• It seemed like the train was speaking to me. The way it sounded, carried over the mountains by a gentle wind – why, it was almost as if it had something to say. The wind blew a tree as I walked by. Its branches were sparse. Fall had finally come and nature was taking its usual course – dropping all the dead weight and preparing for winter. Soon, things would get colder; I could feel it through the wool of my jacket. The rain that was falling would soon turn to snow, and everything would become white. I couldn’t help but think about how I looked at this moment, carrying Princely Courts of the 16th Century and The Vampire Encyclopedia hooked under my arm, only half protected from the small drops of water intermittently falling from the sky; me with giant star-shaped earrings and a Pink Floyd shirt from the 70s. Me in my black wool jacket, buttoned all the way up except for the bottom most button and with the hood up. I must have looked a little strange. Oh well.

    It all sounded like the beginning of good novel. Another tale from Anne Rice or Steven King. “It was a dark moonlit night…” and yadda yadda. But that’s not really true. Not true at all. In fact it’s quite the opposite … because tonight is the end.

    Tonight I’m going to kill myself.


    I continued down the hill, keeping my footing steady. The stairs were always a little bit treacherous, even without the ice and snow. The rain certainly didn’t help either. With my free hand, I grasped the railing and continued down the long slope towards the street. Against my bare fingers, the metal felt wet and cold. It felt alien to me, like it could have been the skin of some little green man from Europa (I would say Mars, but Europa is far more likely to have life). I kind of liked it, but I didn’t really feel like getting my hands wet, so I opted to hover my fingers directly above the railing instead. That way, I could still grab it if necessary, but I wouldn’t have to deal with damp fingers. The decision made perfect, logical sense.

    Once at the bottom of the hill I crossed the street, passing the same row of houses that I passed by every day on my way home from school. Every house on this street was exactly the same. They were all the same shape, the same size, the same color… like the city planner had just taken a cookie cutter and stamped them all out side by side. I hated these houses. They were just so boring – worse than boring even. Mundane. What’s interesting about a row of houses that look exactly alike? Nothing, that’s what! Well, whatever. Thinking about it just makes it even worse. I put my hand up to the side of my head like a horse’s blinders and kept trudging on.

    I turned the corner and walked all the way down Crooked Street. It was really long and really straight, so it was curious why anyone would call it crooked. I had asked around once, but nobody knew why it was named that. And their inquiries into my interest in the road had been skeptical at best. My guess is that they didn’t think too much about the misnomer. You could take Crooked Street until you walked right over the town line, which was where my house sat. My home is right where Straight Street intersects Crooked. I live on the corner of Crooked and Straight… and yes, I see the irony. Straight Street however was not crooked, like Crooked was straight, much to my dismay. That would have meant that the unbalanced would have been balanced, which I daresay I would have liked very much, if only for the sheer fact that it would have been ridiculous.

    My house, 27 Straight Street, was the only house on my block. I had neighbors across the street on either side, but none physically next to me. The rest of my block was taken up by the aptly named Straight Street Cemetery. The only thing that kept my house from actually being in the cemetery was a large weeping willow on the left hand side and a wrought iron fence. Needless to say, I got the property really cheap. The house itself was a dilapidated, old Victorian. It had a tower on one side and a porch out in front. 3 floors. It was painted purple, yellow, and green, and in it’s heyday I image that it looked pretty sharp, but the sun had taken most of the vibrance out of its colors. Now it looked like more mauve, puke, and puke. I liked it that way.

    I feel like this narrative has gotten a little boring. Not a very good way to start – well, end – a story. 822 words and so far I’ve only gotten down the hill to the front of my house. I think that usually might only take say, 100 words. Then again, it only took me about 6 words to summarize what’s happened so far. You’ll just have to bear with me. I’m kind of a details person. The kind of person that notices when people wear different shades of black, or who notices the different shapes of the lids on shampoo containers at the grocery store, or who counts the number of skittles they get in a bag as they eat them, and who then keeps track of those numbers and makes a graph to track the average number of skittles in a 2.16 oz. bag (37).

    Damn, that description took up another 70 words. And now I’m just standing outside my front door thinking about skittles. I hadn’t even noticed that my arms were tired and I had no way of getting to my key without putting something down. I set both books down, leaving The Vampire Encyclopedia on the bottom because it was bigger, and opened the door and walked inside. I stared at the books a moment, suddenly realizing how pointless it was for me to check them out of the library. I left them there. Maybe the paper boy would find them. Wait, do I even get the paper? No, of course not… such boring dribble. Maybe the mail man then.

    Inside things were as usual. Slightly messy, slightly not. There were a lot of books around, most left open or with last-minute book marks. I pushed aside The Universe in a Nutshell with my foot and continued down the hall. My answering machine was blinking orange. It came with a red bulb like most of them do, but I had changed it in favor of an orange one. I hit the button and stared at it while the tape rewound, and played my message.

    Beep. The recording started its playback. It was fuzzy at first. Whoever had left the message hadn’t realized it was their turn to speak yet.
    “…oh, hey. Hello?” His voice was soft.
    “Crap. Uh, it’s me, Charlie. I thought you’d be back by now. I wanted to let you know that the mold grew in purple, just like you said it would. It’s kinda gross, but I’ll save it until you can see it.”

