Alternate Convictions
There was one time when I was
forced to do something that totally went against my convictions,
about one or two and a half years back; the exact time,
I cant readily determine. I believe that it may have
been in August or September, at around eight at night, when
I was rather tired and had lazily folded myself over on
my bed to get ready for the upcoming morning. Over on the
side of the bed I was facing was a small night table where
a lamp sat, and beside the lamp, closer to me, was the phone.
I hardly ever received any calls, just having the phone
hooked up only to say that I had a phone number, nearly,
judging from the scant number of calls I averaged during
a month. Not expecting anything else to happen other than
falling asleep that night, there was no way I could have
known that something was going to happen later on. It was
something that was going to test my very convictions as
it was something I never thought I would be involved in
before. I was rather not in the correct frame of mind to
handle anything else other than a good nights sleep,
knowing that tomorrow would be another brand new, wonderful
day. It was not the time to be forced to do something I
didnt believe in, but under the prevailing circumstances
that night, there was no other choice.
It was rather still
in the room, quiet, and I remember looking about the
room for a few minutes, bored from the lack of nothing
to occupy my mind. Life seemed boring at that moment,
and I thought that there couldnt be anyone else
out there who could have had anything worse than me---having
to roam my eyes around the room and wait to go to sleep.
I couldnt have been so short in my views, since
very quickly I drifted off to a kind of superficial
sleep, carefree, thinking that it was going to be another
ordinary night for me.
Sometime around nine
oclock, as I was becoming relaxed and on the very
verge of sleep, the phone rang. Id rather not
state exactly how I felt at that moment, being awakened
by a piercing ring from some random call that probably
just happened to reach my number. It seemed only faint
and distant for a moment because I was still half asleep,
probably ringing five or six times before I was awake
and reached for the table to lift up the phone. There
was some doubt as to why someone would call my number
at nine at night, looking at the clock that was also
beside the phone, but I was somewhat curious as to who
it was. There werent that many people I knew,
so I went ahead and pressed the phone against my ear,
half in a daze.
I never found out who
it was. It was the voice of a man, probably in his twenties
or close to it, sounding shallow and muffled as he spoke
in short bursts. My lips moved forth in order to utter
something, but I stopped short of going further after
listening to only a few seconds of what he was trying
to say. I did not say hello, or anything for that fact;
he did most of the talking, if one could call it talking.
It was more of a hysterical, crazed rambling, laughs
and sobs at the same time, and then shallow yells where
I assumed he moved himself away from the phone. His
speech was slurred at some moments as if he was drunk,
but at other times he spoke with unexhausted clarity,
disturbed only by the great strain of his voice.
"I---I never wanted
to do anything, I just wanted to be wanted, you know?"
He broke off with a moments worth of shrill crying
as I listened, finding myself lain back against the
bed, stiffly held up to the phone. "I did it, I
really did it! And no one knew anything! Nothing about
it! I am so crazy, you know. I am crazy, demented,
depressed, maniacal, and here I am, on
the phone."
He cried in the distance
for a while.
"Im sorry.
Im so sorry. I know that you must not know why
I called you and I dont know why myself because
Im sick! But Im sorry, I know that you dont
want anything to do with me, so Ill go ahead and
hang up. Nobody needs to know about me anyway! Nobody!"
"Wait a minute---uh,"
I began, half asleep, "dont hang up yet."
There was a brief silence,
after which the man began his long series of wails again.
"I did it. I did
it and I dont regret it. I did it and no one wont
care because no one cares about me. No one. So I dont
give a care if anyone gives a care or not, you know?
I dont give a care about nothing!"
"I understand."
It must have been something
about the sound of my voice which made him hush up after
everytime I spoke. "I did it! I did it! Dont
you want to know what I did?"
"You did something?"
I didnt realize it, but I was getting rather tired.
He paused. "Yes!
Of course I did something! Oh yeah, I did something
really bad," he rambled on again, "I did something
really bad. I thought about doing something,
you know, but you wouldnt care. Nobody cares whether
or not I do it or not. If you did it, nobody
would care either, so why should anyone give a care
if I did it or not?"
That phone call had
been the longest one I had in a while---only around
five minutes so far, since I was not a person who used
the phone much. Listening to him was beginning to tire
me, only because I was half asleep. I had things to
do in the morning, but I knew that I should have been
more concerned about what he was telling me. It sounded
very important, urgent, last-minute and desperate, but
I was half-asleep and nothing was too clear to me. At
that point, after getting only four hours of sleep last
night, I must not have been in any more of a good shape
than the man was. If I were more awake I might have
been more thoughtful, but he was taking up my sleep
time by rambling on about something on the phone. I
knew that I should have been listening, but I was getting
tired very quickly.
"So, why did you
call me in the first place if you think that nobody
gives a care? If that was the case, you would have hung
up a long time ago."
"My life is going
downhill, you know. Theres nothing left for me.
My girlfriend walked out on me---"
"Oh, is that what
it is? You just randomly pick a number and call me up
at this time of night because you think Im nice
or something?"
