Knowledge is Power

A reporter walked into my office one day, wanting to do a paper on the effects of depression, and the steps we were taking in order to find a cure. I am a leader in research on the subject, and so my input would greatly aid his article, according to him. He asked questions about my research, about my leading theories on the tattoos, that they are the leading cause of depression.
“One last question; what was your motivation for going into this field of research?”
I blinked. I knew very well what the answer to this question was, but I wasn't sure I was ready to share it with the world. But then again, maybe it was time. I smiled at him, and shared my story.

I had walked into the hospital as I did everyday, only that day was different. It was the day of my twenty-fifth birthday, you see, and I was quite nervous at the thought of getting my first tattoo. I didn't know what the future held for me, but somehow, I didn't want to know. I did not want that kind of burden. I had watched my best friend go through it, and it had almost killed him. It was my first year as an intern, and I was quite overwhelmed already. I did my usual routine, rounds and check-up exams, and everything looked good. We had a new patient on the floor that day, and I usually kept the new patients for last, to be able to devote my time to them, without having to worry about other patients for a little while. I went over the chart before I went into the room. Car accident, brain trauma, but no one knew for sure how extensive. I introduced myself, and she introduced herself as Andrea. I did a routine exam, and everything seemed fine. I told her to call the nurse if she needed anything, and I left the room. As soon as I had left, I felt a burning sensation on my lower stomach. I ran to the bathroom, and lifted my shirt. I starred in the mirror as the tattoo was drawn on my skin. Once the pain was gone, I examined it. It was an old fashion scroll, blank. I knew tattoos were suppose to represent something big in your life, something that would come to pass in the coming year. Everyone, on their date of birth, were registered with the tattoo ministry, and given a date of when they would get their first tattoo, the year something big would happen to them. For some, it was eighteen, others, at the tender age of ten. Mine was twenty-five. Something big was going to happen this year, and it had something to do with a blank scroll. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but today I look back and call myself an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

“What did your tattoo mean?” Asked the reporter.
I told him to be quiet, and to listen. For I was not done.

I walked into work the next day, picked up my charts, and went to see Andrea. I was assaulted by a pillow when I walked into her room. After speaking with her for a little while, I was able to understand that she had no idea where she was, or where her family was. I had to explain to her that her family had died in a car accident, and that she was in a hospital, being monitored after a severe head injury. I wrote it off as a dreamstate. It often happened that patients woke-up on their first day here having no idea where they were. I did a routine check-up, and left the room. 
I was woken up in the middle of the night by my pager. I ran to the hospital, where I found the nursing staff being assaulted with various items. I walked into Andrea's room, but stayed out of reach, for she was holding a flower pot. I asked her what was wrong, and she expressed, very loudly in fact, that she didn't know where she was, that we had no right to keep her against her will, and that the only thing she wanted to do was to go home to her family. I explained where she was, and she eventually put the flowers down. 

This event went on for a couple of days, until we came to the conclusion that the amnesia was not temporary. We started looking for more permanent solutions. The entire staff was constantly having to get stitches from the various items she threw at us, and we even got to the point of taking almost everything from her room, but she kept finding things to throw at us. A nurse gave me a notebook to give to her, saying it was an idea from an old movie she had watched in history class. I gave Andrea the notebook, and asked her to write her story, as we have explained it, and as she was living it. It might help her remember. She wrote in it everyday.


“What does this have to do with depression?” Asked the reporter, bored.
I smiled, and continued.

I went to visit her everyday, and for a while, she improved remarkably. Her moods were better, the notebook helped her remember what was going on, and she stopped hurting the staff. It was perfect. We had entered a pattern; she would read the diary, cry over the loss of her family, let me do her check-up exam, we'd talk a little, then I would leave. One day, she started showing up at the cafeteria for lunch. I was the only familiar face in the crowd, and so, she sat with me, occasionally stealing fries from my plate. We talked a little that day, about her family. She asked me about mine as well. She showed me the map she had drawn a few days ago, to help her find her way around. It was quite a good one, very accurate. I began spending quite a lot of time with her, trying to improve her moods, but they started to go down. With each passing day, she would grow a little more restless, a little darker, and was no longer the Andrea I had come to love, for I did fall for her.

She was eventually released from our care, and into a more permanent home. I still visited her in the little free time I had, and she lit-up every time she saw me. She had sketched my face into her notebook, so she would recognize me when I visited. I was the only one who did, since her family was all but gone. I tried to visit at least three times a week, and stayed for as long as I could. I always looked forward to seeing her, even if she didn't know me very well. Every time I went to visit her, she was more and more distant, pulling away. The nurses told me she didn't eat much, and slept a lot. I asked them to keep a special eye on her, but they had so many patients that they didn't have the time to spare.

I got a call one day from a nurse that knew me well. Andrea had cut herself with a knife, and seemed to find it amusing. I went to see her right away, and talked with her the rest of the day. She laughed like she hadn't in a while, going on and on about how funny it was that all of our lives were dependant on blood, and how it pours out of us when we get hurt, and if too much comes out, we die. I was getting really worried at this point, as you can imagine, and asked the nurse to take her to go see a psychiatrist.

I stopped my story there, rubbing my hands together. Did I really want to tell the reporter the rest of this story?

“What happened after that?” Asked the reporter, enthralled by my story, that seemed more fictional than realistic.
I told him the blunt version; she died, overdosed, end of story.

After he had gone, I went to the bathroom to look at the faded tattoo of a blank scroll, with the day she died inscribed in it. It had been a clue to her, the page that was wiped blank every day, my blank page, the one fate intended me to end up with. 
That night, when I left my office and went home, I stopped by the cemetery where she was buried. I placed some flowers, and told her about my day. For the hundredth time, I asked her why she had taken her life, why she had chosen to die in my arms, blood pouring out of her wrists like a dark river. As usual, the gravestone didn't answer me, and I was left with more questions than answers. I looked at the stone once more, at the faded waterfall that adorned it. It was her tattoo, the only one she had received, the one that gave her the idea to end her life in that way. As I turned away, and walked back to my car, I thought of her, of the different states I had known her; when she was alive, full of laughter, and when she was depressed, a simple shell of her former self. Depression leading to suicide was the leading cause of death in our society, and it was linked to the knowledge of our future.