prologue
He sat in the corner of the room, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees. His spine was pressed hard against the wood, but he paid no mind to the pain. He was used to it by now. All too used to it.
He continued to stare straight ahead, listening yet not listening to the sounds of the house around him. Water rushing through the pipes, soft chatter coming from the other apartments, wood floors creaking under heavy footsteps. Nobody knew where he was, nobody would come for him. And, at the moment, he wanted it that way.
Despite being used to the pain, he desperately wanted it to end. To go away for good. No matter how many times people told him he would be okay, it would be okay, he knew they were wrong. It was all getting monotonous, a broken record with no more meaning.
He wanted it to be done. That was all he wanted. He wanted it to stop.
Time. Give it time, they all said. With help, it would eventually go away and things would be exactly the way they used to.
But time was never on his side. Things only got worse over time, in his mind.
Help wouldn't help. Arms wrapped around him, holding him close...soft, reassuring whispers...they meant nothing to him anymore. In the long run, they made absolutely no difference.
And it wasn't anybody's fault. It was anyone's fault but his own. For staying alive this long.
It wouldn't stop.
It wouldn't go away.
And it never would.
He laid his head down, squeezing his eyes as tightly closed as they could go, trying to shut the world out. He pressed his hands over his ears, trying as hard as he could not to think about anything. But it didn't work. It never did.
"Stop," he whispered quietly to himself. To his mind. "Stop it," he said louder. But, of course, his mind didn't listen. "Stop!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, leaping up from his position and grabbing a glass off of the desk. He flung it at the wall, feeling no better when it smashed into a million glimmering pieces. He picked up one of the glass shards and ran the sharp edge over his finger, drawing bright red blood. Tears began to run down his face, and he couldn't tell if they were from the pain or the...fear.
He was afraid of what he would do to people, to himself, as much as he still wanted to. He had no idea how else to deal with it.
Hurting himself...killing himself...it was the only way.
The only way to finally reach nirvana.
one
three months earlier
Before, It wasn't always bad. There were times when It could be dealt with, maybe just by listening to music or playing his guitar. He could manage to forget about It for a while...of course, It always managed to come back.
His wife had tried to help him before, tried to get rid of It. But it was no use. Even though she had given him the baby he adored so much, It still always came back.
His daughter was a wonderful distraction: she always made him happy. He could take her in his arms and all of his worries and sadness would melt away. That is, until she started crying. Then It would grow stronger, weaving Its way into his heart until it split open.
But today was one of the good days. He and his band had put on a successful show, and he got to come home early to see his daughter. Now, he laid down on the bed, eyes closed and head against the pillow. His daughter was laying beside him, her big blue eyes wide open and curious. She crawled on top of him and, without opening his eyes, he held her and kissed the top of her head.
"Daddy's tired," her mother said, taking the baby's hand and tugging at it gently.
"No, it's okay," he murmured with a slight smile, still holding onto his daughter. "She's fine." The baby giggled and he placed a light hand on her back, clearing his throat. The room smelled of cigarettes and baby powder.
His wife turned off the lights and climbed into bed beside them, giving her husband a kiss on the lips and promptly falling asleep. In the silence of the room, he could hear rain pouring outside the window.
Then, lightning cracked and thunder boomed. His daughter started to cry, gripping at the fabric of her father's shirt and squeezing her eyes closed. "Shh, shh, hey, it's okay," her father said, sitting up in the bed and lifting her up. "Thunder can't hurt you." The baby's cries slowly turned to hiccups. Her father give her another kiss and she gradually fell asleep in his arms.
The next time lightning struck outside the window, the thunder was softer, as if it were trying not to wake the baby. Her father, though, could not sleep, despite the heaviness of his eyelids. He smoothed his baby's hair and moved his own out of her face, trying his best not to move too much. His wife was out cold.
He sighed lightly, a calm, gentle sigh. Here, right now, it was good. Here, he was okay.
His eyes slowly closed and he drifted off to sleep.
?
"Kurt." Harsh hands shook him awake. "Hey, wake up." As his wife spoke, the scent of cigarettes filled the room, awakening his senses.
He tried to sit up, then remembered that his daughter was asleep on his chest. He shifted to face his wife. "Yes?"
"A tree outside was hit by lightning," his wife replied. He turned to look out the window, a hand on his baby's back, and saw that it was still dark outside. "It fell and hit the side of the house."
