On the morning I was scheduled to die, a large barefoot man with a bushy red beard waddled past my house. I found it peculiar, of course. Who wouldn't? What was stranger is that I actually felt a sense of familiarity when he put his hand to his ear and scratched. Why did this trigger the feeling of nostalgia, of all the things about that man? Or about that morning, in general? I'm not too sure, but that question has yet to cross my mind at that moment.      I peered out from the window. Hiding my petite, pale body hiding behind the light curtains, I entered thought. I couldn't focus on the task at hand. I was supposed to be dead by then. It was 11:53 in the morning. I didn't have much time to fulfill the fate I set for myself. And I chose to focus on this man? Strange as he was, his appearance did not warrant this failure I was plummeting towards at full speed.

My mind was racing, but I did not stop glancing out the window, whitened with fog. What I was doing was a catastrophic mistake, one that shall be cemented into my soul with a burning touch. I knew this, and my lip quivered knowing this, but I did not do a thing.I stared at the strange bearded man.

I jerked, overwhelmed with a tingling spine when the man took a right. He stepped on my driveway pavement, past my empty, broken mailbox and dead roses. He grinned a little, laughing I think, as he pupils reflected the image of a dead, yellow turf. I backed away from the curtain in a jolt, and swiped at the pill bottles with a loose throw of my arm. They fell from the short table to the ground, and I'm still quite unsure of what I expected to be accomplished with that movement. I kicked at the bottles, forcing them to roll past the underneath of my table and past the entrance to the kitchen. I hadn't the time to hide them properly.

I was hoping it was all a false alarm, that he wasn't really going to attempt to speak with me. Maybe he was just going to pick up a curious item that has fallen before my front door, carried by the wind. My hopes were destroyed at the sound of a doorbell.

I crept away from my previous position, low in posture. My thin hands and bony fingers reached for the doorknob. Against everything within telling me to stop, I grabbed it and turned it.

A friendly smile greeted me as the light began to illuminate the dark hallway. I squinted, discomfort forcing me to recoil with a few back steps. He laughed at me, not a cold laugh. The warmth of the summer entered the autumn air as his chuckles sounded. A loud, yet, gentle breath escaped his lips, making my speeding heartbeat calm and slow its pace. That didn't trigger my feeling of nostalgia, the way put a hand to his ear and scratched did. His bare feet took two steps within my home.

My body tensed, but he continued to look at me with gleaming eyes.

"Hi, honey," he said softly. "You probably don't remember me. I get it. To be honest, looking at you is like looking at a stranger."

My uncle took a seat on the couch, his body not accompanied by the most regal of scents, and lifted his feet to rest them on my living room table. I theorized he was homeless, though I had not the guts to ask him if that were the truth. His tattered clothing, his filth covered face, it was enough to make me want to send him away.

But I couldn't, he was my uncle.

The last time I saw him, I was a four-year-old. My mother and father were both still there, as my father held me in his arms as I waved my hand goodbye. My uncle waved back. It was a casual exchange. Thinking back, though, I believe my uncle wore a concerned expression on his face. Sweat rolled down the sides of his face as he grinned at us, and his unsteady eyes focused on me. I was naive. I giggled, and said he was being silly.

The memory was concrete and heavy, plopped on the tip of my shoulders as I scurried to the kitchen to "fetch us some tea." I quickly picked up the pill bottles that still resided on its ground, tripping over my own two feet and hands repeatedly. I threw them into the cabinet, slamming its door before they could all roll back onto the tiles. I was almost certain I would hear the stirring of my uncle, an apprehensive voice questioning me from the other room. But there was silence. I don't understand, but I don't complain.

By the time the kettle began to whistle, it was 12:17 in the afternoon. I shouldn't have been alive. Though I knew that, and I knew my weakness well, I felt a little relief. Good thing my uncle came! Good thing I chose to look out the window! Good thing, good thing! That meant I would be able to live another day longer, before the next scheduled death day comes along! 'What luck,' is what I thought myself with great zeal and happiness.

However, the overwhelming pressure still rested within my arms profusely. I kept failing to die, morning after morning after morning. I had to do this, I knew I did, I knew I had no more options. I knew nothing was holding me back. But every time I picked up those bottles, I noticed a room that needed to be cleaned. I noticed picture frame not perfectly aligned with the others. I noticed that, before I die, I wanted to eat noodles. So, I suppose it looked like I had to go and make noodles first. But that morning, I didn't have the time to both make the noodles and die. Oh well, what luck, right? I got to live that day, too.

But wasn't luck, really. It's my wanting to be cowardly, to say goodbye. But I'm not brave enough to do that, I'm too weak to perform something so simple.

"So, you plan to die?"

I jolted as my head was brought back into reality, the sound of the whistling kettle inserting itself right back into my eardrums. I realized that I spaced out, once again. My brain concentrated on the repetitive record that is my continuous conversion of oxygen into carbon dioxide. The thought of the never-ending conflict within me made an uneasy feeling growing in my stomach, and I wished to expel it from my body in a squishy red goo. It would bring me relief, I'm sure.

