For my fortieth birthday, I planned a writers retreat at a cabin in the wilderness.
It was one of those crazy expensive prepaid resorts, fancy in the sense it was extremely over priced (think 5k for 3 people, for 3 nights!) as well as in the fact that you had no mentors or such there, it was just you, whoever your guests were, and nature, set to inspire and ignite our writing.
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I paid for it all on my shiny credit card, ignoring the mounting pile of bills that had accumulated on my bench top.
As I emailed the booking details to the girls, I began to research the surrounding woodlands. Dense. Vast. They were perfect.
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They were so excited, at the start.
Lots of ohhs and ahhs over the cabin, how pretty it was, how Secluded.
Slowly, a week or so before the day we were supposed to leave, they both pulled out.
Margie complained of a sick child she could bare to leave behind, and Jenelle made up something about being swamped with mid year exams.
I was sincere where I told them it was fine, that I understood, and I wasn’t upset.
They gaffed and gawed, stumbling over apologies but inside, i was pleased.
It would be easier, without them there.
It would be less guilt to bear, even if it was only for a short amount of time.
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I was planning to kill myself, or for my friends and insurances sake, to ‘get lost in the woods’ on a hike over the course of our three day getaway.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but I’d made my mind up over a long time.
My husband had been killed in a farming accident a few years ago, and I realised just how lonely life on my own was.
I tried to stay busy, I tried to stay connected.
My life seemed to end, with his.
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As with all aspects of my life, my hobbies, my social life, my writing career had dwindled downward as well, and now it was barely a ghost of what it had once been.
I was lucky to get something written down, let alone published in one of the trashy gossip magazines these days.
And the thought of actually publishing the novel I’d spent so many years writing, that was now nothing but a far away dream, something soft and sweet, but not tangible in the slightest.
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I left early for the cabin, making sure my own home was clean and tidy for whichever friend, or police officer, had the unfortunate duty of eventually clearing out my belongings.
I’d made it easy enough to find everything, all my important documents were stored neatly in my office, I’d made it organised without making it obvious what my intentions were.
I packed normally, taking enough clothes for the three days, knowing I would only need 1 lot, but not wanting to attract any questions from the officers who would be reviewing my missing persons case.
I’d watched, and written, about enough true crime over the years to know what was going to be considered troublesome.
I wanted to play it safe, in all aspects.
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The cabin was pretty, a glorious little spot truly nestled in the heart of a massive outback.
The silence was unsettling to begin with, but I soon welcomed the change from buzzing city life.
For the first time in months, maybe years, I felt my shoulders sag, I felt my pulse slow.
After I took my bags inside and set up my type writer at the wooden desk overlooking the window, I made myself a bourbon and coke, settling into the desk and hovering my hands above the type writer.
After a moment, I laughed.
I laughed and I couldn’t stop, not for what felt like an age.
And once I did finally manage to stop laughing, the tears came.
Big, ugly, breathless gulps. Hot tears streaming down my reddening face.
I’d given it a moment, I’d given it all my hope, hovering my hand over the stupid damn typewriter and nothing happened.
Because, of course it didn’t.
I hadn’t been able to write properly for so long, and in that moment, I knew I never would again.
I took myself to the deck out side, and as I sat in the cool night air, the tears on my face dried, slowly my breath became unchoked, and I found peace with my decision again.
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I left the cabin just before the sun rose.
I’d been up for hours, at that point.
Dressed, cafffinated.
My hands were jittery as I zipped up my brand new hiking boots (thank you, credit card).
I closed the cabin door softly behind me, but I was still started by the sound it made clicking locked in the silence all around me.
My boots crunched against the dry grass, and I focused on that sound as I put one foot infront of the other.
I had a ways to go.
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The heat was making me delirious.
I had no idea how far I’d walked, what time it was.
I found shade in places I could, but before long it was gone, and I was off searching for its reprive once more.
I could hear a creek running, but no matter how close I thought I got to it, I could never find it.
I suspected it was my mind playing tricks, like a mirage.
I was so thirsty. But there was nothing to drink.
I layed for a while, partially under the shade, the parts where I wasn’t covered felt warm and sticky and wrong.
But I couldn’t think about that.
I was focusing on the sound of footsteps.
The sound of boots on the ground, twigs and sticks cracking as they were stepped on.
I wanted to call out, to say ‘I’m here’. But my voice was raspy and dry, try as I might, no sound would come out.
I didn’t need to speak, because the man found me.
