My stomach growls like a dinosaur. It’s 3:40AM. I’m shacked out here on the Jersey Shore. Boss thought it be a good time for me to take a vacation so I came down here for the weekend. I can hear the wind and waves crashing outside on the beach. I can’t fucking sleep. I’ll walk.
3:43AM. I throw on a pair of sweats, beach can get chilly at night time. I walk for three minutes out onto the sand. They have a law against being on the beach after sunset I think but I’m never sure. I can’t fucking stand being here. I hate walking on the beach. No I like it, I like to feel the sand and listening to the waves crash, and watching them in the moonlight. I always get emotional and lonely when I go to the beach at night.
I feel like I’m the only person on the Earth. I look out into the darkness beyond, no site of land out at sea. I walk down to the row of rocks covered in seaweed and mussels. I’m thinking about how much I wish to cease to exist. I wouldn’t wanna drown though, to uncomfortable. I’m a pussy. I wanna go quick and painless. I don’t really wanna be able to think about it.
Sometimes when I’m riding in my car I have a fantasy I swerve into traffic. I’m annihilated in an instant. Breath-taking.
My latest fascination has been with murder, now I’m thinking less about killing women and more about being killed by a woman. The idea actually gets me to a state of nausea but not in the sick way, more of a pleasurable overwhelming sexual nausea. I hate myself sometimes but really I just hate. I barely exist to myself.
I notice a light in the distance, patrol man I’m thinking. I start to walk back to my condo to get a hoody, it’s especially chilly tonight with the wind. I’m getting chills here thinking about death and feeling so alone.
When I get in I do a quick time check. 4:01AM. Hmm, seemed longer. I take a quick pee and grab my plain white hoody and a six-pack of Rekorderlig dry apple cider and head back down to the beach. The light is gone, I guess they passed. I walk back down to the waters edge and stare. I sit down in the sand. I hate getting sandy but I’m giving up. I give up so often.
I pop my cap and get to drinking, and thinking. If by some chance I choose to go through with my suicide on this trip I’ll need to build up the nerve.
You ever think about what would happen if you died? What would people say? Your friends and family? Their hurt? What a scumbag you are. I’m thinking about death, but maybe this is like something that allows me to go on. I have to die regularly to continue living.
I take another long swig, and follow that up with another right after I swallow. I never drink like this, but I don’t give a fuck anymore. I work a shit job, I am filled with broken dreams and failed attempts at romance. No lover, no real friends, I feel alone.
My phone goes off and I check to find an email. Meet-ups, are a joke, but I’ve been getting these meetup invites for years. I never cut myself off, it’s like that little open door that keeps hope alive.
I’m thirty-five years old and already at the end of my rope. I wanna be destroyed. I don’t even wanna meet now, the idea makes me feel sad. The idea of having what I want, makes me feel sad, having a girlfriend makes me feel sad. I mean if I had one maybe it wouldn’t but the idea just sucks.
I take another three swigs, then another four. It’s only 5% but I’m drinking a lot and I’m so wrapped up in destruction I’m not even paying it mind. Before you know it I’m three ciders down and thinking outloud, “Wow, didn’t think I’d really drink like that.”
I check my phone again, it’s 4:44. Time flies. I swig again. I feel like laying down, but I also don’t mind sitting up anymore. Things aren’t so bad maybe. I can go back to school, maybe get a career in teaching or something meaningful. My friends used to tell me I’d make a good teacher but I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea.
Swig, swig swig; bottle four.
Fuck man, I’m gunna be sic now if I don’t drink madd water. Swig, fuck it, “I’m not gunna wake up tomorrow.” I smile. Then giggle a little and swig.
Time check, 4:50AM. Wow, maybe I should head home. Time is going really quick. Ah fuck it, swig. I’m beginning to wonder why the hell I’m here again. Why the hell am I sitting out here on this beach alone. There is no reason for this shit man. Swig.
