Chapter One

I was lying in a bathtub filled with lukewarm water on the day I had decided to kill myself. The water was still, placid, like the surface of a freshly frozen lake. I remember imagining, as I looked down over my outstretched legs, that I was encased in ice; forever frozen in an unchanging stasis. I imagined it to be a peaceful existence, if only it would grant me respite from the thoughts that ran in circles through my mind. Music played in my ears. The headphones I wore were connected to the walkman CD player that spun my favorite album, Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. My right hand rested on the edge of the tub, and it held a thirty-eight caliber revolver loosely in its grip.

There were many reasons that I wanted to commit suicide, but none of them seemed to quite explain why I was finally going to do it. Life seemed like a hopeless miasma of meaningless desires driven by base emotions. I could no longer derive pleasure from the perpetuation of my day-to-day existence. I understood that my outlook was highly nihilistic, but I could not escape it. I felt caged within my own perception.

I looked at the gun in my hand. I had bought it only days ago with the money that my father had sent to get me through to the end of the semester. My grades were horrible. Again. This was the end of my second year and fourth semester of college and my dad had made it clear that if there was not significant improvement then I would be coming home to Houston to stay. I dreaded the thought.

But that didn’t matter then, in that moment, as I stared down the revolver and steeled myself for what I was about to do. It was as irrelevant as everything else. I knew this time was real because there was none of that giddy excitement at the thought of it all being over, like there had been in times past when I had imagined the act, even planned for it, but never actually took the steps necessary to make it happen. I felt nothing more than a solemn finality. There was only one thing that itched at the back of my mind. One regret that I had given up on. A letter. A suicide letter. Every time I tried to write one I failed miserably. I couldn’t get more than two sentences down before crumpling the paper into a ball. No matter what I wrote it felt too trite, too sophomoric, and fell far short of expressing the thoughts and emotions that I was feeling.

I pressed the stop button on the CD player that was balanced on the side of the tub as the last notes of the title song faded in my ears, tossing the headphones haphazardly over the edge to clatter to the tile below. The peaceful stillness of the water was disturbed by my motions, and I watched as the ripples and waves dispelled the notion of my body being laid out in a frozen coffin. I looked at my watch. Almost midnight. I didn’t have much time before my roommate would be home. I stared as the second hand moved and soon realized I could hear the tick, tick, ticking of its march across the dial. Soon there would be no more ticks.

I lifted the revolver from the edge of the tub and slipped the barrel into my mouth, closing my eyes as I rested my head back. Just one quick motion of my finger and it would all be over. I would find out what lie beyond the unknown, or I would find nothing at all. Either way I would be free from the mortal coil in which I felt trapped. I was calm. I was ready. Then my mind shifted back to the letter I had never written. It felt suddenly important. I knew that my family and friends would be shocked, heartbroken, devastated, any number of relevant words that reflected the loss of a loved one, when they found out what I had done. I knew that they would see my act as wrong. Unjust. A stupid decision. How much worse that I failed to leave them behind some message, some reasoning, some explanation?

I gripped the revolver tight and tried to resolve to go through with it anyway, but I couldn’t let that letter go. I had to write one. I just had to. After a moment I pulled the gun free from my mouth and with no ceremony I reached over the tub and laid it to the floor before rising from the water, nude except for the pair of boxers I wore.

Suddenly music began blaring through the door of the bathroom. A reggae beat I instantly recognized as Bob Marley. Ray was home. I grabbed a towel and began drying myself off while thinking about the letter I was about to try to write. Soon there came a knocking at the door.

“What’s up, Riley? I got us some Burger King.” Ray’s voice was as upbeat as ever. “You should have been at the party, man, it was off the hook!”

“Thanks, man, I’ll be out in a few.”

My backpack lay in the corner of the bathroom. I slipped the gun inside its front pocket and pulled one of my notebooks out along with a pen. Sitting on the seat of the toilet I opened it to a blank page and stared at it for a minute before writing ‘My Suicide Letter’ at the top. I immediately tore the page out, crumpled it, and threw it in the trash before starting over with the heading ‘To whom it may concern.’ Then I stared at the page for a while longer before beginning to write:

‘I’m sorry to inform you that I have chosen to take my life. My reasons for doing so are many, and though I don’t expect anyone to understand, I hope you can accept that…’ and then I lost my patience with myself ‘...I’m a dumbass who can’t write shit to save my fucking life.’

