“Curiosity killed the cat”. Isn’t that the old saying? I never really understood where it came from before but now, now I’m sure. And you probably will be sure too after you read this. Although I’m definitely not a cat. But when we are at our most base level of live or die, aren’t we a bit primal too. Whether it is human or cat, as soon as our life leaves our bodies there’s a certain order to our bodies turning to bone. The dead body, or corpse, will rot and stink during decomposition. Before it rots, parasites will hatch and the flash will disintegrate. Because at our roots, we are all just a brain piloting a slab of flesh. Once that brain dies so does our body. Technically. However, our brain can seem empty and dead before the body actually recognizes it. And at that point we might as well be dead, so some people help that process along. By killing themselves. “But that’s controversial,” you say, “We don’t talk about this,” you cry. Why the hell not? We make it into a taboo, so people won’t talk when they felt the urge to take their own life. Anyways, I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty of times by now. Nothing new or fantastic about what I’m saying.
I was diagnosed with depression three years ago when I was seventeen. I lived with my emptiness, the sadness. It was a part of me. When they gave me pills I was happier, it seemed, but I wasn’t myself. Before I was full of empty sadness. With the pills, it was all empty happiness, but not my own feelings. So I stopped taking them. I went back to that joylessness, because without it I would be like everyone else. I would be fake. I would be so boring. It sounds kind of selfish that I would keep this burden so I’m not “boring”, but doesn’t having to show a false person to others a burden too? It’s like your brain doesn’t belong to you. You’ve been changed by chemicals because someone else determined you to be abnormal. So I flushed those pills as soon as I turned 19, one year after I started taking them. I thought I could change my mindset just by wishing it upon myself. With my own willpower.
When I first flushed them my mind went to a place that I didn’t even know was there before. I wanted the pills back just so I could take them all and end it. I don’t know how I got out of that place. Over many months I felt like I was getting better, if there I such a thing. But now that I look back I’m sure I just got used to it. Used to not feeling and when I do feel it’s that crushing darkness that overwhelms absolutely everything. That became my normal, the only thing I could process. Nothing around me could bring a real smile. The only time my lips turned up was when co-workers got suspicious and started asking questions. I had dropped out of school because I didn’t want those questions and it just didn’t seem necessary to go at the time. So to try and bring a change of heart, I tried a change of scenery and decided I would take a short vacation.
It happened that one of my old friends was selling a two-way ticket online to Japan. Don’t ask why I saw the ad just in time, maybe it was fate. I already had my passport and everything ready. So when the day came for me to get on that plane I was able to leave without others asking questions. It wasn’t so much that I had other plans for myself there that I didn’t want them to know about, as much as I just didn’t like questions. The hotel I booked was near Mt. Fuji so if there was anywhere that I would smile just from beauty itself, it would be there. The first day I was there I slept the whole day. I could probably blame that on jet lag and the time change, but I shouldn’t. This wasn’t a tired sleep; this was a dead empty sleep, one that knocked me out for almost twenty-four hours.
That was when the curiosity kicked in. I had read about this area before. About a certain forest known as the Sea of Trees, Aokigahara Forest, or commonly known as the suicide forest. For those that hadn’t heard of this before, normally I would just say to look it up. But this place interests me so I guess I’ll just tell you about it. Legend has it that in the old days, when there was famine, families would leave their elders in the forest to die. Lately, however, people have been going into the forest to take their own lives. Sometimes as many as one hundred bodies a year would be discovered, but that wasn’t all of them. Not all were found until years later, when all that was left of them were bones.
This forest wasn’t only used for death though. When I arrived at the head of the trail I actually did smile once. It was the place for me. Mt. Fuji was in the distance and the forest itself was completely overrun. The only clear spot was the trail. Even though the sun was shining I noticed the aura coming from within the trees. It was completely different than the outside world. My first step on the soft ground was so calming. It was dark and quiet. Not even a bird could be heard. It was like what I was feeling on the inside was shown to everyone. It was like a void. I swear I just wanted to smile. But once I did I wanted to go farther. One foot stepped in front of the other. I found myself in a daze and the outside world disappeared. There was a beep from my cell phone loosing service but I ignored it, and found myself off the path. It was all so... perfect and tranquil. I wanted to stay here forever. There was only one way I could think to do that. My last few thoughts were of how selfish this was. I had a family and a job, people who counted on me. But I just wanted to smile…
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