The stars gave Gabriel no relief as he gazed at them through tear filled eyes. No miraculous sign that would prevent him from using the shotgun at his side. Looking on he felt only emptiness and how miniscule his life really was. Even his dead wife, the meaning behind this pathetic last stand seemed meaningless. Part of him hoped that she would come to him and take his hand. Pulling him from the hillside and the coward he had become. The other part of him enjoyed the misery. Her death only means he escaped the life of white fences and fake smiles.
Through tears and agony, a menacing smile cracked across his face. He began laughing at the fact that he was so screwed up in the head. The love of his life was gone and he enjoyed the pain it brought. The smile retracted from his face. He had no suicide notes, no last words or footprints left for the world that he never wanted to be a part of. Thoughts of how it would be after he pulled the trigger crept into his mind.
Thoughts of his so called friends on his social media, most of which he did not know. He thought of how they would write paragraphs about how sad they were and how much he meant to them. Maybe they would start a fan club for him using his suicide as a crusade to prevent others from doing so. Just what he always wanted to be a unwilling suicide advocate after committing suicide. A reason for people to act sad and use his death for their own bullshit agenda.
Thinking of years down the road when his legacy was just another unknown name on a stone. When enough time had passed that he was no longer a thought on the minds of the living. It was right where he wanted to be. He spent his whole life making his footprints smaller than his foot. So that he could live unnoticed, and now die the same way.
“What if there is a heaven and hell?” He asked himself.
Will god condemn me for ending what is already dead. Or would he do exactly what I never wanted and add my name to the book of life. Giving me a eternity in heaven where any eternity would be hell. Gabriel hoped all those overbearing atheists in his life were right. To him nonexistence was heaven, void of emotions and trials he faced in life.
His thoughts turned his sadness into nothing more than headache and confusion. Leaning to his side he grabbed the shotgun by the barrel. It was cold steel like his rapidly pounding heart, vibrating into the pain in his head. With the barrel pointing at his head he fumbled the shotgun around searching for the right positioning. Even if the blow was not fatal, he was upside down and all the blood had already rushed to his head.
He struggled to place the end of the barrel of the side by side shotgun into his mouth. His mouth stretched at an awkward angle around the gun. After laying there for a moment, it did not feel right leaving the world sucking on a barrel. removing it from his mouth he placed it under his chin. Removing the barrel left a taste of black powder in his mouth. Moving his hands from the barrel to the trigger he started to tremble. A fear that had not overcame him since he was a child.
The first time he attempted suicide he was only a boy of 6 years old. This was not something entirely new to him and most likely stemmed from a genetically unstable mind in search of any reason for self-destruction. Suicide was like a instinctual art form to Gabriel. One he had perfected over the years but like the dead poets society, it was all for nothing since he was alive.
Gabriel's first attempt was cut short due to inexperience. He tried to tie an amateur noose out of some rainbow shoelace from his older sisters roller skates. He then moved enough clothes to the side of his sisters closet rod to tie up his makeshift rainbow contraption of death. Then he used a yellow plastic Lego container as the stool he would kick out, leading to rainbow strangulation. Such a dark moment it was, the 6 year old figure of Gabriel waiting to meet his demise in a closet.
With the noose around his neck, the same fear coming over him now came over him then. Not of death, but of stepping into the unknown. Then his reasons for suicide were the same as now, simply to not exist. But what if doing so was just the next step in existence. So he made the step and the container fell from under him and he plummeted.
He felt the snap as the noose tightened around his neck cutting the flow of air into his lungs. Not knowing the struggle he might face. He could have hung there for hours slowly strangulating. Kicking his feet made him swing back and fourth. The motion made the clothes hanger break away from the wall. He smashed into the Lego container and shoes not far below. Clothes came down and crashed all around him. He laid there under his sisters clothes soaking in the fact that he was stuck in this world to lead a truly pathetic existence.
Only a few minutes had passed as Gabriel laid there with the gun to his chin. He did not have to look for any convincing for pulling the trigger. Breathing in the cool July air Gabriel only wanted to feel the moment. The last moment he hoped to spend, trembling under those magnificent stars. The same stars that others had no choice but to die under. They would give anything for just another breathe.
It did not matter to him though, he was ready to feel death. Hoping that once the bird shot passed into his head he would have a few moments to taste it. To smell the burning powder on his flesh. To hear the ringing of his ears as the shot echoed in and out of eternity. Methodically his shaking stopped as his finger felt the pressure of the trigger. Squeezing it with all he had as his heart jumped into his throat.
Eyes closed so hard that his face grimaced. An empty clicking sound vibrated Gabriel's disappointment through the gun. He only had one loaded shell in the barrel. Never thinking he would have need for more than one shell. Rolling to his side he removed the gun from his chin and swung his legs around so he could sit upright and determine the delay in his demise.
Cracking the barrel open he examined the gun and his one shell. Nothing was out of the ordinary and he snapped the gun closed. Boiling blood from rage flowed through him as he aimed at the night sky and once again squeezed down on the trigger. BOOOM followed by the loud ringing of Gabriel's ears and the smell of powder burning into the night sky.
Like everything in life he had failed again. The box of shells were miles away at home strategically placed on top of his dresser. Getting up off the ground he began the walk of shame back to his truck. He was not sure how to get back to the truck since it was not a part of his game plan. For a moment he stayed in one place looking around into the darkness. He thought about waiting for the morning light to guide him. As usual he needed no saving grace and simply walked into the night.
The urge to drive to his local drinking hole was stronger than his will to survive in the woods. It was even greater than his will to die at the moment since he knew even that was out of the realms of possibilitys. As he was walking he felt like that same coward in his sisters closet. If only I knew then what I knows now, he though. I would have used my mothers closet. If it could hold hundreds of her clothes, it could hold a lost 6 year old's soul. Sparing him a lifetime of suicidal humiliation.
As he walked he felt the presence of something just on the edge of darkness. Hoping it was some wild beast ready to finish what he could not. In that moment the thought hit him as if he had just made a major break through. If he could not take his own life then he would simply seek death. Heck even so called sane people do this on a daily basis. On their vacations when they get out to get that picture right next to the rhino. Or drive really fast when they are late to work not realizing that around the next bend is their permanent retirement plan.
The world does this without even realizing it's suicide each time they tempt their fate. So why couldn’t he do it while
being completely aware that the end goal is death. How can any of us make it to whatever form of heaven we believe in when almost everything we do is simply suicide by ignorance. Stumbling through the darkness a false feeling of self worth came over him. He often felt as though he had the world figured out. It was the last thing giving him any meaning.
The reality of things is he was a lunatic, emotional, redneck lost in the woods seeking his truck. But he was not far off from the social norm of the mountain town of Axal where he grew up. Like the people from Axal, he thought of himself as an intellectual. Unlike them he lacked any ego moving him up or down the social ladder depending on the way you look at it.
Moonlight was shining off the dented metal of his old beat up truck off in the distance. Next to it was a cheap foreign car that some kid with a low self-esteem added a spoiler and some Wal-Mart rims to boost his confidence. It must have been working since it was the local hangout where kids would take their dates to tryout for the next cast of teen mom.
Gabriel must have looked like their worst nightmare coming out from the darkness. He had on an old baseball cap with sweat and dirt stains around the sides of it. A thick beard