alone, some of us will live alone, and whenever we choose some path in life we will pay royalties, and I have prepared my royalty long ago.

“No I will not hang myself today, I have a lot of work, I have to finish it first then immediately hang myself, but I wish I’d depart quickly and my destiny wouldn’t be an abundance of bad fortune, and I am paralyzed or my brain is damaged without me dying.”

Love? What is love, my dear? A thing that is like logarithmic equations to me, which, by the way, I have harvested endless zeros in.

But, I take my eyes off my laptop and I look up for moments and think “No… who will take care of the cats? Okay, I will put the cats up for adoption then hang myself, no I won’t hang myself I don’t like the idea of hanging, maybe a shaving blade will do the job, okay this is the plan.”

I have always had lots of theories about loneliness and isolation, I was raised in a completely calm house that had few individuals in it, and its individuals didn’t converse much. I was brought up in a family where I was deprived of most of the social duties and family visits; I no longer know what socialization is!!.... I hopped around between a big number of flats and houses that I own none of, I didn’t have many close friends until college, and… my head’s penetrated by thoughts… “But what about the electricity bills that haven’t been paid off yet… I will not depart and leave my mother with debts, no .. I will pay them off then hang myself, I don’t like the idea of hanging, the ceiling wouldn’t endure my weight, it might crumple down to the ground after the neighbors’ above kitchen’s water has seeped through it and bits of the paint had been falling during the last two years, what about the classical way of dying, maybe lots of medicines coming from an unknown source would do the job, then this is the plan, I will pay off the bills then depart.”

A close friend, whom I have no clue where he is now, once said to me “We’re the loners, we’re the only ones who’ll remain this way, we will feel belonging towards nothing, no place, and no group, and we will remain this way my partner, save your effort to change reality.” And then I realized the solution to the mystery, why I have never felt belonging to anything or anyone, as if I am “A demonic implant” part of me enjoys it, part cries about it day and night, and part tells me that I have committed lots of sins towards many _and I deserve to pay the price_ and this is the suitable time to “Pay for the drinks”.

I kept blaming my father for the foreignness my whole life, I used to blame him openly for every hour in my life he wasn’t beside me, and I refused to get out of the country because I fear foreignness, but I didn’t know that foreignness inhabits me and it will never leave its habitat; I never belonged to a place and never meant something intimate to a human being, I am only accompanied by the feeling that I am an alien thrown by its mother ship to atone for all the crimes of their planet, I am  accompanied by the feeling that I am something invisible that had fallen in a well and no one will notice it…. Here I am, once again, uttering pitiful words to reward myself before executing this kind of dump decisions.

What provokes my anger towards this “Current situation” is that it keeps reminding me, every single minute, of the amount of severe losses I have reaped so far, that there are no honorable humans, that I haven’t ever grasped the essence of love, everything is frail, humans are complicated to a degree that I cannot deal with, and that in this moment I own nothing, after years of trying to reconcile with, to take care of and be aware of the self; nevertheless I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough of loneliness, pain and weeping in the long nights when no one keeps me company… maybe this is all that there is, this is the end, I’ve had enough and got tired of panting to reach a mirage that I’ve never gathered anything from but a misery that will remind me of my life that had been spent in vain. I don’t believe that the years or times to come will be different or joyful, only monotony, monotony and boredom like those I used to feel when I was a prisoner in my room for long days trying to burry myself inside Dostoyevsky’s tales narrating about the boredom and monotony of the Russian countryside. I’ve had enough of taking care of the self, of work and ambition, of empty mottos that don’t lead to that eternal heaven; I’ve had enough of carrying, inside my heart, the corpses of people whom I was never able to let go, all the words confined within my spirit for tens of meetings that never happened weigh me down, thousands of phrases to tens of people I had plans every day to meet, I am tired of all these discussions locked up inside my head chained with the chains of fear and anger. I am in fatigue with the anger eating my spirit, and feeding on every inch of my emotions, making me lose my mind to a sly demon.

Maybe this is all that there is; here the journey comes to an end… “No I will not hang myself, this requires a lot of effort, maybe loneliness would kill me, yes this is the solution, one day I will sleep with the desolation of caves inside my heart and I will not wake up, just this simple.”

I mock myself, I only wish for this but unfortunately it won’t happen, I wish life was that simple.

Maybe the likes of me of loners are the most deserving to “Pay for the drinks” for humanity, why not?

Those who don’t say the appropriate things in the appropriate time, and miss out on lots of parties and birthdays, those who are killed by anxiety in joyful social gatherings, those who don’t feel amiability quickly towards humans, and those who need an era to trust someone; the likes of me who search naively for “The catalogue” to understand the complex nature of human beings, to the point that I have never discovered others’ favorite method of communication and receiving support and love, how evil I am to not fulfill my duty in bestowal, I’ve never bestowed as I should, and on top of it all _oh wow_ I’ve committed lots of mistakes and some of them is gross, hence let us all pay the heavy price because we’ve never suited the others’ convenient mold.

“This is the plan then, I am completely convinced, and I will die with a reassured heart that I will not leave mellow hearts behind me, and I will not feel guilty, I must pay the price and hang myself… no, not hanging again, girl! I don’t prefer it, don’t you remember? Corona will do the job, and I will be of the young rare cases that lose their lives due to Coronavirus. I wish it will all be finished quickly, right then I will be able to flee paying off the electricity bills, my responsibility towards the cats falls, it will be the right excuse to escape the exhaustion of work, and abandon loneliness, anger and disappointment… this is the plan then, they will say Corona killed her.”

By: Mrs. Pepper Pot

April 11th 2020