I can tell the Wellbutrin is doing its job. This is the third individual item I’ve written in as many days, which I think may very well be more than I’ve written in the last year. I also have story ideas spilling out my ears, which is also something that hasn’t happened in a good, long while. That said, I do want to put a disclaimer right up front of this story — and a trigger warning — given the content of my last couple of updates. The story below is not in any way a reflection of my current state of mind. It is just a partial answer to a “What if…?” question that popped into my head a couple of days ago. Like most of my stories here, this is a Ficlatte piece and so is inherently limited in its length. It’s a vignette, if you will, of what could someday be a much longer story.
Death, Unstay Thy Hand
I have taken my own life more times than I can count. I have slashed open my wrists, bleeding out in minutes. I have fired bullets into my brain. I have poisoned myself. Stood in front of moving vehicles. Jumped from high towers. Drowned.
And yet, my body resolutely refuses to remain dead.
No matter how many times I die, no matter how many different ways, I always return. Sometimes in a matter of minutes. Sometimes within hours. Or weeks. The longest death I have experienced was eight months, and even then I returned. It is as though Death itself has evaluated me — and somehow found me wanting.
I have given up all hope. Life has become unbearable, and I can find no respite, no solace in it. What peace I had hoped to find has eluded me. There is no rest to be found even in those brief periods between life because, for me, they pass in an instant.
Death has stayed its hand, and so I live in everlasting torment.
