A short piece written about a loved one’s suicide attempt. 2003.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
“Is jesus going to come before the police do?” a stampede of swine grunting, squealing and snorting away from the long splinter-scarred finger of gods only child run whole-heartedly off the edge of a cliff. The creator of everything Ferrero Rocher and pneumonia, sits behind the belt-buckle tightened around Orion’s waist. The long wrinkled finger of a guilt infected old man leads a boys gullible gaze to the twinkling stars, winking and nudging the darkness. One finger towards god but four curled back to underline the butt of his cosmic joke. A shitty Korean car idles in a closed garage. A special snorkel from exhaust to cracked window helps the old man understand the punchline. The swine fall through the roof before the chicken can get to the other side. The stars wink and nudge the darkness. “Is jesus going to come before the police do?”
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
There was a calm in the crowd. That moment the lights flicker, signifying everyone to take their seats. Moments before there were members of the audience everywhere, in the aisles, restroom lines and mezzanine bar. Now they gingerly took their seats and made themselves comfortable. It was a professional crowd, each one doing their part to create a cohesive beast of attention.
He stood, stage right, peeking out of the curtain, watching them. Some opened the programs, others sipped drinks and in the balcony, a few focused their binoculars. They were nearly ready.
He looked down at his wardrobe; adjusting the lapels of his jacket, straightening the collar, un-ruffling his pants, and straightening the noose around his neck. Tonight’s performance would be his first and last. All 23 years of his life led up to this moment.
In the general public, out there where the world communicated in double-speak, entendre’s, metaphors and straight lies, his act was intolerable. Why would a healthy young man of 23 with nothing but future ahead of him take his own life? Why? Why? Why?
The stage would be his answer. He would deliver a monologue explaining his life, experiences, doubts, fears and perceptions. He would be joined on stage periodically by doctors, lawyers, therapists and his own parents. They would ask him questions and he would respond honestly. Then, after he’d make his exit, the audience would have an answer to the question of why, while staring at his swaying corpse.
The idea was that those viewers who accepted his answer may be closer to their own little productions than they would like to admit. And those who still did not understand were either in denial or what the actor playing the psychologist might say “in a healthy state of mind.”
Taking one more breath, he waited for the lights to dim and the spot to shine on the step stool center stage. No music, no sensationalism, just light and then darkness.
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Lemuel picked up the ring on the table, size 4 finger. It had fit for a while, then in the middle of their marriage she had gained some weight. After much struggle she was able to slide it off. Butter, go figure. When she slimmed down again, the ring was back on for a week but came off again. A lot of things became off after she lost weight. Lemuel’s base instincts knew something else was off.
Then a few months later, like a bad movie, he found the evidence that became the catalyst to their divorce. She would meet others, Lemuel didn’t know them. She wouldn’t answer the phone. Lemuel couldn’t sleep. She never slept with him. Lemuel puffed out his chest and stuck out his chin as if it didn’t matter, but there was too much darkness down deep to keep pretending his confidence came from the light.
Lemuel tried, for a while, to pretend it didn’t bother him. He reached out to friends, family and without telling them what was going on, pretended to have a change of heart that bent towards connection. Really he was trying to fill that new crevasse that had split him open after the earthquake of her absence.
Because he had reached out to loved ones, they began reaching out to him. But the darkness was taking over, even if he didn’t realize it. One day he was in its shadow and the next he was swallowed whole.
After a night of hard drinking, Lemuel loaded his dog into the car, grabbed some clothes and food, and drove in one direction. East. East would let him drive farther, too far west and he’d need a boat. Too far North or South and he’d need a passport. All things he didn’t have the capacity to deal with.
He stopped. There were rows of wooden cabins that looked like something gold miners during the rush of early California days would build quickly to sustain them for sleep and food. An inn that allowed pets and plenty of space from one room or cabin to the next.
