Suicide Note

Apparently, my work friend really likes writing prompts that are just a little bit morbid. So, here's another one she sent me not too long ago:

You find your own suicide note.

It is unmistakably in your own handwriting,

it is stained with what can only be blood,

and it is dated 3 days ago.

Then she had the audacity to write something based on her own prompt - and then I couldn't help myself. The story just sort of came into being without my permission. Here it is... well, part of it anyway:

---

“Hold on, I had it right here.”

“Sure.”

“Seriously.”

“You know, if you’d organize your - “

“It’s an organized mess, thank you very much.”

Papers started spilling off the desk onto the cluttered floor. Cleaning up was futile. Marie knew. She’d tried. It only took about a day or so before, once again, the place looked like it had been bombed. Or invaded by toddlers.

“Are you absolutely sure you had it here?”

“I swear it was here . . . I guess I could check the living room.” She dropped the stack of papers carelessly onto the desk and darted out the door into the hall.

Despite knowing it was no use at all, Marie stooped and started to gather the fallen papers into a neat stack. It honestly looked like Roni had never thrown anything away. There was a Wal-mart receipt, a doodle on a torn piece of paper, a random address on an index card, an old prescription, a smudged recipe, and . . . blood? Forgetting that she was cleaning up someone else’s mess, not snooping, Marie set the other papers aside and red the blood-smeared note.

Dear Roni,

I’m sorry. I can’t keep going like this. It hurts too much, and there’s really no reason to stay.

I know this will hurt you more than it hurts me, and I’m sorry for that. But I know you’ll get through it. You’ve always been stronger than me.

Really, it’s selfish of me to do this at all - it’s a relief to let it all stop. Just just let go. To escape from it all.

Once I’m outside of it all, I’ll see it more clearly. Assuming there is something outside of it all, anyway.

I think there must be.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Marie

At the top of the paper, a smudged date shows that the note was written three days ago, over the weekend when she and Roni had been texting each other constantly about the new guy at the bookstore.

The words floated through her mind, detached from anything, smeared with red-brown. “I know this will hurt you more than it hurts me, and I’m sorry for that.” Everything was a haze of incredulous disbelief. It wasn’t until Roni punched her arm that she came to, shaking her head to clear it.

“Hey, space cadet! Are you coming or not?” Roni’s pretty face was folded into a scowl, the line between her eyebrows more pinched than usual. Did her friend look worried, or was that just her imagination?

“Yeah, I’m coming. I just… sorry.” Marie stood up, and felt the note crackle in her pocket. When had she put it in her pocket? It couldn’t be real. It was a bad joke. A really bad joke. But it had been her own handwriting, and the blood - well, it might have been faked. She and her brother had found a mixture of barbeque sauce and ketchup diluted with water could dry to the right color, though the consistency was always wrong. And honestly, who would write a fake suicide note as a joke? That was just cruel.

“Hello? Marie?” This time, Roni’s fist knocked against her forehead, and Marie jumped a little. She hadn’t even realized that she’d spaced again. This time, there was definitely a worried slant to Roni’s eyebrows as she peered into her friend’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay? I know you’re a complete space case some days, but this is weird, even for you.”

“Where did you find this?” Marie pulled the note from her pocket, glancing down at the crumpled paper only briefly as she offered it to her friend. “It was in the stuff that fell off your desk.”

Roni smoothed the paper and read it like she’d never seen it before. Her face went sickly pale, then flushed, then paled again.

“This isn’t funny. Why would you write something like this?” Roni’s tone was confrontational as she looked up at her friend. Her short, dark hair seemed almost to bristle around her head, sticking out in all directions like an agitated hedgehog.

“What? No - I never saw it before just now. I want to know where you got it.” Her friend’s aggression seemed to startle Marie’s mind back into clarity. “I found it in the stuff that fell off your desk. Do you think I would lie about something like this?”

Roni pushed a hand through her short hair, smoothing half of her artfully messy ‘do away from her face. “Well… no. Doesn’t seem like you at all. But I don’t know where this came from. If it was in my stuff, someone else must have put it there, ‘cause I never seen it before.”

The two girls looked at one another over the note, tension humming between them like an electric current.

“Would your brother-”

“No. Besides, his handwriting is terrible.”

“But then, who would have?”

“I don’t know.”

“And if they would, how would they have gotten it in here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You could at least try to say something helpful.”

“I’m trying, okay?”

“Not trying very hard.”

“Look,” Roni gestured with the note, looking like she might burst into tears in a moment, “you’ve been weird lately, and I’m worried that you did something and you’re trying to cover it up by pretending you didn’t write this - or worse, you tried something and forgot about it because it nearly worked.”

