I was about to commit suicide. I was not sad or crying just determined and my face was stern with determination. There was nothing that could make me waver from my decision. I had succumbed to the pressures of life.
My life had been an abundance of nothingness. Hollowness had occupied a major portion of the 24 years of my life and there was nothing I was proud of or even regretted. It had been a long boring book with blank pages. I had never scribbled anything worthwhile on it. This was my chance to do so. I wanted to write the last page of my life in a way that people would wonder what kind of person I was. I wanted to be famous in my own defamation. Suicide, it was the only sure shot solution. Somebody would notice me, everyone would actually notice me. People from my office, who till then didn’t even know my name, would hunt it out from the files to give mournful statements to the press. There would be chaos in my locality. They had seen me walking like a ghost amongst them; they were daring people, never got scared but were forever curious. They were inquisitive and I was hungry to speak, but they never asked me a single question.
I was young but loneliness had bent my back bone and I walked like an old man. I had grey strands peeping through the blacks of my hair. I had smiled and laughed too, but the moments and the dates had gotten lost somewhere in the black hole of my memories. I now wanted to create a memory for the others. I wanted to die not for my sorrows but for the gossip mongers. They had always shunned me, now was the time to shake hands with them, hence I wanted to commit suicide.
I was holding a bottle of sedatives that I had stolen. It hadn’t been very difficult. I had been working for the drug store for over three years now, no one ever suspected me of anything; I was like the vacuum cleaner, purposeful but not a person. The vacuum cleaner had silently sucked in a bottle of pills and nobody noticed, as usual. I had never been comfortable seeing blood and hence stabbing myself was out of question. I was scared of heights and hence this seemed the most convenient measure. I was fiddling with the bottle between my two hands. Death has its own time assigned and my time was probably after a few minutes. I was in retrospection. I laughed at my own thought, retrospection, retrospection over what, I didn’t understand.
I finally took out the pills in my hand; they were like pearls glittering on my palm. I for a while closed my fist, an oyster embracing the pearls. I took a deep breath then. Had the time come? I asked the angel of death and felt the breeze conveying the affirmation, now was the time. I took one pill first and popped it in my mouth with a large gulp of water. Nothing, I felt nothing, just something in my head started talking. I popped another one, this was going slow; I had broken into sweats; my fingers shook and the voice in my head grew louder. I was not dead yet, I was slowly fading away from life. Death seemed lousy and I was getting annoyed. It wasn’t easy, I concluded. I had taken three pills so far and was only feeling sleepy not dead. My mouth was too small to gulp down all of them together. The screams in my head had become frantic, they were scared of death, I wasn’t, but they were howling in my head. I had to pacify them. Hence, I gave up, like all the other instances of my life, this time too, I gave up. May be tomorrow I’ll be able to die, may be by tomorrow I would have lived enough to die.
My life had been an abundance of nothingness. Hollowness had occupied a major portion of the 24 years of my life and there was nothing I was proud of or even regretted. It had been a long boring book with blank pages. I had never scribbled anything worthwhile on it. This was my chance to do so. I wanted to write the last page of my life in a way that people would wonder what kind of person I was. I wanted to be famous in my own defamation. Suicide, it was the only sure shot solution. Somebody would notice me, everyone would actually notice me. People from my office, who till then didn’t even know my name, would hunt it out from the files to give mournful statements to the press. There would be chaos in my locality. They had seen me walking like a ghost amongst them; they were daring people, never got scared but were forever curious. They were inquisitive and I was hungry to speak, but they never asked me a single question.
I was young but loneliness had bent my back bone and I walked like an old man. I had grey strands peeping through the blacks of my hair. I had smiled and laughed too, but the moments and the dates had gotten lost somewhere in the black hole of my memories. I now wanted to create a memory for the others. I wanted to die not for my sorrows but for the gossip mongers. They had always shunned me, now was the time to shake hands with them, hence I wanted to commit suicide.
I was holding a bottle of sedatives that I had stolen. It hadn’t been very difficult. I had been working for the drug store for over three years now, no one ever suspected me of anything; I was like the vacuum cleaner, purposeful but not a person. The vacuum cleaner had silently sucked in a bottle of pills and nobody noticed, as usual. I had never been comfortable seeing blood and hence stabbing myself was out of question. I was scared of heights and hence this seemed the most convenient measure. I was fiddling with the bottle between my two hands. Death has its own time assigned and my time was probably after a few minutes. I was in retrospection. I laughed at my own thought, retrospection, retrospection over what, I didn’t understand.
I finally took out the pills in my hand; they were like pearls glittering on my palm. I for a while closed my fist, an oyster embracing the pearls. I took a deep breath then. Had the time come? I asked the angel of death and felt the breeze conveying the affirmation, now was the time. I took one pill first and popped it in my mouth with a large gulp of water. Nothing, I felt nothing, just something in my head started talking. I popped another one, this was going slow; I had broken into sweats; my fingers shook and the voice in my head grew louder. I was not dead yet, I was slowly fading away from life. Death seemed lousy and I was getting annoyed. It wasn’t easy, I concluded. I had taken three pills so far and was only feeling sleepy not dead. My mouth was too small to gulp down all of them together. The screams in my head had become frantic, they were scared of death, I wasn’t, but they were howling in my head. I had to pacify them. Hence, I gave up, like all the other instances of my life, this time too, I gave up. May be tomorrow I’ll be able to die, may be by tomorrow I would have lived enough to die.
