By C. C. Parker

A young man sat on the edge of curb, the barrel of a gun buried deep in his mouth.  The end of it might have been touching his brain, and probably was.  A couple people walked past, but it didn’t seem to matter to anybody that the young man wished to wipe himself clean from the planet.

Finally, a scantily clad girl wearing a bow in her hair sat down next to him.  She lit a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke into the street. “Why you wanna do it?”

Even if he had anything to say, the barrel of the gun would choke off his words.

The girl, who incidentally was a street walker, looked at the way young man’s lips sealed tightly around the barrel of the gun.

“You can make a lot of money,” she explained. “A lot of guys go for that kinda thing.”

The young man took the gun out of his mouth. “What in the fuck are you talking about?”

“The way your mouth...”

“No.  I mean:  What in the fuck are you talking about?!”

“I...”

“Here,” he said, handing her the gun.

- - - - - - - -

Martin walked away from the woman in disgust.  Maybe if she’d offered something else.  Instead, she’d offered him a job.  A fucking job.

He walked through an alley toward home.

Once there, he was reminded of all the misery in his life.

“Only one person tried to stop me,” he told his cat, the only companion remaining in his life.

Stroking the cat’s backside, Martin began to weep.

- - - - - - -

There was a time when Martin had fit-in with the scheme of things.  He’d wanted a wife, a family.  He thought about buying a home. He loved his mother.

But one day the seams of that particular way of thinking began to unwind, and over years, the things underneath revealed themselves.  He began to start thinking about things like death, redemption, and whether or not there really was a God.  He began to question the very fabric that held reality together.

The scheme of the things wasn’t exactly what he’d expected.  An uneasiness began to gnaw him from the inside out, and he began to have irrational thoughts.  He started to see things differently than everyone else.

It made him feel like a God.

- - - - - - -

God’s died, thought Martin.  They don’t get married and start families.

He held the razor against his skin.  The cat leaned against the side of the tub.  “You don’t have to watch this,” he said, pressing the blade harder against his skin.

Martin’s cock twitched between his legs.  It didn’t matter how many times he tried this.  It always scared him.

How many times are you going to do this to yourself?

He looked at the cat. “Ronald?”

The cat padded out.

Martin made an incision up the length of his wrist.

Even God’s died.

- - - - - - -

Martin woke up in a watery pool of his own blood.  He felt weak, but he was by no means dead.

He got up and bandaged his wrists.  Randall rubbed against one of his legs.

It depressed him to think that he couldn’t kill himself properly.

He shouldn’t have given the prostitute his gun.  Probably didn’t use it anyway.

Just seemed like the longer it took, the more depressed he got.  Not that anyone one really gave a fuck.  Maybe they should kill themselves too.  None of them mattered anyway.  Not a single one.  Lousy fucks.

Martin looked down in the tub; at the thick, pinkish mess.  Sick.  And to think he’d once loved the world.  And to think that at one time he’d felt like he wanted to belong.

Pulling the drain, Martin sat on the toilet.  He grabbed his penis, which had blood drying on it.

“If I can live through another day, I can live forever,” he told his penis.

Suddenly, Martin was empowered by his words, but they quickly lost all meaning.  He instead began thinking of his mother’s womb and the dark quiet of dreams.

His heart softened, but it was no use.  He couldn’t even be sure that that’s the way things would be.

How could he?