"I can't do anything about it," he said, closing his eyes again. His wife lifted the baby off of him and moved to set her in her crib. "No!" he cried, louder than he had meant to, desperate for his daughter's warmth.
"What has gotten into you?" his wife murmured, handing him their daughter.
It was a dream, a horrible dream in which the darkness had fully consumed him, but he didn't want to tell her that. He had no idea how to put it into words, the awful things he had felt. So he didn't reply at all, and instead held his daughter tighter than before and once again sank into a dark, quiet sleep.
two
He was standing -- no, sitting -- on a soft, warm ground. Everything around him was black, and he could not move. But despite that unnerving fact, he was calm, relaxed even.
But then the ground turned cold and hard. The darkness that surrounded him was no longer his friend, no longer a comfort or a safe haven, but his enemy. And it scared him. He struggled to move, but still could not. He wanted to call out to someone, to run away, to close his eyes and wake up somewhere else, but none of that was possible. He was stuck here, in this cold, dark, terrifying place.
The darkness began to compact, to move closer to him. It used to feel like a gentle hug, but now it felt more like he was being strangled. And it hurt. The pain was becoming unbearable.
"Stop!" he choked out. "I just want this to stop." The tears began to come, as cold as the space around him and burning like acid. He closed his eyes, but all he could see was the same darkness.
"Help!" he said. But nobody came. Nobody could help him.
The shadows choked him, he could no longer breathe. Gasped and coughing, he moved to grip his throat --
"Wake up!" a voice said, breaking through the haze. "Come on, wake up!"
He opened his eyes, shrinking back into the sheets when the light hit him. Despite the overwhelming fear he had felt in the dream, part of him wanted to go back to the darkness.
"What happened?" his wife asked, leaning over him with a concerned expression.
"It was a dream," he said, clearing his throat and sitting up. "Just a dream," he muttered again to himself. After climbing out of bed and changing his clothes, he went over to his daughter and lifted her into his arms.
In was a cold and rainy day, but he decided to go for a walk down to the river with her, leaving his wife behind for a while. He put a raincoat on the little girl and took her hand.
The pain -- the darkness -- used to be bearable. But now he knew he could never think about it the same way again.
Even when he looked at his daughter, even as he was filled with that overwhelming joy he always felt because of her, part of him was still sad. Part of him was still scared. Part of him wanted to escape.
He kept his head down as he walked, not wanting to make eye contact. While there were people he could put up with, he had never really liked most people or any kind of human interaction. He only looked up when he knew they had reached the river.
He sat with his daughter on his lap on the riverbank, dipping his hand in and sprinkling some water on her. Every time a drop landed on her, the girl screeched with laughter, which made him smile. He watched the water ripple every time his fingers broke the surface, watched the small fish dart around the aquatic plants. A layer of mist hung over the water, and he could not see his reflection.
People passed without stopping, in a hurry to get out of the light rain. But he paid no mind to it, just accepting the fact that it was there. He had experienced rain more times than he could count, and had learned to enjoy the feeling of it falling on his face.
His daughter stood up and moved toward the water, reaching out as if to get a fistful of it. "Careful," he said softly, holding out a hand to stop her. "I don't want you to fall in." He moved forward with her, allowing her to crawl to the water's edge.
Suddenly, he was overcome by an incredible sadness. It came without warning, a horrible feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. It hurt, and it drained him of all pleasant feeling.
He stood up. "Come on," he said to his daughter, "let's go home."
three
When the pair reached home again, his daughter was laid down for a nap and he went straight up to his bedroom, closed the door, and locked it, sinking down onto the bed. The overwhelming depressed feeling had not yet left him, and he felt horrible. He pressed his knuckles tightly against his eyelids until red spots clouded his vision.
And then he remembered.
Heroin.
He got up off of the bed and searched for where he had last put the drug. Previously, he had only injected himself occasionally, and the last time had been about a week before. Finally, he found where he had left it underneath his nightstand.
He took the syringe out of the box and touched the needle end of it to the tip of his index finger. It pierced the skin and he began to bleed, but the external pain helped him forget about the torment inside.
He filled the syringe with as much of the sticky black liquid as it could hold, and, taking a deep breath, injected it into his veins.
As the drug made its way through his body, he laid back on the bed again, sinking backwards until his head rested on the pillow. The drug made its way to his mind, breaking down the fragile barriers he had built to protect it and entering. As it did, he felt calmer, more in control. The pain in his stomach and heart left, and he let out a breath he must have been holding for weeks.