"No, thats
not what it is. See---"
"Well, go ahead
and tell me!"
"I have a house
and a car and all those other things, making myself
good money, and---"
"So you call me
up to tell me that youre unhappy about all that?
I dont even get an allowance for that matter!
I mean, I dont know you and you dont know
me, but still, you find it exhilarating to tell a total
stranger everything about your whole life story! Look,
theres people that are trying to get some sleep
around here. Dont you know what time it is?"
"Yes, but I thought
that someone should know about me because after I get
off the phone I wont be able to tell anyone. Im
going to commit suicide. Im going to kill myself."
I guess he must have
waited a long while before I said anything. My lips
were sort of frozen for a moment, probably because my
head was back against my pillow and I had inadvertently
fallen asleep. I heard what he had said, actually everything
that he had said, but his words failed to conjure any
speck of sense in my now disintegrated conscience.
"And how do you
plan on killing yourself?"
In my half-slumber,
I could imagine his stupefied face as he tried to react
sanely to my words. "Well, Im thinking about
doing it with a gun or maybe tying a rock around my
waist and jumping off the local bridge."
"I can tell you
now that it isnt going to work. If you do it with
a gun you might miss, and you can always untie the rock
from around your waist when you get through jumping."
"Well, how are
you supposed to know Im going to miss?
Somewhere in my conscience
I knew that I was supposed to do something about this.
He had been on the phone now for ten minutes, and for
all that I knew, he might have been prepared to kill
himself right then as we spoke. Every belief, conviction,
and sense that I had told me to calm him down and talk
to him, and then call the police as soon as I could.
This man was going to kill himself, and I was supposed
to do something about it, but how could I do anything?
Thats what everyone would say. Theyd ask
questions, and then I would have to come up with something.
It was just too much trouble, and besides, all I wanted
to do was to get some sleep.
"Hey, look, its
your suicide, not mine. Im trying to get
some sleep! If you want to kill yourself so badly, then
you wouldnt be telling me all the details. People
who commit suicide dont call everyone up on the
phone this late at night. They write little notes and
leave them somewhere so that someone can find them after
they kill themselves. Plus, you wouldnt be bragging
so much about doing it if you really wanted to do it."
"Well, I am
going to do it. Im going to shoot myself and
then youre going to have to feel guilty about
it for the rest of your life."
"Look, its
going to be you whos going to feel guilty
and not me because Im going to get myself some
sleep. I dont give a care about people
who dont have anything going for them tomorrow,
but I do. I have to go to school and I have a big meeting
coming up and I really do not need to worry about
anybody right now! I never use the phone!
I never talk to anybody! You understand!
I should be the one committing suicide and not
you. Im really sorry that youre so ignorant
you cant see all the good stuff going for you
that you think you have to end it all. Man, if I had
the kind of money that you make! Look, if youre
going to do it, then dont look for me to be sorry
for you. Id rather feel sorry for myself wasting
my time on my phone talking to you! Now, good night!"
I made a move to hang
up, but before the phone entirely left my ear I heard
him call out, "Wait! Dont hang up yet! Wait!"
"Well, what is
it?"
"Ive decided
not to kill myself."
"Well, thats
great."
"I guess that it
isnt worth it, you know."
"Yeah, I guess
it isnt either."
He paused for a moment,
probably to catch up with the sequence of events that
had just occurred. "Was it because you cared or
was it because you knew that I wasnt really going
to commit suicide?"
"No, I thought
that you really were going to do it."
His voice began to grow
calmer, leaving behind the blunt pronunciations he had
made in previous words, becoming more clearer and maybe
my ears were deceiving me, but a little curious also.
"Then, was it because you cared?"
"Well, maybe, but
to tell you the truth, I was getting a little sleepy.
Im happy for you and take care of yourself. And
next time when you think about committing suicide, think
about it during the daytime and please, not at this
time of night. Okay?
"Yeah---"
"Then, good night."
The phone left my hand onto the hook and I flopped back
onto the pillows.
The truth about that
night was that, well, I knew that I was kind of selfish
of myself and all. This man was in dire need of some
help, but I was in a greater need of some sleep and
sometimes when I get sleepy, there are a very few things
that can keep me away from my bed. Ironically, that
situation made for some interesting dreams than night,
as I thought about our conversation on the phone, thinking
that I was really talking to a man on the verge of killing
himself. But see, the thing about it was that I didnt
think he was really going to kill himself. He must have
been one of those persons who talked about committing
suicide just to get attention. That was one time when
I was forced by a physical urgency of sleepiness and
had to go against my deepest inner conviction. Another
persons life was undoubtedly more important than
a few hours worth of sleep, even though when I
woke up in the morning, I found that my clock must have
run out of batteries at nine oclock p.m. two days
ago. Oh well, sometimes people just have to take
chances. I dont know who he was, but whoever he
was, I wish him a happy life. He hasnt called
since, so I think that hes doing okay, wherever
he is.
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