Along with an uneasy feeling welling within me, at that moment, panic lights began to illuminate my mind. I've been discovered, spotted, aimed at. My uncle, he knew. I was unsure how, but he knew. So I've been busted, everything was going to fall apart now. He was going to get me "help", not realizing that the only honest way to help me would be a mercy killing, as if I were a dying animal. Well hey, wasn't I truthfully a dying animal? Doomed to deteriorate, slowly and in suffering, until I was six feet under?

Once again, I zoned out in thought. My uncle attended the tea kettle with his large hands, silencing the room. It was the deafening quiet that brought me back into that moment, sitting on my kitchen stool, in front of the ticking clock. My uncle was there too.

He poured the heated water into two glass coffee cups, and I assumed he got them from the cabinet. I noticed the pill bottles I attempted to hide away were seated on the counter. Damn, I thought to myself. Damn.

As I focused in on my sadness and frustration, I was startled by the sudden cup of tea that was pushed towards me.

"You're stuck in your own mind, aren't you?" His voice was deep, with a slight rasp, but still containing a smooth flow. He sat across me as if we were a couple of friends, out in a cafe for a casual cup of coffee after a long college lecture. "Stuck so deep in your mind that you can't process emotion, no without retracting right back into your head like a shell."

His last sentence had an extremely matter of fact tone, and I instantly understood that the question he had just asked wasn't, in reality, a question. In a snap, before I could even snap, my uncle has gathered a complete understanding of me. I wanted to die, and I was stuck reflecting and reflecting but never actually acting.

I took a sip of tea.

"I understand this must be awkward for you, and it's also quite awkward for me." He didn't stumble on his words and didn't flinch as he looked at me directly. It made little sense to me, most people would have little to no idea how to handle the situation. Most people would have doubted if what they saw in those cabinets were truthfully there, or if their purpose was truly what they thought. Most people wouldn't have instantly analyzed the person and come to a conclusion. Yet here this man is, with a confident posture and solid eyes.

"But tell me," he continued. "What happened to you to lead you to this point? Where did it all start, sweetheart? Why are you sitting like this before me?"

A silent moment lingered, like the horrid scent of a dead skunk, paining me. My fingers twitched, my knees trembled as they touched one another. He kept staring at me, as he put a hand to his ear and scratched.

"It's just been going downhill forever." My voice was week, hallow, a shell of itself. It wasn't the same voice that screamed out vigorous words, intertwining and connecting into my opaquest thoughts. This voice was almost not my own, as if a man's voice just escaped my lips with no sense of belonging. Or maybe, it was more like I spoke for the first time in my entire life, and what came out was completely incompatible with who I was. I was silent for a moment, after those words I spoke to my uncle, absorbing the strange feeling that came along with my speech.

"I'm hopeless. My emotions grabbed my heart and crushed it with their claws. I got dragged down into darkness, and no ones there in the darkness. No one there to help me. No one." I shook my head with a scowl. "But you don't want to hear about that, don't you."

"What do you mean by that?" The man's head cocked to the side, and he attempted to make eye contact with me. "Elaborate. I want to hear."

I kept my gaze to the teacup I held onto with a finicky grasp. "I'm caught by emotions. Sadness. Despair. Nothingness. It hurts, and nobody is there to grab my hand to tell me it's okay."

Why did I feel horrid pressure to explain myself to him? Why did he even care?

A felt the feeling a callus pressing gently against my skin. Dry fingers stroked my wrist, rough in texture, sending a tingling sensation rushing towards my brain. I wanted to pull away, my heart was suspended in air with the feeling of uneasiness. The core of my body was queasy and dizzy, I wanted it to stop and subside. I didn't pull away from the guilty touch that has initiated such feeling, I didn't know if I liked it or hated it. I just felt confusion.

My uncle's hand didn't leave me, as he continued to reach over the table and keep a firm grasp. My heart ached, and he was there now. I didn't know him at all, his voice was foreign. He was dirty, pitiful, but he was there. But I was hopeless, what could he even do for me?

All these words. Every one of them I wrote and articulated into a series of sentences. They all are possessions of someone who is caught thinking far more than what is good for them.

My uncle's sleeping on the couch, with his legs up on the table. It annoys me each and every day he does it, but I don't disturb him in his dreams.

Returning from my therapy session, I lock the door behind me and sigh with relief. I did cry, but I'm happy I did. It gets rid of a heavy feeling, and my eyes could sparkle as I walk into tomorrow.

I walk to the back porch, past my uncle, and take a deep breath of today's clear air. My german shepherd brushed against my side as if it were a cat, and charges down the porch stairs to play in the well kept green grass. I laugh as the dog begins to run.

I smile and look to the sun.