Then, as he drifted away to another land, he decided that he would have to do this every day. He would need the easy escape from his life, the relief from the pain he felt that nothing else could ease.
When he used the drug, depression left his body for a time. An enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders, from his chest, from his mind. He felt more open, but also more safe and protected from the world. He felt as if nothing could reach him, nothing could hurt him now.
His eyes were closed, and pictures painted themselves on the backs of his eyelids. Pictures of people he didn't know, places he had never been, things he had never seen before.
His trace was broken by a frantic knocking on the door that shattered his mind into a million pieces. "Kurt! Please answer me!"
"Yes?" he slurred, rubbing his eyes.
He could hear her slump against the door in relief. "Don't scare me like that again. I've been knocking for about five minutes. Could you open the door?"
"No," he said sleepily.
"Please?" He could hear the hope in her voice, but he didn't want her to see him in this state, to ruin his perfect dreamlike happiness.
"Sorry," he replied.
She didn't say anything else, but he knew she was still there. Finally, he heard her get up and press her hand against the door. Her wedding ring clicked against the wood. "I love you," she said softly.
"I love you too."
His wife sighed and then, finally, she left, and he was alone again in a perfect, relaxed silence. When he was high, he could think of whatever he wanted, and only the happy thoughts would stay with him. The depressing ones would slip away like water down a drain, never to be seen again.
That is, until he came back down.
The drug was still circling through his veins, so much more of it than he had ever used before. This was better, he thought. This amount worked better. He was much more distracted, and in times like these, he liked it that way.
The drug would become his escape. Whenever his life got overwhelming, he finally had a way to leave it all behind. He knew it wasn't good for him, but it helped. And he knew he was too far gone.
Slowly, he slipped away into the calming darkness of sleep.
four
This is bad, he thought as he prepared to inject himself with the drug once more. About a week had passed since his wife had found him unconscious in their bed. After removing the doorknob from the locked door in order to get inside, she shook him awake and asked why he had been out for so long. He hadn't responded.
Now, he was on the bedroom floor once more, holding the syringe in between his fingers. It was filled with heroin, the sticky black liquid that he would soon have whirling throughout his body. Normally, the thought would be comforting, as it had been for the past week. But now, the thought of losing himself--completely this time--scared him.
Despite how much of his life was spent being sad, he cared so deeply about his family and wanted to be able to protect them forever. Maybe, someday, the pain would go away with the use of the drug. Maybe the pain would leave forever.
But this is bad, he told himself once more. The high is helpful, but...you always come down. Smashing right back into reality. And that was the part he hated. If he had to spend his time in reality, he at least wanted the reality to be...good. Not filled with hate.
He had no idea what to do.
But he couldn't stop himself from sticking the pointed end of the syringe into his vein.
He knew that it was bad. He knew it all too well.
But he couldn't stop.
He was too far gone.
Help, he thought before he drifted away.
?
When the high began to fade and he felt himself falling once more, he set down the guitar he had just been strumming softly and leaned back onto the wood floor. Once more, he felt the typical heavy weight of sadness and depression come to rest upon his chest.
I'm hurting myself, he thought, pressing his fist against his forehead and closing his eyes. Even worse, it was doing nothing in the long run. It's not helping. But I can't stop.
I can't.
Nothing will ever get better.
I can't get better.
I won't.
I can't.
Tears began to fall from his bright blue eyes, and he didn't have the strength to brush them away. Rolling onto his stomach, he was openly sobbing now, wrapping his arms around his torso and trying to get away from himself.
And nobody came for him.
Nobody cares, said a voice inside his head. Nobody cares for you. Not even yourself.
He didn't try to argue. "I know," he said aloud, still crying.
You're going to die if you continue this way.
"I know!"
But that's good, isn't it?
"Maybe..." He fell silent and covered his ears, trying to make the thoughts stop coming. But they continued, building up in a herd of hushed whispers that only he could hear.
"Stop!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. His voice broke, but he didn't care. He began to cry again; he couldn't help it. Maybe the voices would take pity on him and finally leave.
We're still here, the voices said.
He didn't answer.
He knew they would be.
"I need to get away," he muttered to himself, wiping away the tears with one hand, the other still wrapped around his stomach. "I need to get away," he repeated to himself as he stood up and began to look around the room. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he knew he couldn't find it.
