Some go gently. With their favorite record on and the ink still wet on their last will, they close their eyes and smile softly to themselves as they drift away. About these people loved ones will tilt their heads respectfully and say, “She lived a good, long life” or “It was just her time to go,” then carry on like she would have wanted them to.
Others go abruptly. The car wraps in around them like aluminum foil on impact, or the jet-ski puddles past as they sink, unconscious, to the bottom of the lake. Coworkers and high school acquaintances will be moved by the magnitude of their loss and always remember how it touched their lives the day they randomly ceased to exist.
Most, it seems, go lethargically. They wait out a lengthy diagnosis as some evil entity invades and hopelessly destroys their body. They count their days by little letters on their pill boxes, living from one refilled prescription to the next. In the end Phil’s heart beats in time with the IV drip, shuddering before giving out in a room full of loved ones there to watch him go.
I decided to kill myself. Exactly four hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-nine seconds ago I took my eleventh shot of vodka and ate the barrel of my step-dads .09 millimeter. I was still seated across the table from my body, staring at my now lifeless face. A little over four hours ago, I was a writhing mass of self-pity and despair. Now, I was stuck in someone’s joke of a nightmare.
I reached, for the hundredth time, for the pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table and sighed when my fingers slipped right through it.
“Dane Fallow. Sixteen years old. Suicide with handgun.”
I fell out of my chair as I whirled to see who was in my kitchen and landed disturbingly close to my mess of a former body.
An older, casually dressed man was sitting on the counter, thrumming his fingers idly through what looked like a battered daily planner and smiling at me as if I were extremely amusing.
“Handgun huh? I almost did that. I was too chicken-shit though. Name’s Rod.”
He stuck a slender hand out towards me. I stared at it for a moment before letting him help me up. His eyes were warm and brown, set between laugh lines on a lightly bearded face. His dark grey hair was thick and laid smoothly on his head as if it grew that way.
“Who are you? How did you get in here?” I opened and closed my mouth, too dumbfounded to manage saying anything else.
Rod slid off the counter and landed smartly on his feet. Humming to himself he opened the fridge and began rifling through its contents.
I stared at him as he pulled out a jar of mayonnaise and an old hunk of bologna. He’d already found the bread and was slathering both pieces in mayo before he answered.
“I told you, my name is Rod. I came in through the door. You have any Cheetos?”
I blinked hard. Maybe I was dreaming. I rubbed my eyes vigorously with my knuckles, but after my vision cleared he was still there grinning at me with a mouth full of his sandwich.
“I’m dead right? This isn’t a dream?”
“Nope,” he said as he whipped breadcrumbs off his shirt.
“No to what?”
“Nope.”
I put my head in my hands in a vain attempt to dull the pain between my ears. The clock was ticking over the television, winding its way slowly past 4:00. My step-dad would be home any minute. If I was dreaming, he’d wake me up. He’d want to yell at me for drinking his whiskey. I tried again to pick up the pack of cigarettes and huffed when my fingers slipped through them, leaving them tingling as if they were asleep.
Rod pulled the fridge open again and started rummaging through its contents, making a contented noise when he pulled out a bottle of beer.
“I shot myself. I’m dead. I’m sitting next to my dead body while some ghost raids my fridge. I’m dreaming. This is all a messed up dream.” I was starting to panic.
Pulling his head out of the fridge, Rod grinned again.
“You’re not dreaming kid. You’re dead all right.” He looked at his watch. “But, you’ve still got a lot of light to go before you start making any big decisions. And I never said I was dead.”
“What? Well, are you?”
“Yep.”
I stared at him for a moment then turned to look at my lifeless body. It was like looking into a mirror. My shaggy brown hair stuck out in all directions, almost hiding the hole in the back of my head. The entire back of my shirt was covered in blood and chunkier bits, and my face stared unmoving at the ceiling. I turned away from it abruptly as my vision started to swim. Breathing deeply to steady myself I turned back to Rod.
“I’m dead. I killed myself. I killed myself and this is some weird-ass punishment. Where’s the black? Where’s the void? Where are the burning pits of hell? The golden gates? Valhalla? I don’t care where you send me. I just want the fuck out of here. I’m dead. I wanted to die. I’m… dead.”
I stared at Rods now pitying face and waited for him to speak. He seemed to gather himself before turning to rest his arms atop the refrigerator door.
