I guess you could say that this note is as close to what's known as a "trigger warning" as you're going to get out of me. It's been quite some time since I've written anything, or even come close to conjuring up any sort of idea of something worth writing about for that matter, but this story is something I've had in my head for a while now. It's something I feel needs to be told and needs to be read by anyone that's willing to dive into this.
I won't beat around the bush about this; The Platform is about suicide. It's about a man deciding to take his mortality in his own hands after spending a lifetime circling the proverbial void. For many of you that struggle with this exact same thing, The Platform is probably something that you shouldn't bother reading. That being said, for the rest of you that do face these feelings everyday and want to delve into those feelings through the eyes and thoughts of someone else, that's what this story is for.
This unnamed character is a reflection of thoughts and feelings that I've had, have, and have dealt with for as long as I can recall. This isn't a cry for help or a piece of art that life will eventually imitate...this is something that I feel I need to say. This is something that I hopefully don't regret sharing with the world at large. This is something that I feel should be seen by as many sets of eyes as possible, and no, it's not because I'm looking to make a profit off of this, it's because I want as many of you to know what I wish was shared with me so long ago: you're not alone.
Now that all of that is out of the way, if you still want to proceed with The Platform, go right ahead. If however you've changed your mind and would rather this be kept away from your eyes, that's totally fine as well. Either way, I want any and all of you reading this to know that no matter how hopeless, helpless, or lost that you may feel in your life, always remember that you're not alone in how you're feeling. If you've ever felt anything like the main character in this story, seek help. Talk to someone. Keep going and keep fighting. Don't give up.
Nick
THE PLATFORM
by Nick Durham
Ten minutes
The countdown begins. The night is cold and bitter, the kind of bitter where it almost hurts to breathe. Not a single cloud in the sky, yet there's no stars to see when you look up. That's what it's like living in a city: a sprawling, urban clusterfuck of concrete, noise, and people. An environment that feels something like its own little world with its own rules and regulations. Like it's cut off from the rest of the planet and everything outside of its atmosphere is meaningless.
I came to this city over a decade ago. I sought a fresh start and thought that maybe this place would have the best chance of offering just that. I'd never lived in a city before; having grown up around farmlands and trees and dirt and stars. Stars. I remember looking up into the sky and being able to see them illuminate the sky and shining down upon me. They would make me feel like I wasn't so alone, like they were hanging up there just for me to look at. I remember someone had said to me once that the city didn't have stars, that you couldn't see anything when you looked up in the sky, but I didn't believe that. How could a place not have stars I used to wonder to myself. But it was true, it was so goddamn true. The stars aren't there and the sky always looks black. I'm alone, and have been more since I first set foot in this place.
Sometimes I wonder why I came here, what lead me to coming here. I guess it's the same thing that lead me to the spot where I'm standing right now. This platform, waiting for a train that runs from the northern point of the city all the way to the south end. I've stood here at this exact same spot so many times since I first came here, mostly as my means of transportation to get to the job I used to have, and other times...just to ponder fast forwarding the inevitable. Tonight it's sparse in terms of passengers waiting to board the train, given that it's after midnight on a weekday. The timing of this particular day and time was the point after all. Less chance of any kind of interference from would-be good Samaritans.
Nine minutes
I stand relatively close to the edge of the platform, but not close enough to set off any kind of alarm for anyone that may lay eyes on me. Then again, the handful of people that are waiting here have their faces buried in their phones, so I may hopefully be ignored. No one notices the fact that I'm staring down the track where the train is due to travel upwards. It's below freezing out here and I can feel myself sweating. Is it the anticipation? Is it my body trying to signal my brain somehow that I shouldn't do this, let alone even contemplate it? I don't know, nor do I wish to either.
This is something that's been a long time coming. Longer than I've ever admitted to anyone, even myself. I think about what brought me here, what lead me here, how I wound up standing here waiting for the end to come. I think about my father. How he towered over me when I was a child. How he tried to do the best he could for me in spite of being pursued and eventually overtaken by the noise inside his head. The noise that he passed down to me. The noise he couldn't ignore anymore when he looked me in the eye and pulled the trigger. I remember hearing the gunshot more than I do what actually unfolded in front of me. I'd never heard anything that loud before at that point in my life. The blood spraying and the bits that used to be part of my father's head I watched get splattered on me and around the kitchen of our apartment were only secondary to the sound of it all unfolding.
