I glared at the faded violet walls, despising them. Loathing their false sense of calm and their silent urges to lay back and wait calmly. Why was I even here? I wasn't insane, I was just troubled. I wasn't depressed, just aware. Aware of how hideous our world really is. How the biggest lie mankind believed was that things got better in the end. That the world was beautiful, when in reality mankind was mankind's own worst creation. We had created a prosperous race that ran on greed and power. And the hate of whoever had more. Was this knowledge really something only I saw? Or were there hundreds like me confined to faded violet walls around the world? So I had let it get to me a bit more than it should have. But can I be blamed? Is it that hard to wrap your mind around the fact that a person wants to stop feeling. I realize I had been getting restless. The sheets on the bed a fine mess once again. I breathe deeply. Counting down from 10. I hate their stupid methods but I'm terrible at little white lies. I know they'll ask me if I've tried them and I  will answer yes. They will ask me if I'll be okay in the outside world again and I will answer yes.

After all the bigger the lie, the better I am at making people believe it.

I wasn't suicidal. Just curious. They say man (and woman) can actually tolerate a lot before they die. It takes a person 17 minutes to die when being burned at the stake though most "can only tolerate" about a minute of flame directly on their hand. It takes a maximum of 10 minutes to drown though most can only hold their breath for about 2 minutes. And though people can only donate a pint of blood at a time. They have to lose 4 pints before they die. Pain was a state of mind. Our conformist minds had accustomed us to giving up on everything the second it became uncomfortable. We constantly underestimated the strength of our own bodies...

WILL SOMEONE UNTIE ME?!

I look at the straps at my wrist once again and see the scars on my body. all fully scabbed over now. I didn't even feel the pain. It was fast and quick to transform into a numb feeling. How disappointing... You'd think a jumping in front of a train and smashing against the tracks would hurt a bit more. Then again time did seem to slow down before impact...

The door opens. He's here. Why, I have no clue. He hates hospitals, just because I'm here is no reason to face what he despises. He probably hates me a fair bit now too... I look down at the straps again. I then find myself worried about the stupidest most mundane thing. I worry about my hair and how it must look. Probably a mess from restless days and sleepless nights. You'd think they'd loosen the damn things to at least sleep a bit more comfortably.

"hey" he speaks softly. The nurses probably told him I was in a fragile state. How stupid of them. I had just proven how strong I was. I was alive wasn't I?

"hi." I responded without looking at him.

He half chuckled. It was the best sound I'd heard in weeks.

"A bit upset?" Now this would have been the last thing the doctors would have wanted him to say. But he had never really cared for things said by people who weren't his friends. I had never loved the characteristic more than I did at that moment.

"Have you SEEN the colour of these stupid walls?"

"Heh." he chuckled again. "I thought you liked purple."

I turned my head and looked at him with a looked could only say 'really? REALLY?'

After another small chuckle on his behalf I smiled.

"Ya. Well now I'm going to have to repaint my walls before I go mad again."
I regretted my wording the second I finished. I had meant it as a joke but I realized it was too early for those jokes of that kind. It was stupid that I had to watch for other people's feelings about my actions.

His smile faltered and I could tell that when he answered "ya" he wanted a quick topic change.

"Hey. You don't have to or anything but could you please take these things off my wrists? I feel like I'm going to lose feeling in my fingers and forget how to hold a pen."

He looked at me skeptically for half a second but I didn't get upset. It was human of him to. He quickly looked around to make sure we were fully alone and began to untie me.

He didn't care if they were there for a reason. And he didn't care if he would get in trouble. He knew that being able write meant more than anything in the world to me and that was the reason he did it. The second he finished I let out the biggest sigh. Like a part of me had been holding her breath this whole time.

I began rubbing my wrists and twisting them. Forcing them to remember how to move. I moved my wrist to my mouth and pressed my lips to them. My tongue slipped out without me even knowing and began slowly licking the shallow gashes. The wetness felt so good on my overheated wrists. The friction had really gotten to them... I immediately stopped when I realized how he was looking at me.

"C-can I see?" he reached out his hand asking for mine. I hesitated but passed him my wrist; the dry one. He held me gingerly. Softly examining. I closed my eyes as his fingers traced the red marks that would be there for weeks to come. Suddenly I felt something slightly colder than his normal skin press against my wrist. I opened my eyes to see him kissing it.

I must have given the strangest look because he quickly but gently put down my hand and mumbled an apology. It hadn't been a discomforting feeling. Just a new one...

He was looking down, hiding his soft face from me. I thought about why he would come here and quickly assumed that he wanted to know the answer to the obvious question.

"You wanna know why I did it?"

"What?" I had caught him off guard but something in his eyes told me he was embarrassed. Not from being found out but for wanting to know in the first place.