I crushed the paper in my hand and threw it in the wastebasket, the irony of what I had written being entirely lost on me.

I stood up and looked in the mirror for a long moment. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I asked myself out loud before sighing quietly in resolute defeat. I had no idea who I was. I turned on the cold water and splashed some over my face. I needed time to write this letter, I thought. Time to organize my thoughts into something worthwhile, something that expressed my desire to kill myself truthfully. “One semester.” One full semester to write this thing and then I would complete the act that I had resolved to finish.

“Come on, what are you doing in there?” Ray’s voice called through the door. “The food’s getting cold.”

“Nothing! I’ll be out in a fucking minute!” My voice betrayed my frustration.

“Fine, man, shit, ‘have it your way!’” I could feel him stepping away from the door through the floorboards.

By next Christmas I would be dead. I laughed suddenly, softly, realizing that I was procrastinating my own death the same way I procrastinated everything else. I put the notebook back in my backpack, entirely uncertain and perplexed as to what to write and how to write it, and then pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind to worry about later. My mind took on a new focus. A new goal. One I knew all too well. It was time to get high. High as fuck.

When I stepped into the living room moments later after having thrown on a pair of cargo shorts and a plain t-shirt, Ray was already loading a fresh bowl.

“Thank God. I was afraid we were all out.” I said as I plopped down into the couch.

“Nah, this is some new shit. Straight from California. They said it was called ‘Sour Diesel’ or something, but supposedly it’s some fire.”

“You haven’t tried it yet?”

“Nope. You get the honors.” He finished packing the bowl and offered the pipe out to me.

“Don’t mind if I do.” I took hold of the overly intricate glass pipe, swirling with vibrant colors that had come alive with the seasoning of its resonation, put it to my lips, and lit the bowl. I took a big, long hit that culminated with me coughing exasperatedly as the smoke billowed out of my mouth.

“Damn...that’s some good weed” I stammered out, still coughing as I passed the pipe back over to Ray. The music was still bumping from the stereo. I leaned back and sunk into the cushions of the couch.

“You ready for finals, man?” Ray asked. “I gotta be honest, I’m stressing them hard.” He took a big rip from the bowl and now it was his turn to fail utterly at holding the smoke in, coughing harshly in the aftermath. “Fuck...what’s in this shit? I’m already feeling it...sure helps with the stress.”

“I don’t even want to think about it." I replied. "I don’t know if it even matters at this point. My grades are in the dumpster.” Ray passed the pipe over and I took another hit, though not quite as big this time, holding the smoke in my lungs for a long moment before blowing it out in a long, smooth stream.

“Yeah, well maybe you should try this novel approach I like to call studying and doing your homework. Shit, all you do is get high, man, what do you expect?” Ray often chided me for being what amounted to a lazy piece of shit. I couldn’t argue with him, but at least he was friendly about it. My dad, on the other hand…

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” I said lazily while Ray was taking another hit from the pipe. “Care if I put on the TV?”

“Nah, go ahead.” He blew out the smoke and then tapped the bowl against the ashtray until the ashes came tumbling out. “You good, man? Fuck, I’m good.”

“Load another one.” I clicked off the stereo and took up the remote control for the TV, turning it on and flipping through the stations before settling on MTV. A news anchor’s face appeared on the screen next to an image of Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley. He began reporting that the singer was found dead in his condo earlier that day.

“Fuckin’ A." Ray’s voice sounded shocked. "Damn straight, I’ll load another one.”

“Holy shit. Layne Staley’s dead.” I leaned forward on the couch, my focus drawn in suddenly. The anchor explained that the death appeared to be some form of drug overdose, but that few details were clear yet.

Alice in Chains was one of my favorite bands, and Layne was an amazing and unique singer. I suddenly realized that if I had gone through with my plan and shot myself in the bathtub I would have never known that the lead singer for one of the greatest rock bands of the nineties had died. I couldn’t decide if this was a good thing, or a bad thing.