Lemuel paid for a week and moved all his things into the room. Keeping the dogs in the air conditioned inside, a detail that he was thankful to be added, despite it’s historical gold rush inaccuracy. Lacing up his boots, grabbing a bottle of Bulleit Kentucky Straight Bourbon whiskey, or what he referred to jokingly with his ex-wife as his dancing shoes. And so Lemuel laced up his dancing shoes and waltzed into the desert.
Taking shade in an outcropping of boulders, Lemuel rested. A pain emanated from his stomach. When he pulled up his shirt, he saw something moving underneath his skin. Always carrying a pocket knife, but rarely using it, Lemuel found the perfect opportunity. He flipped open the knife and poked his stomach where the bulge had emerged. The stab hurt, but it was a duller, less urgent pain. Sure the blood would run and he might feel faint, but it wasn’t the sort of pain that wrapped his head and heart in butcher paper, pounded by a tenderizer 24/7.
The bulge emerged at his side, between his last bottom two ribs. He poked and dragged the blade, this one made him wince, but nothing came out. However, he did feel a small sense of release which also felt like relief. He stood up and wandered back to his cabin, wondering what HBO might have on their station this evening.
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
There is an angst that comes with the threat of suicide. Not one’s own, but that of one someone loves. It’s jarring. I love you so much so why would you not love yourself? That’s the question I find myself asking. Where will you go? If you are away from me, what will I do? Where will I be? How much time will it take me to get back on the path of “being okay”?
If I allow anyone to rotate around my axis, to be my moon and stars, how long will it be before they leave me? What have I been doing or not doing that removes them from my orbit? I am not the center of the universe but I like to gaze at the other stars, moons, planets and suns that grace me with their presence.
Don’t leave me. You’re light refracts from me. It reflects from me. I enjoy it’s rays coming to and through me. If your light is not there I am afraid of the darkness that will take over. I may find a new light but it will never uncover the shadows you have left.
A few have left me. A few leave everyone. Confused and contemplative of where we are left when those we love go away, whether from time or death, we stay and think. So I am here thinking.
I do not know where my crystals have gone. What will guide the light towards me when they are gone? When you are gone?
To punch the truth in the nose, why do some of my friends message me via text and never respond? “Hey, let’s hang out!” “Okay, what days and times work best for you?” I reply. But there is never a reply to mine.
Where will you go if you are not with me? Am I not adequate enough? because I feel that you are adequate enough for me, more than adequate. I love you but you leave me. So what do your words mean when they don’t match your actions?
A kitchen knife down the veins of a forearm. A car sitting idle in the garage. A man swimming out as far as he can to make sure he can’t swim back to the sand that grounds him.
A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.
by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
Her razor blade was still on the nightstand, dried brown with blood. There was water running, the shower, she must have turned it on to hide any sound. What sound, I didn’t know, but then again suicide is often uncharted territory if done correctly.
I put her clothes from the hospital in the hamper and sat on the bed. What were all those forms I needed to fill out? What were those phone numbers I had to call? Why did I put her clothes in the hamper?
I stood up, compelled by the only instinct, I knew. I headed down to the cellar and grabbed the first bottle of wine on the rack, not bothering to read the label. I suppose it wasn’t instinct, simply learned behavior.
I pulled off the label, twisted into the cork and popped it open. Red wine. Whiskey would be better but I was able to hide my learned behavior behind a hobby of wine collecting. Maybe that was one of the reasons that compelled her to leave. One of many, I guessed.
I went back to the room. No glass, just the bottle. I laid in bed. I need to fix that baseboard it’s loose. She had pointed it out. I never got around to it. Probably never would. Perhaps that was one of the last remaining forms of communication between us. A shared responsibility for the house. Without that, what was the house?
I turned and saw the razor blade still poised on the edge of the night stand. I imagined it had just been used and looked down to see the crowns of blood on the floor below it. What had that felt like? Sitting here, hiding from me, wanting to escape, not just this home but everything. There wasn’t a single place she would have rather gone, could have gone other than to that unknown place that hovers like a stick behind us. Or maybe in her case, like a carrot dangling in front of us.