“You didn’t really want to die. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. You don’t like it? You’re the one that did it. You really thought it’d be that easy?” He slammed his fist against the freezer hard enough for half the magnets to fall off. “All you idiots think you can just jump of a building or blow your brains out and everything will stop hurting. Well you’re wrong! Life is what you make it, kid!”
He glared at me for what seemed like minutes until his face slowly smoothed back into that easy grin. “And, death is too,” he said.
My head was spinning. I had no idea what was going on or what bi-polar Rod was ranting about. Dreaming, I decided. For the sake of my sanity, I would play along with this strange piece of my subconscious and hope that my step-dad didn’t get held up in traffic.
Rod was digging around in the fridge again, unaware of my stress. He stood up finally and made his way casually to the table with two beers in hand.
“Here, this’ll help.” He sat a bottle in front of me and opened his own with a rusty bottle opener he pulled from his jeans pocket.
Alarmed, I tried to snatch the beer away from him before he could drink it but my hand passed through the bottle without even disturbing the amber liquid.
“You can’t drink that! These are my step-dad’s. He’ll kill me.”
Brow furrowed, he took a slow swig of beer and leaned over the table. “What do you care? You’re already dead, right?”
It was a few seconds before I noticed an unfamiliar noise getting louder. It was a few more seconds before I realized it was coming from me. I ended with my upper body collapsed on top of the table, laughing so hard I thought my sides were going to explode. I was surely going insane. I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time I laughed.
Rod was still chuckling softly as I regained control of myself. His eyes were bright with laughter and I wondered if mine looked the same. It had been a long time since I looked in the mirror and saw anything more than the same dead eyes now staring at the ceiling across from me. I wiped my face with a trembling hand and looked at the wood grain in front of me.
“So… what now?”
Rod took a deep swig of his beer and laid the bottle opener on the table next to his planner. “That’s up to you kid. This is your ride. I’m just here to explain the rules and make sure you keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.”
I sighed heavily and ran my hands through my hair, glancing woefully at the pack of cigarettes before looking back at Rod.
“I wish you’d stop that and just tell me what I need to do to wake up, move on, whatever. All you’re doing is confusing me.”
Rod leaned his smiling face across the table until it was inches form mine. “All right, kid.”
He leaned back abruptly and cleared his throat, placing his fingertips together. It was strikingly similar to the pose my father used when lecturing me as a kid. If he grew a mustache or started talking about my plans for college, I was out of here, if I could find a way out. I tried to pick up the beer in front of me and sighed when my hand passed through it again.
“You wanted to kill yourself, but you didn’t do it right, “Rod Explained.
I opened my mouth to point out the obvious, but he stopped me with a raised hand.
“You can argue with me until your light fades to black, but that is the simplest way I can put it. You messed up and you know it. What was your last thought?”
“My last… what?”
“Thought. Your last thought. What was the last thing that ran through your head before you pulled that trigger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. Think. You shot yourself in the head, but in that last pathetic millisecond of consciousness you wanted to take it back. The thought may have been subconscious, but it was there. Whatever crossed your mind then is what’s keeping you tied to life. You started out full of light. If you don’t get rid of your focus, the thing that’s holding you back, you won’t ever go on. Your light will fade and you’ll be here for a very, very long time.”
Exasperated, I put my face between my knees. This was ridiculous. I hoped to god this was a dream, because I wasn’t looking forward to spending an eternity solving riddles with this guy.
“I killed myself! I shot myself in the freaking head! Is that not enough of an initiative? Do I need to fill out a request form? I want to die. I want to freaking die. Just let me go.”
“I can’t do that kid. Like I said, I’m just your tour guide. I’m helpful if you’re willing to listen. Now, what was your last thought?”
I just stared at him. After a moment, I sank slowly into my chair. Closing my eyes, I wondered what I did wrong. The past few years of my life were like a rerun of the same day over and over again. Occasionally the weather would change, or my t-shirt. My room would fill up and empty of useless things as the months slipped by painfully slow. I hadn’t even been on a real date before. I was so tired of not being able to change the channel. I was so ready to experience something different, something new.
I’d been thinking about it for months. I think I was just too lethargic to actually do it. It wasn’t as if anything set me off. I didn’t have a terrible day, or experience some life altering event. All I did was go to school, come home, and go to bed. When the alarm went off this morning, I remembered that it was the first day of spring break vacation and I didn’t have to go to school. I spent most of the morning lying on my twin bed staring at my vacant walls, nursing this strange feeling in my gut. I’d been so out of it and numb for so long that I didn’t recognize the vague sense of loss.
