• There was an unnaturally large cat sitting in the middle of the street about forty yards away, watching me. I was walking toward it. When I was about fifteen yards away it stood up, sprouted wings, and took off toward the nearest tree. I kept on walking and after a while I felt a pull in my head and it dawned on me that I had just witnessed a cat fly. And then there was another pull and I realized that what I thought was an unnaturally large cat, from forty yards away, had looked a lot like an owl, at fifteen yards away. The pull subsided. It was an owl.
    My pocket vibrated. I stopped walking, stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. Without looking I flipped the screen open and put the phone to my ear.
    “Is she ok?” I asked in an obviously forced level tone.
    “Yes. She is out cold but she is still breathing.”
    “Are you gonna take her to the hospital?”
    “No. I called my doctor friend and he said that that amount wouldn’t kill her.”
    “Ok. Good. I’m glad she is ok.”
    “Yeah. Thank you for calling me.”
    “No problem. I’m just glad I was able to talk you’re number out of her.”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    There was a short moment of awkward silence before I said, “Um… well, could you call me tomorrow and tell me how she is or have her call me when she wakes up?”
    “Sure. I’ll do that. Thank you again.”
    “No problem. Bye.”
    “Bye.”
    I closed my phone and stuck it back in my pocket. I continued walking, looking at the ground this time so I wouldn’t risk seeing another flying cat. It only took me another two minutes or so to reach my front door. I opened it and walked inside making a mental note to myself that locking the door next time would probably be a good thing to do.
    I walked up the stairs to my room, turned on the light, and sat down on my bed. My back was to my bedside table so I didn’t have to see the clock. I was mad at it. I couldn’t see why it was being such a b***h. I could feel those glowing red numbers as if they were eyes on my back. It was as if someone was standing behind me and screaming in a painfully high pitched voice, “It’s Late! You have to get up in an hour! What the hell are you doing awake! Are you stupid?! You have an exam at 8AM! You are an idiot! You are going to fail! You are going to lose your scholarships! You are going to have to quit school! You are going to work in retail for the rest of your life! It’s Late!”
    I put my hands over my ears but the voice didn’t stop. No, it got even louder. I spun around, grabbed my clock and threw it at the wall opposite my bed. It fell short of the wall by a few feet when the power cord ran out of length. The clock crashed to the ground with what sounded like the bone chilling scream of a dying woman. I had killed my clock. I felt a little better. But only for a moment.
    The silence that followed the death of my clock was even more unbearable than the screaming. I could feel my pessimistic nature beginning to make its presence known. I knew what was about to happen. I was going to bring all of my worries and all of my fears to my consciousness. This normally resulted in panic and tears and the shutdown of all of my logic and reason. I knew if I allowed this I wouldn’t be able to properly function for the rest of the day. I had to stop myself. I had to do something. A distraction, I needed a distraction.
    Within my line of vision I saw a torn piece of paper on the edge of my bed. I grabbed it in a frantic rush and brought it within reading distance. I read it out loud.
    “Valium, forty milligrams, four Xanax, Dramamine, Tylenol, Vodka, 237 5751.”
    I started to giggle but stopped myself before I transcended to hysteric laughter. I had scribbled this all down a few hours ago while I was on the phone with my delirious childhood friend who now lived over 2,000 miles away. She had ingested all of this while on the phone with me. After an hour or so it became pretty easy to talk this out of her and call her father.
    I had gotten this phone call around one A.M., long after I had gone to bed. What possessed me to answer I do not know but once I did there was no hanging up. At least not until she lost consciousness.
    As soon as I had picked up the phone I had been ambushed with “I pushed him down the stairs.”
    I had immediately recognized the voice and responded with “Is he dead?”
    As I continued talking to her I soon discovered that she was not joking as I had initially thought and that she had pushed her husband down the stairs. He was fine, in fact he didn’t even fall. He had managed to regain his balance, call her a crazy b***h, shout the usual obscenities, and walk out the front door.
    I began to giggle again as I recalled some of the things I had said to her. Due to my sarcastic nature I was not able to treat this situation as a serious one and had said many things you do not say to a person planning to commit suicide.
    I recalled suggesting that instead of taking pills she take the gun she had recently bought and go kill her husband. Once she turned this idea down I had recommended jumping out of her fourth story apartment window because it was faster than taking pills. I had also attempted to help her with her suicide note. Now, as I thought back on this I could see that I had probably helped to make the situation worse.
    I got up, placed the piece of paper with the scribbled list of pills on my bedside table, turned off the light, and lay down on my bed. My friend was going to be ok. She will wake the next morning and apologize to her husband. He will then forgive her and they will live happily ever after.
    As I started to drift off to sleep I made a mental note to ask every new potential friend I met if they thought they might one day become suicidal.