A deep emptiness seemed to push all else out of my stomach. A pit so vast I couldn’t drink fast enough to fill it. The emptiness forced tears out of my eyes and shaking so violent I double over, gripping my pillow. It pulled my face in all directions, contorting my mouth into ugly cries. There was a deep hole and would not be filled again. Never.
What did it feel like to sit here, shower running and cut into the veins of the wrist? To cut so deeply that the blood rushed out like a crack in a dam. What sort of emptiness was that? Or was it exactly like my own. An agonizing look into nothingness.
I grabbed at the razor blade, spilling my wine. What sort of emptiness did she feel? That woman, that once called herself mine. My woman. A woman. What did it feel like?
Janine’s phone was off. It was never off. I
only found out because eventually her father answered the house phone.
“She cut her wrists with a
knife or razor blade or something. Anyway, she’s fine she just needs some time
away from everything.”
I could have crushed his frail ribs with my
fists. That naïve–
“Where is she?”
I didn’t care to filter my anger. Sometimes
reality forces its hand despite our best efforts.
“At the BMC”
I hung up. No more wasted breath.
#
I walked in the front entrance of the
institution where crazy lived. Outside crazy was called normal. Inside it
smelled like rubbing alcohol. In the waiting room, everyone’s hair was shiny
and thick. The bags under their red eyes reminded me of how I felt every
morning.
I walked up to the plate-glass window and
spoke softly.
“Is there a Janine Ibsen
here?”
“Yes, may I ask who is
asking?”
I faltered. I imagined one of her parents requesting to see her and the
nurse saying, “you’ll have to wait until her boyfriend is out.” I chose the
path we had already paved.
“A good friend.”
“One moment, please.”
Janine and I had been dating for over a year,
but the situation felt so foreign.
“Put this on, walk through the
double doors all the way down the hall and when they ask for a number tell them
0147.”
I put the fluorescent green sticker on my
shirt and walked. I thought about what I
might see when I found patient 0147.
Jesus! It’s Janine. I almost vomited at that thought. I pictured her
feigning a frown at me after one of my farts. I really got a kick out of that.
I should have treated her like a lady. Then I thought about her tiny wrists
looking like raw hamburger meet. I
reached the locked doors and the buzzer spoke.
“Patient number please.”
“Um, hold on.” Shit. “Oh yeah,
0-1-4-7.”
The buzzer sounded and I jumped at the door.
Janine’s mother was crying in the hall. She
looked up and came over to hug me.
“It’s okay.” I said hugging
her back.
I felt awkward for telling such a bold lie. I
knew how she was feeling but I didn’t give a shit. Her sadness started to make
me angry and I asked her where Janine was. She didn’t answer.
“Can we pray together?” I
ignored her and walked to the nurse’s station.
“Which room is patient 0147
in?”
“Her name?”
“Janine Ibsen.”
Why give me the fucking number?
“She’s in room 31 down the
hall on the left.”
I thanked her and started down, passing her mom, I heard her again.
“Can we pray together?”
What the fuck was pressing our hands together
supposed to do? I picked up my pace acting as if I was anxious to see Janine.
The pounding in my chest told me I wasn’t acting. Sometimes reality really has
a way of forcing its hand.
Room 27…
…29…
…31.
I took a deep breath and knocked softly with
one knuckle. I didn’t wait for an
answer. I brushed the door open. Their she sat, in a chair with her arms
bandaged and facing upwards. Her black curly hair twisting all around her head.
Her eyes squinting slightly, shifting back and forth. She looked as if she were
trying to solve life’s mysteries. I melted.
“Hi baby.”
I walked over and sat on the bed next to her
chair.
“I love you. How are you?”
I had asked this question in passing to
thousands of people but for the first time I meant it.
She answered slowly. I was aware of my
silence and touched her leg. She looked up at me, then right back down at the
floor before making her thoughts audible.
“All of the questions are just
distractions. The deeper the question, the cleverer the distraction. What’s on
TV? What should I wear? Who am I? Is there a God? If life were just a fart,
would death be the wind?”
A burst of air shot through my nose. I squeezed her leg and realized that I had never loved anyone more.
Whilst making a living... 