The unit below us had called the cops, reporting hearing a single gunshot. During the time between the shot and when the police arrived, I didn't shed a single tear. I had felt nothing. I was twelve years old and didn't feel an ounce of sadness or pain or torment. What I did feel was the thought of questioning myself as to why I felt none of these things. I remembered hearing something my mother had said to my father a few years before this when she left us. The words that came out of her mouth to my father were "Don't you ever feel anything? You're an emotional blank slate. Why can't you be normal?"
My mother was terrified of my father. He wasn't what could be classified as a good man to really describe him. I'd like to think that I didn't become like him, but here we are. He circled the void for years and let it take him, and I'm following in his footsteps. Not because I desire to be like him, but because this is just inevitable. Ending my own life is how it was always going to turn out for me, just like it did for him. The noise in his head couldn't be shut off. That inner void inside him grew and grew, and couldn't be closed no matter what kind of life he tried to make for himself, even one that included having a family or any other degree of society-approved normalcy.
The noise and the void. One doesn't exist without the other. I tried to drown out the noise and fill that void by leaving it all behind in the place I grew up in. Tried to put what I watched my father do behind me. Tried to tell myself that his actions didn't define me. That I didn't inherit anything from him. That I am my own man and my own person and I am responsible for my own actions. I was only half right. I did put him behind me, and I managed to ignore the noise and the void long enough to think I had a chance at a different outcome, but as I stand here looking down the train tracks, I know that everything I tried to tell myself years prior was nothing but bullshit.
Eight minutes
I can feel my lips are cracked in the bitter cold. I can see my own breath as well. One thing about winter I always thought was kind of cool, being able to actually see my own breath escape from my lungs. Ever since I was a kid, it's given me nonstop amusement during this season every single year. My ex-wife thought it was ridiculous of a grown man to get this sort of amusement out of something so trivial. She thought a number of my hobbies were ridiculous for a grown man to have as well. Horror movies, metal music, comic books, true crime literature, video games, etc. They made me immature according to her, but these things I was into were things I could relate to. The worlds presented on film or on a page were an escape, a way to shut off the noise in my head that was only increasing over time.
I tried so many methods to shut off that noise and void, or to at least drown them out. In my youth, it was anything I could smoke, or snort, or inject, or drink, or even fuck. Fucking was my go-to for a while at least. Disappearing in writhing, sweaty flesh. Making someone cum for me. Being able to accomplish that made me feel like I was worth a shit. Like I was good at something. Like I was wanted. Like I mattered. That's how I ended up with my eventual wife. She was supposed to be another late-night conquest, but she kept coming back. I thought to myself that maybe this was it, maybe this was the way to really shut that fucking noise off and fill that void. Maybe this was how I was going to do it. I was going to spend the rest of my life with this woman and everything was going to be okay. We were going to be okay. I was going to be okay. I was going to feel whole, finally. No more void, no more noise.
That's not how it worked out, obviously. I could stand here and blame her for leaving me, but the reality is that I really don't. Not even a little bit. The reality is that I got married because I thought it'd be a means to an end. A means to feel whole and not feel so alone anymore. A means to actually feel some sort of emotional weight. But none of that ever happened. Just like when I watched my father blow his brains out, again I felt absolutely nothing. No feelings of love or happiness, just a sort of static. I guess this is what's considered "going through the motions". The allure of being a newlywed wore off quickly for her and it wasn't long before she realized she made a mistake. She thought there was a way of changing me, a way of peeling back the layers of being an emotional blank slate like my father was before me, a way to get to the "real me" she used to say. But this was the real me, I had no feelings of love for her or of any kind of sadness when she left.