Marie recoiled slightly. “But that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not hurt, and if that’s blood on the note, it can’t be mine, because I haven’t cut myself recently.” She stopped at the horrified expression on Roni’s face. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t shared the note at all. Roni was overreacting in a perfectly understandable way and wasn’t helping the situation in the least. “Fine. Look, I’ll take the note and go talk to my parents, okay? If you’re going to freak out about it, I’ll let you go make yourself some tea or a milkshake or whatever and calm down. I’ll text you when I have some answers.”

She reached for the note, but Roni pulled back a little, as though afraid to give it to her. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Show it to my parents. I just said that.”

“But, I mean… what are you really going to do with it?”

“Veronica.” Marie almost never used her friend’s full name, but she was being ridiculous. Her mind was clear now, but everything seemed sharp and painful - emotions, lights, colors, smells, sounds.

“Give me the note. I will text you. I don’t lie to you, and me finding a random note for a cruel joke isn’t going to change that.”

Reluctantly, Roni smoothed the paper out again. She snapped a picture with her phone first (paranoid) and then handed it over.

“Want me to drive?” she asked nervously.

Marie pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to relieve some of the pressure that was building in her skull. It was like there was too much in her brain for it to physically contain. “In your state, you’d probably run someone over because they looked suspicious. You can come along, though. I’m parked right out front.”

Both girls made their way to the front door, calling distracted goodbyes to Roni’s parents as they left. The car was exactly where Marie had parked, and on the street at the end of the paved walkway that led from the front door to the gate, which always stood partially open, because the latch was broken.

The car still smelled a bit like Chinese food. Marie slid into the driver’s seat while Roni emptied the passenger’s side of old receipts and empty paper coffee cups.

“Geeze. And you say my room is a mess?”

“I clean my car most weekends. That’s more than you can say about your desk,” Marie retorted, but she was distracted. The pressure in her skull just kept building, like she was getting the world’s worst sinus headache. She rubbed her temples. Allergies had the worst timing ever.

“Most weekends. Right. Hey, are you okay?” Roni’s attempt at normal humor fell away like soap suds sliding down the shower wall, and her anxious worry was back, stamped all over her heart-shaped face. Marie thought abstractly that Roni would be good in a movie as the girl everyone trusted because of her looks.

“Just a headache. Probably allergies or something.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look too good.”

At least Roni wasn’t worried about her trying to kill herself anymore. Marie lifted her head smiled a little, but Roni wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was staring past her, out the window, an expression of shocked terror on her face.

Marie turned. She expected to see an explosion, or a man with a gun, or a dinosaur about to eat her face or something equally horrific. What she actually saw was worse. A man. A lumpy-looking man, with spidery limbs that seemed to have more joints than they should have. A man in a black suit with a bowler hat and no face. A flat expanse of skin stretched from under his hat down to his chin. No eyes, nose, mouth, facial hair. Nothing.

The man reached through the window, which wasn’t open, with a hand that seemed to have too many fingers (or maybe not enough?) and pressed his fingers into her skull, like it was made of Jell-O instead of bone.

Congratulations. Your death was a success.

Marie wanted to scream, but when she tried, all that came out was a sort of breathless squeak.

Now, if you can survive rehabilitation, continued the voice that wasn’t a voice, your training can begin.

“Marie?”

Marie sucked in a ragged breath, her throat raw as though she’d been shrieking at the top of her lungs. She blinked, and her eyes felt dry, like they did when she’d been wearing her contacts for too long.

“Marie? Talk to me. Are you alright?” Roni shook her shoulder a little, looking frightened and worried. “You went all rigid and… but you’re okay now, right?”

Marie stared at her friend, then twisted to look out the window again. The faceless man was gone, or maybe he’d never been there to begin with… but it had felt so real.

“I’m… alright,” she answered faintly, and noticed that her voice was shaking. Her hands were shaking, too. She swallowed hard, and felt like she was going to be sick. “What just happened? Did you see that man? The… the one with no face?”

Roni jumped like Marie had stabbed her with a needle, and uttered a frightened whimper. “You saw him, too? I thought… I hoped it was just… me going crazy, or something.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

“No. What did he say?”

Marie told her friend about the words the faceless man had put into her mind (at least, she was 90% sure he hadn’t spoken out loud), and tried to calm herself. “I don’t know if I can drive, but I really, really want to go home.”

“We’re probably both having some kind of breakdown,” muttered Roni. “Let’s go back inside and call your parents. We can tell them when they get here. And if they ship us off to the funny farm, I get eternal ‘I told you so’ rights.”

“You can have anything you want, as long as nothing that freaky ever happens again.”

“Agreed.”