Stories Board, October 14, 2002:
Told from the viewpoint of a successful suicide victim, this is absurdist satire at its best.
Swandive Into Eternity
by
.just.breathe.
In hollywood, it's always seemingly easy to throw yourself out a window. Here in reality, it hurts like a bitch and takes several tries. The first try is a failure. As well as a feeble atempt to gain courage. The second is a bounce off the glass, since you lack the appropriate amount of momentum. The third--and final step, might I add--is to actually break through.
Hitting the window headfirst is not a truly intelligent idea. You end up nearly scalping yourself, and, for future reference, the head bleeds profusely. Blood gets into your eyes and you can't see the end, so you get no true and final satisfaction, and--you get the idea.
Of course you can't purposefully back through a window--where's the Hollywood in that? I suppose it's personal preference but...
All this leaves shoulderfirst and facefirst. Facefirst is impossibly painful because you wind up breaking your nose and topple backward, thus truly defeating the purpose. So it's really all in the shoulder. Surely you end up with glass splinters and shrapnel embedded in your flesh and you're bleeding, but I suppose the pain makes the fall all the more worthwhile.
You can't survive hitting asphalt from a drop out of an office building. Hard surfaces and the delicate human body don't play well together. You explode like an overripe fruit on the highway during return-from-work hours.
I suppose it'd be easier to open the window and falter on the ledge for a while, versus breaking through, but it's not a very fancy number to play as your final action as a living able-bodied human being. You don't have practice attempts, and when you finally muster up the balls to jump, you end up changing you mind halfway down. You flail and scream and bitch and moan, but you can't stop gravity from doing its job.
I, personally, wish I could experience the thrill of jumping all over again, seeing black speckled with yellow lines rushing to meet my face and before BOOM all I could think of was "Holy shit--this is it."
Hell isn't what everyone imagines. Really. It's actually rather peaceful. You sit alone, writing memoirs and breathing in other people's musty nostalgia. Sometimes you hear the new sufferers' queries and memories dancing around in your own head. It's lonely, this perpetual solitude, and maddeningly so.
It's not like I really had a reason for suicide. I wasn't heartbroken over a relationship ending abruptly. My best friend hadn't died, and I wasn't depressed or mentally unstable. I just decided to spice up the monotony of my life, and suicide seemed pretty damn exciting.
Today's my birthday; first one I've experienced down here. Lucifer isn't too fond of singing 'Happy Birthday' to condemned sinners.
The only true problem with being down here is the ennui. I jumped to escape my life, not to land in an exact mirror image of my life on earth. I suppose that's how God is punishing me. That's why I want to repeat the act of jumping. Falling.
There are a few new delinquents toppling in to be tortured for the rest of forever and Satan's been humming the same bars of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' to himself for twenty minutes (a sure sign he's pissed). I'm not really keen on the idea of a pitchfork up my ass, so I'll stop criticizing his domain before he reads over my shoulder. Look for me later in the fire and brimstone--I'll be here awhile.
|
|
