Beginnings

It starts with one line of an old addiction. Swiftly followed by another and another until his recovered habit sparks up into a huge fireball and explodes like Trinity in the 1945 nuclear bomb tests.

And the worst part is, he fails to recognize it until he has none left and the rent money he scraped together from his nine to five was hastily snorted up his nose.

And when rent day comes around, he realizes he can't hide from his friendly drug-dealing landlord.

He takes out his gun. His suicide gun with its lone bullet waiting for its day of glory.

Yes, it all starts with one line of powered addiction, and as he shoves his keys into his jacket pocket, he senses this will be the last time he ever sees his bright red chipped paint door, and he would take one long last look at it, but he knows he'd never miss it anyway.

He walks away, thinking about how new things begin so quickly, and old habits die hard.

He hurries down the street, casually squeezing his suicide gun to make sure it hasn't disappeared, or perhaps found itself sold for drug money.

He stops at a corner and looks around warily. He's been down this road before, and he knows this is only the beginning.

Middles

He should have known he'd need a fucking line before he did this. You always do in the middle of something. That one fix to get you through to the end.

He pulls out his gun, takes a deep breath, and wipes the sweaty sign of withdrawal from his forehead.

Before he's had a chance to realize exactly what he's doing, he's stepped through the door and had his gun aimed at the clerks head.

The clerk was a young man with headphones flattening part of his afro.

"Not this again, Chester" And he suddenly understands his mistake. Why did he choose to rob the pawn store just minutes away from the bed-sit that served him as a home for seven years?

"Who are you? My guardian fucking angel? Just hand me the cash, Brad"

An outward sigh and shaking of a head later, $400 was stacked in a neat pile next to the cash register.

"I know where you live, Chester. You're my goddamn neighbour for fuck sake" In the middle of your own misery, you never really think things over before acting. And had he thought things over, Chester would have thought about how everybody in this goddamn suburban slum knew his name and where he lived. "I'll give you a chance to walk away"

"Can't" And as he reached for the money, he found his head smashed against the counter and his gun falling from his fingers as his arm twisted up his back.

Chester knows one of the hardest parts to anything is the middle, and without a line, everything just gets harder and fucking harder.

Ends

There are good endings – those endings that still make you smile years later or help you move on quicker – and then there are bad endings – those endings that leave you screwed up for years, or in Chester’s case, sent to prison for years.

Those are the endings nobody likes the think about. Those are the endings everybody prepares themselves for, but still get a huge shockwave run through their system when it happens.

Chester didn't want this ending. Chester didn't want to be thinking about drugs and his suicide gun with its lone bullet.

That bullet he saved for occasions like this.

As he sat in his cell, shaking and sweating, he thought about the ending he should have had. Not the most romantic ending, but an ending nonetheless. A permanent ending.

Chester wishes his ending ended with a quick, painless bullet to the head. His lone bullet fired from his suicide gun. But he knows it'll never happen now.

Instead, he has to make do with an off-white bed sheet provided LA penitentiary wrapped around his neck.

He dangles from the ceiling, spluttering and gasping, thinking through the haze about beginnings, middles and ends, and still wished he had that one last fucking line before he left the house.

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