Fragment: The joy of suicide. [30/1/1995]
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"This is it - no more crap. But can I really go through with it? How many times have I considered, and never had the courage. Or been too wise. An interesting concept - bravery and wisdom as opposites. This time I must be strong - I must bolster my resolve. If others can, why can't I? I'm just one of many. A faceless nobody. Nothing I've ever done has had any true impact on the world. People do shit, and life goes on. Great. Just great. Surely now, at my lowest of lows, I can do it - take that final bless&egrav;d plunge into oblivion? Just to taste those dark flowing waters, to know the final spark of your soul has gone - deserted your body to a decay into nothingness. Once started, the process is unstoppable, a high that is unrivalled by any drug. The ultimate experience of life - death. Well. That may or may not be true. Has anyone come back to tell? No. Can I really do this? Kill myself? This is against the ethics of the human race. Oh, fuck humans. Everything that they've had a hand in, has turned to so much useless shit - or worse. No one will mourn my passing. Almost none. My parents? Forget it. I'm not getting out of this alive. I want this. I do. Uncertainty. Do I? Sure I can. What's to stop me? The water's hot, but I've got used to it in the time it took for me to ramble on. I'd almost forgotten where I was. Shit. This is no good. Right, just one swipe and that's it. I won't even feel it. Nerves deadened to complete numbness. All I have to do now is press and slide. One clean sweep, and I'm free. Oh joy. Cynicism. Reality presses heavily on me, just at the back of my skull. What next? If I do it, what next? Will I even cut my wrist? The easiest thing in the world, to just slip into nothing. So how come I'm finding it so fucking hard? Eh? The blade is pressed into the flesh of my wrist. It looks so passive just lying there. Everything else in my vision blurs, and fades to nothing. There is nothing but the razor. My mind goes blank. Slowly but surely, the blade is moving. I'm not controlling it. What going on? I'm so relaxed, it seems that the world doesn't exist any more. There is nothing else. The whole of reality is focused on those two components - flesh and blade, blade and flesh. The body takes over from where the mind fears to tread. If I think, I'll reason my way out of this. My body has rebelled, and the blade has slipped too far now. Shit, that hurts. They lied. As the pain hits, reason breaks in - stop now before it's too late. But can I? No. It's too late. Oh my God - blood. It looks so pretty just lying there, soaking up into beads. It's welling from the wound now. My arm has gone, slipped to the watery depths, turned a deep pink as my life drains. The razor is still firmly clenched between my fingers, although I'm losing my grip now. Now the blade has gone too, dropped from a weak limb, and my whole mind is concentrated on that blood. The thoughts in my head waver at that realisation, and other things are crowding me. Why didn't I ever fix that mucky grouting job on the bathroom wall? I can see it just over the horizon, somewhere past the red world. Slipping. Slipping. Inexorably. I'm going now. I've done it. Did I do right? Was I correct to do this? And who's going to clear all the damned mess? That's of no importance, I'm sure. But it's too late to stop. Tired. Sleepy. Mind still sharp though. Myriad of thoughts pounding me. Why? Why? That word alone accounts for much. Is this it? Is this the end? Oblivion? It's all dark. It's all over. I can't believe that I really did it. Death overtakes. The end is nigh."
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A few of my friends read this soon after I wrote it. One commented that it didn't seem like my own work, like it was bits of other people's writings cobbled together. I suppose that yes, it is filled with all of those clichéd expressions, but I stand by it happily. I like to feel that these fragments are my testing ground for experiments in prose, and using an old style is just one more experiment. Not that I'm entirely happy with it.