"Well?"

"ya.."

So he sat on the corner of the bed and I told him the truth. The one the doctors wouldn't hear. The one that I wouldn't be able to phrase for my friends. And the one that most people won't care about. He fiddled with my fingers and when I got to the darker stuff he gripped my hand tightly becoming my human life line to earth and clinical sanity.

I was surprised by how much my mind had actually stored. When it came to explain the moment of the jump the details were strikingly clear. The stupid violet walls faded and I was transported back to the train tracks. But this time his hands held me back. I talked about jumping and how it would feel to get hit. The me in my mind talked about it rhetorically while the me in the walls of the faded room spoke in past tense.

"..And here I am."

"Here you are..."

He repeated it for a reason I won't understand because he himself probably doesn't know why he did. I hadn't noticed while I was talking but he was a lot closer now. He had started at the corner of the bed but his face was now less than a hand's breadth away. His smooth skin was so enticing; but there was a slight divot in between his eyebrows. My hand reached out to it and barely making contact smoothed it out.

"D-" he placed his fingertips on my lips before I could tell him not to be sad.

"You don't be sad..." he had somehow read my mind and I smiled beneath his fingertips.He smiled with me and I remembered how genuine his smile could be when it wasn't forced.

I spoke before I could stop myself.

"Kiss me."

His eyes showed that he was thrown for a bit and I was going to take it back but I realized that I enjoyed his touch. I craved his warmth on my skin, a comfortable burning. But more than anything I liked that he made me worry  about normal things like my hair and wall colour. Other people bored me to the extent that I searched for more treacherous facts about the world. But wth him my mind went calm and I was as normal as I could be.

He leaned forward not questioning my borderline question with anything more than his eyes. He slowly put his hand on my cheek not knowing what to do. I quickly wondered why he seemed so flustered. Then I realized that this would be his first kiss. A kiss I might be given out of some weird mix of sympathy and lack of knowing what else to do.

I stop him with a hand to his chest. I look at it and command my hand not to grip onto his shirt.

"Y-you don't have to..."

I peeked up at him and saw he was smiling. he lifted my chin and pressed his lips to mine...

I ended up gripping his shirt quite tightly and pulling him closer. His arms snaked around my waist and he laughed against my lips. My lips are quick and clumsy. Needing his touch more than a perfect kiss.

"I'm here" he whispers as he moves lips to my neck. I bury my face in his shoulder and let him just hold me. I had forgotten the sweetness of human contact. Just as my mind starts to float away the door opens.

The violet walls come crashing in on me and I am about to start getting restless. I then realize that there is concentrated warmth around my waist and I open the eyes I hadn't realized were closed. He's there. How could I have forgotten?

He quickly squeezes me tighter and then loosens his arms not fully letting go. It probably had to do with the fact that I was still holding him tightly. I heard the nurse gasp before I saw her. I wanted to laugh so badly. The shock on her face was clearly directed at my wrists and the fact that they were free.

"I'm fine Doris." I spoke like a child explaining to a babysitter that the fall wasn't as bad as it looked. I doubt she knew I knew her name.

"But.."

"It's been more than 72 hours hasn't it?"    

"Well.."

He looked at me and answered playfully "Yes, yes it has." I smiled at him and it felt real. More real than the thrill of the jump. More real than the impact. Somehow... more real than the reasons I did it all for.

"I'm truly good now Doris. I'm..." I was going to say that I was going to be okay in the outside world again. But I didn't know that yet.

I turned to him, ignoring Doris' quizzical look at my hesitation. I looked into his never-ending eyes and asked him, "Will you stay with me?" I needed to know this to be able to determine if I would be okay out there. He smiled like the answer was obvious but answered anyways. "Of course." I smiled like an idiot and turned back to Doris.

"I'll be okay in the outside world for now." I added "for now" because I didn't know the future. I could only hope. Maybe that's what I was missing in my view in mankind. That when people say "It'll be better in the end" they are not saying it as a certainty. They are saying it as a hope. A wish. After all even though we know stars are balls of gas we deem a "falling one" special enough to wish upon. And even though we know a well is just another structure we throw our pennies in hoping that our silent wish will come true.

Maybe, just maybe, mankind was just a collection of people with hope...


I walked out of the room with the faded violet walls that day with more than freedom. I left with a new perspective and I left with a hand in mine. When I got home I looked at my walls. Staring at their colour I wondered why I had despised the hospital walls so much. Was it that the fact that they gave me an alienated feeling in a room that so closely resembled my own? I didn't know. Either way I said a silent goodbye to the all too familiar colour and picked up the brush. I slowly watch the sunset orange spread. Leaving no purple in it's tracks...

A new colour. A new path. A new mind. A new life, in my vibrant orange walls...