Chapter 5b

The Final entry in the journal of Erwin Packard. He is clearly delirious at the time of writing this, possibly even injured, just based on the way he talks through this entry. Our research team has decided that a number of things could have been the cause of this, ranging from being mauled by a wild deer to being distracted by a rerun of The Dick Van Dyke Show. The wild deer theory seems the most likely at this time as the journal itself was liberated from a room that had been scorched and splattered with blood, similar to what you might expect the scene to look like had a murderous hell beast (in this case a deer) arisen to slaughter a human.

Wednesday, January 7, 1998

Realization: Life will never change. I am not crazy. I am not normal. There is no point of comparison to weigh myself against. I am the only one in this nightmare and I will never wake up. I will flop and flounder but I will not wake.

I think maybe I've slept long enough already. I can't wake up and I can't continue slogging through this nightmare land of atrocities and absences. I don't really have many options but to go away altogether.

I have made this choice before and every speck of madness to shit on me since then has told me it was the wrong one. I have struggled and survived and still failed to be anything but an animated corpse. I'll end that today. My mind is already made up.

I called one of those suicide hotlines today. I didn't want them to talk me out of anything, not that anybody could, I just thought I would talk for a while.

At first there was a recording urging me to seek help from local professionals if in need and telling me that my call was very important.

Eventually a person came on with a quick, "Hi, thanks for calling," type greeting. Who thanks a person for that? Thank you, sir, for having a life so shitty that I can keep my job by telling you not to pull the trigger.

I said, "Hi, how are you?"

Disregarded. The man on the other ended dove headfirst into his assessment questions. I answered them all. "First off, what's your name? Are you thinking of suicide? How did you learn about this service," as if it were a secret or they didn't want people to find out that somebody could talk them out of ending it, "and what race do you consider yourself? Your zip code? Have you tried to commit suicide," much more gentle on the ears than have you tried to kill yourself, "before?"

I hesitated. Said no.

He said, "No?"

I said, "No."

"And have you thought about how you'll do it?"

"I'm going to stick a grenade in my mouth and pull the pin."

"Do you have a grenade?"

"Yes."

"And where do you keep it?"

"On my nightstand."

"On a scale of one to five, where one is you're just thinking about it and five is you've decided to do it, how..."

"I'm a five."

"Okay," he said, "thank you. That was my last question."

I said, "Okay." I was glad. I had already waited to speak to a person then was given the most thorough suicide questionnaire I could imagine a line like this having. I was ready to finally talk to a person. I mean, I don't want to confess my sins or beg for help, I just wanted to ask how a person's day had gone, if they've got their Christmas shopping done, anything.

The unnamed voice said, "I'm going to go ahead and put you on a brief hold while I get hold of somebody who can help you out."

The recording came back on a moment later. "Hi, thank you for calling. Your call is very important to us. Please wait on the line and we'll have a professional to assist you momentarily. If this is an emergency, please contact your local health care provider or emergency room. Otherwise, your call will be answered in the order it was received. Thank you."

"Thank you," I said and hung up.

If I had rated myself as a one before I had called going through that process would have moved my position on that inane scale to a five. I'm not waking up and there's nobody to talk to so it's time to go.

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