I give up, he thought, collapsing on the bed and burying his face in his pillow. I'm done. Right now, he just wanted to leave all the awful feelings behind, but he wasn't tired enough to sleep.
So he lay in the bed alone, wide awake.
five
A few days passed. He was still using the drugs, and if his wife had noticed how worn out he had begun to look, she made no comment on it. He knew he was hurting himself, but at this point, he wasn't sure if he really cared or not.
But it still wasn't enough.
The thoughts, the voices inside his head, would continue coming even during his high. No matter how many drugs he had flowing through his body, he couldn't turn off his mind.
Today, he was home alone. His wife had taken their daughter and gone to a friend's house, leaving him with nothing but a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the head. "Be good," she had said with a wink before closing the door behind her. He was in the living room, his acoustic guitar on his lap, but his heart wasn't in it. Music had begun to lose its joy to him, and nothing made him sadder.
He set his guitar down on the couch and stood up, despite the dizziness in his head. He began to search the room, even though he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for. On the floor in the corner was a small wooden object, and he picked it up, turning it over in his hand.
A pocketknife.
He lowered himself back down onto the couch, flicking the blade out and admiring its sheen. He brought it closer to the skin of his wrist, but pulled back when the sharp end poked him. Not yet, he thought to himself.
He brought the knife to his middle finger and, without thinking, drew it across the tip. The pain sank in moments later and he bit his lip to keep from crying out. Blood pooled at the edges of the wound and he put the finger in his mouth.
But the pain didn't help, either.
He pocketed the knife, anyways. Maybe he'd try again later.
A box of cigarettes was found on a small table beside the couch. He picked it up along with a small lighter and lit a cigarette, putting it between his lips and blowing a small puff of smoke into the air. When he closed his eyes and breathed in the smell, it was almost like a high.
Until he breathed back out.
Would nothing help him? Would nothing cure him of his ailments?
He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm and brought the cigarette to his skin. The burning sensation was instant, and this time he could help but make a sound. The cigarette fell to the floor.
After running the burn under the faucet, he lit another cigarette, crushing the other one under his foot. He burned himself again, this time bracing for the pain he knew--hoped--would come. He closed his eyes as the smoke licked his skin, and when he began to burn, he relished in it. He could almost feel his mind melting away.
Breathing out another breath of smoke, he looked down at his arm. The skin was red and beginning to scar, so he rolled his sleeve back down to cover it.
That wasn't very smart.
"No." He shook his head vigorously. "Not again."
Yes, again. Eventually, you'll learn how much you need me.
"And what the fuck would I need you for?"
I'm the source of your creativity. I'm the one who gives you all of your clever ideas.
He shook his head again, throwing the cigarette across the room and lighting another, taking a breath angrily. "No. You're the one who takes that all away and replaces it with hell."
He could almost sense the voice smiling. Or, sneering was more like it. Those are my words. I am both your heaven and your hell, young man.
"Justget the fuck out of my head." He knew that talking to the voice was pointless. He knew that the voice was him. But he did it anyways.
I am your head. I am your everything. One day, you will learn.
"No, I won't. I won't give myself the chance to."
The voice didn't respond.
He sighed, leaned back, and took another smoke.
six
The young wife pushed the front door open, balancing her two-year-old daughter on her hip. The woman's brow furrowed as she took in the scene that awaited her inside of her home: the floor covered in cigarettes...and was that blood staining the couch a dark crimson, or wine? She moved forward to where her husband sat slumped over on the couch, passed out.
Setting her daughter in the floor, she sank to the couch beside her husband and tucked his chin-length blond hair behind one of his ears. After she gave him a kiss on the cheek and he didn't awaken, she shook him until his eyes opened. "Drunk?" she asked. He nodded, eyelids close to falling closed once again.
His wife noticed something sticking out of his pocket--a blade, about two inches in length, shining silver. A pocketknife.
She moved closer to him, preparing to wrap him in a hug and check his arm, when she noticed something else on the couch behind him. A syringe, filled with the sticky black remains of-
"Heroin?" she snapped, standing up sharply. "How much of this have you injected today?"
He shrugged sleepily.
"All a blur, huh? Fucking stupid of you..." She kneeled on the floor in front of him, rolling up the sleeve of his right arm. She was looking for the red marks suggesting injection, but along with many of those, she saw that his skin was blistered and burned in some places. "Did you do this?" She took his hand and squeezed it tightly.
