Suicide - An Option I Flirted With

      I had been camping out in the back building since I ripped out the carpet in the main house. Minus a kitchen it was fairly self-contained. I stayed there because it was easier to have all of my stuff and it was better set up to allow me to sleep in a recline position. I had a lot of hand guns and weapons in the room with me. Feeling desolate I picked up one of my hand guns to play with. It was an Heckler & Koch nine millimeter semi-automatic hand gun, a one time favorite of the West German border patrol. It held sixteen rounds with one in the chamber. I thought about how easy and painless it would be I could just snuff my self out. I put my one gun against my temple feeling the circular end of the barrel. I pressed the barrel of the gun harder against my temple causing the thin layer of skin and tissue to dimple inwards into the interior of the barrel.

      I was weeping slightly at the mess my life had become as I was caressing the trigger just as I was ready to do the slow squeeze like I had been taught in boot camp. The fear of the gun recoiling enough to cause brain damage without death stopped me in my tracks. From experience I knew that the gun recoiled up and to the left. I put the gun in my mouth trying to situate the front of the barrel to the back of the soft palate until I could feel the tissue of the soft palate dimple inwards into the barrel I figured that the trajectory would go nicely and efficiently into my brain stem and limbic system which would give me the desired affect of death. As I tasted and felt the taste of gun oil coating my tongue I also was intently feeling the smooth and rough texture and sharp projections on different parts of the gun barrel. The length of the barrel was uncomfortably thick and large in my mouth. It was so thick that my teeth were clanging and scraping harshly on the special corrosion resistant coating on the weapon. I imagined the slide snapping back at the instant after I pulled the trigger. I pulled it out to again make sure that the round was chambered by pulling back the slide and as I thought but was not sure a round had already been in the chamber. “Only fifteen rounds in the gun now, a distant part of me mused. “Oh well, one is all I need”, my internal observer said. I put the gun back in my mouth, as my teeth scraped over the gun again I was very careful not to accidentally pull the trigger until it was situated perfectly. I had to focus on keeping my gag reflex under control, to keep from retching.

      I was just on the verge of doing the slow squeeze and an errant thought pushed forward. “What if a nine millimeter round isn’t enough, I wondered?” My internal observer said, “It could just go straight through making a tunnel in your brain tissue thereby not impacting enough tissue to do adequate damage.

      This last thought caused me to pause. I didn’t really know if that was true but that is what I thought. I thought about the prospect of being imprisoned on a heart and lung machine, unable to respond to questions, unable to communicate as my body withered away for years until the disease I imagine I had killed me. 

      I put the H & K aside and decided that the 44 caliber magnum would be the way to go. “No straight tunnel from that baby.” I thought. I reasoned that would blow out the entire top of my skull giving no consideration as to who would have to clean up the mess. I spun the revolving chamber around several times mesmerized by the clicking and whirling that is unique with a 44 caliber single action revolver. I put the barrel in my mouth and the thinner smoother barrel was a more comfortable fit. I pressed the barrel where I felt was the optimal ‘sweet’ spot until the flesh dimpled in. I reflexively bit down too hard and it hurt my teeth. Not so bad on the gag reflex I noticed.

      For the first time in years it occurred to me that I had not named my firearms after the women I cared for or didn’t care for as my Drill instructors told us we should if were good Marines. Honey was the name that I gave my M16 when I was in the Marines did not seem appropriate to transfer her over to my 44 caliber. “What name should I give the gun that would end my life?” I wondered, “Should she be a woman I loved the most, a woman I hated or betrayed me, or would it be best to name it after a woman that life and situation made bitter sweet?”

      I heard the gravelly voice of my Senior Drill Instructor, “You’re a sorry ass son of a bitch Chimera, and you call yourself a Marine?” “Some sorry ass poor excuse for a Marine you are!” I had not gone so over the edge as to believe that I was hearing voices, I knew another errant memory sprung forth. I wondered what would be my punishment for blowing my brains out. I pondered, “Would I still go to heaven if there was one, or would my punishment be the fiery hell of the bible?” “What about all of the things Neo and I had talked about?” Would I survive my body, or would I skulk around in a dismal plane of reality that the dwarf and others like him resided; or would I manage to ascend to what I experienced in Valley Forge?” I doubted that the latter would be my fate. 

      I thought, “Fuck it!” “The hell with God, the hell with heaven and hell, the hell with Neo and his neo-shamanistic voodoo new age almost all religions are the path to enlightenment bullshit!” I immediately felt guilty about think so harshly of Neo. I knew that just because he could not cure me, or because my life had gone into the dumper the fault was not his. I knew that he cared about me and he had tried to help me. I knew that I had not been entirely honest with him, I never let him know the extent of my suffering, even though I think he knew it was worst than what I had let on. I think that was why he volunteered to put me through some of his concoctions. I silently asked for Neo’s forgiveness and wondered what he would think once my body was discovered. I wondered what my friends and family would think.

      Once again, I said, “Fuck it!” and I pulled back the hammer of the gun and closed my eyes and commenced to do the slow squeeze for the last time. I heard my Drill instructor bark again, “You haven’t left your last will and testament asshole!” The phantom of his voice assertion galvanized me into the opposite action that I was a hairs pressure on the trigger from committing. I pulled the gun out of my mouth quickly, and I sat there in my reclined position that had become so familiar these past few years.

      I laid there, and I was shaking at what I had almost done. Not because I had almost killed myself, but because of my self pity and misery, I had almost forgot about my familial responsibilities before taking leave of this existence. I thought to myself, “You are one selfish pussy, wallowing in your own pitiful problems, and not a thought of your Mother and friends.” I knew I would have to attend to getting all of my affairs, financial and otherwise in order before I could finish the job I had almost done. I thought, “I have to figure out how to set up my Mother and friends before I go. I didn’t want to leave my business partners any worries about probate and undesirable relatives snapping at my estate.