The Suicide Letter.

Donald J Ferhand had many things that would consider him successful in the world in which he lived. He had a house, for a start, which was a particularly ample one at that. And in it he owned many possessions - works of art, an enormous wine and liquor collection, an extensive library, electronic entertainment devices that were so large that standard human eyes failed to see them at all, and a dog, Saber, who alone made up the entirety of his breathing company. He also had an enormous amount of money, partly earned over his years in advertising and corporate design, but mostly due to smart money handling and investment.

Donald had no family that wished to speak of him, due to an incident at an annual Christmas luncheon many years back, involving his getting extremely drunk and wooing a young lady to his room only to wake the next morning to find his entire disgusted family standing around a bed filled only by him and the derobed Mary statue from the nativity scene. He had no wife or children, considering them ‘other men’s interests’, of which he would have no part. Earlier in his years of financial success he fell under the misconception that he had many friends, however he soon came to learn that ‘friends’, in the traditional sense, did not exist in the world of the rich - everyone hated everyone else, and you went out drinking with those you hated the least.

In a world where money could buy love, however, Donald bought a lot. He had Monday girls, Tuesday girls, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday girls. On weekends he generally had them all come over together. Public holidays and his birthday were reserved for quality ‘self’ time, of which he spent the majority reading and re-reading the short stories of one Berlin Pray-Matthew, an award winning novelist and playwright, to which he held no small deem of respect. These days were few and far between, however, leaving the rest of the year to work, sleep, and explore further what he referred to as ‘tipple’.

This lifestyle had held steady for a long time, and it was only recently that he had started to fall into a depressive state. If Donald’s shrink had any truth behind her words, then this depression was being brought about by an intense sensation of boredom - when one’s existence is submerged completely in the world of materialistic gain, there will come a time when they own everything they can possibly think of that they want, leaving nothing more to possess and therefore no motive to live. Donald had tried everything to create within his life an exciting and novel change. He enacted fantasy scenarios with his girls, where he played the parts of pirates, knights, foreign soldiers, and in one rather unpleasant circumstance, an over-sexed and rich businessman locked in a public toilet cubicle wearing only handcuffs and a novelty condom. He visited cities all over the world, yet found none quite as beautiful as the idea of not being there. He searched for meaning in many literary works, by many great authors and philosophers, yet before long would always find himself back behind his battered copies of Berlin Pray-Matthew’s stories. He had even at one stage attempted to reconcile with his family, visiting them unannounced one Christmas hoping to join the luncheon and to forget past mistakes. As it happened, however, he received a punch in the mouth from his eldest brother and was forcibly pushed away while the family called a priest to come and exorcise the front porch. After these and many other failed attempts, Donald had come to the conclusion that he was going to end his own life.

Once the thought got tossed around for a while, it sat quite well. Unlike his family, Donald had no belief in God and little in the idea of an afterlife, and as a result feared no judgment for his actions. The idea of getting old had never been one which he took much delight in - being old made eating difficult, sex an almost impossibility, and the act of going to the bathroom a strange procedure involving plastic bags and tubes. As every new day came along, and his routines became more and more fatuous and dreary, the idea of killing himself became more and more interesting and viable, to the point where the idea of planning and executing his decision began even to excite him. And on the Thursday that he gave his mental tick of approval to the idea, he called off his morning girl and instead started to make plans for his own demise.

The actual procedure was decided from the start - a clean shot to the temple with one of his many handguns, displayed with much grandeur in his central living room. Which one was not important - he valued them not on their rarity or monetary worth, but on the fact that they were bits of metal and plastic shaped in a certain way that immediately struck fear into all who saw it. The idea had always fascinated him, and he had on more than one occasion carried one around in his briefcase for a day, reveling in the thought that if everyone suddenly knew what he was carrying, their entire perception of him would change instantly. The desire to observe this reaction had at one stage gotten too much for him to bear, resulting in his spontaneously pulling a particularly large gun out at a restaurant he quite liked, presumably to display to his dinner companion, a young and pretty escort he had hired for the evening, but in fact to observe the reactions of those sitting near him. The reactions were not quite as subtle as he had expected, however, both from the surrounding diners and from his dinner companion who screamed and sobbingly pleaded for her life, before a large man in a nearby seat smashed a plate over his head, rendering him unconscious for the remainder of the night. The resulting fines and concussion from this experience had been the wind behind his decision to legally register all his firearms, and also to seek out a new restaurant to frequent.