Remember Roger in college once told me, “Hey man you’re studying philosophy, that’s a bullshit major right?” Was that a question? Giggle and then take a big gulp.
I maybe wasted my time studying philosophy, that was undergrad. I think I got a lot out of it though as a person, though where did it leave me? I’m sitting here on a beach at four in the morning thinking about killing myself.
Laid back, started thinking about tits, ass and pussy of course; not necessarily in that order. Check my phone and it’s 5:01. I think I’m starting to see the sun. I wanna rub myself cause no one is around but I feel so heavy. I push up off the sand and go for my bottle. It spilled, must have knocked it over. I grab another and keep drinking and thinking about women, remembering my shitty ex girlfriends and the few I dated, all the disgusting shit they put me through, from bad breath to manipulation. I resent all of those crazy bitches. They really killed romance for me. They killed women.
Laugh and swig.
I sniffle up. OK I’m going home. I look at my phone, says 5:15AM. I can go home and sleep through Sunday. I don’t think I’m going back to work. I’m going back to school, that or I’m going to kill myself.
I bend over after I stand just to pick up the six-pack box, I don’t like to litter. I start walking back to my place. I can hear the birds rising as the sun warms the sky. At the entrance of the beach I dump all my shit in the garbage including the last full bottle, never drinking cider again.
I think I already have a headache. As I begin stepping up the sand mound to get back on the concrete I hear this yell from behind, female. I turn around and nearly stumble. Some chick out there starring at the waves right where I was. I never do this but for some reason I just get this urge. Curiosity I guess.
I stumble a bit my way over there. I think she’s watching the sunrise, but she’s wearing this dirty dress that used to be pure and white I can tell. Her hair looks previously styled now messy. Long night?
I walk within about five feet but I don’t say a word, I’m trying to build up the nerve. She’s shaking, that’s weird. I should ask if she’s OK. I’m doing this now out of selflessness right, not because I want to put my penis in her. “Hey are you all right?” that’s what I wanna say but instead I just say “um..”. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
Okay, let me make one last attempt here. I stand right beside her so that I can sort of see her face, then she turns to me swiftly like a knee jerk type of response. She’s got on makeup but it’s all fucked up. Light skinned. She has blood on her mouth. She’s still kind of pretty but now I’m a little freaked out, wondering if this was the right decision.
“Hey good morning” I said and then “are you okay?” she’s shaking like crazy and she screams as she leaps on me with an already bloodied piece of glass, the tip plunges right into my belly though I caught her wrist as it went in.
What the fuck I think as she continues to scream like a wild animal and attack as I stumble backward. I fall to the ground and she comes down with me still holding her wrist as she stabs from a kneeling position. For some reason I feel like giving up. She plunges that blade in me three or four more times and I don’t even stop her. I think I have an erection as I look into her bloodshot eyes which start to fill up with tears.
I’m in a daze. I don’t even know how many times she stabbed now but I start to come to my senses and get really angry. I don’t really have time to think but I reach up and grab her around the neck and just start to squeeze. This is completely un-tactical. I squeeze the life right out and my erection dies as I see the life leave her pale white skin.
Okay. All done.
I hear a lot of seagulls around and people gathering. I see them all around us. I try to speak but nothing comes out. Her body is on top of me and the sun is right there staring down at us. It’s so warm. I’m not sure if that’s the sun or the feeling of dying. Sort of the way I would want to go, but not exactly. I would have rather had control over who wielded the blade and guided her hand.
I always imagined myself being stabbed to death by a beautiful woman and figured I’d strangle her before I died. Neither of us can be victorious.
Her body smells like the must of men to me, kinda gross. I wonder what happened. Maybe a case of mistaken identity. I look at the sun one last time and think about my parents. I’m still alone on this beach, surrounded by strangers. I think about how sorry I am that I had to go this way. There only child, I’m a real bitch. I have a vision now of me standing in the sea. Close my eyes and I see the sun and I still feel her body. I’m a million miles from home and all alone.
