A Suicide Note
First, you should know that it was not your fault. If you are reading this, then you cared enough to look. I could wait and explain everything in person, but I would not convince you. So, I will settle for this. It was not your fault.
Second, well, everything else, I guess. Everything dies eventually. Yes, I know; that is a terrible reason to choose now instead of eventually. But listen – no one ever did when I was alive, but maybe you will now. It’s been fun. But I’m done pretending now. All we can do – all we can ever do – is prolong the inevitable. We can choose to have fun along the way, or, like most of the world seems to have chosen, we can choose to suffer the whole time. And maybe make others suffer while we’re at it. Yes, there were fun times, but what was the point? Are the fun times worth the pain and suffering when it all disintegrates into nothing in the end, no matter what we do? What’s the point of struggling through this world when we all know that nothing we do will ultimately make any difference?
Before you ask, no, this has nothing to do with my father. I know you saw the bruises. I know you ignored them like everyone else. Or rather, you ignored them in a different way than everyone else. But you definitely ignored them. Where the rest of the world looked at anything else so they didn’t have to see, you let yourself notice and pursed your lips in that way that said you care, but not enough to do anything. I know you cared. I know you just didn’t know how to really care in this society that stilts all emotion, that has condemned emotion to the realm of weakness that must never be shown in public. If you care, you are weak. If you don’t care, you are callous. The weak are preyed upon. I know you preferred the world to think you callous. Don’t worry – I never thought that.
You might be asking yourself why now? You want to ask only why, not why now, but it is easier if you can blame something. So instead you ask why now so you can find the one trigger that caused everything, so that you can hate it and crusade against it for the rest of time. Not that it really matters. I’m sorry I don’t have something for you to blame. I’m sorry I don’t have a good answer to your question. My answers were never good enough, anyway.
I didn’t do it earlier because I ran out of time, or I forgot, or I didn’t feel like it, or some other lame excuse. Why didn’t you do your history homework, yet? My answer is the same as yours. I read a lot because I knew I would have to plan carefully. If I was reading, I wasn’t planning. I was lost in someone else’s story, someone whose life was much harder than mine, but somehow made it out the other side whole and optimistic. I admire those characters, I really do. But that’s not me. I played videogames because I had to concentrate on the controls, and if I was concentrating on the game, then I wasn’t thinking about other things. What other things? You know exactly what other things. I was always lost in another story. Sometimes you asked where I was when I was standing next to you. I would just shrug. I spent as much time in someone else’s story as possible.
Because I knew exactly how mine ended. And being lost was way more fun.
Do you remember the time we went to the beach for my birthday? The party was your idea. When you asked what I thought, I shrugged and said “Sure.” When I asked why the beach, you talked about how I was always staring at the water, so you thought I would enjoy a beach party. I wasn’t staring at the water, though. I was staring at the horizon. I don’t know if that makes any difference. I wanted to know what lay beyond it. I wanted to know what it was like to get lost on the other side. I knew what teachers had told us, of course, but what did they know? What did anyone know about anything in a world where people suffer every day, but showing compassion makes us weak? In a world where suffering and dying were facts of life, and everyone just accepted that? Sometimes you complained that I was too impatient. I just don’t see the point of waiting.
Sometimes you asked if I was okay. I would always shrug and say “Sure.” Then you would shrug, and we would continue walking, pretending that everything really was okay, but knowing that nothing was and never would be. People ask if you’re okay your entire life. Or they ask how you are. Or they forsake the asking altogether and simply command you to have a good day. They don’t care about you or your day – as long as nothing happens to make an impact on their own personal little world. But that will end eventually, too.
Maybe you can barely even read this because of the tears in your eyes. Maybe the words are too blurry to make out, but you know what it says anyway because you knew me – well, you thought you knew me, anyway. Maybe no one else will be able to read this after you. Maybe it’s because you’ll burn this note in a fit of grief and anger. Or maybe it’ll just be because the fallen tears will have blurred the words beyond comprehension – to you or to anyone else. All that will be left of me will be puddles of black ink on soggy paper. The black will separate into all the colors that make it up, the way we are never allowed to. Rainbow coronas will form around the letters. The rainbows will be mostly dark, blues and purples.
We live in a society where black has to be black. And that black has to be whatever society has decided for it for that decade. We can be every color hiding in that black ink, but we’re not allowed to show it. That would make us different. It would make us weak. And when society decides that black isn’t black enough anymore, then we just have to adjust and pretend that this is always who we were and we are nothing but black and we are none of the colors that make black what it is. All of this just to fit in with a world where nothing matters, anyway. All I ever wanted was something real. I couldn’t find it in a world with all the color hidden. If you were here with me in person you might tell me that sounds angsty and dramatic. I would probably shrug and say “Sure.”
I suppose this makes me weak. Fine. At the end of this note, it won’t matter anyway. And eventually, nothing will matter, anyway. Maybe if someone had pried beyond “Sure” when they asked about me, none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have. And in the end, we all would have died, anyway. So this was not your fault.
