How To Not Quite Commit Suicide

Would I die from jumping out my seventh story window?

The Unfleshly Fête
Human Parts

--

Imagining it is easy — to a point. First, remove the screw from the wall. No — first, close the cats in the bathroom. Then remove from the screw from the wall. Open the window. Remove the screen.

Should I push the screen out and into the parking lot? It would make a noticeable clattering — someone would notice. But isn’t that the point?

Watch the screen fall. Watch it twist in the air. Watch it hit. Remember: my body wouldn’t hit that way. There’s much less air resistance. It won’t be gentle.

Climb into the gap. Let your feet dangle, like sitting on the lip of a swing.

Fuck, I didn’t lock the door.

Clamber out of the hole. Cross the living room and kitchen in your bare feet, feeling every smoothly varnished bit of the wood. Turn the lock with shaking hands. It does not shake. It slides smoothly into its groove, effortlessly fulfilling its purpose.

Curse the lock.

The cats are hissing in the bathroom. They’re not friends, but wary roommates. Soothe them through the door:

“It’s okay — don’t worry, guys. It’s okay.”

Maybe one meows and wrenches your heart to the floor where you’ll sit and sob and maybe let them out for the feeling of fur and little rubbing heads before remembering to clumsily run to the window and shut it tight.

Maybe they continue to hiss your body into resolute tightness and a march across the floor to the hole again. I’ll do it to spite them, all of them, and they’ll know — they’ll know.

Maybe they quiet and the only sound is the refrigerator’s steady exhale. It neither soothes nor vexes nor results in collapse, but instead mirrors the wind through the window hole, openly inviting the spring air in.

It smells like freedom.

Don’t forget your cell phone. Don’t drop it with your unsteady hands. Hold it in sweating palms as you climb into the hole again, letting the daylight spill over the body that’s become a trap.

Does anyone see me?

Maybe someone will scream from the sidewalk in front of the church, one hand to their sternum or mouth, the other fixed in an accusatory point. Maybe the maintenance man or building administrator will look up at the sky through a slow cigarette drag and see. Maybe there will be no one, and you’ll be disappointed.

You have to make the call.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

She sounds bored.

This hits somewhere undefinable, a place on the internal map that hadn’t been plotted yet. She’s sitting at her desk with a headset on, part-way through her day, halfway to the weekend where she’ll get her paycheck and bring it home to her family so they can be fed.

What will I do to this woman?

“Hello?”

“I — I’m going to jump.”

“Can you repeat that?”

“I’m at 1211 Main Street on the 7th floor and I’m going to jump!”

Disconnect the call. They’ll come soon enough.

That’s the easiest way, easier than pills or knives or a bottle of bleach, and safer. Perhaps sometimes you want to become dead somehow, but you don’t want to die. You just want it to be over.

The phone calls and games of tag with your life insurance company. The paperwork they send in the mail, insisting a form was filled out incorrectly. Having to tell the stern and un-empathetic psychiatrist to send the paperwork again. The unanswered text messages from your one friend at the office who doesn’t know why you’re gone. The fight, every month, to stay within the bounds of FMLA, to keep the disability checks coming in.

If you say clearly enough,

I want to commit suicide.

They’ll come.

They’ll keep you in a wing of the hospital without sharp objects and your pills will be delivered in a little paper cup every day, with accompanying water. They’ll sedate you. They’ll let you sleep. They’ll ask you questions, evaluate your condition, and ensure the paperwork gets filled out without any missing spaces. They’ll be thorough.

All you have to do is say it to someone in authority, and make sure they hear.

I want to commit suicide.

They’ll listen.

If you like what you just read, please hit the ‘Recommend’ button below so that others might stumble upon this essay. For more essays like this, scroll down to follow Human Parts.

Human Parts on Facebook and Twitter

--

--

Responses (1)