The First Suicide

• Amy Byrom, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

Dull blue eyes stared blankly at the board. The teacher was explaining things she already knew. They were always explaining things she knew. Another quick glance at her watch showed it was ten thirty-two. Three more minutes and this would end.
‘Let it be the last…’ she murmured.
Stiffly she got up as the bell rang; her body already protesting fiercely at the slightest movement. Robotically putting her equipment into her bag, the girl all but ran for the bathroom. A quick glance in the wide mirror confirmed what she already knew; the girl that looked back with bloodshot eyes had an hour and twenty minutes.
‘I don’t want to…’ she whispered, reluctant tears of blood welling.
With shaking hands, she took a small pocket knife out of her jacket. It was finely honed; it had to be. March twenty-fifth at twelve o’clock. The date and time had been engraved into her very soul. Her shaking stopped as resolve grew. The pain in her body increased with each passing second but she could ignore it. She had.
‘May the suffering of this soul end…’ the girl prayed; hope in her heart.
With an emotionless look in her eyes, the girl raised the knife and plunged it into her heart. With nought but a final thought, the girl’s heart stopped its desperate struggle. ‘Let this be the end...’.

Green eyes opened in surprise, the body lurching upward. Eventually, the body laid back down in the bed. With shaking fingers, the body raked them through its hair; frustration evident for all to see. Muttering curses in various languages seemed to be of no help to the body’s frustration, unfortunately. Slowly, the body rose from the bed and stumbled towards what would hopefully be the bathroom. After a brief struggle with the door knob, the body stumbled into the small area, turning on a light as it passed. It was not a bathroom as it had hoped. Instead it appeared to be a small walk-in-wardrobe, thankfully with a mirror. Slowly the body dragged its eyes over its reflection, horror and disbelief evident in its eyes. The body was around six feet tall, with a lanky build that was common to teenagers. It had rusty red hair cut close to the head; what was once startlingly luminous emerald eyes slowly fading to a dull green; and male. Male. A hysterical laugh burst from the bod-, him (it was a he now, how quaint?). A few minutes passed, before calm was once more returned.
‘Well, who would’ve thought suicide would’ve changed so much, no?’ The male muttered with false cheer.
Walking out of the walk-in-wardrobe, a quick glance at the boy’s phone brought a pleasant surprise. March twenty-fifth, one past twelve.
‘Usually, I wake up on the twenty-sixth… and of course, as a girl.’ The boy mused, an ever-growing grin on his face.
The soul’s first suicide did not end the cycle; instead it ended its boredom (for a few years anyway).