Exit Party

A Young Man Plays His Role on the Stage of Life As His Final Act Approaches

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“Third time is supposed to be the charm, isn’t it?” My mother remarked over the news program on the radio. “I can’t believe it took him four attempts.”

I wasn’t paying close attention, idly watching strip malls and apartment buildings pass by out the car window. Mottled cloud cover stretched from one horizon to the other, the way the sky looks when it cannot decide whether to rain.

“Reminds me of Miranda’s son. Goodness, how long was he in the hospital before he could try again? A year? I want to say it was at least that long.” As she talked, she glanced furtively at me. Trying to discern whether I was picking up on her meaning.

I changed the subject, asking if I was supposed to know Miranda. “Oh, you met Miranda! I think you were just a little guy though, I took you along to the Christmas party at the office. You hid behind my legs when I introduced you.”

She fiddled with the radio knob until arriving at what sounded like the middle of an interview. “-That’s all there is to it, really. We as a society build it up, make it out to be more than it is. It isn’t just individuals who do that. I mean, what does it amount to? A little poppity-pop, then it’s over. Does that really merit so much controversy?”

The station host interviewing the man, elderly judging by his voice, added in little superficially thoughtful sounding quips here and there, perhaps not wanting his guest to outshine him. The sort of remarks that sound clever in the moment but turn out not to mean much of anything if you go back and pick them apart.

At last, we arrived in the parking lot of the super store. One of those obscene one stop mega markets the size of an airport, just a giant beige monolithic block jutting up out of the asphalt. “I could’ve bought it online” I pointed out.

She put her hands on her hips. “Really? For something this important? You’ll be glad we made a day out of it. I want to be there with you for every step. I know you think you’re a big man now but-” I interrupted, finishing her sentence in a silly voice. “-I’ll always be your little boy. Yes, I know.”

It really was something of a comfort to have her along. In truth it’s the last thing I’d ever want to do alone, yet as the big day approached I found myself keeping everybody at arm’s length. Friends, old girlfriends, even my own family. Pushing people away has always been part of how I deal with difficult feelings, though it’s never actually helped.

It reminded me to get my phone out, checking for comments on my Facebook post where I announced that I’d chosen ballistic penetration as the method I planned to use. All of my closest friends, and surprisingly some who rarely so much as like any of my posts, had something to say about it.

“That’s a classic way to go! My dad did it that way. Very clean, all at once. It’s all about acting on that sudden impulse. I should loan you the album he listened to. Droning meditation music, you rock back and forth while clearing your mind of all thoughts so you won’t hesitate when the time comes.”

Jorge, my best friend of 8 years, had something to say as well. “Don’t get too worked up over this. Millions have done it before you. The important thing is to remember you’re not alone in all this. You’re surrounded by friends who will give you the strength you need to go through with it, because we love you.”

I teared up a little, then became self conscious because I was in a public place. Fucking Jorge, still such a bro even though I’ve been so distant lately. I smiled, slipping my phone back into my pocket as I walked down the candy aisle with my mom. “I don’t need candy. Nobody at the party is going to want candy mom, we’re not twelve.”

She pouted. “Look at these, though! They’re so cute.” She held up a sucker in the shape of a Colt 911, where the barrel was the hard candy part you suck on, and the plastic handle was shaped like a pistol grip. I smirked at the packaging, which read “steel flavor”.

I talked her out of it, and soon we were browsing exit wound canvases. I got the idea years ago when I took a date to an art gallery, where they were showing a collection of exit wound imprints. The blood and brain matter which bursts out of the exit wound, splattering onto a canvas positioned carefully just above and behind your head.

Each one totally unique. Like Rorschach inkblots, but a dull reddish-brown rather than black. It would give Mom something to remember me by, and to hang up over the fireplace. Proof that I’d seen it through, and gotten it right the first time....more than some could say.

Mom took my hand, startling me out of my introspection. “I know I said this already yesterday, but I am just so proud of you. Doing it like a man, making your father and I proud. None of that mincing, half-hearted helium bag nonsense, like the Mathersons’ daughter. You’re not leaving it to chance. That’s how our family has always done it! You’re such a grown man now, I can’t believe it’s almost over.”

It was her turn to tear up, though she was smiling. Happier than I’d seen her for many years. How could I destroy that smile? No, I couldn’t. Nothing to do but move forward with the process. Hard to believe I was already near the end of week 4.

During week 1, the notion that the big day will arrive seems so distant and abstract. It feels like you still have your whole life ahead of you. That’s the week they give you to notify your extended family, to quit your job and make other initial preparations.

