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 UnDying Attempt  (10 ratings)by Colin Linder Page 2 of 2 Going to over to the bed, he removes the gun he has stored in the nighttable, and disengages the safety. Sitting atop the nighttable, where it always sits, is the four thousand page manuscript he adds to every night as his suicide attempts fail, one after another. Someday someone will find this, along with his cold, dead body, he hopes. It tells the story of a life that spans the centuries, one man's perspective on a history he has witnessed, on events no other living human can boast having seen. The destruction of Pompeii, he had been there. With a shudder, he remembers the searing of his flesh as the molten lava rained down upon the city. Remembers awakening from death to find all his loved ones dead and himself left to carry on. That death had been his first, the first of many. The Crusades? He'd been there, as Pope Urban II presided over the council of Clermont and called the first crusade into being. He had marched from Anatolia to Nicea and cheered as the heretic Muslims surrendered. He'd been there to witness the end of the Hundred Years War as the Burgundians turned upon their English allies and helped drive the English from France. And the War of the Roses that began a few years later? He'd been there as well. So many wars. The Spanish Revolution, the Boer War, the Battle of Colluden, the World Wars; he'd been at them all, survived them all and seen more death and destruction than any man should have to bear. And now, at the end of it, there is only one war left. The war to end this miserable existence. He puts the cocked gun to his head and recites a prayer. 'Lord, forgive me for this, but your servant can take no more." Suicide is a mortal sin, he knows. But even Hell is preferable to one more day, he thinks as he pulls the trigger. *
Piercing light tries valiantly to dig it's way beneath eyelids that Golden keeps closed, squeezing them desperately tight. Maybe if I keep them closed, the light will go away, he hopes, knowing full well it won't. Attempt number 242, he thinks wryly, a dismal failure like all the rest. Giving in to the inevitable, he openes his eyes and gets up to clean the mess that is, as usual, the only evidence of his attempt. Not even a headache reamins, after a slug through the temple. Oh well, he thinks resignedly as he mops up the sticky blood marring the linoleum finish of the kitchen floor. Tomorrow's another day, and there's always the subway left.
Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Colin Linder, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines. |
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