THE EIGHTH TIME

Chapter 3

Heartless

The walk back home I spent it my thoughts jumping from well literally jumping off a cliff and the hot blond new girl.

              Males are simple creatures really. We want to see the girl naked, that’s all it amounts to. Girls have these weird messed up fantasies, like doing the deed in the boy’s locker room–I do listen to conversations around me in class. Clearly only a girl would think of doing it in the guy’s locker room, the origin of the awful stench coming from our sport bags. There’s contentment in nudity. Give me nudity and I’m happy. It should be a club. I should start a club with that as a slogan and sell shirts saying that “All you need is nudity to be happy”.

              What was I even saying? Starting a club? A nudity club wouldn’t need shirt and I wouldn’t even be alive tomorrow anyway…

              That’s when it really dwelled on me… I was going to kill myself today.

              I had found the means to end my life, one that was clearly not going to hit me in the back of the head like that goddarn rotten pillar.

              Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I don’t trust wood anymore.

              I wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about this. There was some sort of happiness of course, relief because I finally knew what I would do… but there was something else.

              Doubt?

              Did I doubt? How stupid? There was no need to doubt. Why was I even alive anyway? There was no reason or greater purpose. I was useless and pathetic and stupid and no one really cared about me. I wouldn’t leave anyone heartbroken.

              Alright, sure, my mom wouldn’t be happy-jolly about the whole thing but she would get over it. She barely noticed me at home anyway. Who knows, maybe that could bring her close to dad again…

            My house came into view faster than I had time to realise it; I was far away in my thoughts. The house was empty, obviously and so was the content of the fridge.

             I could bet my liver that mom wouldn’t have bought grocery when she’d get home. She was a creature of habit. She was never home, always working late, she never did the groceries and she never cared. I mean, yes she cared… but she didn’t care at the same time… she was out of it, so to speak.

              I couldn’t decide what to do with my last few remaining hours, all alone. I would wait for mom before going off to kill myself, to say goodbye at least.

              Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I’m not completely heartless.

              Actually that was the thing though. I was kind of heartless. I had nothing to truly care for. I didn’t care about school enough, or my friends enough, or my family enough. I didn’t care about me enough, about life enough. I didn’t care. My heart loved nothing.

              That sounded bad coming from a guy…

              Maybe I should try not to think too much before going off to off myself.

              I sat down in front of the TV. I took paper out, thinking about writing some kind of suicide note, to explain, but I had nothing important to say really. How pathetic and useless was I? How meaningless was my life that I didn’t even have anything to write in my suicide note?

              Mom got home around seven. Arms full… of files from work. My stomach was killing me from lack of food. Honestly if I wasn’t killing myself I could die in my sleep of starvation or something. Maybe I could feed on my own bowels.

That was gross.

            Mom barely noticed me when she got in, heading straight for the counter to drop her overtime files. I followed, not saying anything.

              This was actually one of my favourite parts of the day.

              “How was school son,” she asked in an exhausted tone.

              Aw, I’m already rejoicing inside.

              “Great.” I smiled wide even though she wasn’t looking at me. “I had an epiphany in biology while staring at the new girl’s breast and I don’t want to celebrate too soon but I’m pretty confident I found the cure to cancer. And I might be in love with an alien that sole purpose of existence is to feed on my bowel. So great day, great day.”

              “Well don’t worry about it son. You should see the girl I met today… her father left her at a…”

              And there she was, off to ramble about some poor child who had it a thousand times worse then me.

              Again, I wasn’t completely heartless, I knew I should feel pity for those people and not bad about myself, but after only hearing about them for seventeen years, you get your fill at one point.

              My mother and I didn’t really connect on any levels to be truthful. I think I realized that the day she made me sit with her and watch her favourite movie, ‘The man from the Snowy River’

              That was an agonizing way to spend a hundred and two minutes.

              She used to watch it all the time, especially after her and dad fought. She would take ice cream out and cry when the father died but after the divorce her technique changed and instead she just watched it and screamed at the screen, “Die you slimy bastard!”

              That movie was painful to watch and not in the “it’s so sad that I’m in pain” kind of painful, no the “I die a little bit inside each time I see it” painful.

