Connecting the Dots

You know, I have a story that I think is important. I would get to the end, which I have figured out, but I'm stuck in the middle. The transition is a tough one.

I want to base one character on my best friend who died over ten years ago. A suicide. Trouble is, I can't see the workings of his mind just before the end, and here I consider myself to be quite experienced in the matter. I'm the only insider I know who is willing to talk or write seriously about this subject who is still alive to do so.

My decision came like a billowing fire, the combustion of a distorted view, simmering depression, or whatever, and I determined to die, and any consideration of what I might encounter after death, no doubt a vision from my Baptist teaching, gave rise to further anger, "If God doesn't like what some of us do, then He shouldn't have put us here." That's the kind of logic radiating from this rage; self righteous in its power. But I always backed off.

John seemed different. When he made his decision, he quietly went about it like someone planning a banquet. Co-workers at the funeral spoke of how long he was missing before they learned of his end; a whole week. He took the time to compose and address letters of his last goodbye, starting with the line "By the time you read this, I'll be dead." He mailed them out to be received just after his self execution. He had researched the methods, the files were still on his computer, and decided a gun was the most certain method. He set up a serene place in the apartment with his favorite wine and a tranquil video playing on the TV. He put something behind his head, I forget what, so the bullet wouldn't go through the drywall and into the next apartment, and he waited until he knew the neighbors were at work. A courteous self dismissal.

Of course, I got to see what happened to everyone he left behind, but in all those years I could never see how he got from his wounding to the moment he made that decision. Nor could I grasp how he could hold his conviction for a whole week. Maybe I don't need to. I'm looking at this from the outside, and that's how I'll write it, but as close as I can get, I can't be one hundred percent sure of what is going on in the other person's head when that head is not right, even if I have been in that place myself. There, I think I have what I need.