Untitled (any suggestions?)

A young girl discusses her reasons behind a difficult decision she made.

        

I was six-years-old. My mother left my father and me about three years before. I never knew her. I only knew the harsh ways of my father, but when he was sober enough he told me my mother was a very sweet woman. My father drank too much. I would hide in my room, and my older brother would hide with me. He’d tell me wonderful stories of my parents, happy at the movies or at the beach. I believed every word he said, every last beautiful word. His wonderful words kept me going through the hard times. The horrible nights filled with the sounds of beer cans and ashtrays bouncing off the television, my father’s angry screams as the Chicago Bears lost were saved by the stories of better days colorfully illustrated by my brother. He was only fourteen, but Jimmy was more of a father to me than my father ever was. The day Jimmy went off to college was the worst day of my life. He left me alone with my father. Even though it was three years ago, I still resent that day. I was thirteen and old enough to fend for myself. I got a job at a local supermarket to support myself, as Jimmy had done so many years ago. I spent many sleepless nights with my father screaming at the television or at just about anything. By that time, he really had gone crazy. Sometimes he’d spend hours talking to the refrigerator or the microwave. The kitchen appliances would say something he wouldn’t like, and he’d start screaming at them as if they were people. Sometimes, I believed that he really thought they were alive. He still is like that, and now I just spend my nights out under the stars, dreaming of a better life. Sometimes I can block out the angry sounds of an alcohol-tortured man with crazy ideas.

Welcome to my life. I hope your life isn’t like this, but if it is, I hope you don’t take the easy way out, as if I am about to do. Or did, as it may be. I don’t really know. I think I’ll chicken out. I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. I’ve heard it’s really hard to kill yourself; it takes a lot to do something so drastic. I think this has been enough. I just don’t know what else to do anymore. Nothing seems to be going right. Every move I make seems to push me further down into the hole I’ve dug for myself. Pretty soon, I’ll be six feet down, and somebody will come and fill the hole in on top of me. I just have one long, sad story. I guess it’s hopeless. I suppose I should tell you the whole story, my reasons why. I don’t think there’s anybody left who would know even half of it.

As you probably have figured out, my father isn’t a nice man. Jimmy told me that he was at one time, but now his alcohol-tortured mind turns on him. He doesn’t even notice when I’m gone. When he wakes up in the morning, he insults me through his hangover. I usually try to get out of the house before he regains consciousness, but about once a week I don’t succeed. I don’t stay asleep long after he wakes up, though. I am always awakened by my father’s angry screams. He thinks that everyone should get up at four o’clock in the morning even though he seldom does.

I’m surprised at how much I’ve written already. I never thought I could write more than a page without someone forcing me to. I never cease to amaze myself. The only thing is that nobody will ever be proud of me for writing a novel. They might just be annoyed.

Let me cue you in on this eternal hell I insist of calling life. I mean, we shouldn’t take life too seriously because we’ll never get out alive anyways. So why not leave the game early? Why should we all go about our business as if any of it matters? When were gone, nobody will remember all the fun we’ve had and the laughs we shared. So I figure that it wont make a difference if there’s one less person in this world by the time anybody reads this note. I hope you see the irony in my suicide note being the longest thing I’ve ever written of my own free will.

This is, after all, a note telling why I’m going to kill myself. I suppose I should explain my reasons for taking my own life. If I had to give a reason, I suppose it would be to join all those who are already dead. The list includes five family members, three ex-boyfriends and my only true love.

I’ll start with my family. The worst of all was that my grandparents, Jim and Lisa Ellis, were murdered right in front of my eyes. I was five years old, but that memory still burns in my mind. I guess you’re lucky that I didn’t turn out to be a homicidal maniac, serial killer or anything along that line. I loved my grandparents, and I believe they are the reason my father drinks so much. He started drinking soon after their funeral. I consider him dead too. He might as well have died with my grandparents. He hasn’t been anything like what he was before. I don’t, however, consider him one of the five dead family members. He’s not technically dead, however his soul died with Jim and Lisa.

As for the other three family members, they died in a car crash. My aunt Nancy, uncle Jim, and baby Noah all perished before my eyes as well. We were going to the zoo. I was only seven years old and still severely traumatized by the murder I witnessed. Noah was two, and as cute as a button. He stared out the window with his dark brown eyes as the lush scenery rolled by. Nancy and Jim were talking in the front seat, and I suppose that’s why they didn’t see the eighteen-wheeler until it was too late. I was the only survivor of the crash, emerging without a scratch on me. The force of the crash should have killed me too. I should have died eight years ago with my aunt, uncle, and cousin.

I have witnessed every boyfriend I ever had die. My first boyfriend was Jeremiah Natt. We broke up after three days of dating. Kyle Kayes was boyfriend number two. I really liked him, for about a week. Jeremiah and Kyle both perished in a blaze that consumed the boy’s restroom at school. After Kyle came Peter Grayson. I dated Peter for about a day and a half, until he went out with Melissa Harris. Melissa was responsible for stealing guys from about six different girls. Nobody liked her, and everybody hated her. Nobody was sad to see her die in the boy’s bathroom. She was undoubtedly up to no good with a boy in there. Peter died in 9-ll along with thousands of others.

Now were on to my one true love. He was so perfect, I love him so much. He’s only been gone for about a month. I have hardly slept, and, truthfully, I never hoped to wake up. Every night I was hoping that it would be the last time that I would fall asleep. Every morning, I was hoping that the next night would be the one, or that the house would burn down with me inside, or that the school bus would hit a rock, flip, and spontaneously combust. William would never have liked to see me like this. I know he would have found a way to get me out of this mess. William Andersen was my one true love. He walked up to me in McDonalds, because we had been staring at each other for half an hour. Just as we were about to leave, he walked up to me and said ‘can you hold something for me?’ My response was ‘sure.’ He then slipped his hand into mine. Today is exactly one year after that. I suppose that’s why I didn’t want to wait any longer. I had to get this over with now. Will wouldn’t have liked to see me suffer like this either.

Now that my time is near, I’m not sure of what I believe in. I’ve been told my mother was trying to raise me catholic, but now that she’s gone, me and my father have fallen to atheistic views. Nothing good in my life has ever came from believing in a man. All the men I’ve ever believed in have been taken from me. Will and I shared a strange relationship, for teenagers. I’m 15 and he’s 16, and most couples our age are involved in hot and sweaty activities without a lot of clothes on. Will and I preferred to lay outside under the stars, or go out for pizza and a movie. We had the perfect relationship. He died too early in his life, and too early in mine. It feels like a big part of me died with him too. I’m surprised I’ve held on this long.

 

Author's Note

I could really use suggestions for a title for this story - I'm really at a loss.

Reviews

[MadasonBlue]

Good quality overall, but it does have a few problems.
I think it would help to get a variety of adjectives to describe her father's drinking problem, instead of using "alcohol-tortured" so many times.
Closer to the end, you start to switch back and forth between past- and present-tense a lot: are you talking about the past, or something that's still happening?
Also, there's just a few grammar problems, but in general this was a good story.

[Mark]

'The Will To Live"

[cloister]

I think the concept--suicide novel, instead of suicide note--has a lot of promise.

But I think that the punch of it is undercut by the fact that we know it's a suicide novel up front. I almost think this would be much more powerful if you told it in such a way that it start out like a straight memoir-style novel, but then slowly the reader gets clues as to what the writer's ultimate intent is: to join all the important people who have departed from her life.

I'm not saying that's going to be an easy task, but if you can pull it off, it would be very powerful.

[universe-explorer]

your story has a overall sadness on it - did you experience a big sadness in your real life?