              After mom finished ranting about her new lost cause, she sat in front of her files, not even bothering to look in the cabinets to realize they were freaking empty.

              Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I’m a teenager boy so if you haven’t realized by now I kinda need to eat my own weight of food every day.

             Why was I even bothering? I grabbed a couple of crackers that were so old they started to be soft and not crispy, shove them in my hoodie’s pocket and headed for the door. But right before I left, I grabbed the piece of paper I had been staring at, scribbled an “I’m sorry”, left it on the table by the entry and closed the door behind me.

            I looked a good last time at the house before leaving. This house had been all I ever knew, a small one story high place, painted in a fading olive green, door and window frames in white. The yard was decent size; we didn’t live in a big city so we weren’t packed beside our neighbours. One thing I liked about it was the little walk in grey rocks that lead from the front door of the house to the sidewalk. When I was younger I used to jump from one rock to another, thinking that if I touched anything but the rocks I’d fell in the water and with the piranhas.

            With my hand deep in my pockets, squeezing the crackers, I jump from one rock to another—it was way easier to do while older with longer legs—all the way to the sidewalk and begin my slow journey to my death.

It was weird to think that everything I was seeing right now and experiencing I was for the last time.

            I breathed in deeply the smell of the late summer wind, already getting colder, and enjoyed the sun slowly setting. If I kept my pace I could jump right before the sun had completely set. It could make my death beautiful in some way.

            How weird was it that I was craving beautiful things, meaningful things right before dying?

At least I was definitely all cool and compose, and surprisingly more accepting than I had anticipated. I mean after so many failed attempts you were kind of bound to have your worries.

             Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and for some reason I think Death doesn’t want to take me in.

              Now that I was out of the house and away from my mother I was strangely at ease. Like I was finally finding my peace. It was a nice feeling.

              Honestly, the thing that saddened me the most about dying at this point was the fact that I’d die a virgin. It was kind of sad in a way… maybe I could buy a whore or something before I jumped… or just die like some kind of saint. That was why people became saints right? Because they never got laid before they died? Or because they got pregnant without getting laid? Either way I’m sure there was laying factor in there.

              At this point I had reached Green Pines Park and I was walking in the dirt trail that lead to the observatory close to the site where there was a cliff that if you fell from it, it was mathematically impossible to survive.

              The wind was shaking the leaves, to fill in the silence around me. Everything felt quiet, eerily quiet. Maybe it had something to do with the… closure feeling really, I was having.

              I took my time to reach the cliff, throwing the crackers on the ground. Birds could feed from them, I wouldn’t keep them in my pockets, because I wouldn’t eat them and that just screamed attracting more vultures or creepy birds to come feed on my corpse.

              Hmm… I hadn’t thought about the animals eating my dead skin factor… Oh well… I would have to cope with it.

              When I got by the cliff, I looked around. The view was nice. Mountains in the distance, park behind, deadly cliff down…

              I didn’t want to linger too much… Lingering would mean second guessing and I had enough time to think this through, enough tries to know this was all my life amounted to.

              I easily went over the fence around to protect from falling—I was surprise that there weren’t more warning signs after the incident…

              Holding on to the wooden fence behind me, my fingers curling around it, I took a step closer to the edge of the cliff, kicking little pebbles, watching them fall.

              Deep breathe, I could do this. Would it hurt?

              I took another step, the tip of my shoes hanging over the emptiness, still holding on behind me.

              Deep breathes.

              I closed my eyes and I let my mind wander one last time, on what my life had been—crappy really—thoughts about my family when my parents were happy together—if they ever had been really—I thought about the good moments with the guys because there had been a few… I thought about the hot blond alien chick. I would die without knowing her name…

              Soon it would be over and I wouldn’t be thinking anymore, I wouldn’t feel this useless and hopeless and meaningless anymore. It would all go away. My heart wouldn’t feel so hollow. I would cease to exist.

              I took a final deep breathe, the fingers of my left hand unwrapping from around the fence.

              “If you plan on jumping at least make it worth it and back flip!”

              What the…