A Suicide

Prelude 

 

The sun had set and it was the kind of dusk that appears cool and forgiving, apologetic for the heat of the day.  The clouds had lost their shading benevolence and had died of their brilliant multicolored pastel amazement.  The sun’s light was still there but cool, muted, darkened in brilliant shades of blue and silence.  The view from on top of the Bailokun Hotel was fulfilling and the open window gave a view from 40 stories up within the heart of the great city. Darren, sitting on the window sill, his feet dangling outside decided that now was the time to move on.  With his hands on the window sill he looks down at the empty sidewalk below.  It looks-

Pretty much empty below, and he has no concerns of his falling body hitting any unsuspecting subjects; creating significant property damage, or leaving too much of a burden for the people who have either chosen to live, or never considered the one important question. Darren wanted in death to dispose of his body so as to not be a burden to those in existence afterwards.  He might tell you he’d always hoped to jump like Rossana Spearman in a Wilke Collins’ novel.  A jump that would throw his body into a pit that would swallow him up like quicksand, his remains kneaded, churned eventually into the sea.  He even considered the idea of a Japanese active volcano where people went to jump into molten lava, like into an orifice of the divine, Her Majesty, the Earth, whose ironic fire burns brilliantly like Zeus unto mortal.  Alas, those places were all too far away, too romanticized and it would be with great difficulty that plans would actually be successful.

This place however, this particular hotel had seen many suicides as people jump to their inevitable conclusion to be cleaned up by the sober crews paid to perform such services.  Suicides of the falling-from-building type are so frequent, that a privatized cleaning crew has done quite well financially while taking care of the bodies in a civil and business-like manner.  The company, Cinder and Cleaning, has been so well spoken for that they even are the first choice before calling the cops, and the cleaning crew is frequently working among the cops present inevitably as a dead human is always at suicides.

  

Darren, with his hands on the window sill feeling the gentle but chaotic winds of the high elevation and with his feet dangling outside seated upon the window sill, pushed off with his palms.  His hands dug into the unnatural base of the window sill and propelled his body into the his descent through the night.  Three seconds. Darren’s heart, even in the excitement or fear, thrill, or exhilaration one might expect, was shockingly calm.  He had been resolute on this act and even in falling performing his last act on Earth, he was composed silent and falling through the inky air gaining momentum, passing windows like a run-by train.  His eyes closed he imagined the ground coming closer and his perspective quickly changing.  Then suddenly it all stopped, his thoughts, feeling.  Stop, stop stop stop-

But he opened his eyes.   Look, the last moment before impact the cement is now a smacking sickening splatter, but to Darren he sensed this not, rather a brilliant tingling instantaneousness, and his consciousness was gone.  Darren became the way we all must.  I guess the survivors say, “now he’s gone.”  They say, “all there is is now,” and Darren is dead.  What a mess.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

This is outstanding. Making suicide a business. Your description of building, the thoughts of the character and the perfect ending. I wonder what would be our last thoughts before touching the ground? Thank you for sharing this tale.
Coyote

[Tonyna]

Very descriptive. I enjoyed reading this story. Thank you for sharing.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

this made me think of an old Simon and Garfunkel song..."save the life of my child"---

"good god, don't jump, the boy sad on a ledge---an old man who had fainted was revived, and everyone agreed it would be a miracle indeed, if the boy survived" (S&G)

the ones who suffer the most are those left behind.