I was actually bummed about not having to go to school. I wasn’t really missing class, I don’t think. My life was just so pathetic that the only thing worth getting out of bed for was my piece of crap school. I’d gone to school to in the same district, with the same group of kids all my life and I doubt a single one of them knew my name. I was utterly lost without that hellhole to help me pass the day.
The realization settled in the pit of my stomach with a heavy, suffocating weight. That’s when I decided that the only way to fix it was to die. Where before, the idea was something fleeting and impossible, I was now so sure that it was my only option that I got the cheap whiskey out of the freezer. I dug the small revolver from where it was hidden behind the dryer and took a pack of my mom’s cigarettes from the carton on top of the fridge.
I sat at the kitchen table for nearly an hour trying to work up enough balls to do it, getting drunker and drunker. I kept pushing the time back, too scared to pull the trigger. I’ll do it after my next cigarette. After this shot. I’ll do it the next time the air conditioner comes on. Two more cigarettes. After I finish this pack. You’re a pussy. You’re a waste of space. Just do it.
I remembered starring at the wall opposite me, listening to the traffic outside my apartment. I slammed one last shot and picked up the gun. The sun outside the window sent my shadow across the wall. I watched the black specter of myself put the gun to its face and had to look away. I glared at the table, noticing in the instant I pulled the trigger that I still had one cigarette left.
I sat up straighter in my chair. Rod looked as if he hadn’t moved, smiling at me as if I’d caught on to a valuable lesson.
“I wanted a smoke. I thought about it right before… yeah. I was thinking that I had one last cigarette in my pack, and I wanted to smoke it.”
Rod’s grin grew alarmingly wide. He scooted his chair closer to me, his face alight with an excited fervor.
“This pack, here?” He pointed a slightly trembling hand at my camels.
“Yeah,” I said glumly, “but I can’t smoke now if that’s what you’re going to suggest. It’s kind of hard to complete unfinished business when I can’t freaking touch anything.”
I swiped at the pack halfheartedly to demonstrate and gasped, shocked, as the back of my hand made contact and sent it across the table to fall onto the floor. I stared at the pack for a moment, dumbfounded, before bending low to pick it up from between Rod’s feet.
“I-I couldn’t touch it before,” I stammered numbly. “I’ve been trying to smoke that cigarette all afternoon and my hand just went right through it every time.”
Rod’s face was completely void of emotion. His easy smile and friendly demeanor were completely gone. Eyes never leaving mine, he slowly leaned back in his chair. I could hear pages in his planner tearing as he gripped it tightly with both hands. The pages were edged in a metallic blue and the black leather binding was shiny but heavily scared.
“That’s it, kid. That’s your big problem. Those smokes in your hand there is the only thing between you and restful peace. Give it to me and you can go right ahead and die, just like you want to.”
He reached his hand out, palm up, and smiled reassuringly as I turned the pack over in my hand. My eyes roved over his nondescript jeans and blue work shirt, coming to rest his other hand which was absently fingering the pages of his battered daily planner. My stomach was clenched tight.
“I just give it to you, and then I can die… all the way?”
“That’s right, kid. Just hand it here and you’ll never see me again.”
I looked down at the pack in my hand, suddenly uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure why, but Rod was starting to make me nervous. Where before he’d been joking lightly and laughing amusedly at my stress, now he sat rigid in his chair running his fingers over the cover of his notebook with increasing intensity.
“Why can I touch it now, all of a sudden,” I wondered aloud.
“You remembered, that’s all. It took you a little light, but you remembered what your last focus was. As you died you held on to that pack there for God knows why, and now it’s what’s keeping you tied to life. As soon as you give it up, you can be on your way. Just give it to me now.”
Rod held his hand out still closer and lifted his other arm to rest on my shoulder in an easy gesture. He smiled reassuringly and I exhaled heavily, all the nervousness leaving me in one breath. I wanted to die. Being stuck in my kitchen for eternity would be far worse than my pathetic life had been. I wanted to hurry up and finish this instead of trying to wrap my mind around whatever was happening to me. The hard part was over, I think.
“I give it to you and finish dying, right? That’s all I have to do? Jesus, I wish you’d just told me that to begin with. You’re crazy, dude.” I rambled at him as I handed him the pack. His hand left my shoulder and fell to the planner in his lap. I raised my fist over his trembling palm, but before I could even loosen my grip on the pack my bedroom door burst open behind me with the sounds of traffic and a bitter wind.