Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Distracted. My mind is blank. The empty page stares back at me, almost mockingly, as I distractedly scan down the pages of detailed medical journals, trying to make sense of the studies and statistics swimming in front of my eyes. Text and tables blur into one, long never-ending dilemma.

"I'm a bloody medical student, not a researcher," I muttered in frustration, running my fingers through my hair.

The constant breaks I took throughout add up. A short trip to the kitchen. An excuse to not do work because my fingers were coated with chocolate. Dropping by my housemates' rooms to have a bit of a chat. And at the end of four hours, the window with the word document still remained unchanged.

I get up, pacing in and out of rooms, waiting for inspiration to strike my frazzled mind. The peaceful classical music I put on in an attempt at relaxation seemed grating. What I once found relaxing seemed now distracting, instead of images of the old English countryside and such I now found myself conjuring up images of old dead composers, pointing their knobbled fingers at my blank state, laughing at my writer's block.

I growl angrily, the nervous energy crackling inside my body radiating as I feint at my reflection in a mirror. Like someone quite ready to explode and I force myself to sit back down.

My eye catches the glimpse of something metallic as the light bounces off it, and I still suddenly, the beginning of a drastic but rather effective plan forming in my mind. Something that I would have once never thought of, something that would put an end things, once in for all.

I pick it up gently, running my fingers across the cold steel. Resolved with my decision, I pick up my keys and walk out of the room, seeing Liyana watching television. My mind is made up as I hand her the keys.

"Take care of these for me."

"When should I return these?" The question in her eyes forced a response.

"You'll know."

I walk back into the room and close the door behind me quietly, the implications of my decision sinking in with the loud click of the door. A moment of panic and I strengthen my resolve.

I sit back down on the chair and pick it up again, feeling the coldness against my arm, letting my skin get used to the steel, and once again, I almost change my mind. The fickleness of someone who has always been in control, and has difficulty relinquishing that control. The nervous energy and adrenaline of uncertainty.

And then I make my mind up. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And as I hear the loud click as the clip settles into it's notch, and I hear the metallic clang of steel on steel and I cannot move despite my best attempts, feeling the restless energy ebb out of me and I know I have made the right decision.

The handcuffs do their job well.