The day she told me she was leaving me, all I could reply to her with was a simple "okay". Nothing else, no tears, no begging or pleading, just an okay. I watched her melt down. Watched tears stream down her face. Listened to her scream and yell at me that it wasn't fair to her that I was like this. Said over and over again words that I've never been able to forget: "why can't you be fucking normal?". Words I wondered to myself every single day for as long as I can remember. I knew that I wasn't going to miss her, but there was something that I felt in me as I watched her go out the front door that I hadn't felt before. I don't know how to explain it other than it being like an ache. A physical sensation in my chest like I've never felt before, never felt since, and will never feel again.
Seven minutes
I take my phone out of my pocket and glance at it. No calls, no texts, no shit. Not that it wouldn't be any other way. I managed to systematically push the few people I had in my life away. Some of that was purposeful, some of it wasn't. There's a couple sitting on a bench arguing over something, and arguing loudly at that. There's actual words coming out of both of their mouths, but it all sounds like nonsensical noise to my ears. I glance at them and neither notice, both too enthralled in each other's rage to notice anything happening around them. There's a trashcan next to the bench that I debate to myself dropping my phone into, but I decide not to. I'm almost halfway there on the countdown. Finally.
Is it excitement that I'm feeling right now? Am I excited to meet my end? No, it's not excitement. It's relief. Relief in knowing that it'll all be over before too long. Relief in knowing I don't have to keep pretending I'm anything close to what's considered a human being. Some days have been more agonizing than others in doing just that. Going to work every day. Going grocery shopping. Exercising. All mundane tasks that everyone else does that are essential to everyday living. No more pretending. No more of the mundane. No more anything.
One thing that's always perplexed me is society's feelings about taking your own life. Catholics consider it a "mortal sin" and a guarantee that one's soul will burn in hell for all eternity. That's religion for you though: a construct designed to control your life and take away your free will. I was lucky enough to be spared of being brought up in any sort of theology, and for that I am thankful.
As for the rest of the world, suicide is a coward's way out. It's giving up. At least that's what most would tell you. That's not how I see it, it's not how I've ever seen it. This is my way of taking charge of my own life. This is me ending things on my own terms and doing it my way. Most people spend their whole lives going through the motions, getting from one point to the next and letting the chips fall where they may. They're never in charge of their own lives, no matter how they feel otherwise. This is me taking charge of my life and what happens to it. To do that takes a degree of courage that I've never ever had before. I don't believe that it takes courage to keep going. You drift through life from one point to the other. Is that really living? You buy a house, you get a spouse, you make babies, you go to cookouts, you buy shit you don't need. Rinse and repeat, over and over and over again ad nauseam. I find it sickening. This is me doing what I need to do. Taking charge, other people's thoughts be damned. I think now, for the first time in my life, I'm starting to actually feel something.
Six minutes
Am I being selfish in doing this? Selfishness is a word that gets thrown around so often that many forget what the word even means. Isn't it selfish to go through life doing the same thing over and over again? People will cut each other's throats over money and material possessions every second of every day. Isn't that selfish? How is me taking charge of my own life an act of selfishness? Perhaps the fact that I'm going to drop down in front of a moving train with a conductor and passengers that may be injured as a result of my act is in itself selfish. That's why I decided to do this so late at night, on the last scheduled train for the day. At a time of day where there's barely anyone on it. A multiple ton-weighing vehicle of solid steel that will barely get dented by my body smashing to pieces against it.
Maybe I should have chosen a different way to do this. Maybe I should have tied a rope around my neck in my living room. Or maybe I should have sat myself in my bathtub and slit my wrists. Maybe I should have downed a bottle of pills and laid down in my bed and wait for the darkness to swallow me up. But no. All of that would leave a corpse in its wake. I don't want there to be anything left of me. I want this steel death machine to liquefy me. I don't want anything left of me to bury or burn. I've barely been a person my whole life. I don't want to be anything resembling a person in my death. This is how it has to be. This is how it was always going to be.
That feeling of inevitability is almost comforting in the way I can feel it swallowing me up inside. It's almost beautiful. Ah, beauty. A word I've never really had much appreciation for. Perhaps it's because I've never really known the true definition of the word. The comfort I'm feeling is almost drowning out the never-ending noise that's in my head. It's strange, unlike anything I've ever felt before. Not even in all the times I'd try to drown it out by doing a line or putting my cock inside any willing participant have I ever felt like this. This feeling. Feeling. I'm actually feeling this.
