Deathwish 029: Amy


“What if I hold a pillow over my baby’s face?”

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I pour blue, oblong pills from my prescription bottle into my palm. Using the edge of the bottle, I pick through them until I find one I’ve already cut in half—my regular dose.

I bet these aren’t strong enough to kill me.

I would need something stronger than an antidepressant. A sedative, maybe.

I think about how taking pills, or jumping from a very high place (a bridge, a cliff, a building), would stop The Thoughts.

What if I take this knife I’m using to chop vegetables and ram it into my stomach?

What if I hold a pillow over my baby’s face?

What if I leave my toddler in the car for three hours on a 90 degree day?

Words bounce around inside my head like children jumping on a trampoline: murderer, child abuser, crazy person.

It’s my OCD.

It’s my OCD.

It’s my OCD.

If I were gone, Michael could marry someone else.

If he marries someone else, his mother could gush over her new daughter-in-law. About how she’s just so thrilled that this new woman and Michael have found each other. About how Amy was nice, but she had that mental illness birth defect, and it’s sad, but things have a way of working out for the best.

Things working out for the best would mean my boys having a “normal” mother. One who doesn’t wash her hands ten times before breakfast: scrubbing, then rinsing, then accidentally brushing the back of a pinky against the faucet, then getting another squirt of soap, and scrubbing again until they feel clean.

Until they feel right.

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To read the previous installment, "Deathwish 028: Mark," go here. To participate in Deathwish, find details here.

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Amy was born in Spokane, Washington and currently lives in Aloha, OR.


Matty Byloos

Matty Byloos is Co-Publisher and a Contributing Editor for NAILED. He was born 7 days after his older twin brother, Kevin Byloos. He is the author of 2 books, including the novel in stories, ROPE ('14 SDP), and the collection of short stories, Don't Smell the Floss ('09 Write Bloody Books).

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