Better off without me

by SunnyBreeze

Seeking Help

As Zephyr walked down the stairs, he noticed the light of gold plates and blue magical auras dithered across the wall. At the bottom of the stairs, he found his parents standing near the window and staring out onto the streets of Cloudsdale. The air was thick with silence. Zephyr decided he may as well attempt to break the ice.

“Canterlot guard?”

“Yes son.”

“I wonder what they’re here for.”

“Actually, we called them...”

It was probably something unrelated, but Zephyr couldn’t rule out the possibility that they knew.

“... for you.” Came his father’s voice, deeper than usual and cutting cleanly through the air. Zephyr’s mother hadn’t spoken yet, although that was not unusual.

Zephyr stood in a stunned silence. He considered rushing upstairs and attempting to hide his notes. No, they’d find them for sure. He’d have to burn them. No, that was the thinking of a desperate pony. Stay cool Zephyr, think your way out of this. He glanced from side to side to take in his surroundings, as if hoping that a portal to another universe might spontaneously open and offer him a way out. Nope, nothing. He knew it was time to confess to what was going on, but held on to the faint glimmer of hope that perhaps this was a joke.

His father grinned. “Boy, you sure scare easily”. “What have you been hiding?” he joked, blissfully ignorant of how close he was. “Nuh, it’s just a stray thunder cloud”. “Whenever there’s lightning involved, it’s best to call the guards to make sure young fillies and colts don’t get too close”

Zephyr waved his hoofs in exaggerated mock frustration at his father, perhaps for a bit longer than he should have if it were really all mock frustration.

His mom gave her husband a concerned smile.

Zephyr busied himself with helping his mom setup the table, attempting to avoid the need to make any further eye contact, which fortunately at the Shys’, wasn’t very common anyway.

After silently sipping a cup of chamomile tea then nibbling a few scones, Zephyr immediately headed over to the backhouse in search of the apparatus he would need for his plan, leaving his mom to clean up. As Mr. Shy watched Zephyr leave, a chicken claw appeared out of thin air, snapped it’s fingers, turned into a hoof, and gave Mr. Shy a hoof-bump. “Couldn’t say ‘no’ to a friend of Fluttershy,” Mr. Shy whispered to the invisible figure.

---

All Zephyr’s rummaging through in the backhouse had turned up nothing but worthless old cloud clippings. Why his father hoarded all this junk he could never fully comprehend. As a foal, Zephyr had once asked his mom whether perhaps it might be because his dad was part dragon, at which his mom just laughed.

In any case, his search was soon interrupted by Fluttershy, who for some reason had flown back just to pick an argument with him. Couldn’t she see that he had things under control and could do plenty on his own?

“… which is why you should move out” shot back Fluttershy.

“Your sister has a point” came Mr. Shy’s voice.

Kicked out without warning. Wasn’t expecting that today. Fluttershy could be a real jerk at times. Whatever. It didn’t really matter anymore anyway. Right now, Zephyr had an appointment to attend to.

Last week he had arranged with the administration unicorn at mane therapy school to set up an appointment with the school doctor. Despite having flunked all his classes, Zephyr was technically still a student for administrative purposes. A week sounded like enough time to prepare, but now that the meeting with his doctor was only a few hours away, he was having second thoughts. Sure, he had written out everything he was going to say, but he wasn’t sure if he could actually say it, or how his doctor was going to respond. Perhaps he would just be wasting his doctor’s time. Other ponies had real problems: broken hooves, snapped horns, fractured wing-bones. His was a mental problem, entirely self-induced, he could make it go away at any time as easily as he brought it about. He could burn that stupid suicide plan, cancel the appointment, and no-one would ever know about this nonsense. No - he was doing the right thing. Everything he had read had indicated that he should talk to his doctor even if it was just in the ideation stage, let alone a full suicide plan. Would his doctor put him in involuntary hospitalization? What would mom and dad think? What would Fluttershy’s friends think? He felt like a criminal. Why was he voluntarily turning himself in? Because he wanted this. He worked hard on that document, because he genuinely wanted to kill himself. Although the thought of confessing his suicidal thoughts was terrifying and made his fur turn sweaty, it was nothing compared to the true fear of having to live another 25 years of meaningless mundane pony-life if he couldn’t get past the first step of his plan.

As he walked to the doctor, he thought over what he was going to say. It would need to differ slightly from what he pre-planned. He wanted to play the whole suicide-plan down a bit: make it clear that he wasn’t in any kind of immediate crisis, and the plan was just a hypothetical plan if he were to commit suicide, not one that he was locked into. He wasn’t sure whether he should reveal the plan at all. He came up with an even number of arguments on each side of the self-debate on whether or not to share with his doctor. He compromised and decided that he would have to make up the decision on the spot rather than pre-planning this. If the doctor seemed approachable and didn't seem to want to send him to a psychiatric ward, then he would show the doctor the plan, if the doctor seemed shaken, he would instead keep the plan hidden safely in his saddlebag.

Upon arriving, he sat patiently in the waiting room. He didn’t really care how long it took. Given that he was planning to throw years of potential working life away by committing suicide, he didn’t really care about a few minutes or even hours in the waiting room.

“Zephyr Breeze”, his doctor’s voice came echoing into the waiting room. He nervously picked up his saddlebag and walked into his doctor’s office.