LITMIR.BIZ

      Two

      It’s so thin and small it seems impossible that it can end a human life.

      Do it.

      Two long, quick slices and the pain bleeds away.

      So why am I hesitating? Do it.

      Isabel knows that she is scared to slit her wrists. She’d rather find a painless solution. To her it sounds like something Yogi Berra might have said: I’d kill myself but it’d hurt too much.

      The white porcelain feels cold to her as she climbs, fully clothed, into the tub.

      This is it. This makes the most sense. Do it.

      Isabel looks from the metal blade balancing on the edge of the bathtub to the sink counter where her sleeping pills are neatly arranged. Plan B. The last time she tried swallowing pills she did not take enough and woke up with a stiff tube snaking down her throat, pumping charcoal into her belly. For hours she vomited up the black coal as unsympathetic interns scowled and mixed up more of the pitch-black concoction that’s meant to absorb the poison.

      Maybe I’ll try the pills again. That’s much easier. And this time I’ll take the entire bottle and throw in some Tylenol PM for good measure. That’ll work.

      She pulls herself up and out of the bathtub. After pushing down and twisting the prescription bottle open, she turns on the faucet. Then she finally gives in to the magnetic pull of the mirror facing her. She had resisted it until now, knowing her face, however exhausted, haggard or gaunt, would betray her fear.

      Look at me. Jesus. Who is this looking back at me?

      She looks back down to the running water.

      Thirty-five years of living, thirty-five years packed with classes she excelled in, jobs she succeeded at…Isabel’s thirty-five years all boiled down to one moment, an image she pulled out and focused her inner eye on whenever she despaired.

      In the image is five-year-old Isabel, pretty and shy, quietly curled up on the floor alongside the family dog, a huge Saint Bernard named Violet. The two slept together almost every night, the enormously fat Violet providing enough body heat to warm the tiny child nestled against her. Isabel’s parents took many photographs of this scene, but it is Isabel’s own recollection she relies on in times of confusion. When she needs to feel comforted, to feel safe. Lately the image was becoming mentally frayed with overuse.

      Thinking of the warmth of Violet’s belly, the steadiness of her breathing, the softness of her thick coat, Isabel is once again momentarily transported away from her pain.

      How did that little girl end up alone and desperate in a cold New York City bathroom trying to decide whether to slash her wrists or swallow a fistful of pills?

      What else is there? What else can I do?