Despair caused by grandeur

Henry was going to kill himself.
         He walked away from the computer screen and stood up, the still air stirring with the movement.
"That's it. That does it."
         He walked out of the dark room. He opened the door, letting the corridor light spill in for a while. Before he stepped out he thought for a moment and picked up the carpet knife at the bedside cabinet, closing the door quietly behind him.
         The house was silent, his parents were out and so were his brother and sister. There would be no disturbance. He looked out the window, looking at the dark night in the neighbourhood. A dog barked, a car parked, and life was the usual in suburbia.
         Henry looked at his carpet knife, and then went to the bathroom. He looked through the cabinet, and found it, the flu medicine. It was a syrup and it made you drowsy. Henry remembered when he had once taken it with a friend, just for fun. In retrospect Henry realised that was dangerously close to taking drugs - well technically it was - but you know what he means.
         Henry remembered the horrific ten seconds when he had woken up from the dreamless slumber, and had been unable to move his fingers. For whole ten seconds his was slumped over uncomfortably and looked at his unresponsive hand. He vowed never to do it again.
         And that had been one teaspoon.
         He uncapped the bottle, and went to the sitting room. He looked around. They were not doing badly. It was an okay house. Sure, there were things he wanted, but he knew some people were very worse off. Besides, even without comparing to anything they were good as they were, so why was he doing this?
What he had seen... what he had seen... He shook his head. He decided to go outside. The thought 'I'm going to kill myself' was still up as his status of mind. He wasn't overly passionate or anything, really, he was more like in a dreamlike state, and really wasn't sure if he was going to do anything.
         He went out of the house. The pool was there. The security light came on, and Henry walked over and switched on the other light, deactivating the security light. He sat by the pool and dipped his legs into the water. He quickly pulled them back. Cold.
         He looked up. There was a myriad of stars. Billions, trillions, infinite. Something so magical and out of the world, but him; stuck on a mundane realistic planet.
         A planet that had artists who were way too good.
         What did they expect of a 17 year old to do when they rendered amazing works and got thousands of likes and follows and favourites and what-have-you-internet-social-perks. It was annoying, how mundane he was.
         His thoughts were grand maybe, his hopes passionate at first: 'I want to do art for my sake, and make people feel things when I make them' but the truth was he had an assignment the next day. The truth was he was nothing special in college and would be another white shirted necktie guy working for something he wasn't really interested in (and that was if he got good grades). The truth was geniuses existed. And he sure as heck wasn't one.
         The art he had seen had been amazing. Not that amazing, but all the other hundreds of works he had seen, put pressure on his mind, until it was finally cracked by the 13 year old who had made an outstanding rendition of a scene at the London eye, with people milling about it and the lights playing on the water and the moon in the sky, and he had won thousands of dollars and there were 400 comments on the picture within the first hour it had been up and he got an interview.
         And that pissed him off, and he was tired.
         With that resolve, Henry gulped down the flu medicine.
         He reached to his side, and discovered he had left the carpet knife in the sitting room. He shrugged, regardless, cutting the wrists seemed so girl-like to him. And painful.
         He felt fear all of the sudden, "What the hell have i done?! I've just killed myself haven't I!?". But then he burped. The minty sugary taste rose in his mouth, and a soft warm bubble formed in his throat, he relaxed his eyes in boredom, not really thinking of it, and then realized he was actually drowsy.
         The bottle clinked in the cement next to him, and rolled away. He looked at it then at the water of the swimming pool. It glinted in the light. Some real life poetry down to earth at last. He thought.
         Henry tipped over, expecting the cold water to wake him to reality, to maybe pull him back to sense, but he entered the water, the soft splash and bubbling passing through his ears.
         There was a slight sense of cold, and then being alone in the world. It was beautiful. The sounds in his ears, just like a movie, just like magic, just like a not-so-boring world. It was amazing. He smiled, and wondered if there was an afterlife.
         He was annoyed as his chest was being pushed down. He wanted to yell 'stop! that hurts!' But all he could do was vomit water, and angry black dots filled his vision. He could only see these, of course, because he was awake. Or at least, a little. With blue tinged vision he looked up at his father's pale face. He shouted an order to a woman standing nearby with her hands on her mouth, and she nodded her head and ran off in the distance. Getting help maybe. His mother…
         Henry wondered if the bottle was there. Maybe he could explain this away. He turned his head sluggishly and looked over at pool, but he was too tired, and passed out before he could see.