Five minutes
Halfway there now. I keep waiting for some kind of voice to pop up inside my head telling me that there's still plenty of time to change my mind about all of this. Or it'll say "don't do it, there's so much to live for" or something cliché like that. Maybe it'll come. I feel like I have all the time in the world. With the odd feeling of comfort that's permeating in my head, I actually don't want any of this time to end. It's...it's mind boggling to me. I don't get what's happening.
Is it the knowledge that yes, I am going to go through with this, bringing the comfort to my brain and drowning out the noise? I didn't take this into account when I planned all of this. I don't want this leading into any kind of complications, not when I'm so close to the end now. Or will it lead to a complication? I have no desire to back out of this, there's no voice in my head saying "stop", just this wave of...relief. It's relief. It's relief in knowing that the end is near. No more waking up to a never ending concerto of noise.
I didn't count on feeling relief in particular, at least not this early. It may only be halftime, but there's still a ways to go. I figured anything close to a feeling of relief would come once I'd see the bright, shining lights of the train coming towards me. I'm imagining it now. Seeing it coming right for me, me staring it down. Am I going to close my eyes before the impact? Or will I stare at it head on? Will my heart give out before the actual impact? They say that when someone falls to their death, it's not the impact that kills them, but their heart giving out during the actual fall. Is something like that going to happen here? I don't know which of any of this I prefer to happen honestly.
Four minutes
I'm walking along the edge of the platform now. There's a couple more people here now but not many, and still, no one notices me at all. No one notices the fact that I'm putting one foot in front of the other, edging myself along the bright yellow line of the platform edge that says DANGER in red letters. No one notices me at all. Is that one of the reasons I'm choosing to do this? Because I want to be noticed? Not one fucking bit. All my life the last thing I've ever wanted was to be noticed by anyone. Like I had said previously, I barely qualify as a fully functional person, and with that being the case, having to interact with anyone for anything other than fucking them is literally the worst kind of experience for me to have. I can't hold a conversation, let alone even appear to be interested in what someone is saying. It's all so meaningless and trivial. All of it. Human interaction is disgusting.
My wife, to her credit, tried to help me in her own ways. Tried to talk to me or get me to open up, but to no avail. When that failed, she recommended I talk to someone, seek some sort of treatment for my mental state. She used to tell me that I was "mentally ill" and needed help. Even in the back of her head, she knew that what I'm about to do was always going to be my end result.
Mentally ill. Those two words together are little more than a label. A label to be put on those by otherwise "normal" people as the kind of human beings that should be pitied and medicated. A label that almost feels like it has to be earned. The problem is, even if you do muster up the will to talk about what's going through your head, to talk about the noise and the void, no one ever really wants to hear it. They dope you up on medication. They make you little more than a zombie. It all comes down to "we're going to make you a functioning member of society no matter what it takes" by throwing some pills down your throat to keep you in line and not take charge of your own life. It's pathetic. I swore to myself that I'd never wind up like that. It's a promise I've kept after all this time. A promise that I'll take with me into the welcoming abyss.
Three minutes
I know that I'm mentally ill. I've always known. It's not something that I've ever denied to myself. I know my father was as well. I'm not doing this to carry on any sort of legacy he left behind. How could I when he had none to leave? The noise and void are part of my genetic makeup. I know this. And I accept this wholeheartedly. I'm glad that I didn't have children that would carry this on in them as well. That in itself is the most unselfish act I could ever hope to perform.
I still keep walking one foot in front of the other along the platform. Still, no one is any wiser about it. I'm ready. The seconds now feel like hours. That feeling of relief is growing stronger by the second. It's coming, I'm so close now. I stop edging myself along the platform long enough to reach into my pocket for a cigarette. I light it up and take a deep breath, inhaling the smoke into my lungs and slowly exhaling it out. The mixture of smoke and my own breath envelops my direct line of sight. I'm buried in the smoke and still standing tall. It's beautiful. I wish I could see it from someone else's perspective right now as if they were looking at me.
