“La petit mort”
American Singer, Actress “Baby Groupie” Jozella Karatas Found Dead At 27 in Childhood Home, Police Rule Cause Of Death, Suicide*: Read
*For …legal… reasons this is pure fiction
Hello, dear reader. Good morning. It is currently midafternoon but I usually wake up around noon, so it is now morning for me.
Today, I’m running a bath. It is scalding hot, just as I like it to be. Just as I have always liked it to be, ever since I was young.
A handful of lavender scented soaking salts. A handful of rose petals. I dip my toes in. It scalds me, as per expected. My feet turn red.
It is not ready yet.
I pull out my phone and dial “Stephen”. He picks up.
“Uh, hullo?”
“Hi. If you’re not over here fucking me in thirty minutes, I will take a stomach full of cyanide and die a watery death in my tub.”
“Wait, I-”
“Come now. This is not a threat. It is an action.”
“Where the fuck do you even find cyanide in 2030? Crazy bi-”
I hang up. I feel a little better.
All it is there to do now, is to wait.
I go downstairs and boil water on the stove. I open the cupboard and take out a tea mug. It is a mug I found in a Goodwill on a trip I took to Alaska when I was twenty.
Like usual, I went to Alaska alone. I had a terrible time.
I add some lavender buds to the bottom of the mug. Three St John’s Wort tea bags display themselves to me, dryly. Longing to be used, for they have waited their whole lives, from seed, to germination, to plant, to harvesting, to drying, to processing, to packaging, to shipping, all to become the tea inside my cup in my townhouse somewhere outside of Boston.
These little paper tea bags have lived their whole lives expectantly awaiting this moment, like bees, knowing full and well that the removal of their stinger will premiere the arrival of their final destination. Despite this, bees still sting. From birth, stinging is their life’s entire purpose. Alas… to death they arrive.
The tea bags wait to be poured over. It is their own purpose here on Earth. It is their duty given to them by God. Like members of a divine orchestra, they await their time to perform, sing beautifully and then to become silent once again, unborn, awaiting to start anew once more, amyss the eternal darkness.
I take my Hard Rock Cafe DC shot glass out of the same cupboard I found the mug from and pour myself out a shot of distilled Russian vodka. It stings my throat, and I cough. I wash it down with high-pulp Florida’s natural orange juice. Then again. Three times, I repeat this ritual.
Once when I was fifteen (bottle of Advil). Next when I was eighteen (combination of a few). Third time (researched and thought through) is the charm.
The water is boiling now. I pour it over the three bags and the lavender buds and cover the mug with a saucer. The vodka is unsettling my stomach. I take a baguette from the bread store and put it in the toaster. I take out another saucer and pour extra-virgin olive oil to the bottom. I add a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, some red pepper flakes. I crush rosemary with my fingers and add it to the oil.
It reminds me of the appetizers that came along with my meal at the Italian restaurant, Bertuccis, uptown. Before he left, my father used to take my mother and I there every single Friday after work. I always ordered a Fettucine Alfredo with Grilled chicken. Or chicken strips off the kid’s menu, depending on how I was feeling.
I was not a happy child.
There is a knock at the door.
I make my way downstairs, the same stairs I remember throwing myself down at age eleven when I found out Zayn had left One Direction, one fateful day in 2014.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“No ‘hello’?” I ask. “Or a ‘good morning princess’? No flowers?”
He invites himself inside and looks around.
“Where do you want to fuck?”
“Poetic,” I roll my eyes.
Stephen says nothing as I cling to him with all the force I can muster in the entire world. I then make my body limp. I am slipping slowly towards the ground.
“Woah, woah,” he catches me. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” I pick myself up. “You look very handsome today.”
“Thank you,” he grins cheekily. His smile makes this much harder than it needs to be. But it must be done.
“Do leave your shoes at the door,” I instruct.
“Damn you, woman. I know,” he says, as he takes off his black leather boots.
Stephen both detests and loves me just the right amount for everything about this afternoon to be perfect. He will not be too terribly upset, however, this event will also make a lasting impact on his consciousness. He does not love me enough to be completely devastated. Just enough to make him think.
It is two in the afternoon. Twenty years ago, I should be getting home from school around three or four. I wouldn’t want her to see it happen. This should be quick.
It’s now or never, I think. And I had just arranged it all, so perfectly, just like the white daisies I had picked from the same woods I used to play games in with my friends, which now display themselves in a glass vase on the dining room table.
“Do you have it?” I ask.
“Have what?” he scratches his black moustache.
“The stuff.”
“Oh, yeah,” he says, as he pulls out a dime-sized plastic bag.
I pour out the entire contents of the plastic baggie out in my hand.
“Woah, woah, not all at once. Crazy,” he shakes his head. “You’ll kill yourself. And no drinking with this. I know how you are.”
“I’m just looking,” I say, sheepishly. “Just one. See? One.”
I bring him to the kitchen.
“Would you like some tea?” I asked, politely.
“Nah, but some whiskey would be good. On ice.”
I take out a whiskey glass I stole from my father’s house and put ice in it.
“How much?” I ask.
“Halfway,” he says.