    Then he stopped. I could hear him take a deep breath on the other side of the receiver, but it was muffled and distant, like he had moved the phone away from his mouth or covered it with his hand.
    “Hey um, call me back when you get in. It’s Friday, you know? If you’re not working on something…. Let’s do something.” There was another moment of silence before the recording stopped and rewound again. I hit the save button.

    For the first time since my decision, I thought about leaving a note. A note for Charlie. He was a fragile kind of guy, not the kind that would take death very easily. I don’t really think he’d understand either… and he’ll be confused. It’s not very often that I’m aware of my own cruelty. I don’t think about these things much. But Charlie and I were friends after all, and wouldn’t he want to know why I was doing what I was doing?

    I sighed, still staring at the machine. I am working on something tonight, Charlie.

    In the kitchen it was colder, since the floor was made of tile. Somewhere between here and the door I had kicked my shoes and socks off, and now I was very intent on sliding my toes in between the ridges grout left in the floor. The lines of grout were very much like the x and y axis of a graph, which pleased me. In my mind I was adding the z axis to the graph as I moved my toe off the floor in a straight line. It was something to do while waiting for the mixture to settle.

    I had thought long and hard on how I wanted to kill myself. None of the conventional methods really appealed to me. Slitting anything – head, wrists, neck – was out of the question. I didn’t want whoever found me to have to clean up a big stinking mess. I didn’t want to show boat either… which was why hanging and jumping were crossed off the list. If I wanted attention I would have run into a crowd and started screaming or worn a funny hat. Also, I already knew what it was like to fall really far and loose a lot of blood, so there was no curiosity there. Then there was the multitude of sleeping suicides. Pills seemed a given, but if someone found you in time they could pump your stomach, and I didn’t much like the thought of scarfing a whole bottle. I’m not a masochist. I would have put a potato in my tail pipe and rolled the seat back, but I didn’t own a car, and borrowing Charlie’s for the occasion just didn’t really seem appropriate.

    So, like with most things I can’t find a comfortable solution to, I made my own. I made a little concoction while at work – something painless, and fast acting. Some purple food coloring and grape flavoring made it attractive and deadly. I would tell you exactly what else is in it, except I don’t want any angsty teenagers getting ideas. Besides, the process involves some fairly advanced chemistry, as well as access to some rare (illegal) ingredients.

    I debated showering while waiting, but ultimately I figured I was clean enough to be dead. Another fifteen minutes and my grape juice was ready, so I cleaned up the counter and headed upstairs, beaker in hand. The stairs were old, so they were spaced funny and at a steep angle. The hallway also twisted upwards, almost like a spiral. If you stood on the 8th step, directly in the middle, you couldn’t see the room behind you or in front of you. Standing there felt amazing, almost like you were suspended in animation. I stopped there and sat for a moment on the orange step (I painted it immediately after I realized how cool it was), my grape juice in hand. It smelled vaguely like cough syrup.

    I closed my eyes for a while and thought about things. Not about changing my mind or anything, but just about things I guess people would normally think about before they die. I wanted the experience to at least be a little authentic. After what felt like long enough, I climbed the last few stairs and made my way into my bedroom, leaving the door slightly cracked.

    I had cleaned the room for the occasion. Usually, I didn’t use it for much, sleeping or otherwise. I almost always fell asleep in a chair somewhere with a book for a pillow. The normal décor would have included piles of clothes, books, papers, diagrams, beakers and tubing, and all sorts of other un-bed roomy things. Tonight however, it would be nothing but the bed and me.

    I pulled back the sheets and went into the adjacent bathroom, which was where I had put all the crap that was normally in my bed room. I squeezed past a stack of books to get to the sink and narrowly dodged stepping on a rogue test tube on the floor. Now the excitement was starting to get to me. I quickly chugged the grape juice and rinsed out the beaker, throwing it into the bath tub with the others. It tasted like thick sugar.

    I didn’t really have much longer now.

    I climbed into bed and prepared my ‘snow white’ pose – you know, the sleeping woman with hands folded on top of her stomach. I could start to feel my potion working now. My eyes were getting heavy, and my feet were already cold. It reminded me of Charlie. When we’d sit together – him straight as an arrow and me with my legs all over him – he’d always complain that my feet were cold. I opened my eyes, not being able to help the small bit of sadness that crept over me.

    I went to reach for the night stand, only to find that my arms felt about fifty pounds heavier. My body slouched over like a limp sack. I cursed Charlie. This stupid sentiment was threatening to ruin my plan. But I took a deep breath and pushed against the weight that was beginning to drown me. My hands pulled open the night stand drawer and fumbled to find a pair of lab goggles inside. I just managed to close the drawer and sit upright before it felt as if I had no strength left.

    Smiling, I put the goggles on over my hair and slouched back into snow white position. Charlie would know what it meant. Everyone else would be puzzled, which pleased me too.

    Slowly, I felt myself drifting to sleep. As my optical refactories began to shut down, the room first went black, and then white.

    I had enough sense left to know that I laughed.

    A white tunnel.

    So typical.