Walking down the street, sun is shining, turned the corner, the bloody door with the irritatingly clear sign is right next to the traffic lights so going through the squeaking black wrought iron gate is quite embarrassing. Not sure why, maybe people in their metallic husks don't look to their left when waiting at a traffic light, they are too busy chanting at the red light 'changechangechange you bastard change some of us have places to go. changechangechange...' and so on. Perhaps people with road rage would do that... Perhaps some one more serene would loll their head a little until it rested on the clearly uncomfortable girl with the grey jacket and messy ponytail creeping into the converted victorian building with the overgrown plantlife choking the fence and green seeping through the paving. She didn't creep but then again how can you be sure, besides you can't be sure what type of people were sitting with the task of waiting for the bulb to flash green. I don't think people were actually looking at how i worked out the door was a push.
The ceiling was extremely high and there was a bubbled window with a light behind it and clattering overhead. It was a reception like room with a desk and too low black chairs and a bell on the desk telling me to ring only once and wait for someone to see me. Behind the desk was a solitary chair and window and a door.
A smiling lady in chocolate brown jacket skirt and eyes appeared, she told me to follow her and wait a little while, she had to sort something out and led me into a room with another high ceiling and cream lacquered walls and a bed with a beige 70s mattress and flowery pillows at the top, it was essentially a big plywood box painted in mahogany. Alarmingly the door had a slide latch on the outside but not the inside, she jammed a chair in the doorway to prevent me feeling claustrophobic and left. There were gold framed pictures on the walls of flowers and a desk with a telephone on.
The smiling lady in brown appeared with another lady who had had short greying hair and a sky blue net like jumper on and stiff plastic reddened skin.
I had an interview and generally nodded and smiled when they went off on one of their tangents about scenarios i had no true comprehension of. From what i heard they get emails as well as phonecalls now, phonecalls are easier apparently, emails sound more complicated. They claim most emails are about suicide, if i was going to commit suicide i don't think i'd take the time to write an email but that's just me.
They asked me why i was there and what made me want to join and having spoken in depth about suicide with me smiling and nodding it seemed quite weird to just say 'My sister tried to kill her self a few months ago.' Having just put my birthday down they realised i had just come of age and determined i felt the time was right and were very sympathetic. I could have lied, it felt like a lie in the face of their sympathy. It doesn't really phase me anymore and has nothing to do with why i wanted to join the samaritans but they assumed because i told them it fit quite nicely. They noted i was young slim and pretty and suddenly looked perplexed as to why i was sitting in that depressing room with them. i just smiled. i did a lot of that.
apparently i'm not allowed to talk about what i hear in the phonecalls when talking to people, i get trained how to deal with it but as long as i don't talk about it in public that would be fine. they told me about occassions when they talked to particularly lost causes.

my job would be to console not to counsel, to listen and not to judge. they told me this was very important, the main importance is i shouldn't in anyway try to influence people's actions or decisions otherwise it might result in their deaths, was the short answer.
the long one made me blink a couple of times and nod and smile and watch the lady's chocolate eyes stare back at me earnestly trying to work out the best way to say 'don't kill people.'
my reply was a simplistic 'okay'.

training is on monday.
they asked me how i'd feel if i was told i couldn't join the samaritans. i told them i didn't mind, they said it didn't matter, i was alright. they liked me. as my mudder told me in the car on the way to work, 'there is no reason for anyone to not like you.' which was nice.
i'd also be the youngest person there, they affirmed there were people in their twenties helping out too.
how strange it will be when they may some day find out i don't believe in God and find human emotion ridiculously complicated that i never try to comprehend it. as a blank canvas just listening will be easy enough i reckon.
i hope the younger people who are going to be there will be nice and happy but not obnoxiously so, i don't understand why obnoxiously happy people would do such a thing so perhaps they'll be as cynical as me or not. i want to help people, i want to hear how it feels to be at the end of your tether and hearing it down a disembodied phoneline might help me further understand it.
i have nothing to lose, nothing to gain... just lives to hear. lives i will never live.
that's what interests me...