c. 2003 · Short story — three endings, told flat.
“Come here, child.” The old man’s voice was solemn and grave. She walked closer to him. The candlelight did little to illuminate the room, and the shadows of the two people flickered ominously across the barren stone. She was more afraid than she had ever been before. He took another drink from the bottle of scotch. “Don’t be afraid unless it’s own my death you fear. If that’s so, then your fears have merit, for I shall die very soon.” He set the bottle down on the floor carefully, almost lovingly, as if he had found nothing else with which to place his affectations. Her mouth opened in a wide rictus of horror as he lifted the pistol from the floor and pressed the barrel firmly against his left temple. “Such is life. As the samurai once said, ‘A man is born crying. When he’s cried enough, he dies.’” He blinked the last of his tears from his eyes and wiped them tenderly with his free hand while he pulled the trigger so slowly it seemed an eternity to the young lady. The blast from the pistol echoed for an even longer amount of time in her ears, and the blood that sprayed from his shattered skull onto the wall spilled wetly to the floor and angrily flowed toward her…
Meanwhile, in another city, his son rose from his chair and walked into the kitchenette to pour himself a glass of water. With the weight of neglected responsibilities and indecision making itself felt in the pressure of the pulse at his right temple, he tilted his head back and laughed at the ceiling. His humorless chortling was obnoxiously and ominously loud in the apartment, and the man began to pace along the pattern of one of his Oriental rugs. Yes, no, maybe, sure, why not, definitely, absolutely not! What am I: sad, happy, angry, lonely, exhausted, unmotivated, afraid, suicidal, or what? A monkey escaped from his cage at the zoo and convinced an elephant to howl at the moon. The elephant did howl, and that was the end of the monk, the monk, the monk. But we always expected it to act that way, like it was always on some kind of trip. Whatever happened to convalescence? Did venom so easily reclaim its station? He craved a cigarette. I don’t really want one, you know. I don’t even want a drink. The smoke will just agitate my throat, and the drink will taste like crap and leave me wasted for the next eight hours. I just want to… I want to die. I want to turn myself off. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to read. I don’t want to be. So he picked up the syringe and injected its poison into his thigh. Twenty three days passed before the three corpses were discovered: the tenant’s and his two cats’. The cats had survived for two days on the man’s body but ultimately perished from dehydration.
Six teen-age friends left school one afternoon to go swimming at a local pool. They each died of electrocution when one of the underwater pool lights shattered and the fuseless circuit was exposed to the water. The only witness spent the evening at her favorite bar and eradicated the memory with booze.
Composed 2003 · part of the Short Stories collection · authorship documented on the Provenance page.