Euthanasia - (noun) : The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. The practice is illegal in most countries.

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If I told myself that I was sad that night, it wouldn't be accurate.

It usually works on other nights, especially the weekends where I am not smoking in the backroom with Linden, Hoffs and Co; slagging off and slurring new ideas at each other before the cigarettes ran out or one of us got too tired to stay.

It just have to take one of us to leave, before the rest loses the charm and smoke of the conversation; and after that we would be just left eyeing each other, waiting for the next topic to die before the coats are grabbed and train stubs are punched.

Back home.

If I told myself that I was feeling empty that night, then it wouldn't be half false. The problem with addressing moods started just around the time Sylvia became a writer.

"You're never just sad, or happy, or excited. It's—it's never one thing! It's a lot of things . . stuck under one label, because we, simpletons like to make everything simple. Just like us."

That's how the topic usually started with her. Well, most of the time it seemed like a blessing of sorts; to communicate with someone like her with a fiery passion for paper, ink and countless untold stories that were trapped in her soul.

Not letting her sleep, clawing around her mind, demanding to be told and written; for even at days end before she got too tired and passed out on the living room carpet.

"See? When you are sad because—well, let's just say that you are feeling sad because you aren't going anywhere in life; you're not just sad. You're also upset and disappointed and—and for many reasons too."

Usually, at this point of our talks, she would bite her nail hard or tear apart a little skin from her under lip.

"You're disappointed cause you had high hopes for yourself. You're mad because you think you are incompetent. You are frustrated because you have become what you never wanted to be. To—to be blunt, a pathetic little loser."

"Oh!" 

I would say, with my eyebrows reaching for the sky. The best imitation of thoughtfulness; with the wondering eyes, pursed lips with fake attention and a superficial nod to match up to her intellect.

"See? Like I said. You're never only one thing! You're just a wonderful dazzle of—of destruction and hope and dreams—and upset. Just—cramped into human skin and bones!"

By last week, she wasn't falling asleep on the carpet, nor frantically scribbling in her notepads and I was free to use the shower anytime I want because she wasn't sleeping in the tub with the bathroom door locked and shut.

She wasn't dead.

She had just outgrown me, in the fullest sense of outgrowing a person. I knew she was trying to be kind by not leaving any subtle clues; or even writing an explicit letter explaining the destination but just a sticky note on the drafting table, 

"See you in a bit. –Syl."

I have tried being optimistic by thinking of the advantages of this disappearance of Sylvia.

Not once the bathroom door was locked, or the shower curtains drawn and dirtied, nor the little window was open.

In the last weeks, I showered every day, especially after work when she would usually sit on the side of the tub and wouldn't answer to any questions asked.

In the last weeks, I have been scrubbed clean, but I hated being so septic since my good friend was gone.

Most of the time, the 5th apartment, just near the crook of Brooklyn can qualify as home, but it wasn't that night.

The barrage of footsteps on the ceiling felt like the whole country was walking around on the 6th floor. Sharp clicks of heels, dumb thumps of boots and sometimes the flutter of empty feet snapped every time I tried to peer down on the drafting table.

The trouble was, someone tried to off themselves, last night. Usually, that was no trouble to me.

Life is not for everyone to live and the papers with carefully marked graphite was the only thing I could care for.

But the punchline of the joke rested in the details.

The kid who tried to off himself, was the only child of some famous social worker who was also roleplaying as a local celebrity in the area.

So, all the fuss was directed to the sixth floor, which wasn't his house, but his girlfriend's who left it open to him for trouble.

And trouble is what they got.

The act of taking his own life was in shambles, since he didn't prepare or calculate for the fire escape on the side of the building.

So, when he executed his amateur swan dive, probably crying and wheezing all the while, the 6th storied fire ladder unintentionally saved his life, as he thumped on it with a rattle.

Luckily, I was at work and in that process missed all the excitement of the lone passerby who saw him standing at the top for a moment, and then not standing but slamming on the fire escape.

Out of whatever goodness left in the world, he called the cops. The cops called the parents and the parents called entire Brooklyn on to the 6th floor.

By 11, there wasn't any end to the footsteps but some high pitched girls, probably his old lovers who tracked the scent and shrieked with perfectly timed wails for the attention measures.

By 11:19, I was out.

***

"Are you depressed?"

"What?"

"Are you sad? Or lonely? Need someone to talk—"

"No, no. It's fine. It's just my face. I always look like this."

"Oh. No, I mean—"

"I'm fine. Have a good night."

I didn't wait for her to hand me the pamphlet, the usual three tone colored paper where helplines and guideline numbers cannot offer any real life solutions intrigued me less than my family.

The tried cheeks on the jawbone of the woman with the pamphlets, probably a social worker were half illuminated in whatever light the nearby lamp post felt obligated to donate.

She spoke the words too quickly, as if she had been uttering the same lines so many times that it had become an automatic interaction, deprived of the necessary human touch.

The green lamp was on in the traffic lights, with yellow rushing cabs coming from some hell with their destination set to some other Valhalla.

And, I almost went to Valhalla myself since I jumped close and just in time to spot the cabbie's yellow teeth.

"Watch it, asshole!"

Truth be told, if I hadn't run away from the woman; the glum looking social worker lady would try to chat up a conversation.

'Where do you live', 

'Did you know Bill?', 

'Was he always sad?', 

'How would you say your current social status would be?, 

'Social or anti-social?'.

I wasn't trying to be a jerk that night. Well, not just that night; but all the others night before and all the other days after too since Sylvia showed me her writing pamphlets. 

There were just her writing pamphlets, the leftover scrap that she could hardly give a toss about.

Bundles of torn notebook pages were left unattended, a Leo Tolstoy had dust for breakfast, lunch and dinner at night whilst rotting under the couch.

And, lastly, there was me. 

There was no Sylvia.