Dear Miffy (8 page)

My heart wasn't in it, but. I felt sick. I was running away from them but where was I running to? It was a race with no finish line, no trophies. I think I started crying a bit even, just as I was walking along, but I wasn't going to let anyone see that. I wiped the tears off, rubbed my eyes. I didn't think about where I was for a little time then I realised I was in the part where the suburban trains come and go. I don't know when I first thought of doing it. A few people here, shrinks and all them, asked me that. There's no answer. It just sort of grew in my head like a bad flower. It was the feeling that nothing good was ever going to happen, nothing could ever get better, I'd fucked the whole lot up. Every last thing. I touched a rose and it died. I had no fucking family who cared, I couldn't go back to school, I couldn't get no job even if I wanted one and, by tomorrow, when they heard what I'd done, I'd have lost all my mates. Most of all, I'd lost you, Miff, the one thing, the one person I totally relied on. I couldn't hack that, just couldn't hack it. That's the trouble with love. You got to lose it one day, everyone's got to lose it sooner or later and, when you do, it hurts so bad you just can't stand it, you can't live any more. I was in this cold-hot state. Cold, because all my feelings had frozen, if I ever had any anyway. Hot, because I knew I was going to walk onto a railway platform and chuck myself under a train and that'd fix everything up. I didn't think of it as killing myself exactly, putting an end to my life, just as stopping all these problems. Stopping this bad bad hurting feeling that I couldn't stand no more. It was a cure.
The
cure. I was walking faster and faster. I just wanted to do it, get it over with. I knew if I stopped to think about it I'd get scared and chicken out, so I couldn't stop to think about it. Come on, Tony, keep walking. Here's a ramp. Lots of people, so there must be a train soon. This'll do, it'll do, it doesn't matter. Come on. Up the ramp. People everywhere, looking that tired and grey, like they'd lost interest in life. Like their lives were so dead. They looked sad. Crowds of them and not one of them saw me, never even looked at me. I didn't see one pair of eyes that were alive or laughing or taking any notice of anything. I felt like I was in a crowd of dead people already. I got to the top of the ramp, looked around, saw where the end of the platform was, went round the back of the crowd to the end, then moved through them to the edge. No-one touched me. I was kind of floating. I felt like I'd entered another world, where no-one could touch me any more. Don't ask me to explain it, Miff. I think I'd sort of died before I even got there. This blast of air started coming along the platform and there was this vibration starting, like ‘the train is coming, the train is coming'. You could feel people stirring, getting ready, coming forward. No-one was more ready than me though, no-one. I was ready. I don't think any doubt entered my mind.

I was right up the end so the train'd still be going fast, it had to be going fast enough. I saw it coming, but I didn't really think of it as a train, just as something that I had to get in front of. Something I had to throw myself in front of, and then whatever was going to happen would happen. Simple really, no problems. I was waiting for it, ready to go, all tensed up, all ready, waiting for it.

And I fucked it up. Funny how you do some little thing slightly wrong and that's it then, it's a major fuck-up. I'm still not sure what happened. I think I thought that the train was slowing up too much, that it might end up going too slow to do the job. And also, I don't know, at the same time I didn't want to leave it too late. To miss the train. It was like both these things were happening in my head at the same time. So anyway, to cut a long story short I did it a bit early.

I took the step forward, just one step. It was the weirdest feeling, stepping into space, into nothing. I knew it was going to hurt, but I wasn't scared. I was still just thinking, ‘This'll fix it all up, take care of things. No more pain after this.' But maybe as I landed I wimped out a bit, without meaning to. I heard this chick scream behind me as I went down, and I think that put me off a bit, made me think maybe I shouldn't have done it, maybe I'd done the wrong thing. She sort of scared me. And so I think I must have fallen backwards, sort of made myself fall backwards, made myself fall away from the train, because I was scared of the impact. Fucking lot of weight in a train. So my top half—well, a bit more than half—was under the platform before the train hit. It was all because I was a second too early, see. If I hadn't gone early the train would have hit me before that happened, see. Would have hit me on the way down. But that's what did happen, that's what I figure anyway. And that's why I didn't get killed, and that's why I just lost my fucking legs, all the way up to my dick, just about, plus fucked up my spine. And that's why I'm in this fucking wheelchair.

Funny thing, Miff, after it happened and they got me out I was still conscious, you know, and there were a million people on the platform by then, because I'd fucked up their evenings good and proper, and they were all going to be late home. Stupid, I was trying to say sorry to them, but no-one would have heard or had a clue what I was on about. But you know something, Miff? Something strange? All them people, their eyes were alive now, and they all saw me. The cops had put up a barrier and they were all behind it, but they were looking at me and they saw me and their eyes were alive. And don't ask me what the fuck that means, Miff, because I just don't know.

But I think it means something.

Bye for now,

Tony

Dear fucking bastards who've been reading these letters. I know you've been reading them now. You cunts. I hope you've had a lot of good laughs. Been making copies, have you? Been taking notes? Well, fuck you all. That's the last time I write anything. Just so you bastards can read it. FUCKING MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. FUCK YOU ALL.

Lots of love, fuckers,

Tony