It Was A Complete Mess The First Time I Killed Myself
The author left out a lot of things, and that hurt my feelings, I’m making this post for you fans now since I got back home because it turns out no time passed for me. but every physical change from everything remained so I guess they're writing another fucking sequel or something. This is the last time I’ll ever mention the author, this is my goddamned version.
The first time I tried to kill myself, I had a plan. I had a body bag, I left the landlord a note, I got into a nice suit so a mortician wouldn’t have too much trouble, and I got someone to adopt my cat.
It was getting my cat adopted that really made it feel inevitable. I was highly selective about that, if she didn’t gravitate to them, no go. It was an Iraq war vet that she picked, and I showed him how to play her favorite game “Base Defense,” you fold a blanket so she can hide behind it and throw bouncy balls at her and she’ll swat them out of the air. He loved that and he started keeping track of how many she knocked out of the air and sent “40 out of 40!” (which I think is good?) and a picture of her behind a folded blanket. I told him about the other two games - Treat Stalker and Overwatch and how to play them. he asked if I was sure about the adoption and I was. He can love her after I’m gone. I needed that to die.
Assured Peas & Carrots (she came with that name and responded to Peas and if I said the full name she knew she was being naughty) would be taken care of and loved I felt it was time.
I’m not going to share the method because it’s actually pretty novel and I’m kinda proud of it in a way, but I don’t want anyone deciding this is some sort of guide.
Moving on. Me trying to kill myself the first time.
The day of, I felt a serenity I’d not known since I was at least five or six years old. Finally, the future was set. Finally, I’d have no worries. Finally, I would be at peace. Came to find out that is actually a thing when people have suicidal ideation issues.
I brought the chalice to my lips (because style.)
And I heard the Angel. No. Felt the Angel first. I’m still not sure if the Angel is technological or magical. Angel is just the best description most loaded word that has enough meaning behind it that when you see it will evoke
Then it formed words in my head by bending my serenity ...ideas. That was... a mission? A calling?
There is more terrible you.
Didn’t know what that meant but...I still did? Sort of? I...was... the biggest? No. It was. Learning. English. from my brain in real-time, rolodexing my memories of languages and trying a few more times.
“I am the best of me,” I stated.
The pleading feeling.
“I am the best of me?”
More like the heat of feeling guilty, under my eyes and the back of neck.
“I am the best of me!”
Then I was gone.
Not dead, though. Gone from where I was and somewhere else. Not my world. The air smelled different. I was just standing on the street. But something was different. And thank god I’d dressed in a suit for my own death.
The Angel pulled on me. I. had to go.
I walked through the city I was in - I didn’t know which one - for about ten miles. I may be a mediocre white man but mediocre white men love hiking so that wasn’t much of a problem.
I found myself in one of the less municipally maintained parts of the city. About every third house was boarded up, but those that weren’t were occupied and cared for by residents with little unique touches in front of each house. Newer cars were parked at the curbs.
The neighborhood of middle class, hard workers, maybe one minority but possibly more. I had no idea what time it was but this sort of neighborhood would be alive with people if the workday was done.
The Angel made me turn on my heel to face a boarded-up house. I felt something then.
This was important.
This was the place.
Plywood is always not much, and this was that grey-rotted stuff of forgotten places. But there is something behind them. Painted like the dying grey wood.
I decided it was best to go around the back and no I don’t know who said that in my head.
Around the back I found a very nice hinged door the kind of biometric scanner that I’d only seen once at a law firm that dealt exclusively with American ultra-high buildings.
Inside it looked formidable but jury-rigged and there was an obvious path to some stairs. I could hear something human.
I could hear the buzz of hacked electricity that was stalking back and forth like a tiger just wishing it could escape.
If the buzz gets to be too much, you know what happens.
The circumstances that would have brought me to this point I can’t imagine.
Why did I think that?
The stairs squeak and chirp every step as I walk up and when I got to the top there were three loom
The door is closed. I knock.
“I’m out of oxy and yayo,” came an all too familiar voice.
“If yah got the good stuff, that’s what I need,” I said.
The door opened. My very own skeleton looked me up and down.
“Cool, you wanna do it here?” He said. His eyes were yellow with the beginning of scurvy.
I looked at the local me. He was muscular but starved. In that thin white cotton tank top that you see every redneck wearing on TV and blue jeans designed to be tight but practically billowed around him when he walked.
“I got fresh clean needles over there, and I got this cooking fuckin’ doo-dads off fuckin Amazon. They are awesome," he was off in his own little world. "I can clean them in the dishwasher when I switch the power over to the kitchen for daily chores. Fucking godsend. I got some nice stuff left, too.”
I looked around the room as he made his sales pitch for various drugs and he honestly made them all sound appealing. The room was clean and orderly. There was a slightly shabby Lay-z-boy that had been patched a few times with fabric that almost matched. There was a floor-level dining table with a pillow.
