Suicide Queen

College tuition makes Jill want to cry, but I have been forced to think about a more drastic response. And although I am not particularly religious, I think I understand now why despair is considered to be a terrible sin.

Would it be OK to say that life after college, so far, has not brought me much happiness?

And loans aren’t even all that is to it, although they certainly play a huge part in this drama. No, it’s something inside me that seems to have withered. There’s something about all this purposelessness and these awful mornings, with the radio alarm playing some stupid 70’s feel-good ballad for the millionth time in a row.

I’ve shrunk in on myself. I’ve become the sort of person who cradles her beer like her child after work. I write horrible stories, about horrible things, and I enjoy it: something terrible happens, to a friend, in the news, and I think – “I’ll put it in the book.” I’m looking at the horror of Ipswitch, and I’m going “ooh, aah.” I’m looking at the tragedy in the Oregon snow, and I’m wondering how it’s going to compare to my latest indulgence – Scott Smith’s The Ruins. Of course, I already have written half a book – and look how that one’s turned out: a limbless husk with no plot.

If it wasn’t for the people I love, I don’t know what would have happened to me by now. I would probably be on some cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, performing sexual acts with capuchin monkeys on the main deck for some smack. Or worse.