"Yeah," he slurred, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
"The cigarettes..." she muttered to herself, examining his fingers. There was evidence of cutting. "This isn't good."
"I know!" he said in a raised voice. He sounded like a child who had been caught doing something wrong, close to tears.
"You need help," his wife said to him, placing a hand on his hot forehead.
"I know," he said again, softly this time. Ashamed.
"I need to take you to rehab," she said in a regretful tone, standing up and planting her hands on her hips. She chewed on her bottom lip as she examined her husband, so weak and fragile there on the couch.
"No," he whimpered. "It won't help. It never does...doctors don't know shit about me-"
"Because you don't let them!" she snapped, throwing her arms up in the air. "You need help, and I am getting it for you."
Her husband visibly shrank into himself.
?
"Mister Cobain?" the nurse greeted him after knocking and cracking the door open. "You have visitors. Shall I send them in?"
A few days had passed, and he felt trapped. It was his mind brought to life; a haunting place where he was all alone. Just him and the voices in his head. He wanted out. And the only way out was to pretend that he was healing.
"Yes," he said, sitting up and pulling the thin white sheets off of himself. He looked down at his body, so frail and thin...pathetic, he thought of it. Like hell I'll get better. Bullshit.
"Kurt," said a young man with shoulder-length dark hair as he and another, taller man entered. They were two of his closest friends.
"Dave," he replied with a forced smile.
"How are you doing?" the taller man asked as he walked toward the bed, not sure if he should sit down or not.
His friend shrugged. "I don't know. But I feel...cleaner?" Yeah, that's convincing. "If you know what I mean."
"Yeah."
The man with the longer hair moved toward him and took his hand. "We've really missed you. We're proud of you, you know?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." The man smiled encouragingly. But there was something else there. Sadness? Pity? Fear?
"I think maybe we should let Mister Cobain rest," the nurse said, coming back into the white room.
"Okay." The man with longer hair stood up and gave his friend a tight hug. The other man did the same. "Love you," they said as they left.
The nurse closed the door, and he was alone once again, trapped in his silent prison.
seven
His mind was racing as fast as his heart, his pupils were dilated and his breathing was shallow. He had just woken up from another horrible nightmare.
I need to get out of here.
He rolled over on the thin mattress, his eyes wide open and shining a brilliant blue in the moonlight that poured through the thin window near the ceiling. He hadn't felt this horrible as long as he could remember. His stomach was burning like acid, his head pounding.
And he was positive that he hated himself.
Nothing works, he thought. Nothing has helped, and nothing will. It's useless. Im useless.
I'm not helping anyone.
I can't do anything right.
I don't enjoy anything anymore.
I have to escape.
And then I have to die.
Silent tears fell from his beautiful eyes as he willed them not to. So many people were supporting him, and he was about to let them all down. That was what he wanted least of all...but he wanted to live even less.
But then he thought of his bandmates. His friends. His family. His beautiful two-year-old daughter. How they might react when they found him dead.
And his already broken heart split down the middle.
He was openly sobbing now, clutching at his burning stomach and his pounding head. He was scared, scared of life, scared of death. He had no idea how he wanted to go, or what he planned on saying to everyone...
He just knew he wanted to leave.
What a shame that it's come to this.
When he spoke aloud to the voice in his head, his words were pure anger and violence. "Leave me. The fuck. Alone." He just wanted to feel better. Or at least to not have to pity himself.
I can't. I'm in your head.
Familiar song lyrics played in his head. "I thought you were supposed to be my friend," he muttered sarcastically.
I am your friend. And I'm here to help.
He knew it was no use responding, and instead balled his hands into fists, beginning to dig his nails into his palms, leaving crescent-shaped pools of blood behind.
And I agree with your decision, though it is a shame to lose such a brilliant mind.
"I'm not brilliant," he said weakly.
Oh, so your millions of fans are wrong about you?
"Yes," he moaned. "I'm not a role model. I'm not brilliant. I'm not clever. I'm not brave or strong or whatever the hell they believe.
I'm weak.
And I'm scared."
It will all be over soon, the voice added in what must have been meant to be a soothing tone. After you are dead, I will help you find peace.
"No. I can never be happy with you. You're the reason that I'm like this!" He was furious, looking around the room for something to throw but not finding anything suitable. "I'm going to die. And I will finally be rid of you."
Very well. Goodbye, Kurt.
"Good fucking riddance."
And the voice was gone.
?
