Digging

With all preparations complete and no end to his misery in sight, Jimmy makes the final decision to end it all. (this chapter contains implied sex. nothing explicit, I promise.)

Self-hatred has ten letters

One for each knuckle

As I put my fist through this window 

and watch my blood hit the floor

There’s no escaping self-hatred

It knows where you sleep and it can run faster.

I spent most of yesterday in bed, watched TV for three hours, paced. I cleaned the kitchen, ate an entire bag of potato chips. When the sun went down I dug for two hours on and off, resting occasionally on the trunk of the downed tree, looking up through the treetops at the stars above. The pit is perhaps three and a half feet deep now and I dream of the night when I will finish it with every shovel full of dirt.

Today Katie weighs heavy on my mind. The usual chant plays over and over in my head. I remember the way she smelled. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. I remember her hair. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. I remember the poems she wrote, not the words, just the way they made me feel. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. I remember her hand, small and soft inside of mine. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. I remember her eyes. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. I remember her smile. God, her smile was gorgeous. Live for that memory. If nothing else, live for that. 

It is endless. Nothing makes it stop. So I put my hand through the window in my garage. I take a moment to feel the pain and watch the blood trickle down my fingertips until the endorphins rush in and the stinging is replaced by a dull throbbing. I bandage my hand and sweep up the glass. After dinner I watch the sunset and walk back into the woods and dig late into the night. 

I check my watch at midnight when the hole is done. Six feet down, seven paces long and three feet wide. I lay down in it, just to see. Already, it feels like home. With the stillness of the night air and the empty blackness of the sky above I can almost imagine that it’s finally over. 

This morning I woke up, half eaten by insects and filthy as the sun filtered down through the trees and split my eyelids. I climb out of my grave, walk back to the house, aching, dragging my shovel behind me. As I turn the corner to enter my house I notice a moving van in my neighbor’s driveway, but I don’t bother with curiosity. 

I go inside and push my fingers through the foil in the mouth of the aspirin bottle, breaking the seal. I pace and swallow pills for an hour, in between gulps straight from the orange juice carton. When they’re mostly gone I put them in my jacket pocket and walk out the back door, my eyes fixed on the woods. This is it. I will be dead in an hour. These words cross my mind but stir no emotion within me. I am not sad, I am not excited, I feel nothing. Reward or punishment, suicide is the only end I can imagine; I am ready, I am indifferent. I am done fighting the hopelessness. I have accepted the circumstances of my death, that acceptance lives inside of me and I feel its presence like a weight, cold and unforgiving

Suddenly, the eerie silence is shattered by a clear, bright, chirping voice, “Hi!” I stop dead in my tracks. I just took close to four hundred aspirin, maybe I imagined it. 

“Hey!” It’s closer this time, so I turn and look. 

It’s a chick, a really hot chick. She is running towards me, wearing tiny cutoff shorts and a pink tank top. She smiles, her eyes are breathtaking, full of light. This is definitely a hallucination. My dream girl come to convince me to stay. “Hi! I’m Olivia, I just moved in next door.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. 

“Oh, uhm, hi, I’m Jimmy.” I shake her hand, trying to remember how to be human, even though I look, feel and possibly smell like a wild animal.

“I was trying to put a new lightbulb in my kitchen and I can’t reach. Do you have a ladder I could borrow?” She asks, cheerful, yet bashful.

“No, I don’t actually. I usually just stand on one of my chairs.”

She shook her head, biting her lip, “I tried that already. I’m just not tall enough.”

“Do you want me to come give it a try?” I offer, without thinking.

“If you don’t mind, that would be great!”

I follow her bare, slender shoulders next door, her living room is full of boxes, she leads me to the kitchen where I change her lightbulb for her then step back down.

“Thank you so much! Do you wanna’ stay for a drink?” She offers.

“I really shouldn’t.” It’s been at least fifteen minutes since I swallowed the pills, I should start walking back into the woods before I keel over.

“Please,” She pouts, c***s her head. “I was gonna’ make gin and tonics, and I really shouldn’t drink alone. Stay and keep me company.” 

Is she flirting with me? Seriously? I take a moment to silently wish this had happened yesterday, before it was too late. “Okay, I’ll have one drink, but after that I really should go.”

I have two, help her unpack. She tells me she has just broken it off with her boyfriend, so she was forced to move into my s****y neighborhood where she could afford to live without the help of the cheating scumbag. 

“So we’re both broke! We’ve got that in common.” 

She laughs and my mind fills up with long walks on the beach and carousel rides, strawberry ice-cream, a soft but thorough first kiss and a wedding in early September. If only she had moved in yesterday.

“Jeez, what happened to your hand?” She asks, when she notices my bandaged knuckles. 

“Oh, I put my fist through a window.” I look down, somehow I had forgotten about it.

“Awe.” She kisses my fingers and my heart shudders inside my chest.

I dismiss myself and go to the bathroom to force myself to puke. I rinse out my mouth and return, but it is soon apparent that I was too late. 

When we finish in the living room we move on to the bedroom. But, what had been sober flirting in the kitchen turned into overt, drunken advances in the bedroom. I dropped out of consciousness shortly after I came and woke up three days later in the hospital. My sexy new neighbor had identified the symptoms of an overdose and called an ambulance. They pumped me full of charcoal and I’m fine. 

Totally fine.

Reviews

[Jake Donald Stephens]

Women. Always getting in the way every time we men make plans.
I'll change every light bulb in your house, Olivia......oops, I didn't type that.
I like the little poem at the top of the chapter.
And getting pumped full of charcoal......UGH. That is an experience I never want again.
The removal of the catheter was the worst part by far.

[Elle Thompson]

women only get in the way because men let us, ha
there are little bits of poetry throughout, i don't know if they're any good
congratulations on being the only reader who made it this far, sorry there is no prize.