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| Courtesy: madamenoire.com |
Today’s
Prompt:
You are helping out at a charitable center by
organizing donated items. When searching through an old suitcase, you find a
suicide note dated six months prior. What’s peculiar is that you know the
person. What’s even more peculiar is that the person is still alive. Write the
story about what happens when you pay that person a visit and ask him or her
about the note.
Word Count: 2,039
I can’t stand what’s happening to me.
I’m stuck in a rut and I have not the slightest idea how
to wrest myself from its grip. I don’t understand it at all. I have a very strong
urge to put the blade of a knife to my guts and slit it wide open like lips
stretched in an unnatural grin. Yet, I do not understand why my faculty leans
toward the suicidal. I’m not suicidal by nature.
I got my career on course, my life on point. I got a
wife, two kids and a promising future still…
What is happening to me? Sometimes, I feel like Atlas
trapped under the weight of the universe but this is not a burden I wish to
carry.
This note is addressed to whoever cares to read it
when/if they find it.
I am a man of forty-five, educated and ordinarily,
cheerful and high-spirited. All that was before a few hours ago when I
discovered this note.
Now, I can’t stand what’s happening to me, anymore. I feel
an irresistible impulse to terminate my existence through one of the most
gruesome methods. Yet, I don’t seem to be in charge of my mental functions.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
Kenam
(/kay nam/) retrieved a collapsible chair from a corner of the spacious room
and collapsed into it. He didn’t know what to make of the note. So far, it’s
failed to strike a chord. How does one tell if the suicide exhibited purposive
behavior or if an outer force compelled him/her? All the same, what kind of
cohesion could he expect to find in a note that narrates how its author took
his own life? Kenam could give no appropriate answer to his own question. Besides,
this was his first time of reading a real
suicide note (he’d read lots of it in Lovecraft’s and Stephen King’s stories) and
he’s never had cause to craft one. God forbid he should ever require writing
one.
The
other volunteers were busy packing and unpacking items from trunks either as rusty
as the one where he had fell upon the note in his hand or a tad too rusted. The
whole place was understandably, messed up and to boost, it was a wild party. There
was as much excitement build-up in the house as should be expected at a charity
function.
Kenam wondered if any of his fellow
volunteers had hit jackpot; laid hands on something of true worth as his
discovery. He did not feel like sharing his find with anybody, for now. In
spite of that, he was a bit restless about proceeding to the end of the note
and witnessing the death of a
troubled soul. Had the deceased’s or suicide’s family sent in his belongings? Why
had they not noticed the note tucked away in the old shoebox?
A
chill ran down his backbone like dewdrop careening down the spine of a blade of
grass, as a thought flashed through his mind that he could have been the one Fate
or God or whoever was in charge of things like this, intended to rescue this
fellow. He was probably occupied living inside a bottle at the time, a
prototype genie of the beer bottle. Kenam had not touched a bottle since his close
shave with death five months ago. He’d been the definition of the word alcoholic. Cattle, which fell out of a
truck ahead of his vehicle, reduced the impact that with all probability, would
have issued him a pass into the next life. As an upshot of this event, Kenam
has had a battle on his hands every time he had soup primed with cow meat.
Realization
dawned on Kenam who only then fully grasped how his old self had been slowly
but with no less degree of intensity writing his own suicide note. One bottle
at a time. And he escaped by a narrow margin not because he thought suicide was
not an option and then tore up the note but because…
“Because of the innocent cattle
that was never meant to be there, in the first place,” he said aloud. His head
was bowed and he observed a drop of tear wet the page held out in his hand.
“It’s so weird I was so deep
into how extreme the suicide must be, taking his life; I totally forgot to mend
my own ways.” He cracked up. It was the sound of apprehension turning in for
home.
Kenam
started discarding the paper, then a bolt of inspiration shot through him like
electricity. He flipped the page and looked up the name of the author of the
note. What he saw knocked the air out of him like a one-two punch to the middle
section. The name was familiar. It was signed Duno
Abasi.
(/doo nor/) (/abbacy/)
“Is this weird or is this weird?” Kenam scoped the wide and high
of the room expecting to pick up somebody hiding in the shadows, only there was
really no shadow in the well-lit room, and eyeing him with a smirk spread the
breadth of their faces. Only the brief, quick, side glances other volunteers
tossed him every now and then. “Whoever is playing this dirty prank ought to
know better.”
“Something bothering you, Kenam?”
It was Marguerite, the coordinator. “You look totally…”
“Beat?” Kenam filled up the gap
for her.
“No, just troubled like low-key worried.” Marge as the volunteers called her
stepped up to Kenam. “What’s with the stationery?”
Kenam
barely had time to fold up the note and tuck it away in his pants pocket before
Marge glimpsed its content.
“Ugh, ugh, private waters, Marge.
You don’t wanna know, trust me.” He feigned a smile. He made a terrible job of
it and he knew.
“Alright. If you say so,” Marge said,
smiling sweetly but obviously not buying into Kenam’s variety of trash.