Halfway. That is exactly how much he loves me. This does not upset me, I think, as I pour the liquids out for him. In fact, this half-love relationship with a man who spends most of his waking days in some sort of drug induced coma is all I desired from love and relationships in this long, strange, human experience I find myself in.
(How I hate being perceived. I should die.)
“Come, now, darling, with me to the upstairs bathroom,” I say, as I take the rest of the boiling water up with me. “I wish to make love with you in the tub. And do bring my tea.”
“Fine. Sure. Whatever.”
Stephen shrugs, and follows me, with my tea in his right hand. His writing hand.
Outside of his view, I slip three pills under my tounge. One for sleeping, two for a job done right, and three for good luck on the other side.
I grab the tea from him and swallow. I now have fifteen minutes left alive.
This will be the last time I walk up these steps, I think, as my watery crypt lie upstairs in this converted attic-turned bedroom.
The bathroom is covered with marble tile and there is a large window where the branches of the tree I would swing on as a child waves hello. It is spring, so the leaves are bright green.
I am happy this pretty tree is the last thing I see. I pray to the tree silently, to ease my transition into the afterlife.
I turn on the CD player I had when I was young. I burned “Gnossiene No.1” on a one-hour loop last night in preparation for this ceremony. It is already loaded, ready to go, the minute I press play.
I dip my toes in the water. It is now warm, but not quite enough. I pour the rest of the boiling water into the tub. Just right.
Stephen is undressing.
“Undress me,” I instruct.
He rolls his eyes. “Um, okay.”
“Top first.”
My white silken nightgown goes on over my shoulders and falls to the floor. I am not wearing a bra. I hate bras. My underwear is white with lace trim and lilac flower print. It, too, finds its eternal resting place on the floor with my nightgown.
I slip into the tub.
“Before you join me, my love, do light some candles for me,” I say. “The matches are in the medicine cabinet.”
Stephen does as he is instructed to do.
“Now come, darling,” I say, as I use the candle to light a cigarette. “And open the window, if you will.”
Upon climax, my spirit rises to the top of the room. Just the way it did when I was eighteen. Only this time, it does not find its way back into my body. It merges with the tree outside. The ancient tree welcomes me home.
I see Stephen through the eyes of the tree.
“Crazy bitch! Wake up!” he yells, rolling my lifeless body around on the bathroom floor. He slaps me, hard. Twice again. And a few more times, actually. “What did you do, woman? What did you do?”
He finds a note on the bed.
Stephen, it reads in a white envelope.
He opens it.
Dearest,
If you wanted to, you could call the paramedics and they would resuscitate me. But I ask a small favor from you. I ask that you do not. It is my dying wish. Report me missing in four hours so my body does not rot for too terribly long. If the police question you, show them this note. My entire estate will go to my aunt and her disabled son. I entrust you will arrange this with honesty and precision. You can have my cats, and a few thousand dollars. You can also have my pink Mercedes convertible. I think you will like it. I’m so sorry it had to be this way. I hope you find a better woman, a wife, possibly, maybe some kids. I love you. Thank you for everything.
Ps. Please stop your drug usage. See you on the other side. But don’t rush it.
Joz
He looks around the room.
“Fuck!” he yells. “Fuck!”
Then, up at me. “You… you crazy bitch,” he shakes his head.
I stare back at him. I say nothing.
“Demonic. Demons. He was right. Pa was right. Women are demons.”
Stephen finds his way to the porch and lights up another cigarette. His head is in his hands. He is crying.
“Fucking crazy bitch,” he mutters, wipes away his tears as quickly as they came, as he throws the cigarette butt off the balcony.
“Fucking crazy bitch,” he repeats over and over, as he makes his way down the stairs to the front door. He leaves my Mercedes keys on the rack and goes back on his motorcycle.
He rides off, and vows up and down to himself to never visit my house again. I know this because I now can sense his thoughts.
Stephen goes to Narcotics Anonymous meeting that night to try to stop thinking about me. He begins praying. Not to Jesus, like he usually half-heartedly does every time he ends up in jail somehow, this time to Allah.
Despite these deep and sudden positive character changes my death inspired within him, Stephen does not report me missing. Alas, dear reader, of course, knowing how he is, it was expected he would do that. I arranged for an automated e-mail to the local police department saying I was at risk of a suicide at 8’o-clock pm. They arrived at eight-thirty to my dead, naked body in the bathtub.
“Homicide?” one police officer asks.
“Nope. There’s a note. And look at all these cats. Just a crazy,” he shakes his head. “Hot, though. Real hot.”
Once again, just like those nights at the Oscars and the galas, flashes of cameras ensue upon my tender, young flesh.
“She was really something though, huh.”
Outside the bathroom, there is a girl on the bed that the police officers can’t see. She is about eight or nine years old. She is sleeping. She does not know she is here. I kiss her on the forehead to ensure her pleasant dreams.
In her dreams, she is a famous actress and singer. In her dreams, she is a very beautiful woman. In her dreams, she sees nothing but stars and light amyss a void of eternal, infinite darkness.
-FADE TO BLACK-
xoxo
Baby Groupie
