Daniel

Although it is a picturesque vision of tranquillity, my town has a staggeringly high suicide rate. It used to be the case that we could blame the anomaly on the Frieda Reagan Memorial. You know; another violent sociopath decided to end it all rather than adapt to his life within the Hexagon, that sort of thing. Since the facility is now closed we really have no excuse.

Perhaps it is the loneliness and isolation that drives people over the edge. Perhaps it is the constant onslaught of rowdy, ignorant tourists. Perhaps it is the drugs in the water. Who can say? Regardless of why, the fact remains that a great many people would rather kill themselves than live here any longer than necessary.

For the most part we, as a community, are content to acknowledge the fact but to never speak of it, much like the family secrets your parents will never tell you. In the early 1980’s, however, something happened that nearly made the entire world aware of our situation.

In 1983 we were visited by a young man purporting to be from the psychology department at Oxford University. The gentleman, one Daniel Willis, said he had heard of the town’s suicide rate and that he could not let it go unexamined. Willis said he had resolved to study our problem and implement a solution should one present itself.

The amateur psychiatrist spent a little over a month in town, speaking to as many people as he could, particularly families who had recently experienced a loss. The precise nature of the study varies depending on who you ask, but one thing is constant: Willis would always ask to take a copy of the deceased’s suicide note wherever such an eventuality was possible. Daniel left town as soon as his research was complete, assuring us that he would contact us when his project was finished.

Almost a year passed and the townsfolk had all but forgotten about the psychologist. We all assumed he had lost interest in us or found a more lucrative project to pursue. We were proven wrong on the day an unassuming parcel arrived at the mayor’s office.

Inside the parcel was the proof for a book entitled ‘Goodbye, cruel world’, an anthology of 176 suicide notes, printed exactly as they had been found – viscera and all. Each note was prefixed with the deceased’s name, the date, time and method of their suicide, and, in a display of particularly poor taste, explicit descriptions of the state the bodies were found in.

There was no moral or political force driving the book. It did not contain anything of psychological or sociological benefit. It was simply a book made by a lazy, greedy tourist in order to make money off other people’s misfortune. The book was immediately disowned by the town and the proof was condemned to the furthest reaches of the Hexagon’s library, where not even the town’s most depraved minds would find it.

Since its induction into the Hexagon’s literary canon, ‘Goodbye, cruel world’ has been read by precisely two people. The first, Patient 209495-D, was a paranoid schizophrenic who was convinced that he had died and nobody had told him. He read the book hoping to find his farewell note.

The second, Gregory Hulme, was a warden in the facility’s north-easterly wing. He read the book to see if it contained any clues as to why Patient 209495-D hung himself as soon as he had finished reading it.

It is not known whether Hulme found any clues as to why Patient 209495-D committed suicide. Before he could begin writing up his report, Hulme stabbed himself in the neck with his pen until he bled to death.

Given that the book was now accountable for two deaths, the Hexagon’s director advised it be removed from the library. Curiously, the tome was not destroyed. Rather, it was placed in a safe in the Hexagon’s administrative block, hidden from prying eyes.

It is a shame that nobody of any import has seen the book since it was locked away, because it makes for a truly fascinating read; especially since it continues to update itself to this day. Every time someone in town commits suicide you can be sure that they will receive an entry in the book chronicling their name as well as the date, time and method of their death. Continuing the tradition started by Daniel Willis each entry contains a brief description of the body and a facsimile of the suicide note.

Of the newer entries, my favourite has to be the very earliest, simply because it is so very different from all the others. While the main body of the book contains trashy, hackneyed writing straight out of some tacky pulp fiction novella, the first additional entry is uncharacteristically pure.

There is no information regarding Entry 177. There is no name attached to it, no date or time indicating when the author died, nor any suggestion of how they died. There is only a single line of text; a short and sweet entry that reads “My apologies.” It is signed, simply, “D.”