And two very full bookshelves labeled “INCOMING” in red and “OUTGOING” in green both in neon colors.
Yeah, this was definitely another version of me.
He was looking through things and asked how I felt about a heroin "blend" (?) called Urukai, so they had Tolkien in that dimension, too.
“Hey,” I said. “Listen. I’m here for another reason.”
“No. Shit.” He said, turning and pointing a stubby, boxy gun at me. It looked like what the police use; a Glock? but very short. Like squirt gun short.
I put my hands up. “Whoa whoa whoa!” I said. And I didn’t know what else to say so I said “the Angel sent me.”
He lowered his gun. “They did?”
“They did,” I said with a certainty that rattled even my own bones.
He did something and then flipped the tiny pistol’s handle toward me.
“Cool. This is yours then.” And the sound of his voice as I took the handle. The serenity. I remember feeling it but seeing it from the outside was sad and terrifying.
“Do you have to do it right away or... can have some time to do.. stuff.” He asked.
“I’m sorry. The Angel sent me, and that’s why I look like you.” I said. “I didn’t bypass the lock, I’m you.”
A massive iron hook of sadness pulled down his whole face and then his body and he fell to his knees, sobbing.
“I don’t want to commit suicide.” he sobbed. “I won’t get into Heaven if I do.”
And it’s me. Melting. Bones and skin in a pile. Just pressed down by all the sadness.
Sobbing.
And I kind of hate him. And I realize: I’m not badass. I’m just some fucking dude. Guns have calibers and I don’t know what caliber this gun is. I don’t even l know what caliber actually means!
The other me is still crying.
And I’m more a little worried because I’m not sure why I’m here. Was the Angel really an angel? Was I supposed to make sure this version of me got to heaven?
“What if I replace you?” I asked.
He stopped sobbing and said “What?”
“What if I kill you and replace you? Make your life and your memory better?” I said more clearly.
“You would do that for me?” He said, eyes wide and voice sweet like no one ever gave him something without asking anything in return directly.
“I uh... don't know how to use this.” I put the gun down. "Would you uh... like to overdose?"
"I think that would be best," the other me said.
And that was how I learned how to give people drugs via syringe.
He reclined in the Laz-e-boy and he walked me through tying off, finding a vein, cooking the heroin, and shooting him up.
I asked him his parents - our parents - address.
He told me. It was the same as my home dimension.
"Would you sing to me?" My other self asked.
"I'm not much of a singer," I said. "I... know one song our mother used to sing."
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry
Go to sleep, my little baby
When you wake, you shall have
All the pretty little horses
Dapples and grays, pintos and bays
All the pretty little horses!
Way down yonder
In the meadow
Poor little baby, crying Mama
Birds and the butterflies
Flutter 'round his eyes
Poor little baby crying Mamma.
Hush-a-bye, don't you cry
Go to sleep, my little baby
When you wake, you shall have
All the pretty little horses
Dapples and grays, pintos and bays
All the pretty little horses
Heroin me shed tears, and sighed "I've never heard that before."
And then I became sad. That was from the happiest of my memories. Before the cancer. Before the car accident. Before life kept interrupting life. Derailing. Delaying. Destroying. Anything I tried.
I watched a version of myself die; pale and hungry. Starved of...everything else. I was really expecting some magic after I killed my other self. I took his wallet and found the money he earned dealing. I wondered if I should burn him.
With the biometric lock and reinforcements inside the building, it would be some time before he was found.
I made my way to our, I suppose since I was the only one now, my parent's house.
It was a good three hours away across the state line. I rang the doorbell. I realized I was still wearing a nice suit. My father answered the door. His eyes were that cold blue-grey.
"Dad." I started, but he had his arms around me, his whole body shaking. I heard my mother's voice "Who is it Hugh?"
"I got clean," I said.
I was just in time for my nephew's Birthday. My sister was alive. They were all alive. Josh did make it back from Iraq.
And every day of that restarted life, and for a little while I felt a fury towards the heroin addict. His life wasn't worse than mine, it was better.
And I took it.
I punished myself when I could have saved myself. I could have said something to him. "I'm you from another dimension, you need to get clean." He was keeping clean needles, too. Who knows how many people died because I helped him die
I lived that life for seven years before the Angel moved me on.
The author leaves that stuff out. For every serial killer or arsonist or fascist me, there are about five that just needed someone to care.
But there are some that really do want to die. And I sing All the Pretty Horses to them. None of them have heard it before. I've gotten quite good at it. When I'm sure they're gone, I call 911 on their phone and say there's a body. It's my body.
I also don't think the Angel is the author either. They never mention it, I don't think they're even aware of the Angel.
And I'll be honest, I need a fucking break. After toppling the regime of evil fascist me? That was five years at war. Just... petition the author to stop writing for like... month. I'm just really tired.
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