Wrongful Death

by Jeremy Kester

stop myself from doing it. I pleaded, I begged. I tried so hard to stop what I was going to do, what I wanted to do.”

  “I’m sorry!” I yelled. “I was in so much pain.”

  “I was in pain is a trivial reasoning. It is a sorry excuse. Pain is a constant in this universe. Only the weak cannot deal. I am not weak.”

  “I didn’t mean it!” I exclaimed as my eyes welled up with tears. But I did mean it. Nothing in my core of being could have truly thought otherwise. But fear was taking over my every thought. I could not reason with myself.

  “So I admit that I killed myself?” I was asked.

  I answered, still bitterly confused, trying to gather every ounce of reasoning I had available: “I don’t know. I mean, no. No, I didn’t kill myself.”

  “How not? I wrongfully decided that my existence would be easier if I ended it all, do I deny this?”

  Thoughts began to focus on the others in my life, of people I held to blame for so long. All of it was no use. Of each person I pictured, the reasons, the excuses appeared lost. There was nothing left.

  I surrendered to myself. I could not take the fighting anymore. But I did not answer. I simply did nothing more than lower my head.

  I felt a tugging at my leg. I opened my eyes and looked down. It was a young boy. There was an odd familiarity about this child. It was me!

  “Why did I kill myself?” my own voice as a child uttered. My mouth sank with no words spilling from my lips. I was so desperately confused. I felt cornered.

  More and more images of former selves started appearing all around me. They were all images at various points in my life. Me when I got my first bike. My first scar. Me at my first dance. My first kiss. They just continued on throughout the arena. The images encircled me. Some of the memories I had thought I had forgotten. Some memories I wish were forgotten.

  The child of my past stood at my front, continuing to look up at me as if beckoning for an answer. His eyes were glassy and starting to tear. I felt myself tearing up as well. I could not understand, I did not want to believe what was happening.

  Another image of me walked up to face me. It was me, but just a few years younger. “Was my life really that bad?” My own thoughts were beginning to acclimate themselves to this very strange behavior. I was realizing that I was indeed sitting before the gates of Saint Peter in a manner of speaking. My judgment was being passed.

  I broke down and cried. I could see my vision going blurry from the moistened tears streaming from my eyes. I looked down, my head bowing in utter defeat. My own selfishness led me to betray myself. I watched my tears fall to the ground, where they vanished upon their impact on the floor.

  When I looked up, my eyes still glistening from the tears, I saw that all of the other images of myself had vanished. All of them except that part of me that remained on the thrown.

  “Stand up and face yourself,” all the voices sang in unison.

  I did so. I had not the strength in me to battle against them, to deny the charges that they were bringing upon me.

  “You are guilty in your wrongful death, a suicide, a self sacrifice of selfishness and denial. It is a crime against nature, of being, of God. You are hereby punished for eternity, to wallow in the very misery that led you to kill yourself, for all eternity. With no reprieve.”

  At the very finish of those words, the entire universe went black for me.

  I wish I was dead.

  ***

  Author’s Note

  I never imagined that in writing this story, in seeking out answers for myself that I would end up touching another with the above story. But after one great email, I find myself better understanding what this could mean to someone.

  I am not a religious individual. I belong to a church, yet I don’t attend, nor do I very much believe in the sermons. I am and always will be a skeptic up until the day I do pass on. That doesn’t mean that I don’t hold fast to some ideas of what the afterlife may actually be like. One of those ideas is the above, that if you choose to end your own life over misery, it only locks you into that emotion for eternity. It is not the escape that so many seek out.

  I do not mean to scare, only to make one think. I can only hope that this story impacts another individual in such a manner that they might think twice over a choice to commit suicide. Just to think. Emotional pain doesn’t have to last forever. Know that just because you feel alone, doesn’t mean that you are. There are others out there like you, others that know what you have gone through and what you may be still going through. You are not alone, no matter how impossible it may feel.

  A Brief Note About the Author

  Jeremy lives in DuPage County Illinois with his wife and son. Born in Kentucky, Jeremy has lived in Germany, Virginia, and Philadelphia (where he calls home). He found himself in Illinois pursuing his other passion of making polyurethane foam for a growing company in the bedding market where he is employed as a process engineer/operations manager. Growing up in a family with a penchant for reading, Jeremy took to the pen early and is now looking to venture into the world of independent writers. He has two serial novellas out, “The Vigil,” a dark, gritty story told from the perspective of a former cop now looking to avenge the deaths of his family and “Gravity,” a space opera set centuries in the future where two lovers find a themselves caught in the middle of a brewing conflict between an oppressive empire and the free spirit of human nature.

  You can find these and more when you visit www.jeremyckester.com.