It becomes a little more real when week 2 arrives, but it still feels dreamlike. As if you’ve still got the full month, or that the big day will just never arrive somehow. This is the week they allot for you to research the various methods and choose one of them.

I panicked when week 3 arrived. I’m not proud of that, but I’m also hardly the first. Like the same amount of anxiety, spread out over the full month, was barely noticeable. But that it was being compressed into a smaller and smaller space as the days went by, making it ever more intense.

That was the week for making funeral preparations. They should really allow more than a week for that, as it’s a surprisingly convoluted process with a lot of paperwork to fill out. What would I have done if I couldn’t get the plot I wanted? I’ve never heard of anybody being granted an extension.

I still couldn’t believe all of that was now behind me. I remember going through all of it so vividly, as if it was still happening now. But here I am in week 4, still nowhere to go but forward. Week 4 is for organizing the party, and making your peace.

That’s also something that I feel as if I need more than a week to do. But then, would two weeks be enough? Three? It’s the sort of feeling which expands to fill all of the space you make available to it. Before the law passed requiring randomly selected people to go through all this, I’m sure many people didn’t think even eighty years was enough time.

Maybe it isn’t, I don’t know. I don’t have eighty years to find out. I have two days. Not even that, if you count it in hours. It’s funny how granular my measurement of time has become, now that I have so little of it left.

We wound up agreeing on a mid sized, modestly priced canvas after briefly arguing over whether it would be large enough to catch all of the wet emission. I explained I wasn’t going with a very large caliber, so she was probably imagining more of a mess than there would actually be.

Of course she wanted to splurge on the largest size. But I hardly wanted her to waste money on the five by seven foot canvas only for the imprint to be a pitiful reddish blotch in the very center, taking up perhaps one square foot.

On the ride home, I found myself reading an article on history’s most notable exit methods. A sort of macabre hall of fame, honoring those who not only accepted their responsibility but fulfilled it with gusto.

The one which caught my attention involved a clever boy who, half a century ago, had spent weeks constructing a special helmet designed to simultaneously discharge eight shotgun shells into the points where the human skull is known to be weakest.

It was important to him that they all go off at exactly the same time, for instantaneous and absolute annihilation of his brain. To that end, he rigged up an innovative electronic firing pin system for each shell, joined together by a mess of wiring strung between them.

According to the article, he flipped the switch just as his mother opened the door to his room, having waited patiently for her to come investigate. I should say “according to legend” as the hard copy for the case was destroyed, and that last detail seemed too perfect to have actually happened.

It made me wistful. That would’ve been a really cool way to go, if only I’d known about it a month ago. There’s just no time left to arrange for something so elaborate. That’s useless to say though, everybody in my situation wants more time. None of them get it.

After dinner, I retired to my room to watch some videos I’d bookmarked over the past few days. All of them were suicides caught on tape. Most were pretty common stuff, like Budd Dwyer’s televised suicide, but I’d also managed to get my hands on some real rarities.

Christine Chubbuck was a news reporter for WVLT-TV channel 40 in Florida. On July 15th of 1974, she delayed her normal interview with her guest, claiming she had to read a newscast. This confused her coworkers, as she’d never done it before.

In fact it wasn’t a newscast, but a suicide script she read aloud to the camera. "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in 'blood and guts', and in living color” Christine read, “you are going to see another first—attempted suicide."

She then produced a revolver, planted the tip of the barrel behind her right ear, and pulled the trigger. It had always been a tantalizing mystery to me what happened after that. They all drop so suddenly. It’s not like in the movies where you fall over like a tree. You instead collapse in a heap all at once, like a sack of bricks.

But which way did she fall? What position did her body come to rest in? The grainy mpeg video, obtained from a dubious dark web repository, at last satisfied my curiosity. She fell abruptly forward, smacking her head on the table in front of her before falling to the floor.

Almost anti-climactic. The mystery is usually better than the reality, which rarely lives up to what you’ve imagined. Still, I rewatched it eleven times before setting it aside and moving on to the next one.

It was the Bjork stalker, another classic. It drags on for hours and hours as he paces around his room, mentally preparing himself. Because of that, it’s tough to find the full video. Most versions of it are cropped down to the last few minutes.

No appreciation for slow, tantric buildup. People are just too eager to skip straight to the main event, I suppose. I’ve only watched the entire thing myself twice before, so maybe I’m not the one to stand in judgement.

