Today is suicide prevention day. Following the suicide of a friend some years ago, I told you about my attempt. Today I just take this opportunity to pay homage to her with this little unpretentious fiction.

The color of water

The water seemed beautiful to her, Maggie planted her tiptoe there. After three long hours of walking under the August sun punctuated by her brother’s grunts, she wanted more than anything to dive there into this transparency: to wash her body of the sweat that ran from her neck to her lower back. and the head under water, not to hear any more its jeremiads. The picnic and the first hike traditionally marked the beginning of a family summer vacation.

The Copenhagen apartment abandoned for two weeks, a journey traced, organized, timed, from the month of January by the mother had begun. But from summer to summer, disconnecting from everyday life became less easy. Parents always found an excuse to check their emails, from work or parent-teacher associations, whatever! Thomas anchored his headphones to his ears at length, only Maggie survived without wires, connected only to the nature around her, looking up at the peaks and the foliage, listening to those of the birds which did not fly away frightened by the disputes about the next stage chosen… She walked with her eyes in the green, in search of a soothing rhythm, her head still too full of the metallic noises of the city.

No need to strive to carry on any conversation whatsoever during this forced march; and then anyway, with Thomas, no more discussion was possible: paradoxically, he seemed to be angry with the whole world since he had won the congratulations of the jury in the final exams of “Gymnasium”*, and the earth whole, it started with her twin who she had only just passed her exam in June. Their aspirations were like disjointed without them really realizing it themselves.

The young girl brought up the rear because she was lingering longer. “Stop hanging around, slug! his father had repeated all morning. Maggie no longer heard, she breathed in, inhaled the smell of dry thorns and smiled at the butterflies in the tall grass, trying to guess the shape of the pebbles under her shoes. Why come this far if it was to run again? In order to be able to hold forth in society in September: we swallowed so many kilometers, on a terrible drop in altitude in less than a fortnight! Competition was the very essence of his parents. We didn’t play tennis: we had to be ranked; we didn’t cook: we made the recipes of the great chefs; we didn’t play the piano: we went to the conservatory…

They had settled down under the welcoming and generous shade of an umbrella pine. Her mother’s pride would come out of her backpacks: terrines, a seasonal vanilla fruit tart, an organic fruit juice, nothing but homemade! So Thomas might grumble that he would have preferred a sandwich, crisps and coke.
Maggie was not hungry. She took off her oversized T-shirt and her sports pants, put them next to her shoes. She entered the wave gradually, she seemed afraid to disturb the clear and soft expanse that enveloped her and engulfed her as delicately as a silk blanket, her silhouette was so frail. The young girl swam in apnea as long as she could, underwater, her weight vanishing. When she stuck her head out, she was halfway between the two banks.

She stared on her back then sat up to scrutinize the couple formed by her parents. Neither of them spoke or touched. Like the evenings in the living room. Like the mornings in the kitchen. They exchanged only in the presence of the weekend guests transformed in spite of themselves into relays of the conjugal word a formidable couple, Erik and Cathie! They are on all fronts, everything is successful for them, nothing ever frightens them, nothing is impossible! Cathie had double the work, you think with twins!

Thomas, giving in to his perpetual bad mood, had dissociated himself from the now ill-matched duo, sitting on a dead trunk lying down; she could only make out his already hunched back. She turned and in a slow breaststroke headed for the opposite sandy edge. The more she moved away from them, the more her breathing calmed down. Her heart seemed to be beating better, less painful. Her muscle mass having melted in recent months, the physical efforts were beginning to cost her. But there, between the drops, she felt lighter, almost gone. If Erik and Cathie had taken the time to raise their heads, her naked thinness would have pierced their eyes, her protruding ribs, her sharp elbows and the hole in his belly, her body so thin that she trembled at the slightest breath, they would have looked at their girl ghost, failing to touch the truth.

Maggie totally crossed the river in the carrier current, on the other side, she sat down and tried to take stock. If she went deeper into the forest now, when would they realize she was missing? She didn’t want to worry them, but something in there was consuming her, a force that unbalanced her while pushing her beyond the boundaries set by her family. When one is not armed for life, what escape route is there? When the abyss awaits you, where to hide? She plunged discreetly into the wood; For a long time, she did not meet anyone.

— Thomas, have you seen Maggie? inquired Cathie, who was handing her son a slice of pie.
— She doesn’t need to be watched, Mom!
— She must have stayed a bit behind, added Erik, as usual!

Thomas approached the water and picked up his sister’s small bundle of clothes. The shimmer of the sun on the undulating surface created flashes, blinded him. On the other bank, he thought he saw a small family set up to have a picnic as well. Parents and children sitting by the river had fun trying to ricochet. Their flat pebbles dipped unfailingly and yet they laughed.

The End

Maggie, vi har savnet dig i mange år allerede og alligevel havde vi ikke set dit ubehag. Jeg håber, at hvor du er nu, hviler du i fred.