One minute I was squinting into the trees, the next he was next to me, Grey eyes peering down at me, over thick framed glasses.
“Kate Patrick?”
It didn’t make sense that this Stanger could know my name. Unless.. He was a plain clothed police officer? A part of a search party rescue?
I nodded meekly, wondering how long I’d been out here, feeling the immense gratefulness of my suicide plan having failed.
The man was still stating at me, and I realised he must of been waiting for my confirmation of who I was.
I nodded at him, indicating with my hands I couldn’t speak.
This seemed to appease him, and he nodded back as if he’d known who I was all along.
I waited for him to pull a radio, or cell phone, from his pocket to alert others that he had found me, but he didn’t.
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I was so thirsty.
He hadn’t offered me a drink, hadn’t done anything apart from stare at me.
He looked confused, and he looked pensive, which didn’t make much sense, considering he was the one who had found me.
I felt worried but, apart from the very obvious reasons, I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“I.. I’ve never done this before.” the man sounded nervous, his voice quivered as he spoke, as if he might cry at any moment. “I’m here to make you an offer.”
I stared up at him, my eyebrows knitting into an unsure frown.
Make me an offer? He wasn’t making sense.
“You’re on your way to being dead, not really that long to go. You’re dehydrated. You think you’ve found some shade, but you haven’t. Your mind is trying to appease your current situation, but it can’t change reality for you.
That’s where I step in.”
He paced back and forth excitedly, his voice growing louder, more confident with each sentance he spoke.
“You have something that we want. You’re a good writer, a talented writer.”
although I was silent, it was as if he could read my mind, hear the scoff I’d made in my own head
“You think you aren’t. You think you’re a joke, worthless. That everything good inside died when the man you loved died? Hmm? Well you’re wrong. And like I said, I’m here to make you an offer. Life or death. It’s up to you what you do from here.”
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I didn’t want to die, that I knew.
Going back to my old life felt hollow, but it was all I had known.
And if this man was right.. And I did have actual talent.. Well maybe my writing would come back and I’d be okay.
I met the man’s gaze and nodded, I’d accept his offer.
Whatever it meant, whatever it entailed, if I had to sell my soul, well, it would be better than death.
The man’s eyes lit up and he smiled genuinely for the first time since we had met.
“You won’t regret it.” he beamed, and then he was gone, as everything else slowly started to dissipate around me.
-
The table creeks, if I lean forward.
My hands have blistered, and blistered over again, but I never stop writing.
Not even when it hurts.
Not even when so much blood covers the paper, that I have to start the pages all over again.
I tried to get away once, and I made it really far.
I made it to my old house, but there was another woman in there. Another woman cooking dinner for a man, she was smiling and happy as she stirred pans and boiled pots.
I asked her where all my stuff was, demanding she give me my things, but she screamed she had no idea who I was, or what I was talking about.
She claimed she had lived at that house, my house, for years.
I found an internet Cafe, and I tried to log onto my emails.
It said I had no account registered.
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I then called by Janelle’s school, but she looked quite concerned and offered to call me an ambulance after she told me she didn’t know who I was, when I had explained about our decade long friendship.
She had no idea about a 40th or any writing retreat.
And when I made my way by Margie’s, she was nursing her daughter, my niece, who she bounced on her hips as she stared at me with a frown.
“Look, I’m sorry about what you’ve been through that sounds.. Insane.., but I haven’t seen you before in my life. I hope you can find your friends, and get the help you need.” she shut the door in my face without a goodbye.
I couldn’t blame her, but it still hurt.
I went back, and I kept writing for them, because I realised I had no where else to go.
-
But lately I can’t cope with it anymore.
The sound of the keyboard sends shivers down my spine.
I want to change this deal, even if that means certain death. I don’t know how to get the man to come back, so I can ask him.
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My fingers are worn to the bone.
The constant click of the keyboard letters being jabbed makes me wince with physical pain.
Ironically, I can’t stop my own hands from flying across the keys, but in this moment, I don’t want to.
I know reddit is going to be the only place where I’m believed, and where it doesn’t matter that I’m anonymous, because everyone else is too.
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I looked up my name online, but nothing comes up.
I’m not mentioned in my deceased husband’s obituary.
I have no birth certificate registered, no tax file number.
No banks accounts in my name.
It’s like I’ve been erased, like I never existed.
I dont care about that now, all things considered.
I just want this silly deal to be over, but I needed to make sure others knew I wasn’t a fickle of anyones imagination, that once, I was as real as you.