As You See It

Experimental writing, done for a school assignment. We were required to keep our story under 1800 words.

"I hope you don’t mind me being here.

 

No, no trouble at all, Miss.

 

"May I call you Kevin? Only if you’re okay with it.

 

Oh, yes, sure. I don’t mind at all.

 

"Great, let’s get started then. So Kevin, what can you tell me about yourself?

 

Wow, where do I start?

Your genuine interest flatters me, Miss. Please, stop me if you get bored, I do tend to talk ever too much…

 

Do you know that you can make your very own ‘euthanasia solution’ simply by mixing the right over-the-counter medications?

* * *

"Tell me about someone important to you.

 

Well, my grandmother was very dear to me. We didn’t really talk much"I simply read to her from her bedside"but once in a while she’d ask me how I was doing. It was a pleasant feeling, knowing that someone enjoyed my company just as much as I did theirs. Sadly she died when I was 19. She was the only person I ever really considered as family.

 

"How’d she die?

 

It was due to poor health, really. She’d grown weaker with the recent change in weather, and it helped to worsen her condition. Her breathing grew ragged, and her voice was softer than a mouse’s.

 

If I recall correctly, I’d just finished reading to her a book by Ernest Hemingway, when she suddenly stared me straight in the eye, and said, “I’m ready to go.”

 

I didn’t get her at first, and tried my best to avoid the subject, but she refused to let it go. It eventually dawned on me that she wanted to die. She was on life-support then, and wanted me to be the one to send her off. What an honour.

 

 I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hesitant, but it filled me with a sense of curiosity. It’s like when your parents tell you not to steal, and you do it anyway. You do it for the thrill.

 

In the end I decided to fulfill her request"mostly because she started tearing up and it made me feel rather uncomfortable. I really dislike it when people start crying. What’s one supposed to do then?

 

"Didn’t you go to anyone for advice?

 

My parents were at work and my siblings were in school; they don’t ever answer my calls. So no, I didn’t. It couldn’t wait though, for you could see the despair in her eyes; you could hear it in her shaky voice. She was suffering, and I felt so sorry for her.

 

We even said a prayer together. Normally I wouldn’t, but this was an exception for she’d stated that it would’ve made her really happy. I didn’t want her last emotion to be disappointment.

 

After that I pulled the plug and watched as her soul slipped out of its skin.

 

You know what was really odd, though? At that moment, I felt so alive.

 

In that moment, I had control. I was essential. I became a metaphorical stairway to heaven.

 

The sensation of her loosening grip, of her breast rising and finally falling, of her eyes closing slowly and dramatically"it invigorated me. It was as if her soul had passed straight into me, energising my own.

 

God, I loved it.

 

And just like that came my obsession with recreating that oh so stimulating sensation. Without it, I felt dead on the inside; days seemed to drag on longer than the usual. It was better than taking any kind of illegal substance, and I guess so much healthier for my body too if I have to put it that way.

 

"What’d you do then, you know, to get what you needed? Where’d you go?

 

Well, I’d often heard about those online depression forums, and how people there were always on the edge of it all, so I decided to check it out. Boy oh boy, if you could’ve only seen the amount of sadness and despair on those sites. The people there"they opened up to strangers without a face, trusted them more than they did their own family members, and discussed almost anything without shame. I spent several days monitoring the suicide thread before making any open comments.

 

I did eventually start giving advice, as well providing a virtual shoulder to cry on and an ever-listening ear. It worked well in gaining their favour. Once they were comfortable enough with me"or rather, trusted me to a good extent"our conversation would shift to private messaging, inbox to inbox. Several would propose meeting in real life, but 9 out of 10 were simply sad rather than suicidal. I only picked the cream of the crop.

 

"Was that how you met Eileen?

 

Why yes, she was my very first.

 

She was 20 then, I think. Most of her friends had abandoned her. They thought she was simply being whiny and seeking attention from her peers. Poor Eileen, she’d been kicked out of university for her failing grades, her boyfriend had dumped her, and then her dad had lost her job"all in the same week. Apparently society taught her that she was only entitled to feel upset; depression meant overreacting. This was, of course, without considering the various other distressing events that could have occurred throughout her life. I wouldn’t know; that week might have simply been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

Eileen felt at home in the suicide thread, no one bashed her for having negative feelings. She talked a lot about wanting to kill herself, but never had the actual guts to do it. I think that’s the problem most suicidal people have, isn’t it? You lack the willpower to both stay and go. It’s rather sad, if you think about it.

