A/N: Thank you, everyone, for your patience. Monday is a very long day for John, and he just doesn't have the proper time to write his thoughts. He's squeezing in bits here and there as he is able. (As am I.) Koram852, you had better be reviewing...as you elected not to beta this journal. Gameson221b, thank you for keeping up with me!
Disclaimer: You want me to say it again. Glutton for punishment, aren't we? I. Do. Not. Own. It. Nor do I claim to in any way. I just dream big.
Still Monday.
Maybe I just didn't want to be left at home, maybe I wanted to feel useful again. Maybe I thought I could make a difference... I'm not so sure now.
I've been trying not to think about it. And, God help me if anyone ever reads this...
I'm supposed to be familiar with death, having seen violent acts and all manner of gruesome things that war shows about the nature of man. But none of that prepared me for seeing that poor woman dead on the floor.
Suicide? No, not like that. Not with the effort and pain involved in scrawling a word on the floor, breaking and splintering her own fingernails. Sherlock's right. It was murder.
The human constitution is to fight for life. Being a medical man, I can tell you every circumstance in which the body works to preserve life. Just to name one? Pain and the psychological fight or flight response. If a person is threatened or harmed, instinct tells us to either run away from that pain, or to confront and defeat it.
Had that been suicide, there would have been more evidence of it... psychology aside, the human body has autonomic functions—like breathing—that cannot be willed away. Poison is a foreign substance. The body will do what it knows to reject it, hence the vomit.
It's not easy to take your own life... I would know.
There. I admitted it. I had thought about it...hell, I tried it...kind of. I pulled the gun from the drawer. I cleaned it, like I do every week. I disassembled the pieces on an oil cloth, wiped them down, and reassembled them. I snapped the clip in place, and primed the first shot. I held the barrel between my teeth...and sank my elbows to my knees.
I didn't have the resolve to go through with it...
Anyway...
There was no sign of the poison in that room. Each of the victims took a time-released poison, then. That means it's capsulized, easy for consumption. The capsule shell would need to be easily dissolved by the stomach, making the effects fast, quickly absorbed and irreversible.
They must be pressured into taking the pill somehow. A threat...?
If that great consulting detective was as good as he claimed, he'd probably thought of that already... And now he's run off... No idea where or what for.
Why had I come along again?
A/N: I'm not a doctor, or a shrink. Please excuse any inaccuracies in those fields. I hope you enjoyed this entry. Do let me know!