Perseverance
by Eric Hawthorn
The noose Bill hangs from the ceiling is of thick nylon, ideal for its durability and impossibly tight knots. While most would think that sufficient, Bill also has a 12 mm. surgical scalpel. He uses it to slice his wrists. Perched on his stepladder, Bill watches the skin of each wrist bloom apart, arteries draining. Then he steps off the ladder.
The noose jerks tight, pinching a roll of skin below his jawbone. He chokes and convulses above the floor, feet twitching about. Bill’s hands start to claw at the noose, to pull the rope off, but right at that moment his body goes limp. It’s the barbiturates. He took them earlier. All 27 kick in at once, having been chaperoned through Bill’s body by 12 shots of Southern Comfort. Then a syringe clatters on the floor. The syringe just injected 10 cc's of bleach. Bill’s put a lot of thought into this.
His slashed wrists spill blood across the garage floor. Blood gets on his car, which is still running, filling the sealed-up garage with carbon monoxide. Bill ingested rat poison, too, and there’s an assortment of plugged-in electrical appliances wrapped around his body. In case the rope breaks, a filled bathtub is positioned below him, so that if he and his electrical appliances fall — ZAP!
This is the most thorough suicide ever.
No doubt the Mexican street gang notices this thoroughness when they march into the garage. The Mexican street gang is here to finish him off — to make sure he isn’t just dead, but dead — except when they enter the garage with their .45s and TEC-9s, the carbon monoxide drops them before they can fire more than one shot, that one shot severing the rope just below the rafter and releasing Bill.
All the toasters and desk lamps tied around Bill’s body unplug themselves as he falls, precluding any sort of electrical death. The carbon monoxide quickly flees the garage and the chemicals in his bloodstream seep from his wrists into the splashing bathtub water, all those drugs and poisons oozing right out. Bill is in a bathtub full of clanking appliances and smeared blood. Dead Mexicans everywhere, but Bill is still alive. He stares at the ceiling and thinks, again?
Eric Hawthorn is a first-year MFA student at Naropa University. He has previously been published in The Tower and Gargoyle, small publications in his hometown of Philadelphia.
by Eric Hawthorn
The noose Bill hangs from the ceiling is of thick nylon, ideal for its durability and impossibly tight knots. While most would think that sufficient, Bill also has a 12 mm. surgical scalpel. He uses it to slice his wrists. Perched on his stepladder, Bill watches the skin of each wrist bloom apart, arteries draining. Then he steps off the ladder.
The noose jerks tight, pinching a roll of skin below his jawbone. He chokes and convulses above the floor, feet twitching about. Bill’s hands start to claw at the noose, to pull the rope off, but right at that moment his body goes limp. It’s the barbiturates. He took them earlier. All 27 kick in at once, having been chaperoned through Bill’s body by 12 shots of Southern Comfort. Then a syringe clatters on the floor. The syringe just injected 10 cc's of bleach. Bill’s put a lot of thought into this.
His slashed wrists spill blood across the garage floor. Blood gets on his car, which is still running, filling the sealed-up garage with carbon monoxide. Bill ingested rat poison, too, and there’s an assortment of plugged-in electrical appliances wrapped around his body. In case the rope breaks, a filled bathtub is positioned below him, so that if he and his electrical appliances fall — ZAP!
This is the most thorough suicide ever.
No doubt the Mexican street gang notices this thoroughness when they march into the garage. The Mexican street gang is here to finish him off — to make sure he isn’t just dead, but dead — except when they enter the garage with their .45s and TEC-9s, the carbon monoxide drops them before they can fire more than one shot, that one shot severing the rope just below the rafter and releasing Bill.
All the toasters and desk lamps tied around Bill’s body unplug themselves as he falls, precluding any sort of electrical death. The carbon monoxide quickly flees the garage and the chemicals in his bloodstream seep from his wrists into the splashing bathtub water, all those drugs and poisons oozing right out. Bill is in a bathtub full of clanking appliances and smeared blood. Dead Mexicans everywhere, but Bill is still alive. He stares at the ceiling and thinks, again?
Eric Hawthorn is a first-year MFA student at Naropa University. He has previously been published in The Tower and Gargoyle, small publications in his hometown of Philadelphia.