“It’s nothing serious, Marge. I’m
cool, seriously.” Then he added, “Look, Marge, something urgent just came up.
Can you guys hold forth for a few minutes? I gotta run; I won’t take long.”
“Oh, go on, Kenam and take your
time,” Marge said. “We’ll manage. By the way, we’re almost done here.”
“You’re an angel, Marge.
Thanks.” And just like that, Kenam, the former alcoholic was off on personal
errand. Kenam was about to uncover what might be the most shocking secret of
his life.
The
house was a blend of sea green and dark yellow on the outside. Kenam found a
parcel on the back porch, picked it up and rang the doorbell. He heard
footsteps shuffling on the other side, chances of his host being home were
high. He seemed to be in good spirits, too. Kenam heard the jingle of keys and
then a click as it threw the lock. He heard a latch slide off and as the door
creaked and opened a crack, he thought, what
if the man who was opening the door to his house for him and the author of the
note were not the same person? What
if this Duno Abasi knew zilch about
those last words?
In
his panic, Kenam considered changing the purpose of his visit. The words, I came to see how you were getting along,
played behind his lips and for a brief moment he was tempted to utter it. He
waved it off and decided he was prepared to face the consequences of his
stupidity if he had judged wrong. He didn’t leave those guys at the charitable
center and come all the way down there for nothing.
“It won’t hurt to know the
truth, if I can hel…”
The
door opened and a tall, well-groomed man in his late forties stepped out into
the May sunlight.
“Hey! Kenam, what have you got
there?” He gestured to the parcel wedged in Kenam’s armpit. “You didn’t tell me
you worked as a FedEx dispatch.”
Kenam
grinned. “It’s your mail or whatever. I picked it off your porch on my way up.”
He shoved the parcel into Duno’s hands. “Hello, Duno.” Kenam offered his hand
and Duno took it. The men shook hands briefly.
Inside,
the house was cool. Thanks to the tree-planting gig Duno had performed several
years earlier.
“Look, Duno.” Kenam wasn’t
smiling anymore. And he was in a hurry to get it over with before cold feet set
in and ruined everything. He had his speech ready. “I didn’t come here to dick
around with you and besides I got to get back to the charity, they need me.”
“The charity.” Duno cut in. He didn’t
sound like he heard the ice in Kenam’s voice. “How’s the charity going?”
“It’s good, Duno. Great,
actually but…”
“Go on, take your seat. I’ll
fetch you a cool glass of water…”
Kenam
could sense the claws of panic clogging his lungs up. If he indulged in this
conversation any longer, he’d toss his chances. It was either now or never.
“Did you try to kill yourself
about six months ago?” he blurted it out with his eyes shut.
Duno
was visibly shaken but maintained his calm and said nothing. He stood in the
middle of his living room staring at his guest. Kenam could read a thing on his
face. It was a blank.
Kenam
broke the awkward silence. He was almost sorry he came. “I’m sorry I had to be
blunt about it but I thought if I didn’t spit it when I did…”
“Don’t worry.” Duno raised his
palm. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”
Kenam
reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and shoved it into
Duno’s hand.
“Here, read this.”
Duno
did not pick the note out of Kenam’s hands. He only stood there staring at the
note like it was an exquisite piece of artifact that suddenly popped out of
thin air.
“Ain’t you gonna read it? Are
you just gonna stand there like a statue? I came because I want answers, Duno.”
“I know what it says. I scribbled
it.”
Kenam
didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He sure as heck did not feel relieved. It
wasn’t what Duno did say as what he didn’t say. Kenam never contemplated the
answer would be such a bitter pill to swallow. Besides, a deeper part of him
had been secretly wishing that his mentor–the man who wringed him off the neck
of a bottle–would answer in the negative.
Kenam
slumped into the couch with an audible plop. His strength drained out of him.
Duno
observed Kenam’s perplexity with a twinge of amusement. “Come on, don’t take it
out on yourself, Kenam. It was designed to be a harmless prank. Nobody was
supposed to get hurt.
“About six months ago, an old
friend from my high school days was visiting and I remembered how we used to
play practical jokes on each other back in school. So, I scribbled a suicide
note and made it look as real as it could get. I even turned over some
furniture you know, for maximum effect.”
Duno
saw the question in Kenam’s eyes before the other man said a word.
“I know you’d like to know if my
game really panned out. The answer is no. Of course not, I should have known
better. The son of a gun sniffed out my plan 100 miles away. I’d left the door
open a crack. The fool let himself in, got the note and after he read it he
bellowed, ‘You may all come out now. 911’s not coming. Your number is up.’”
Duno brayed laughter. Kenam was too numbed by anxiety all he could do was sigh.
“But look who eventually, got
played. You know, I thought I lost that note where’d you find it, Kenam? In one
of the stuff I donated to charity?”
“It was tucked inside your old
shoebox.”
“In an old shoebox! Who would
have thunk it? Miracles still happen,
I guess?”
“Yes, they do,” Kenam said,
rising up off the couch. “If only you knew how much a little prank has opened a
man’s eyes to see the error of his ways.
Eneh Akpan
June
10, 2013
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