This time I skipped around, watching a few minutes here and there, trying to put myself in his shoes. As much as possible, trying to live inside of his apparent mindset as he psyched himself up for his final act.

This video was actually the inspiration for the exit wound imprint fad. This one guy set up a canvas behind his head in the hopes that his brain would splatter all over it, only to fuck it all up by using a 9mm weapon.

9mm rounds will penetrate one layer of bone, but often not two. They bounce around inside of the skull, totally shredding your brain. This made it a popular choice until the exit wound imprint craze took off. Then suddenly everybody wanted larger calibers, to ensure a good spread across the canvas.

There was no splatter of blood and brains in the video. Just a split second bulge on his forehead, the bullet straining to escape in that moment but failing. Literally one frame later, his body’s on the floor. It’s strangely cathartic to watch a life end from the outside, while your own life goes on.

It creates this illusory feeling that death isn’t real. As if, because you’re able to keep on watching after the guy in the video is on the ground with blood pooling under his head, it will be the same way for you. Somehow you’ll just keep watching, keep being aware of what happens after you’ve pulled the trigger.

The next video was just the last minute or so of the Columbine footage. I had no interest in watching Eric and Dylan slaughter innocents, just what they did after that. It captivates me because they don’t do it at the same time.

Eric shot himself first, probably taking for granted Dylan would do it at the same time, but he didn’t. He lingered, only shooting himself several seconds later. It drives my imagination wild trying to figure out what thoughts were going through his head, just before that bullet.

Regrets? Rationalization? Did he consider laying down his gun and surrendering to cops, only to decide that he’d come too far and done too much to wuss out in the eleventh hour? Of course I’ll never find out, for more than one reason.

At least they succeeded on their first attempt. I next watched a video of an Australian man from 1995 who shot himself in the chest with a shotgun. Despite blowing a hole in his torso, he somehow managed not to destroy any vital organs.

So he next positioned the barrel under his chin. Must’ve never read up on how to angle it properly as he only wound up blowing off his chin and much of his face. Still alive and conscious, he then struggled to reload the weapon before finally getting it right.

I’ve thought about going with a shotgun, but it doesn’t leave a whole lot behind. The entire head just disintegrates, and all the guests would have to wear raincoats. Besides, traditionally members of my family have always done it with a handgun, and at home rather than some sterile government exit center. I hardly wanted to leave such a terrible mess for my mother to clean up.

I closed out of all the browser windows, then finished deleting everything embarrassing on my computer I didn’t want anybody to read. Like a folder of chat logs between myself and an ex that I saved, reading over them again and again in order to live inside the illusion that she still felt that way about me.

I found a bunch of cringy old essays I wrote in highschool as well, and a folder of nude selfies I would trade with girls I met through online dating websites before I got the exit selection letter. No need for any of this now. I deleted my dating website account as well.

Finding stuff to occupy myself with, I guess. Every time I peered over my shoulder at my bed, something in me forced me to turn back to the computer screen. I didn’t want to go to sleep just yet. As if, by refusing to, I could prevent tomorrow from ever arriving.

When I finally did crawl into bed, sleep was fitful. I woke up twice in the night, and on a trip to the bathroom, I passed by the casket in the livingroom. It was covered in a sheet because Dad insisted it was a family tradition that I not see what the casket looks like until my big day.

Reminds me of Christmas. When I would sneak out of bed to see the stockings hung by the fireplace, and the presents stacked up under the tree. I’d shake them to try and get an idea of what could be inside. How sternly I was scolded the year Mom caught me doing that!

The casket just sat there, silhouetted against dim light from street lamps outside coming in through the living room’s bay window. Silent, but exuding a sort of subtle gravity all its own. I slipped the sheet off, opened the lid and climbed in.

It felt strangely comfortable and right. As if this is where I’ve always belonged, but didn’t know it until now. I tried shutting the lid and only found it more peaceful, laying there in the quiet darkness. Surely this is what it will be like?

No, not even this. Not the sensation of lying still in silent darkness, but no sensation at all. I could never wrap my head around that. I don’t think the human brain has evolved with the capability to imagine what death is like. There’s no reproductive benefit to that.

I clambered out and replaced the sheet, making sure to drape it over the casket exactly how I found it. Mom really thought of everything. I’ve heard of plenty of cases where families couldn’t get ahold of a casket in time.

The body stiffens up into a cold, solid lump in whatever position it fell to the ground. Often that requires breaking the joints in order to position the arms and legs so the body will fit in the casket. Not for me though, she really covered all the bases. That’s my mom for you.

