MicroHorror

I can’t die. Believe me, I’ve tried. I stepped off a roof, jumped in front of a car, and all I got out of it was a broken leg, which miraculously healed in just thirty-six hours. The doctors convinced themselves that the X-rays got switched, completely overlooking the fact that it would mean that some other poor guy was walking around out there with a shattered left leg. I guess the closest I got was when I stepped into one of those big wood chippers. Damn, that hurt.

Why am I so set on dying? I don’t know. At first it was everything in my life, but then it sort of became a challenge. What made me want to end it all in the first place was a variety of things. Boredom, mostly. Depression. Maybe general teen angst. It doesn’t help that my parents are raving lunatics. Trust me, any embarrassing thing your parents have ever done to you I can top, ten-fold. Oh yeah, and my girlfriend dumped me. Whore.

In my quest to snuff out my meaningless existence I would have to overcome my apparent ability to come back from any injury I could imagine. It occurred to me that I still do get injured. I get injured, maybe even die, but I always come back. But it’s always after the activity that injuries me is over with. I wouldn’t be able to come back if it was a continuing process. I wouldn’t be able to regenerate, or whatever it is, if it was still going on.

I thought of freezing myself, that would surely do it, but the logistics were hard to work out and I was afraid that eventually something would happen to thaw me out. I considered chaining myself to concrete blocks and tossing them into the water, but I’ve seen all those movies where the campers stumble across the guy at the bottom of the lake and he comes to life and hacks them all to death. It never stops him, why would it stop me? And I don’t want to hack anyone up except myself. I needed something more permanent than that, more definite, something that wouldn’t leave me wondering if someone would one day thaw me out or pull me from the water.

Concrete. I could lower myself into wet concrete. At first I would drown, feeling the pain and burning as my body fought for air, my lungs sucking in the wet cement. Then the concrete would harden and I’d be trapped forever. A perfect plan.

Perfect. Was I ever wrong! I awoke to that pain of my lungs trying to fill, to the pressure of all that weight pressing upon me. I hadn’t considered this possibility. Now I just want out. I want to live the sixty or eighty years I was supposed to live and die of old age. I don’t want to be here, alone in this dark with my muscles and joints aching because I haven’t moved them for days.

Maybe I will still die of old age. What will it be like to be trapped in here for eighty years, all alone with only my thoughts to keep me company? I guess I’ve really screwed myself this time. Is this what hell is like? What if I don’t die soon? What if I do die of old age? Oh, God, what if I don’t?