Richard Larkin was 47 years, 3 months and 2 days old when he killed himself, and he was 47 years, 5 months and 8 days old when he realized he’d made a huge mistake. At first, he enjoyed having killed himself. He watched as loved ones cried, as enemies drank away subconscious guilt, as mourners shared fond memories. He liked the afterlife. A better man would have regretted putting his loved ones through such pain, leaving his family to clean up his messes and mistakes. Alas, Richard Larkin was not a better man, and for that matter, no one is. You are always exactly the man you are, no more, no less.
At the funeral, when his ex-wife cried, some men would have felt pity, or sorrow, or an ounce of tenderness. All Richard felt was perverse satisfaction. When his mother spoke glowingly, offering hagiographic accounts of Richard’s exploits, some men might have felt embarrassed, or proud, or perhaps a bit amused. Richard just thought it was high time someone had things right about how great he’d really been.
Yes, the first two months of Richard’s death was exactly what he’d hoped it would be. They really did miss him. They really were sorry he was gone. They really did think back on the mean things they’d said, the hard but honest words they’d sent his way, the harsh but deserved ways they’d treated him. Many who knew him obsessed over what they might have done differently to have kept him from doing himself in. He didn’t deserve it, but they obsessed all the same. In life, Richard Larkin was a sour, bitter, self-pitying wretch. Thus, in the afterlife he was more of the same, but without all the troubles and duties of life to give him a break from himself once in a while. So after that first two months things started to get harder and harder for Richard. He would complain, but there was no one to hear him. He would gripe, but there was no one to half-heartedly agree. Not to mention it seemed that people were forgetting him. Stopped mentioning him altogether. For the most part this was because it was awkward to discuss him without thinking about the fact that he’d killed himself, so people avoided the topic. But, all Richard noticed was that he wasn’t coming up anymore. Even at his mother’s, whose health was quickly deteriorating in the wake of his death. ‘Still,’ Richard thought, ‘it wouldn’t kill her to mention me once in a while. Then, she’d always been a very selfish woman who didn’t love me half as much as I deserved.’
No, as it would turn out, the afterlife wouldn’t do at all. Richard started coming unhinged… even more than he already was when he killed himself. Discontent set in, which gave way to anger, which gave way to rage, which gave way to madness, which gave way to suicidal mania. Richard would have killed himself all over again, if he could have. Instead, he was stuck with himself, all the time.
Yes, it was at 47 years, 3 months and 2 days old when he killed himself, and 47 years, 5 months and 8 days old when he realized he’d made a huge mistake. That means, if I’m doing the math right, it was 47 years, 9 months and 5 days old when Richard Larkin was officially completely batshit crazy, ranting and screaming, haunting his mother’s old house long after she’d passed on to a better place.
trigger fiction. 