His Final Will and Testament was dedicated more thought, however. Apart from his dog, who’s only conversational contribution was a tired look and the occasional passing of wind, Donald had nobody in his life that he regarded as a close companion. Charity was not an option - the word ‘goodwill’ was as foreign to Donald as the word ‘prolpy’ is to the average person. He had millions to give, and nobody he deemed worthy of it.

He also had the problem of his suicide letter. He wanted to leave one, primarily because he wasn’t going to see his hard work and preparation passed off as a simple murder or some such primitive event, yet he wanted it to be a decent job - one which he did not trust himself to satisfactorily complete. It is due to this dilemma and his worry over the destination of his millions that he came to a decision which he thought to himself to be quite brilliant.

It took quite some time to track down Berlin Pray-Matthew. This was due to his fame - Donald had found through several experiences that the more famous a person becomes, the more invisible they come to public life. He hired people to find the author’s home number - he wanted the operation to be discreet, and between only himself and the writer. After getting several wrong numbers, several of which connected him to various Christian churches in Germany, he finally got to speak to the man who’s stories he had read so often that he could recall most of the books by the word. The conversation was short, and a meeting was arranged at the author’s prestigious home in London.

At the meeting, Donald put forward his proposal. Berlin was to write an extensive and brilliant suicide letter, summing up Donald’s life in general, his reasons for his actions, and a fabricated destination for his millions. In return Berlin was to be the true recipient of the money, a total of more than nine million American dollars. The idea was not accepted warmly at first, the author explaining something about moral afflictions and misuse of his art, however this was quickly forgotten when the total sum was brought into play by Donald. The writer did however put forward a proposal of his own - in addition to the sum paid for the work, Donald was to assist him with a novel he was writing, concerning the story of a soldier who, upon returning from the war to find his wife in the arms of another man, loses his will to live. Berlin was interested in the perspective of a man in a not so dissimilar situation.

The deal was made, and each of the deal-makers returned to begin their work - Berlin with the writing of the suicide letter and Donald with notes on how the soldier character in Berlin’s coming novel might think and feel when presented with certain scenarios. Berlin investigated Donald’s life, his family relations, his perspectives in political, ethical, and moral natures, and his lifestyle. Donald became engrossed with detailing the soldier character’s psyche, until after about a month he had only Tuesday and Friday girls coming over, the rest of the week spent creating Berlin’s soldier. The process enticed him - creating himself, with the same problems and mental afflictions, yet as a completely different person - a man who had fought in a war and seen so many things that Donald had not experienced through all his life. At the end of the three months the two had agreed was a worthwhile amount of time for both tasks to be completed efficiently, Donald had written well over four hundred pages of the soldier’s life.

He had also grown very close to the character, as writers often do. The thought of somebody else taking his brainchild and twisting it to their own liking repulsed him. The soldier was Donald’s - only the scenario belonged to Berlin. And so, during the course of their meeting at the conclusion of the three month time period, Donald proposed to buy the idea from Berlin.

“That’s ridiculous. It is my novel. And besides, all the money you have is being paid to me for the suicide letter. You have nothing with which to make such an offer,” Berlin Pray-Matthew remarked at Donald’s suggestion. “You forget my house, and my worldly goods,” retorted Donald. “There is twice as much value in these things than there is in my bank account.” And so, a second transaction was made. Donald gave up his house and all in it, and went on to continue his novel. He wrote for several years after this second meeting, and when the book was finally published, it was a raving success. He wrote several more novels, and was often praised on his convincing portrayal of his tragic characters, all of which were based on his own psychological state not more than five years before. After his sixth novel, his love for writing completely overthrew his depressive state, and he went on to write another seven, all of which depicted nothing but his previous self in a variety of different characters and scenarios.

Berlin Pray-Matthew, however, stopped writing shortly after moving into Donald’s previous address. He fell into quite a long period of alcoholism, brought about by the discovery of Donald’s wine cellars, and eventually had girls coming over for every night of the week, in tradition of Donald’s ex-lifestyle. Several years passed, and he was eventually found dead by suicide in the library of the house, swinging from a high rafter. This downward slide in his previously successful life baffled his family, who tried unsuccessfully to remedy his destructive lifestyle right up until the point where he was found dead. What baffled them ever further, however, was the strange suicide letter found elsewhere in the house, written in Berlin’s recognizably cursive handwriting, that explained his hate for his family, his love for prostitutes and firearms, and that they could all stop looking for his money, because it’s buried deep underground on an island somewhere and he’ll be damned to hell if they’re getting a penny of it.

 

Fin.