*** Ryan ***
I take off my hoodie and lay out all the supplies that I have bought from the local shops. There are hundreds of paracetamol tablets, razor blades, bleach, cell batteries, rope and notepad and pen.
I write letters to my mother, Melanie and Eva and tell them how each one was responsible for me ending my life. I tell each one how I felt unable to continue living after the way they abandoned me, humiliated me, and left me with nothing. I tell them how their cruel ways hurt me and left me feeling unable to cope.
I sealed each note into the envelopes provided by the hotel and set them on the table. I have absolutely no intention of actually killing myself, but they do not need to know that. I just need to make them believe they are the ones responsible for my ‘attempt’.
My cunning plan is to take a few paracetamols and scatter the rest around the room. Then I will make some superficial marks on my arms with the razor blades. I am going to pour bleach into a cup and on my phone, I am going to search if I can die from swallowing batteries, as well as the most effective way to make a noose.
I am looking forward to them all rushing to my aid; I can see it now. “Oh, Ryan, don’t kill yourself. We promise we will change, we will make it up to you for being bad.”
None of this would have been necessary if they had just shut the fuck up and let me leave with my money to start my new life.
As I grasp the rope, I cross it and fold it making a perfect hangman’s noose, and I can feel anticipation building inside me, almost like excitement in eagerness of the drama that will undoubtedly unfold once everyone realises what is ‘happening’. There will be a rush of sorry people all falling over themselves to come and remind me what a great guy I am.
I call the hotel reception and request a wake-up call for 7am, and then I send out scheduled texts and messages to everyone I know, telling them I love them and that I am ending it, I didn’t want to live anymore.
I drink almost half a litre of white rum and I snort up the last of my cocaine. The last thing I need is the police discovering my stash.
I wonder if I will make the news? “War Hero attempts suicide because everyone withdrew their love.” “Ex-soldier abandoned by wife after risking life for country”. “Driven to the brink by evil women.” “Selfish wife beds meatheads while hero husband serves in the war.” “War veteran robbed and abused by sex starved mother-in-law.”
They would tear Eva to shreds with their stories, and my mother, and Melanie, and even Rose: the whole bloody lot of them.
I hang the noose from the inside of the wardrobe but I don’t think it’s going to hold me convincingly to make people actually believe I’ve attempted suicide. It shakes and wobbles with my added weight and I think there is a good chance I will bring it down on top of me.
I move to the bathroom to try the shower rail instead and just to be sure I place a chair under my feet when I test my full weight on the noose. However, I slip when I drop my weight and kick the chair over out of my reach. The noose cuts into the skin on my throat, squeezing the very breath from me and constricting my windpipe so no more air can enter and leave. Stars appear in front of my eyes, as I desperately search for a way to escape the noose. I thrash anxiously and violently, but I cannot get out of the choke hold I have placed myself in.
My face fills with heat, and I feel popping inside my head, like my brain cells are fireworks. Frantically, I claw at the rope necklace that unforgivingly knits to my skin, making a home there.
My final thoughts are surprising, even to me.
Firstly, I remember my plans for Panama that are still open in the bedroom of my hotel room. That’s going to look weird to people investigating. So will the defaced photographs of Eva and her brat and Melanie, my parents, Rose, and my old friends. I didn’t have a chance to hide all that stuff yet.
Secondly, I amuse myself imagining the person who finds me and has to call an ambulance, they’ll get the shock of their lives. But I am sure being the one to find me will enhance their shitty life.
And lastly, when I start to realise that I might actually die, I cry for my mother as my bowels open involuntarily, noisily and malodorous. I guess it’s true that you shit yourself in fright. The thought of anyone seeing me with soiled trousers embarrasses me and makes me feel ashamed. I don’t want anyone thinking I always shit myself; this was an unusual occurrence. I am a man, not some waster who goes around crapping his pants! This is not going to be good for my image.
As diarrhoea trickles down my leg and into my socks and pools on the floor below me, my body starts to convulse. The pain is unbearable: literally choked by accident, my own wicked plan thwarted by me alone.
I swear I see the fires of hell as I finally succumb to my demise.