Self-preservation

I learned to tie a hangman’s noose on my 21st year. The steps were on the internet: videos, diagrams, how to use it, how not to fail at using it, what it is for. I made it out of a blanket, and when I stood before the staircase railing, I suddenly thought how it would be better to celebrate my birthday with an ice cream instead.

In truth, I was afraid and was certain that it would hurt. No one hung himself without the body flailing. At least according to all the videos I had viewed so far. One article said asphyxia hurts and the body dying always guarantees pain.

So there’s that: pain and fear. Things one wouldn’t live without, things I’d be glad to do away with. I have long been certain of the cause. We just didn’t have enough money for a shrink to formalize everything, put the affliction on paper and prescribe the usual detours around self-destruction. Also, no one wants a suicidal son. Especially one who’s bad at being suicidal.

What a secret, then, to keep in your early 20s. Then you realize that it is a secret of those in their 20s, and of course that doesn’t make you feel any better. You brave through, though, and realize more things that still won’t make you feel better, but will make you stay anyway.

For example: my first plane ride. I made it a point to miss my parents’ wedding anniversary in Iloilo because they would take the plane. Little did I know that months later, I had to ride one anyway to attend a writers’ workshop.

First flight: Manila to Dumaguete. Not bad, ideally. Except that once I was settled on the seat, a window seat, I couldn’t help but think of all the people I might have wronged and if they had forgiven me, or if those who claimed to love me would visit my funeral.

The usual things to think about as the steel bird accelerated on the runway, carrying you and your fears with it, as well as your hope that the pounding of your heart would convince the plane not to nosedive.

After some moments of air turbulence and a few hours later, the plane landed in Dumaguete. There, I met new people, went to new places, felt as if life was more than what it appeared to be.

Not that I hadn’t thought of other methods. Crossing the road at the wrong time, jumping from a certain height, oxalic acid, you name it. All defeated by fear, which is mine but which I want to disown. Eventually, as with anyone drained of hope, I turned to religion. One night, I knelt and made the sign of the Cross. Please let me sleep tonight, please let me not wake up tomorrow.

Of course, defeat pegged me to life. You stay because you discover new things.

There was an earthquake once and I was in the office. Once the oval hardwood table began trembling and displacing things, my officemates held on to it until the room stopped moving. They stood then and waited, the PA system promptly brought to life by announcements.

I had my earphones on and was pretending to have felt and heard nothing. Minutes later, the aftershocks followed, and when the second one stopped, my officemates stood up.

“Where are you going?” I asked, removing one of the plugs from my ear.

They looked at me as if I was drunk.

“We’re going out,” they said, “Didn’t you feel anything?”

I might have said yes to them. I couldn’t recall now. What I knew was, I was trying to play cool, and treat the danger and potential fatality as a bitter pill you had to take on a daily basis.

One night, my father asked my mother to find a certain document, an old NBI clearance form. She didn’t find it, but from an old black bag, she retrieved packets of Kodak negatives, still in their yellow envelope.

“These are your pictures,” she said, “when we were living in Makati.”

We’ve been in Quezon City for almost 20 years now. In the pictures, she said I was two years old, an age where memory and the need for reasons served little purpose.

She handed me the strips. One by one, I held them against the light, and saw outlines of my supposed self more than two decades ago. In these, I was sitting on a staircase, I was standing on a tiled floor, I was shoving a cone in my face, I had a cap on, I had suspenders. I was a child. Not something you usually thought about.

I asked my mother if I could bring some, so she gave me a couple of strips.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “I’ll find a place where these could be developed.”

We could give copies to those who’d show interest, these pictures of a child.

“You have to take care of them,” she said. “Those are the last ones.”

When I went to my room to search for a folder, I saw my shelf and thought the better of it. I have a graphic adaptation of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” huge enough to cover the length of the strips. I placed them between separate pages, closed the book and slid it in my bag.

I didn’t know how they would turn out. I might not find a place that could handle such artifact. Tomorrow, I would see, and I guess I wouldn’t mind waking up again, and again.

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George Deoso, 23, is a communication skills trainer. He lives in Quezon City with his family and two dogs named Kidlat and Hi-Ho.