He woke up in the hospital to the beeping monitors and his bewildred sibling's faces. Crap, they were overly uncomfortable looking. They knew. Henry looked reproachfully at the nurse who smiled silently, gave him a glance and walked away. He sinked his head into his pillow,
         "Of course, even if the bottle wasn't there they'd run a check up on me. Dammit."
         The awkwardness was too much to describe. Especially since his siblings heard what he just said. He had never been so awake as he was for that first day. His mother was sad, so sad. His father pissed, so pissed. And he didn't even know his brother and sister anymore. They were trying to act like they cared, but they sucked so badly at it. He was glad that he was the older of the two, otherwise he wouldn't be able to bear it.

When he could return home, he noted the important details: His family would never look at him the same, he was due for community work for the whole month (He got off lightly apparently. Henry wondered how suicide was a crime. He wondered what happened to him lately to think something like that calmly.)
         He also noticed that his computer was taken away, and now he wouldn't return to college to sleep at the dormitory like he always did. He'd be driven there every day until further notice. Add a dash of piling up assignments, Social death (most of his friends taunted him) and gains (the girls worried and fawned over him, and now more people knew him more or less.) - and therapy -and he was all set for a very different year indeed.

The next day he was woken up by John Smith. John Smith was a ski-masked man in a suit who wore shades and a brown hat. He introduced himself,
         "Hello Henry, heard you've been having troubles in the inspiration department?"
         Henry was freaked. He shouted out and swatted the thing away, but John Smith was suddenly across the room. John Smith picked up the carpet knife and tucked it in his jacket pocket,
         "You won't be needing this now will you."
         "What is it!?" His mom rushed into the room, her face gaunt with worry. Henry sat there sweaty, and looked across the room, then at his mother. He cleared his dry throat,
         "Um... er... nothing... It's just a nightmare." And then, quite unexpectedly, he found himself breaking down and crying, because he felt rotten, so badly rotten, and appreciated his family all of the sudden. His mother comforted him, and he didn't feel awkward at all. He loved his family all of the sudden, though he wouldn't admit it under torture, and he faced the rest of the month and year with grim determination. And a new look.

John Smith stayed with him though. He walked him to college and stayed with him throughout his lunch breaks. He stood in the background during conversations and slowly but surely started messing up with Henry's perception, but not in a bad way. He introduced the rainbow coloured butterfly whenever he talked with a girl, and wrote insults in white ink over his friends (what was left of them) and various other oddities.
         During his therapy sessions John Smith just went crazy, decorating the room in all sorts of colours and shapes. Sometimes sticking to realism but other times washing the room in Disney-like colours and animations. It was scary, and it was amazing.

Henry tried to draw.
         John smith showed him the London eye picture in one hand, and then said, "Wanna see what you can do now?"
         Henry drew. He chose St Petersburg and the Basilica. He rendered the shit out of the people. John Smith was a genius. Henry's hand, guided by John Smith, was so steady as he sketched out everything, and then he got to work with his ball point pens. He didn't dare move away and lose this, so he worked right there. There was no scanner, and waiting for his computer to boot up would be troublesome, so he looked in his cabinet and took out his sisters markers. It wouldn't turn out as he'd hope, but he'd do his best. He coloured carefully; dot by dot, never making lines with the colours, keeping economic, skilled, patient, and then he penned in details. The A4 paper would be one of the luckiest in the world as it bore a masterpiece.

He was done. Henry held it up to the light of his booting up computer screen and Henry wept, because life started now.