Fragment #14 - Suicide

What does it take to remember all that has happened? In the end its not the pain that kills you, it’s the rot, slowly creeping through your feelings till there is no love or hate, when joy lasts never. Being depressed is not an option because you don’t even have that as a crutch. When you die on the inside the outside follows rapidly.
I hope that people will not dismiss this as some botched final act of desperation, a cry for help. For six months or more I have been planning in secret this end to the monotonous life. I am but an automaton and now it is time to switch off.
Despite all efforts by those I love to enrich my life, I have decided upon this course of action, going through the motions. Feigning smiles and joy, admitting to nobody but myself this final action. It’s not a suicide as such, more a liberation.
Like my dear friend Ed I could never believe in god, but unlike him, it never broke my heart not to.
Thought is what impels me through this, a determination that this existence is not what I want or deserve.
When I first made up my mind I cried for hours. Those are the only tears over my death that I want. Do not weep or feel anger. I do what I like. Remember me happy, remember me sad, but please don’t remember me with nothing.
Goodbye
John
John sat in the warm bath bleeding, I know he thought of all his many regrets. He thought of all the lies and arguments, all the bad times all those spent tears, all those lost moments and forgotten times, all those broken promises, all those insubstantial dreams and damaged ideals, all those unspoken words and all those times he said ‘if only…’
He thought of all the laughs, the loves, the embarrassing moments the sleepy days with nothing to do. He thought of mornings after, the tall tales and the silly pranks. He felt regret just for a second at leaving all this behind. As he lay back in the water for the last time he thought of all the good times again and smiled.
Later when the bath was not warm any more and he had ceased to bleed he was found, by me, still smiling. That’s how he will be remembered, smiling.

This is Ed Stevens, John was my friend and I loved him as such.