I tried. I really did, at least for a little while. I tried to act normal. Tried to act like a fully functioning human being, but it wasn't for me. I'm human waste in a sack of flesh and blood. Flesh and blood that will paint these train tracks in a little over two minutes time. That will be my legacy. Painted all over the place in a glorious display of final acceptance.
Two minutes
I take another drag from my cigarette as I think back to the day I watched my father end his own life. I remember how he yelled for me to come to him. How I saw him adorned in his dress blues. How I saw the gun in his hand. How he dropped to his knees in front of me and put his free hand on my shoulder. The words that followed out of his mouth as he stared me directly in my eyes, the only time this man ever looked me in the eye.
"I wish I could tell you I loved you", he said to me. His eyes never darting from mine. "But I can't, because I don't. I've never loved anything or anyone. I've tried boy, I really have. And I've failed. Over and over. I want you to know that I'm sorry, but I need you to see what's about to happen". I didn't say a word, didn't move a muscle. It wasn't because I felt any sort of fear or anything, but because I genuinely wanted to listen to anything this man had to say.
"Your momma...she was right to leave us. You're just like me you know that? Maybe you're not all the way there yet, but you will be. I can see it. I know it. She knows it too. You're a chip off the 'ol block boy. You really are my kid." He took his hand off of me and stood back up in front of me. "There's no easy way to do this. It has to be this way. I can't turn it off, I can't turn off the noise and I can't fill that hole. What's the word? Like a void. It's endless boy, no matter what I've done or anything else, nothing fills it. It's just empty. It'll always be empty. And it's gonna be that way for you, I fucking know it."
I watched him put the gun to his head and he said his final words to me. "Don't close your eyes boy, you need to see this. I need you to see this. This is the only way I'll ever be free, and one day for you, it'll be the only way that you'll ever be free. And on that day, you'll know what I mean, you'll get it. Just like me." And with that, it happened. It was over. He was a clump of wasted life on the floor. Everything he ever was now dead and gone. His life had no meaning, but in his death, he took his life in his own hands and made something of it, at least to himself. He lived his whole life a coward, going through the motions, and in the end, he took charge of himself and went out on his own terms. For that, and only that, he has a degree of admiration from me. Fuck.
That night, hours after it happened, I laid outside in the grass, staring up at the sky. Looking at those stars. They'd always been there for me, every single night. I knew I could have some degree of faith in them, more than I'd ever had in any living being, and more than I'd eventually find out I would ever have in myself.
One minute
It's almost time. At last. I toss my cigarette on the tracks and let out my last exhale of smoke. I turn around taking one last look at the handful of people waiting for the train. Everyone still buried in their phones and personal dramatics. I'm now standing on the edge, counting down the seconds. Waiting for a voice to pop up in my head telling me not to do it, not to go through with it, but that voice doesn't come. Thankfully. I can hear the train whistle in the distance, it's on its way. But that in itself opens up some complications.
I have to do this quick. I can't risk anyone trying to play hero and grabbing me before I drop downward to face my end. I'm still standing on the edge and I look backward over my shoulder. People are starting to inch ever closer but still glued to themselves. Yes, yes, yes. This is going to work. I can see the headlights of the train shining through the dark of night. It's time. "Finally, at fucking last" I say to myself under my breath as I bend my knees and jump off the edge.
Thirty seconds
My knees are toast. I landed very awkwardly on the actual track. I try to stand but can't. Something vital is more than likely broken and/or ruptured. Not that it matters. I can hear people yelling and screaming above me, that someone jumped off the platform. It's too late for anything to be done though. That train is coming, headed right towards me. The headlights are blinding me. I see someone reaching their hand down towards me and I look in their direction. It's the guy from that arguing couple on the bench. I look away from him and take one last look at the train, and then almost right away, I find myself looking up at the sky. That barren, black sky. Not a single star to be seen. The sound of the train careening towards me is deafening, almost like something I heard once before, a long time ago. This is how it was always going to be for me. The end, at last. The noise is gone, the void is filled. The end is finally here.
