This story contains mentions of suicide. If you are triggered by such things, I recommend not reading.
At 6:30 exactly Arthur Kirkland tossed an immaculately tied rope over the bar in his closet.
I'm not sure why he did it, but he did it anyway, and asking why won't really change anything.
He got mad at his chair's wheels for clinging to the ground, catching onto imperfections in the wood and holding him back from what he really wanted, inanimately adamant at his survival. He kicked it forward in the end and it gave up, rolling into the cavern of murk just ahead, bumping against the wall, rummaging an empty house and an empty soul.
He had a perfectly written letter, syntax the dream of English teachers, vocabulary extravagantly verbose, penmanship curling towards the edges and licking sentences into period and dashes, in his left hand. Arthur had always been good at writing, a natural-born poet, much better at writing than speaking anyway. When writing he could spill out what really got curled around his uvula and stained the back of his eyes, even if they fell into his slowly overflowing garbage can not long after.
So I'm happy he had that with him when he stepped onto the unsteady chair, even if it was only a piece of paper.
The rippling ground he stood on vibrated like the ocean when he pulled the rope over his head, a lover kissing his neck, a knife digging through his vein. I imagine he took a deep breath, reread the note, breathed, read, breathed, cried, tears choking the inside of his throat until he finally shut up and fell.
The chair rolled into the middle of the room.
It was 7:00 exactly when Francis Bonnefoy got in the car.
Alfred F. Jones was driving, bouncing with the radio, wind superlative in his ear. Suburban roads offered a variety of entertainment for him, children to honk at, girls to wave to, a speed limit heavily ignored, the soft, soft breeze of summer like a rough, rough rock crushing the car.
"So Kiku, how did you do on Beilschmidt's final?" Francis turned to me, lonely and sparkling behind his front seat eyes.
I shrugged, modest, always so modest, seatbelt too restrictive against my skin, "We'll see."
He frowned at me and turned back, done with the inconvenience of our meaningless conversation, fixed now on critiquing the auto-tuning of the radio.
Alfred's phone began to ring, an annoying 99 cent tone, and I turned toward the window, white shuttered houses careening by.
"Hey Allistor, what's up?"
A golden retriever knocked a child over and it began to cry, my eyes fixed upon the train wreck of a play date at a rolling stop sign. We began to move at full pace again and I realized if I were to wondrously trade places with the screeching child no one would notice.
"What?"
A lamppost, a tree, a crack in the street all whistled over Alfred's voice. The speed of the car began to increase, Alfred's foot heavy over the pedal, his voice heavy in the air, pricking my ears and leaving me cemented to the fabric of my seat.
"Is this a joke?"
Francis glanced back at me, back at Alfred, back out the window; face twisted in confusion, the crescendo of the normally sprightly boy's voice uncommon but brushed off as sweat on a glass of soda.
I was listening though, and I heard the monotonous rumble of a voice on the other end, squabbling and screaming as the phone began to crack.
Alfred's iron grip severed the cheap phone in two before cracking it against the window, a hollow bone snapping and skidding across the dashboard as he swerved into a side street, roaring over the curb and flinging the old wrappers and old friends in his car into ragdoll positions.
"Alfred!"
The boy slammed on the brakes, 70 to 0 in no time flat, crushing our insides, jerking us about as he shifted the gears.
Then he began to scream.
I had never heard the scream of despair, a wail, a cry so desperate and broken it begged to the lights above to please, please, please, please, please listen please, please.
He thrashed against the steering wheel, screaming, screaming, screaming, so loud I was deaf, so loud I heard it all, and Francis grabbed his shoulders, shoving him back, detaining him to his seat.
"Alfred! Alfred, what is wrong with you?"
I noticed it was raining, the grotesque overbearance of a threatening storm breaking gently, crying onto the earth, thick, round drops sliding down the window. My heart whizzed around its golden cage, shaken from its quick topple, in fear at the terror before.
"He's joking, he's joking, please God he's joking," Alfred slumped into himself, still screeching, biting the edges of his palms so hard his teeth ground against the metal of his blood, tongue licking the saltiness of the internal ocean excessing out of him.
"Alfred, Alfred," Francis shook his shoulders, hovering at his face. He had never looked so old, so frightened, so ghastly pale that it lit up the car and propelled Alfred forward, mouth wobbling.
"He's joking, he's alive, he's joking."
"Alfred, dear Lord just please-"
The rain left streaks on the red paint.
"He hung himself."
The unholy volume tore the air in two and Francis jumped back, ears ringing.
"Who?"
"Arthur."
Francis' face crossed the borders of every stage of grief in a matter of seconds, shoulders exasperated of oxygen, slithering down and curdling at his sides.
"H-He?"
I said nothing and Alfred began to scream again, clawing his face, a new octave in record time, filling the car with heated energy that made my palms sweat and Francis' hair frizz.
"Why? Why? It's a joke. Why?"
"It's not a joke, it isn't," Francis shook his head, fingers divulging into Alfred's broad shoulders, bundling mounds of cotton under his nails, "Why would they joke about something like that? It can't be a joke."
"Why?"
Francis sat back in his own seat, hands covering his own face, shoulders tremoring, trembling, quaking, a puppy cornered and tossed around until bloody and broken. He remained silent as Alfred stayed vocal, biting onto anything that touched his mouth, leaving patches of skin peeling off his fingers and trails of saliva down the grisly stubs of his nails.
"I loved him, I loved him, he knew that, why did he do it?"
I touched Alfred's shoulder, quivering, wondering if I would lose my own limb at the brush.
"I loved him."
The rain continued to fall.
Hello.
Yesterday I was in the car with my best friends when one got a call that her friend had killed himself.
What I witnessed after that is something I will never forget.
I'm feeling so much still and I can't do anything about it, so I do what I always do, write.
Kiku is a bit of a self insert in this story, a look at how I perceived the aftermath of suicide and an extremely sad afternoon car ride in the rain.
Please review, favorite, and have a wonderful day.