 

"So you met her?

 

Yes. She was a rather pretty young woman, but very introverted indeed, only speaking when spoken to. We dwelled in small talk for a bit, before Eileen finally asked if I was going to…help her out.

 

"And you did, clearly, from what I’ve read.

 

Oh please, the media reported it all wrong. Let me tell what really was the case.

 

You see I feel sympathetic towards the suicidal individuals out there, the ones who are too afraid to top themselves. No one wants their blood all over the bathroom sink, or their brains splattered on the sidewalk. I thought I could help by offering them a choice"ease them into the afterlife, pain-free and without the fear of dying alone.

 

I gave Eileen the choice between life and death, and if she’d chosen the former I’d have left immediately. But I knew she wouldn’t.

 

We ended up taking a seat on a bench in some park. Fascinating, she was, telling me things like having the desire to be buried under a flowerbed, her way of giving back to the earth.

 

I remember it all too clearly"Eileen’s head on my lap as I stroked her hair and prepared my instruments. I asked her, one last time if she was sure of her decision, and she replied with a confident yes, smiling ever so softly.

 

"You injected her with your homemade…solution.

 

Yes, obviously. I promised her help, didn’t I?

 

I even cradled her head in my hands until she slipped away. You should have seen the look on her face, that of absolute tranquility. You’d never have guessed her anguish.

 

In an attempt to show some respect, I buried her body under a flower patch in the very same park, with a silk handkerchief covering her face so that the soil wouldn’t get all inside her mouth. Too bad her body was dug up two weeks later.

 

The weird thing, though, was just like when my grandmother passed, Eileen’s death made me feel so exhilarated, yet again"like that feeling you get in your chest when you’ve performed an act of kindness. I suppose you can say that my actions, as such, were somewhat done out of self-gratification.

 

See it as you wish, but you can’t deny that I did some good in an…unconventional sense. The only reason people think me a monster is because they don’t get to interview the corpses.

 

"What happened next?

 

Shortly after Eileen came Joshua, Kathy and Jenna. Maryanne, Finn, Aaron, Lisa and Ben the following year.

 

I never bothered to ask them for their age or surnames, avoiding introductions beyond names if possible. It felt too personal, and to put it bluntly, I didn’t really care to know.

 

Most of them wanted to be left where they were after it was completed"only Jenna and Finn asked me to place their bodies, all dressed up, on their neatly made beds; and Lisa insisted on cremation, which was the hardest out of all of them. I’d have fulfilled the craziest of requests, nonetheless, only because I knew how much it would’ve meant to them.

 

Ben was my last client before all this.

 

He’d told me that his parents were on vacation and wouldn’t be back till two days time. Unluckily for me, Ben’s parents returned home early, only to walk in on a stranger holding their lifeless son in his arms with a couple of syringes lying about on the floor.

 

It didn’t look good for me, and I suppose it would’ve have come to an end sooner or later.

 

Naturally they called the police. I didn’t make a break for it; I had nothing to hide, nothing to regret"except for my poor disposal of those few bodies, I’d think. How amateurish of me, I know, but that aspect of it wasn’t exactly my favourite part of the process. Too much hard labour involved.

 

"You’re not upset that you got caught?

 

No, why would I be?

 

The funny part of all this is that my parents wrote to me, a ‘letter of estrangement’, so to speak.

 

Can you believe it? They only talk to me after all these years"not even face-to-face, mind you"after my name’s appeared on the front page of every local newspaper. Christ, like I care. They haven’t been essential to me for 23 years, and vice versa. I’m surprised they can even remember me at all.

 

A long mechanical beep echoes through the room, and a man announces something over the speakers.

 

Time’s up.

 

Kevin rises to his feet, and is escorted out"not before bidding me farewell like the gentleman that he actually is.

 

I’ll see you in the afterlife, but not too soon, I should pray. I am glad you came to see me, Miss. This was a most pleasant way to spend my…final hours. It was nice having someone just listening for once. Thank you.

 

He leaves the room with a smile stretching across his face, and doesn’t look back.