Your Girlfriend Has Left You Again and You’ve Decided to Kill Yourself. How Do You Do It?
You take a weekend rental in the country. Lots of machinery, farm equipment.
You arrive early, throw a noose over a beam in the basement, and slip your head through.
And there you are, swinging by the stiff of your neck.
Shouldn’t your neck have snapped when you kicked the stool away?
Also, it feels as if you’ve forgotten something. Like when you went shopping for rope and thought you’d left the oven on. But what could you have forgotten? Are you supposed to bring something?
Then you remember you haven’t left a note.
Not all suicides require a note, but with a revenge suicide like yours it’s pretty much a given. Without a note your death might be chalked up as an accident.
An odd one, but still…
No, you can leave nothing to doubt. Your death must be a deafening noise across the world. This is probably pushing it a bit. A couple of lines in the local paper would be okay.
You climb down from the rope and look for something to write with:
Pencil?
Too informal. It would look like you acted on impulse. “Did you hear?” people will say. “Used a pencil. No thought at all.”
Crayon?
There’s an element of madness to crayon. It’s a nice touch. But childish. No one could take a suicide note written in crayon seriously.
Text and email are too quick. Someone might show up while you’re still twitching.
Eventually, in black ink, you write…
What should you write? It’s hard to know.
The trick is to convey in a few words how your death is the result of your girlfriend’s leaving you.
She must carry the burden for the rest of her life.
Inspired, you write:
“This is Jane’s fault. I’d still be here if it weren’t for her. That’s Jane Pilkington, my girlfriend — ok, ex-girlfriend.
P.S. She is to blame for everything.”
You underline “everything.” Just to be sure, you leave her address and social security number.
You have lovely handwriting.
You climb onto the bucket again and stick your head back into the noose.
What if someone drops by?
If you don’t answer the door, they might take it upon themselves to come in and wait. They’d hear you gagging down here and come and investigate. You’d have no choice but to explain what you’re up to.
The whole thing could get completely out of hand.
What if no one even looks in the basement? Then you’d just be missing. People would be feeling sorry for your girlfriend. That’s not the idea at all.
You hop in the car and drive into town.
In the hardware store the man beside you reaches for a hundred foot hose and tosses it into his basket. He must have a big garden, you think.
You don’t have a garden. What you have is an exhaust pipe on your car about two inches in diameter.
You’ve read about people doing it this way. It’s painless, like falling asleep.
You’re not sure how anyone knows this. It sounds almost too good to be true.
Asleep in the car isn’t exactly a grisly find. You’d prefer to leave more of a mess. A fountain of blood spurting from your headless torso would be much more the ticket.
Perhaps some kind of pulley system with a machete to lop off your head. After you’ve nodded off, of course.
Recently, you read how a man in Holland tied one end of a rope around his neck, attached the other end to a tree, and drove off in his car.
You’d draw the line at that sort of thing.
The woman at the check-out register is eyeing you suspiciously. Almost like she knows what you’re up to.
But how could she know? People buy hose all the time. Surely some of them must be watering their garden.
You’re back in the car driving along tree-lined roads dappled with sunlight. It’s beautiful.
You could do it now. Ignore the bend and plow straight into that oak tree. It’d be over in seconds.
What if it isn’t?
What if you survive and lose a leg. Both legs? Or you end up brain damaged, the rest of your life wearing slippers?
You wonder what death is like.
Hindus believe you’re reincarnated. You wouldn’t mind coming back as a condor. Do you get to choose?
What if someone else chooses and sends you back as an ant. They’d probably think it was funny. It’s what you’d do.
What if there’s nothing?
You can’t imagine nothing. Even though you try very hard.
