Space Corps Academy Quarters, October 2036

"Are you contemplating your own death?" The question is soft but direct.

I don't answer.  I simply look away.

Byte looks at me, calm, but I can tell she's scared now.

"The fact that you didn't say anything tells me the answer.  There is medication for these sorts of feelings," she continues warmly.  She is not angry, which is a relief.  "Believe me, I was suicidal and took it for at least a year.  It will help.  Can we go down to the med bay? Please? It will get better."

I don't believe it will ever get better.  I have no energy reserves left, however, so I let her lead me from the dorm room.

Before we can get to the med bay, I start shaking.

"What's wrong?" Byte asks, genuinely concerned.

"I'm scared of what will happen," my breathing and speaking rate quicken.  "I feel like people are going to judge me! I feel like something very bad will happen to me!"

"No one will judge you." That soft voice again.  "They know how to deal with this stuff.  Nothing bad will happen."

I sit in the examiner's chair, filling out my questionnaire to what I surely believe is the doorway to hell.

"Do you have thoughts of hurting or killing yourself?"

I cannot speak, so nod.

"Do you have a plan?"

Byte sees I'm scared, so squeezes my hand and reassures, "No one will pass judgment here."

"Yes," I grudgingly admit to the examiner and byte.  I do not know what will happen to me if I divulge my "plan." I really had no idea how, but space offers a thousand ways, Jim's  being the least painful.

"When was the last time you had these thoughts?"

"A few minutes ago." I had been irritable with Byte.

"Don't worry about me!" she pipes up.  "This is all about you.  Just focus on you and your emotions, your feelings."

"Fear?"

"especially fear. That fear will keep you safe. Though not fear of being here."

Someone watches over me like a hawk.  What do they think I'll do, try to escape or just stop existing in this chair? I briefly contemplated escape, but knew it would get me nowhere with Byte, let alone the hospital staff, watching.  After awhile, someone brings me roast beef and carrots and potatoes, and I peck at Byte's insistence.

I am wheeled to another examining room.  "Just be truthful," Byte urges before the next examiner enters.

More questions.  I will be transferred to the psych ward at Jupiter Station after all.  On the cycler, I remember a dinner of orange chicken and rice with some nameless vegetable (maybe green beans or snow peas?) and eat everything, finally hungry... and safe.  The stress starts to abate.

"That's the most you've eaten in a long time!" Byte comments proudly.  She has tried to make my favorite foods to convince me to eat, but it hasn't worked past a few bites.

I shrug self-consciously.  "Thanks."

A new nurse comes in, wanting to document my body.  I strip, knowing my dignity is in some faraway place that is not here.  Then I say the painful good-bye to Byte, and follow the nurse to a bed, where I collapse and hope to put this day into the recesses of memory.


I am  harshly awoken at six AM  for vitals.  Damn, the world again.  Then a fasting blood draw.  I still do not like physical pain.  I'm sharply reminded of this fact by the needle's contact with skin.  After breakfast, which is another mentally charged battle  of me not eating the nasty-tasting fake eggs and the staff urging me to, I join the other patients  for my first therapy group session.

"Today we will focus on depression," the African group leader says.

Great, my depressive mind thinks.  Just what you need, a lecture on what you've been hiding  all this time.

But there is no hiding here, even from the scariest topic.  "Many people with depression contemplate suicide," the counselor continues. (He really gets to the point!)  "I want to tell you a story about what happened to a man on the Golden Gate Bridge."

Even more wonderful! My depression loves this guy!

"He was very close to ending his life." (Who isn't, in here?) "The telephone did not stop him.  What did, was a fellow man on the bridge who gave him a smile.  Just a big, hearty, all-American smile." He ends on a positive note.  A smile, really? Can just a smile save a life? (Yeah, right, my depression answers cynically).

Then the implications set in, and I start shaking.  Is this  me, is this who I've become? Is this what the disease comes down to, simply an imbalance in brain chemistry? Am I not a human being?

"Are you okay?" I realize there are concerned people around me.  "It's okay, you're safe here."

"I had a friend--" is all I can choke out.  Then, "Yes, I'm fine."

I must compose myself and be strong, I think as I settle in for my afternoon nap and that blessed of all escapes, sleepful oblivion.  I must keep up this role of the good suicidal patient.  After all, depression has taught me over the past four months how to be an actor worthy of being on Broadway.