Suicide

Faithfully, as he had every Sunday morning for the past 22 years of his life unless overcome with sickness, Brandon sat in the front pew of the church he'd attended since birth. And like most Sunday mornings for the past few months, he was too lost in thought to hear another sermon about gathering the flock to the good Sheppard. Instead, he found his mind numbly stumbling over static and useless thoughts, like an old time radio buzzing through the white noise to occasionally find an old forties classic. He was desperately preoccupied with his own inner and physical struggles, his insides physically in pain from the mental abuse he suffered unto himself. Not that he could help it. Diagnosed bipolar manic depressive when he was 16, he shied away from medications and instead decided to suffer it all on his own.

And he was alone. For all it was worth, he might as well have been sitting in any old sordid church building, abandoned after the flock moved on and money became too tight to keep the doors open any longer. And perhaps it would have suited him better, the grey layers of dust and vacant aisles matching the inside of his figurative heart. No one in this building, not even the God they all prayed to, could touch him.

The piano started up, startling him out of his reverie to find everyone standing, heads bowed, as the preacher asked for closed eyes and open hearts, inviting any lost sheep to the front to claim God as their savior. Sheepishly he stood and bowed his head, closing his eyes. But, curious, he opened them just a tad just in time to witness one of the children approaching the good pastor. She was probably around 7, and he'd only just started seeing her at church recently. She always came with her grandmother, and vaguely he wondered where her parents were. In her hand was a lollipop her grandmother had given her to keep her quiet and occupied during the sermon. The pastor bent to one knee and his face was solemn as he spoke softly to her. She nodded her head a few times before bowing it with a sense of purpose and repeating whatever the pastor asked her to say in order to accept God into her heart. Head bowed over that lollipop, Brandon was struck with how innocent she was, how ignorant of the ways of the world. Her head was not muddled by the complexities of the grown up world. And he found in himself a carnivorous lusting to go back to a time like that, before he was running from bill collectors and scrounging for the money to keep the lights on.

As soon as the pastor had come off his soapbox, Brandon was up and out the door, racing to his car which he quickly started, threw in reverse, and pulled out of the parking lot before any of the other church members had left the big white building on the corner. He drove ten miles over the speed limit until he got home. Still in his Sunday best, he went to the bathroom and began filling the tub with warm water. Grabbing the straight razor his grandfather had past down to him, he slipped, fully dressed, into the water. His eyes found their focal point in a royal blue sock that had escaped him this morning as he'd tried to pick up his dirty laundry before rushing to morning service. It hid behind the toilet, and he wondered how something so vibrant, something that stuck out so easily against the white backdrop of the bathroom floor, had escaped his sight. Brandon began to wonder... How had he managed to escape the good things in life? He was a decent, God fearing man. He did his taxes and worked hard. And introvert though he was, he was very good around people and always tried to make everyone laugh and feel better. And in taking care of everyone else, those same people had forgotten to take care of him. And thus, a vibrant personality was lost in the dull backdrop of life.

What was the point? He was a college drop out making minimum wage at a greasy fast food joint. He was mediocre at best at anything he enjoyed doing. And he was alone... Hot tears of anguish welled up in his eyes and he swiped at them furiously, embarrassed at himself. He was a joke.

He didn't look as he did. A violent hiss escaped from betwixt his teeth at the slicing pain. But when he'd done it, he braved a look. Red began to swirl in the waters above his wrists and hands, forming intricate patterns. A shame, he thought, that only he would be the one to appreciate the beauty in this moment.