The boy that escaped
Disclaimer: The following story is based on a true event after a boy had escaped from a concentration camp, however not many details are known about it, very specific details in the text may not be factual.
Guards, barbed wire, electrical fences and an open camp with no hidden secrets- against all odds the little boy escaped. After running with his bare feet through the cold mud, hidden within the gloom of night and ushered by the white moonlight, next to a big brick house, he encounters an old wooden shed with no windows and a door of decaying wood and rusty metal. The boy inspects the door and finds a lock hanging from it- they forgot to lock it- he assumes. Old, abandoned objects are the hosts of the small room: broken clocks, dusty books, and a clean Nazi flag, its prominent bright red colour is still easily spotted through the darkness of the room. Even with the closed door, the boy can still find his way around the room with the guidance of the frail gleams of the moonlight entering through the wooden gaps. Passing clouds at times faded the light completely, leaving the room under a blanket of darknesses, but the boy keeps on blindly exploring the room- looking for a resting place. Eventually, he settled for a spot on the floor full of dirt under the corner table, where he could hide behind the flag if anyone were to come in.
The quietness of the room vanishes with the frequent clamorous growls of the boy's stomach, but even with the absence of silence, the boy finds peace in his mind to quickly fall into a deep rest.
*
The boy slowly starts to wake up from his long rest and softly pulls his hand from under the blanket covering him to rub his eyes. He then looks at what was over him and sees his body completely buried under the red, white and black of the flag which he pulled from the pole during the cold night. Suddenly, the boy's face goes as pale as the outside snow and his body becomes completely paralysed in fear as he sees the open door and from it a strong, tall Man comes in with an axe on his hands. The Man approaches the boy with slow sharp steps with his heavy boots- the boy holds his breath- the Man stops half way and puts his axe on a table before leaving without ever looking at the boy. The boy sees the open door but instead of taking a risk, he covers his head with the blanket- and waits.
The heavy sound of the Man's boots pounding on the hard floor comes back into the room, a strong sound echoed by the sound of the shivering boy’s own heartbeat. Silence. For the first time the boy hears the Man's deep voice, "Here you go, boy!" said the Man with an odd playful tone, followed by the sound of the door being locked. When uncovering his head, he's smacked with a dry smell that makes his stomach growl like a dog. He explores the room and finds a metal bowl in the middle of the tiny room, which seemed to contain the source of the smell familiar to the scent of spices, but his attention turns to the open cans of pesticide, which he fails to recall if they were there last night. His eyes stare at the suspicious bowl and his stomach growls with despair, he bites his lip and eventually, he makes his decision and takes his first step towards the bowl.
Before he's able to move any closer, the boy hears small steps being taken from under a table where the Man left the axe and the poison cans. A furry head comes out of the dark and starts feeding on the bowl. The boy crouches as he watches the dog devour his meal, pieces of its food jump out of the bowl like stones spit from a volcano. The boy grabs his loud belly in an attempt to censor it, but the ever increasing growls grab the attention of the dog, showing little interest in the starving little boy. With a torturous, craving need to satisfy his hunger, the boy's hand fetches a tiny piece of food that fell on the floor. With his weak breath he blows on to it and rubs it with his fingers, trying to expel the dirt from it, but his coal black, dirty hands fail him on this task. The more his fingers rub, the more wet and sticky they become from the moisture left from the dog's mouth.
His hand slowly carries the little wet piece covered in dirt into his open mouth when he notices the dog attentively staring at the boy. Their eyes stay fixed on each other until the dog comes further out from the shadows and taps the bowl with his snout. Neither one moved for a long minute. The dog, again, pushed the bowl even further and the boy slowly comes closer to the dog and reaches for the bowl, leaving the tiny piece behind. It is still half full. The meal tastes better than anything ever served to him in the Camp. When the bowl is empty, the boy falls asleep while petting his friend, and during the night- he's warmed by its fur.
*
With the passing of days, the young boy and the old dog split every meal, no matter how small the amount- the dog ate half and left half. But eventually, the share of food comes to an end...
The peaceful music of laughter and giggles from the little boy is played in the little shed as he and his friend happily play together. But suddenly, the dog stops and stays completely still. The boy follows the dog's sight and turns around, he's face grows red, he sees the black figure of the Man blocking strong sunlight barging in through the open door. The Man immediately closes the door with all his strength as the boy runs to it. The boy uses all of his strength: pushing and pulling the door, kicking and punching- but even with his strength the door won't move. The boy falls onto the floor with his back to the door and tears in his eyes, he screams and hugs his legs for comfort. His friend comes closer, licks his tears and rests his head on the boy's legs. And they wait, together...
The boy wakes up with the sound of the lock being open and instinctively looks at the axe, but does not reach for it; waiting to see one of the Camp's Guards, he instead sees the man- holding a bowl in each hand.