It most certainly wasn’t the red cup with the thin white brim. Its contents once Jack on the rocks was now just warm water and dull whiskey. It was appropriately placed on top of one of three unpaid bills, stained and crumbled. The unrecognizable flash that scurried across the opposite side of the room reminded him that those damn mouse traps didn’t work.
A symphony of police sirens, ambulances, and the cackling laugh of a man bladdered from malt liquor assured him that these were the sights and sounds he would not miss. But none of these things were really the reason why. They just made this ceremony which is practiced every 16.2 minutes in America more fitting. Statistically, speaking every death by suicide affects at least 6 people but he deemed himself the exception, there would be no one personally affected by it. A strange confidence reassured him that the only people affected by it would be the people allowed passed the yellow barricade tape. The cremator and political pundit trying to make a point about suicide on the evening news. That doesn’t really count because he knows that his story segment will be in the hearts and minds of those who still watch the news for about five minutes until it evaporates and fades into memory.
This isn’t a pity thing it’s just doing what’s right. He knew this to be true. The ribbons and medals on his uniform hanging up covered in a digital patterned body bag told his story. If you saw you would know he took lives before. Why not take his own no one would really care. Just yesterday, there was an SJW (social justice warrior) that told him that he needed help with his PTSD. Like he told her it’s my PTSD that I have earned and it don’t concern you. Plus, he wouldn’t blame it on PTSD.
His thumb slowly moved towards him which had metaphorical implications that he would have contemplated but the time for contemplation had expired. As he exerted the strength of his finger the most terrifying experience in his life occurred. Nothing. In gun handlers lingo he was “out of battery”. To those that were not in the know the gun “jammed” and there was nothing but the previous background noise plaguing his ears.
He bit his lip almost to the point of bleeding. It was no malfunction he had handled pistols all his life. Distant hills just looked greener.