He pounded on the locked door until a nurse poked her head in to see what the noise was. "Why aren't you asleep, sir?" she asked in a calm voice, even though she was obviously put off by the manic yet sorrowful look in his eyes.
"Please, let me out. Let me go. Please. I need to go."
"Go where, sir? To the restroom?"
"Fuck, no," he exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "I need to get out of here. Please."
She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he threw it off. "Mister Cobain, you need to stay here until you are fully healed-"
"Please!" He fell to his knees and began crying again. "I have to go. I'm never getting better. I have to go."
She still looked unsure.
"Please."
Regretfully, she let him go.
And he headed out into the night.
eight
He knew that many days had passed since his escape from the rehabilitation center, but he wasn't entirely sure of the number. All he knew was that he was starving, thirsty and tired--and that nobody had found him.
He had spent his final days wandering the outer streets of the town, the more rural areas, the small forests and his old home under the bridge. If anybody noticed him, they didn't know who it was and didn't approach him. He had been surrounded by the normal sounds of life, free from human conversation. He wished that every day had been like those last ones. Now that he had made up his mind about where he was going, he didn't feel quite so trapped. If anything, he felt the slightest bit free.
Finally, though, he got so tired that he knew it was finally time. Despite himself, despite his decision and his thoughts, he found himself clinging onto the last shred of life he had left.
Nobody was home.
He let himself in through the window, making his way up above the garage. As the tears began to fall at the thought of all he was leaving behind, he found paper and something to write with and began.
To Boddah,
Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complain-ee, this note should be pretty easy to understand.
All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things--
The fact is, I can't fool you. Any one of you--
I need to be slightly numb--
I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful--
Thank you all from the pit of my burning nauseous stomach--
I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember: it's better to burn out than to fade away.
Peace, love, empathy.
Kurt Cobain
Once he had covered the page with words and felt as though he had said as much as he could put into words, he headed into his bedroom to find the heroin that he had left behind. It was laying out on the bed; his wife must have used it recently. He brought it back to the attic and sat on the floor beside where he had left the note.
With shaking hands, he lifted the syringe and filled it with an unholy amount of the drug. I'm going to die, anyways. Might as well go all out. He smirked at the don't-give-a-fuck attitude he had suddenly adopted. I'm going to die. Now. Despite himself and the overwhelming awfulness of the situation, or maybe because of it, he laughed out loud.
Finally.
He raised the syringe to his arm, sticking the pointed end into his vein, feeling the familiar rush of it entering his bloodstream. It had become a sort of companion to him.
As the full blow of the heroin hit him, he fell to the ground, his head spinning and his eyes watering. His fingers grabbed for the gun that he had brought into the room during his search for a pen and paper. This is it.
Is it?
Yes.
Yes.
He struggled to sit up once more, the blood pounding through his tormented brain. The gun was warm in his hands. Almost comforting.
He looked to the floor beside him, making sure that the note was there. His vision was too blurry to be sure, but he thought he saw his old friend Boddah leaning over the paper, reading what he had written.
Finally, he raised to gun to his head.
nine
His mind was a swirling mass of emotions, positive and negative, overwhelming and underwhelming. Or just whelming. He found it ironic that, after feeling so numb to emotion for so long, he was feeling it all now, right as he was about to pull the trigger.
He was anxious, apprehensive, nervous, disappointed...but he also felt this strange sense of excitement. It might actually be okay.
He felt horrible that this was what it came to. He felt guilty for leaving his daughter and his friends behind. He felt scared that maybe, after it happened, he would only be more numb.
But mostly, he felt ready.
Ready to leave this terrible place behind.
Ready to escape himself.
Ready to finally move on.
Ready to die.
He was surprised that he still found himself capable of thinking, with the amount of heroin he had filled his bloodstream with. But he thought, and he couldn't stop thinking.
And that was what he hated.
Ready?
Ready.
Stop thinking.
He stopped.
Stop focusing on yourself.
He stopped.
Stop feeling.
He stopped.
Stop crying.
This he couldn't do.
Stop worrying.
He stopped.
Stop fearing what's coming.
He stopped.
Take a deep breath.
He breathed.
Fire.
He placed the end of the gun into his mouth, squeezed his beautiful blue eyes closed...
One final tear fell.
After the slightest second of hesitation, he pulled the trigger.
His immediately lifeless body fell to the ground.
Kurt Cobain was dead.
ten
"This morning, an electrician went to Cobain's suburban Seattle home to do some work, looked in the window over the garage, and saw a body."
