Fifty Million Viewers.

My hair was long still then. In my bathroom I ran my fingers through it and parted it to the side and tried to remind myself to buy a comb. I never recognized myself in the mirror. I understood that people didn't think I was an ugly man. I understood that some of them even thought I was handsome. But when I looked in the mirror I didn't recognize me. I didn't see the me that through each day and hour and thought lingered and whispered and breathed. I didn't know what monster or shipwreck I expected to see, but it was never what appeared. 

I often spoke in the mirror after a shower or a bottle of wine. As if I were applying for a job or trying to fuck someone. I'd cock a half smile and lift one eyebrow and speak my side of the conversation and think theirs. I'd charm them. I'd make them flutter. I'd say all the right things and I'd be quick and witty and lovely and the perfect employee and the perfect man. In the mirror alone, clean or drunk, I could be.

I brushed the hair from my face and behind my ear.

"I just thought I could," I said. 

Well, you certainly did, and perfectly, they said.

"Thank you."

So, if you don't mind my asking, what brought you to this? What made you think, 'I should'?

I fake a smile in the mirror. To the interviewer. In this world I have been asked this a thousand times and I pretend here, for this interviewer, this woman, brunette with a low cut baby blue blouse and a black pencil skirt and patterned stockings and black heels, that she is the first.

"I don't know," I say. "I just thought, fuck it, you know?"

She laughs and smiles at me. I like her smile. She knows I like her smile and she keeps it up.

"I've always thought, what if suicide were a sport? You know? Who could just do it the best? And then I thought, fuck, I could."

Well, I think that everyone at home will agree with me, you are, without a doubt, the best suicide this year. The only suicide that matters, certainly.

"Thanks, Lee... Can I call you Lee?"

Of course.

"Well, thanks Lee."

So, tell me, where did your inspiration come from for this suicide? What brought you to the decision that you just had to?

I smile and laugh a fake laugh. The mirror knows it's fake. I know it's fake. Lee doesn't. Maybe she does but she shows more leg. 

"Lee, sometimes people are born and they're just natural athletes, you know? They just pop out and bat a thousand or figure skate the shit out of things. Me? I guess I was just born to die. All my life, just waiting, just feeling this innate need to disappear and, well fuck me! What better way to go than in front of fifty million of your viewers? Am I right, Lee?"

The fog has cleared now from the mirror and I can see the extra weight around my waist and the hair on my stomach and grimace. I feel my mood shift but Lee breaks the descent. She opens her legs further and smiles and bites her lip. She never breaks eye contact. Her stockings only come halfway up her thighs. Her panties are white cotton and clean as new. 

In my head blood pours from my arms and throat and stomach and Lee stands. Her hips fill in all of the right places. Her chest pushes riotously against her blouse. Her hair falls over her shoulders in waves and locks and she never breaks her gaze. She walks to me, nude and bleeding and victorious. She wraps her arms gently around my neck and even though I am THE suicide, I can't think. I feel her body against mine. I feel her breath, light and warm, against my neck as she pulls in tight.

Kill yourself again for me. Kill yourself again for me. Please.

Her leg bends and her thigh slowly slides up mine and her grip tightens and she begs me to die. Her lips press against my neck and her hands roam and suddenly I feel nothing and I see myself in the mirror, nude and not bleeding and overweight and heartbroken and she is gone and death is gone and my hair was long still then. My hair was long still then and I fucking needed you.