• A soft dripping sound filled the air, the storm was almost over and it seemed the excess rain was falling off the roof. This sound didn’t disturb the boy in his room as he stared distantly into the ceiling, but at the same time, much farther than that ceiling could ever be.
    Tonight was the night, he had decided. He wouldn’t deal with this anymore. He felt he was going insane. Hearing things, seeing things, that couldn’t possibly be real. That’s what being insane is, isn’t it? Having strange delusions like that, but he knew they were delusions, even when they happened, so was he really insane? Maybe he was just smarter than his own psychosis. Maybe he was normal, did normal people have this same problem too? Maybe they did, and they just decided that since they knew it wasn’t real, they wouldn’t bother with it. Maybe. He couldn’t do that, however. As much as he knew that these images and voices were delusions, at the same time he couldn’t just choose to ignore them. He couldn’t go on and have a happy life. He was doomed to feel like some badly tuned tv for the rest of his life, picking up some channels clear as day and seeing every movement, and other times picking up only snow and static, but hearing the conversations as though he was standing next to them. As bad as that was, the times he wasn’t hearing other voices were the times that bothered him most. Just utter silence, and that pesky little ringing in his ears. Sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could hear something behind the ringing. It wasn’t like the other things he heard, he knew whatever was behind the ringing was real, and he could never quite hear it right.
    There was nothing left to do. He would never be able to make out the voice in the ringing, and he would be forever taunted by the other voices and images.
    It’s time to make it all stop. He thought firmly. He stood up and walked over to his dresser, pulling out a little zip lock bag full of round white pills. He reached up into his closet and pulled down a thin but strong length of rope that was fashioned into a noose, he’d done it years ago, but never really thought he would use it.
    He worked the noose up through the hole in his ceiling, and around the rafters above his room, tying it nice and tight, he didn’t want any screw ups with this. Then, after everything was ready, he took a handful of the pills and downed as many as he could. They were very strong sleeping pills, one of his friends had gotten a prescription but didn’t take them like she should, and offered them to him. She thought he was just going to get high off of them, but his real reason was a bit more permanent. After only a few minutes he was feeling so horribly sleepy. He knew it was time. He dragged himself up onto the chair, his entire body felt like it was made of lead. His eyelids refused to stay open, but he knew what he had to do before he could rest.
    He fit the noose around his neck. It took a minute or so to get it on right, but he managed it. Then he just stood there, ready to fall at any moment. He let the pills take over, and soon he was drifting off to sleep.
    His body fell forward, pushing the chair back out of his way, and the rope went taught with a snap. His eyes suddenly snapped open. He couldn’t breath. His neck hadn’t snapped like he had planned, it should have, it should have broken and he should have died quickly, but it didn’t, and he didn’t.
    He hung there, clawing at the rope around his throat, waiting for everything to end, his body desperately trying to breathe even though he knew it was hopeless.
    After what seemed to him like hours of torment in this position, but what was really only a minute, the whole world began to go fuzzy as he started to black out.
    He smiled, he knew it was finally done.
    He passed out, and hung there, unable to breathe. He slowly turned a shade of blue and purple as the oxygen was all drained from his body.
    He had gotten what he wanted.

    He put it all to an end.