The Suicide of Alice Templeton

Filed under:nanofiction,writing,Rob Andrews
Alice bought the cement blocks at Walmat. The bricks were orange, perfectly rectangular. Oversized lego blocked sanded down. She couldn't find any rope while she was there. She could have prowled the box store looking for it, or she could have asked a moon faced acne scarred employee to help her. She didn't want them to make the grim connection. Cement blocks plus rope equals suicide, she mentally calculated. She was afraid that her purchases would secretly alert an anti suicide squad within Walmart. An amber alert for those who were left with nothing to live for. In retrospect, it would seem that Alice over analyzed things. She bought bootlaces instead, thick red ones that looked like minature snakes. She stared at the contents of her cart: a handful of bricks and shoelaces. This wouldn't do. Lingerie would be the answer. She rolled her cart to the underwear section and bought herself the sexiest pair of underwear that Walmart allowed. Pink french cut. The cart was looking better. The next stop was the pharmacy. There was a plefora of prolfilafics. She had to bend down to examine the condom boxes. Ribbed for her pleasure. Magnum XXL. Flavoured. Assorted Colours. Choices, choices. Having never tried the ribbed ones, she went with that. She bought a tub of butter too. Something to give the clerk to think about when she swiped her choices. The clerk didn't comment. Perhaps she should have bought more butter.

Alice had put a lot out thought into her suicide. She had read about what happened to the human body when it stopped functioning and decided it would be wise to go for a colonic before the big event. Two hours later, a couple pounds of shit were sucked out of her body and she was 10 pounds light. This corpse would have clean panties, thank you very much. She bought herself the wedding dress that she wanted as a child, a silk red Chinese one. A pile of hundred dollar bills reserved her a top spot at the local beauty spa. She told them what she wanted. A tower of curls. Dark, the blonde washed off like paint on a beach house. Death would be her groom.

She wrote out multiple copies of her suicide letter, mailing out a couple of personal ones to her friends. They were each hand writen. Inked in her blood, red turned brown. For her ex-lovers, she sprayed the letters with their favourite perfumes. She gave detailed reasons for ending her life. It took hours to write them, personal and painful. Cursive looped letter "l"'s that looked like needle eyes. "I love you." Over and over again. She licked each stamp and feed the envelops into the mail box.

Alice choose a bridge that was 30 kilometers out of town. It smelled like mould. Wooden, moaning like harpies when cars walked on it's back. She parked her car off to the side, far from traffic. She had to hike up her dress to tie the bricks to her feet, double knotting them for luck. She looked at the sky one last time, before she dropped off the bridge, her body making her look like a badmonton birdie. Alice was surprised how long it took to drop to the bottom. Her dress slowed her down, no doubt. Her eyes were closed until she felt the bricks hit the bottom. The last bits of life squeezed out of her body slowly. Before her vision turned hazy and dark she appreciated the bottom of the lake. the beautiful asortment of tires and pop cans. She knew then that she'd be a wonderful addition to the lake. The world's most beautiful corpse.