"His music captured the spirit of the difficult transition from youth to maturity."
- Tom Foreman of ABC News
----------------------------
"If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got."
"If my eyes could show my soul, everyone would cry when they saw me smile."
- Kurt Cobain
----------------------------
"I'm so happy, 'cause today I found my friends, they're in my head."
- Lithium, Nirvana
"Everything's my fault."
- All Apologies, Nirvana
"Look on the bright side, suicide."
- Milk It, Nirvana
"I'm on my time with everyone."
- Pennyroyal Tea, Nirvana
"I'm not like them, but I can pretend."
- Dumb, Nirvana
"No thought was put into this, I always knew it would come to this."
- You Know You're Right, Nirvana
"He plays an old guitar, with a coin found by the phone."
- Friend Of A Friend, Foo Fighters
"Leave it to memory me, don't dare me to breathe."
- Try Not To Breathe, REM
----------------------------
"I'll never hold him again. I don't know what to do. I don't know where I'll go."
- Wendy O'Connor, Kurt's mother
"When Kurt died, I was lost. I was numb. I had no voice."
- Dave Grohl
"That's the level Kurt spoke to us on: in our hearts, and that's where he, and the music, will always be, forever."
- Krist Novoselic
"He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me."
- Neil Young
"For all of his screaming and all of his darkness, he was just lovable."
- Anthony Kiedis, Red Hot Chili Peppers
"I thought the guy was brilliant. It was probably inevitable that he did what he did."
- Slash, Guns N' Roses
"I don't know what I could have done. I wish I'd been here. I wish I hadn't listened to other people, but I did."
- Courtney Love, Kurt's wife
"Just tell him he's a fucker, okay?
Just say 'Fucker. You're a fucker.'
And that you love him."
note
So the story's done, yeah? It's so hard to write about what he was thinking and feeling because nobody really knows for sure. If you've struggled with depression or depressed thoughts, I'm sure you understand that it's near impossible to put into words, but luckily, he got some of it out through his music.
Also, as most of you probably know, there is a conspiracy surrounding his death. Some people believe it to be a suicide, and others think he was murdered, even by his own wife. I have read about evidence for both sides, and some of it is very interesting, so I recommend looking it up if you're interested.
I'm not sure exactly what I believe, but I don't think he would just leave his daughter like that, after how happy she made him and how happy he wanted her to be. I think there was something else going on, but nobody's quite sure what.
But for the sake of this story, I had his death be a suicide.
Please, tell me what you think really happened, give me feedback for my writing, anything.
Thank you so much for reading and for all of your wonderful comments so far, I've enjoyed writing this story to try and put his life into words.
The next chapter will be a list of articles, videos, and other interesting resources for you to check out if you're interested.
Again, thank you! If you have any ideas that you would like me to write about next, feel free to share them.
- xnirvana_cobainx
resources
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6039683/how-kurt-cobains-friends-family-fellow-musicians-reacted-to-his-death-20-quotes
~ How Kurt Cobain's Friends, Family, and Fellow Musicians Reacted To His Death: 20 Quotes
https://www.rockhall.com/10-essential-nirvana-songs
~ 10 Essential Nirvana Songs
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/kurt_cobain.html
~ Kurt Cobain Quotes
https://www.denverlibrary.org/blog/eazy/kurt-cobins-saddiest-song
~ Kurt Cobain's Saddest Song
https://kurtcobainssuicidenote.com/index.html
~ Kurt Cobain's Suicide Note
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yTsyMbc52UU
~ Kurt Cobain Biography
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3CTsGievjMU
~ One Of Kurt Cobain's Final Interviews
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W5hgwV90A0Q
~ The Day Kurt Cobain Died
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0RXdO5xpqSA
~ Kurt Cobain: Before They Were Dead
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HxJYaL5bcdw
~ 107 Nirvana Music Facts You Should Know
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SReXa7A9Y6o
~ 13 Unforgettable Kurt Cobain Moments
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GZdTQ1GEObE
~ The Kurt Cobain Conspiracy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A3_37JKdMyQ
~ 26 Truthful Quotes By Kurt Cobain
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Z2BkZaOQc
~ Kurt Cobain On Identity
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4oDkvnsNHUw
~ Scala And Kolacny Brothers: Lithium
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI6CjlPF3SI
~ Scala "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
If you find anything else interesting, please send it to me, I'd love to check it out!