Depression is a funny thing.

It's perhaps one of the worst feelings, right up there with knowing you're about to die alone. Yet at the same time it can be as comforting as a warm down blanket after coming from playing in the snow. It's pervasive and all-consuming and it can and will dictate every aspect of your waking life given the chance.

You loathe it. It's a fine, grimy layer of film which coats you like a second skin keeping hope at bay. You want to cast it aside, but like an abusive lover, you keep coming back.

When I was thirteen, I suffered a bout of depression. I wouldn't have called it that back then sure, but having the advantage of objectivity that I do now, I can easily spot what it was. What else would you call it, that which would make a boy of thirteen put a gun to his head?

I have been brought up in a society where one's childhood is to be cherished and treasured. Where one is supposed to save delightful memories for a rainy day. So that when you are older and have more reponsibilities you have something to look back on, sigh gently and think, "Those surely were the days. I didn't have a care in the world back then." Antics with friends far out of touch, and wistful memories of stolen first kisses, that's what childhood is about.

Not me.

No sir.

It sometimes amazes me that I made it out of my childhood in the relative stable condition that I did. "That which does not destroy me, makes us stronger." Thanks. Most people fail to mention the corollary; "That which does not destory us, still has the capapcity to seriously fuck us up." Nietzsche can kiss my ass.

I'll say it now, adolescence is a bitch, there's not a single person who will disagree. Everyone goes through the awkward stage that is the cruel joke of adolescene. Everyone worries about fitting in, whether they seem to or not. Some are just better actors than the rest. The thing is, we adapt, that's what we were made for right? Adapting? And sooner or later everyone finds their niche, sooner or later everyone finds a friend in someone else.

Not me.

Bullies can be especially cruel about this time as well. Not that I was ever provoked into many fights mind you. I was too big and lumbering at that age for them to try anything that foolish. I had a right hook that when released in all its righteous fury seemed like freight train had jumped the tracks. No, that mistake was made once and once only. Some boy in the same grade as me made the mistake of tripping me and in turn, ripping my only store-bought shirt.

For one instant, all I saw was the sudden spray of crimson flowing freely from his nose as he lay upon the concrete crying, and I was content.

But unfortunately I was not one to react to words, for after all I had heard the proverb, and they were only words right? So from that day forth I was never touched again. But the words, ah the words. Insults started to fly through the air like a volley of arrows, each aimed unerringly at me. "Where'd I get such cheap clothes? Stupid. Ugly. Your mother's a whore. Your dad probably abandoned you. You smell."

You get the point.

There were other insults far worse, but I don't feel like repeating them. Hell, some of them were even true, but there is a big difference in having your mother explain why you don't have a dad, and how someone who is trying to shame you will tell it to you. Despite popular belief I was not the product of rape.

"Sticks and stones...."

I didn't have a single friend for a two-year stint. Not a one. My whole world consisted of my library card and a sketch pad. Perhaps the only good memories I have is learning how to draw, and discovering my love of books. Those two things alone are what kept me sane through those terrible years.

That and my bike. Somewhere along the line, my grandparents bought me a bike for Chistmas. It was a miracle; freedom on wheels. With a bike I could escape for just a little while. With a bike, you didn't need friends, hell my bike was my friend. I rode that damn thing all over creation, anywhere to get away from the roach-infested place I called home. If I have a third good memory, it was that damned bike.

However, how much can any child at that age take? How many times can you wake up to strange men staying the night? A paltry few at least had the courtesy to inquire as to how I was. Most just gave me the look that seemed to say, "Don't worry kid, I'm just passing through. I just have some business to take care of first."

Depression is a funny thing though. You know you feel terrible, and on the outskirts of your conciousness you know that something isn't quite right. But a child is not equipped at that age to deal with it. And with a single parent who works three jobs and is never around, you have no one to see the subtle transformations that start to occur.

And so that's how I found myself staring at a revolver. I don't remember what type it was, maybe a .45, I dunno. I remember thinking though it had to be the biggest damn gun in the world and would be more than sufficient for the job at hand. It was stored in the sock drawer in my uncle's dresser. It was the top drawer, but I was tall enough to look down into it. It had a black plastic handle which seemed to make it slippery.

It was much heavier than I thought it would be.

It was also loaded, as my uncle believed firmly in keeping his gun close at hand and at the ready, "just in case".

I stood there staring at the look of the gun in my hand for what seemed like hours, although I know it wasn't. "Such a simple thing", I can remember thinking. Escape. I raised it to my temple. Had my mother walked in, I'm sure she would have fainted cold. I remember thinking, "This is it, this is all there is to life."

To this day, I don't remember what made me put the gun back in that sock drawer, trying my best to make it seem untouched. Maybe I did follow through, and this is all just a dream. I don't know, I just know that I remember setting the gun down gently, it's barrel gleaming dully in the light and going back out onto the porch. I never told my mother, she never saw this coming and wouldn't have known how to deal with it then. Plus I think in the back of my mind, I thought one day I would go through with it and I didn't want to raise any suspicion.

The depression did not instantly withdraw that day, but slowly over the next year, I emerged like a turtle form it's shell. Gaining the occasional friend here and there and then finally coming into my own towards the end of high school. My childhood for me begins and ends during my junior and senior years, the rest I try to block out.

But you can't totally. It's back there, lurking somewhere in the recesses of my mind waiting for it's chance to surface again. And make no mistake, it's not easy to cast aside, I have the urge every so often when I am feeling my worst to pull those feelings out and wear them like a fitted cloak. Just to feel it's warm touch one more time.

Depression is funny that way.