The End of an Era

A light snow falls outside of an apartment complex. Each building has eight rooms, four on the bottom and four on the top. It's midnight and there is only one light on out of the twelve or so buildings. On the ground floor of the most distant complex, the light filters out through the closed blinds in the silence of the night.

The sound of bottles clinking come from the front room as a man sits in front of his computer screen with his headphones on and his head on his arms.  Around him are numerous bottles of beer and vodka, all but one beer left empty. The man has shaggy brown hair that is heavy with grease from not having bathed for a few days. He's clothed in a short sleeve red shirt that is loose on his chest but tight on his large stomach. He's wrapped up in a dark grey comforter listening to music and staring at his half finished bottle of beer.

So I guess this is it then... He thinks to himself.

He sighs quietly and sits back in the large wooden chair with plaid red and green cushions. Downing the last of his beer he drops his arm and another clink is heard as the bottle slips from his hand and lands on the rest of the trash around him. His blue eyes glazed over slightly as he stares at his desktop background. It's solid black with a calligraphic circle in the middle of it signifying the rising sun.

I better get cleaned up if its time then...

Pushing back the chair his arms press down on the long hardwood desk in order to support his weight after all of this drinking. As he stands the world starts to spin. He begins to shuffle his feet across the beige carpet and through the empty bottles. As he reaches the wall, he slams his right shoulder up against it and continues on his path to the back room.

This shell of a man stands about 5 foot 9, yet his body has been wracked by malnourishment and atrophy from his inactivity. His stomach is bulging out from the bottom of his shirt but his forearms are almost skin and bone. His face is pale and his cheeks are fattened from not exercising, in almost every sense of the word this man is a slob. He is not morbidly obese as he weighs about 250 pounds, but his body has seen better days. He wears black elastic gym shorts for the only purpose he has had for the last year or so, comfort.

As he reaches the back room, he drops the comforter he's wrapped up in onto his bed along with his wireless headphones. The sudden silence is deafening. He stands in the darkened bedroom and stares at the soft blue light that is coming from the headphones. He takes a slow and shaky breath as he turns to a closed door in his bedroom. Opening it, he reaches inside and flicks on the light inside the bathroom. For the first time in a long while, he musters the courage to look at himself in the mirror. The same feeling washes over him, just as with every time before. Disgust.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

His blue eyes refocus and start running over his form. He pulls his shirt off with a bit of effort and his eyes run over the numerous stretch marks that scar his once fit body.

Look at you, you're pathetic. You're weak. You're lazy and fat and better off dead...

He doesn't look away as he's berating himself as a single tear falls from his eyes and onto the cold tile floor.

Look at you now, crying, some man you turned out to be, no wonder women don't talk to you, you're a pussy yourself!

He pulls his shorts off and makes his way over to the shower. As he turns on the water, he closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the wall. The cold water hits his body, which causes him to tense momentarily. After standing motionless for a few minutes he finally begins to clean himself.

After showering he starts to lose his balance as the rest of the alcohol begins coursing through his body. He is still slightly damp from the shower as he leans against the wall and starts to dry himself.  After drying, he puts on his black underwear and slides on blue jeans that are faded, wrinkled and slightly frayed at the bottom. His jeans are a size too big but he just grabs a black short sleeved t shirt and tucks it in before putting on his belt. He had planned this night out for a while and everything was laid out on his dresser. As he started to bend over slightly with his back against the wall to put his socks on he slid left and landed onto the floor with a loud thud. With the alcohol numbing the pain he just laid on the ground while he continued to put on his black socks that go up to his mid shins. After that he stayed on the ground and looked at his brown steel towed boots just out of reach.

Just lay there like the good bitch you are and go to sleep. That way when you wake up tomorrow you can have not done what you planned to do again. Just like every other day of your miserable existence!

Reaching out and falling short of his boots he slowly drags himself over to them and sits up. With his gut in the way it makes breathing slightly difficult to put on his boots and lace them up correctly, but as long as they're on and not going anywhere, he didn't care. He grabs the side of his bed and pulls himself up to standing again, sweating slightly from having to use both his arms and legs more and more as his motor skills start slipping away from him. Finally standing he looks over to his dresser to the note on it and grabs it, along with all of the rest of his cash he pulled from his bank account and a check for what he couldn't get out of the ATM. With a heavy sigh he walks over to the front room again slowly and placed it down in the middle of the desk with his computer and faces the front door. Shuffling his feet through all of the empty bottles on the ground he makes it to the front door and unlocks the deadbolt.

Well now they wont have to spend long knocking and can just get to it.

He turns around and walks back into his room slowly and picks up whats left on his dresser, His wallet with his drivers license and a black flip knife. He clips his knife into his right pocket and pushes his wallet into his front left and shuffles back out and towards the back door.

With a glance back into the house and a heavy sigh, he unlocks the back door and puts on a black light jacket and zips it up. Opening the door and walking out to the back "yard" of the apartment complex, he closes the door and shuffles off into the forest behind the complex. It's only been snowing for a few hours so what is stuck on the ground slightly crunches under his feet as his breath comes out slowly. Every few steps he stumbles slightly and holds onto a tree to regain his balance.

It wont be long now...

He looks up to the night sky. The only thing he can see is the cloud cover and the slight light pollution from around the rest of the town. It feels as if its the darkest night he's ever been in but his eyes slowly adjust as he continues walking. Up ahead he finds a ladder tied to a tree and smirks as he shuffles over to it. He wraps his fingers around the side of the freezing metal and slowly starts to climb up the ladder into the tree. Half way up his foot slips back and he slams his forehead into one of the steps and stops his assent as he regains his footing. "Fuck that shit hurt..." he whispers as he rubs his now red forehead.

As he gets to the top of the ladder he holds steps out onto a thick branch and holds onto the trunk of the tree for balance. He looks around the tree slowly so as not to fall off of the branch and there he spots it, the noose he had made the day before and hung up on the next branch up.  It was slightly covered in snow and freezing cold but he didn't care. Slipping it onto his neck and tightening it as best he could around himself he grit his teeth as the snow slipped down his neck and under his shirt and jacket. This was it, no going back now.

No job, no money, no friends... The least I can do is stop being a burden on my family...

Stepping out farther onto the limb and pulling slightly on the slack of the rope he guides himself out to the middle of the limb, far enough away from the ladder so his body doesn't attempt to rescue himself. His breathing becomes ragged and shaky as the fear starts to get to him with every step he takes. He gulps and then chuckles to himself.

"I haven't been this afraid since I had to do the repel tower in boot camp... Well it's time..." He breathes in heavily and closes his eyes as he holds his balance on the rope around his neck and on the tree limb above. He'll fall a few feet, just far enough to snap his neck and suffocate without feeling it.

His mind blank and his breathing slow and calm he lets go of the rope standing perfectly still on the branch despite his intoxication. No looking back and no regrets. "I'm sorry..." With that a tear rolls down his cheek and he steps forward off of the branch.  He feels like he's falling in slow motion as his brain starts firing faster then it has been ever before, flashing his life before his closed eyes and then the last thing he'll hear echoes in around him in the silence of the snowy night.

*CRACK*