The Note

The Note

Note to self: Please don't make it sound pathetic.

Funny, a suicide note starts with a note. So, here it is. This is happening.

Maybe I should get myself a drink. It'll relax me. Help me loosen up, let the words flow easily. Maybe later, just before it is done. Right now, It’s too much effort to get out of the bed.

As soon as I’m done writing this note, I’m going to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills and sleep forever. I’ve never been much of a sleeper. In fact I have trouble sleeping. I hardly sleep, more so after i started living on my own. And when I do sleep, I sometimes choke on my own tongue. It gives me nightmares and i wake up with a cold sweat and cotton mouth. But after i'm done writing, i'm going to sleep, long and hard. This will be my final revenge against sleep.

I have often thought about killing myself. It always felt like the easier non-fussy way out. But i don't like the violence of it. There are times when i have stared at the ceiling fan for hours but never reached for a rope or a bed sheet to hang myself with. I have so many times looked at an approaching train but couldn't fling myself over. Guns are hard to come by, and if you do land yourself one, they make your exit swift but leave a very unappetising version of you behind.

If I die, it should be relaxing. That's the whole point of it. I am running away from the very life i chose for myself. The chaos and sadness of loneliness is what i  am running away from. So my last moments need not be of chaos, pain and struggle. Sleeping off the pills seems the best option. Though they say it can get messy. Your body has a natural tendency to protect itself. Put a substance in your body that it doesn't approve of and it tends to throw it out. Most people who die after consuming sleeping pills don't die in their sleep, but by choking on their own vomit. That wouldn’t make a pretty picture. Lying face down, drowning in the pool of my own vomit. But I’ll have to take that chance. talking of making a pretty picture, i should've cut my toe nails. They look coarse and uneven.

I hope i make a pretty corpse. I shall try to smile when i slip into coma. When my body starts shutting down, i hope i have my smile stiffened with other parts of my body. When they find my body, i should look happily sleeping. Smile on my face. Blanket over my toes.  

Maybe i should put on some music. maybe i should watch Raging Bull. I've always thought if i ever have a gun pointed to my head asked for one last wish, i'd know what i would want. I'd want to watch Raging Bull. But not now. That film fills me with hope every time i watch it. but then with me, hope doesn't last very long. A cigarette lasts longer than hope.

The Lady in Sympathy for lady vengeance had said, "everything should be beautiful. Even death." and i agree. Why does death have to be so pathetic. Why hardly there is any grace in it? you either die old, craggy and senile, or if you if you die young, it's always tragic. You never make a pretty corpse. I shall try to make one.

Nothing in life is romanticised more than misery.People feed on that sickness. Misery is sold across the counter. It makes platinum records, it runs to packed houses and screaming fans and autograph seeking mobs. One man's misery is another man's family vacation to Bahamas.  I don't want to romanticise it anymore.

The furniture seller I met yesterday said if I don’t call to seal the deal in a couple of days, he’s going to call me. Will he call? Will he be sad to know I killed myself? Will he be sad that he lost out on some business or will he be genuinely sad I died. He thought I was funny. He said so. I think he’s a good robust, hard working man who loves to laugh. I noticed he’s conscious of his tobacco stained teeth and looks down when he laughs, as if the joke's lying on the floor. maybe his wife told him he's got bad teeth. Wonder if she appreciates the hearty child like laughter he has. Women always like to tell you what you are not or what you could have been. When he hears I am gone, maybe at least, for some time, he won’t laugh at anything funny. Maybe he’ll light a cigarette and think about the conversation we had in those fifteen minutes at his workshop.

What a high it is to think that you’d be there in somebody’s mind even after you are not around. Maybe that’s why the great men and women do the great things that they do. Maybe most of them don't do it consciously, but they seal the deal, no doubt. But then the killers, the psychopaths, the mass murderers are remembered as well. If being remembered is a privilege, then you have a shot at it either way. it's people like me who are forgotten in a hurry. Hope my mother remembers me after i'm gone. I think she will. Though she has trouble remembering my name. She always calls me by my brother's. Well, unlike me, she has a choice. I can't call any other woman, mother. I wonder how she will remember me. Will she be embarrassed of me? hope, unlike others, she doesn't brandish me a quitter. Maybe it's too much to ask, but i hope she understands the choices i made. In life and in death. 

Who’ll keep my phone after I am gone. I think, mother should. Her phone is old and crappy. People often say I talk loud. They should hear me when I talk to her over phone. I have to shout my lungs out to be heard. I hope she doesn't call right now. Though how i wish this phone rang right now. If somebody just called to tell me that they went to watch a movie or a play, and they missed me there, how it reminded them of me. How they wished i was there, sharing that moment with them. Then maybe i won't feel this way. Maybe i won't kill myself. Aahh, the hope...

I should really get that drink now.