When I returned to bed, it struck me as odd how similar it felt. Just two different kinds of bed. One for the little, temporary slices of death that we call sleep, and the other for the endless sleep that we call death.

These thoughts swirled around in my head, folding over on themselves, until at last I once again fell asleep. I’d have liked to dream of something nostalgic tonight. My first love, that magical Summer I spent in Florida so many years ago. Anything but this.

The same old recurring dream that seems to resurface when I’m anxious about something. I’m in a cold, bare concrete room illuminated by a single bare bulb dangling overhead...with a gun on the floor. There’s just nothing else in the room. No way out, except one.

I tasted the barrel of the gun, sliding my tongue around it as I angled it towards my brain stem. What would it feel like, I wondered? Can anybody say? Vanishingly few people ever learn first hand what it feels like to do this, and survive to talk about it.

When at last I pulled the trigger, time abruptly slowed to a crawl. I could feel, with intense clarity, the sensation of the bullet penetrating up through the roof of my mouth. Then the feeling of the red hot bullet searing my soft, tender brain tissue as it tore its way through.

Then, the back of my skull exploded in a fountain of sticky red mist, jiggling chunks of brain matter and shards of shattered bone. I slumped over...only to realize a few seconds later that I was somehow still conscious.

The pain never went away after that, just subsided to the point where I could think clearly. That I could think at all baffled me. I’d destroyed my brain, surely? When I reached around to feel at the back of my head, there was a big sticky, warm opening. I felt something soft and squishy when I stuck my finger into it.

So I put the gun back in my mouth and tried again. I felt it all in slow motion, just as vividly as before. But the result was the same. I was still conscious. All I’d accomplished was to make a bigger mess of my mouth, and the back of my head.

I kept trying until I ran out of bullets. I was crying by this point...but there was also blood streaming out of my tear ducts, nose and mouth. Diluting the tears as the steaming, salty mixture pooled beneath me.

When I next felt around the back of my head, I discovered to my dismay that the entire back half of my skull was hanging open. Like a gaping brain bucket, though there was precious little in the way of brain matter still inside of it.

I reached my hand deep inside the opening and felt around in there. I could feel soft, warm squishy pulsating stuff, experiencing all sorts of strange sensations as I did so. I think I smelled burning eggs at one point, and saw little sparkling points of light swimming around the edges of my vision.

I cried more, but it changed nothing. So I then set about trying to hunt down all the bloody chunks of my brain, scoop them up in my hands and dumping them back into my busted open bucket of a skull. Even after I put all of it in there, I couldn't remember anything. I couldn't remember why I shot myself, as my brain would not put itself back together again.

I was miserable, yet also aroused for some reason. Part of me wanted to keep shooting. It’s difficult to say why, as the feeling is impossible to fully capture...but it seemed to me as if the act of the bullet penetrating the skull and plowing deep into the soft, warm brain was almost sexual.

I could imagine no other way forward, desperately wanting to feel it again. To never stop feeling it, if it was possible to somehow make it continuous. If only there were more bullets! My tongue, and in fact the whole inside of my mouth was burnt from all those gunshots. All I could taste was blood and gunpowder.

When I awoke, the house bustled with activity. Dad was on the phone with one of the guests instructing them how to park so we could fit as many cars in the driveway as possible before anybody would need to park on the street.

Mom was busy in the kitchen, preparing to bake a cake by the looks of it. There was some sort of concert on the little kitchen television, which a scrolling banner at the bottom clarified was a charity event to cover the exit day costs for underprivileged families.

The orchestra was playing the 1812 overture, with two long lines of people to either side of the stage. At every point in the song where a cannon was about to go off, the next person in each line would rush up to a podium at the edge of the platform with a pump action shotgun on it, prop it up against a stand designed for this purpose, and put the tip of the barrel in their mouth.

Then, just as the cannon would normally fire, they would pull the trigger. Blasting their head apart in a shower of putrid, steaming gore. It was relentless. As the pace of the song increased, people were rushing to play that lethal instrument at the rate of one per second, or close.

Soon the curtains to either side of the stage were soaked in blood and speckled with bits of bone and gristle. A team of volunteers dragged bodies away, at first faster than they could accumulate, but it became apparent that they were becoming overwhelmed near the end of the song.

It took me longer than it should have to work out that the people lined up to either side of the stage were just all the members of the audience whose exit day was today.

But then, someone choked. They ran up, planted the shotgun against the special stand, put it in their mouth...but didn’t pull the trigger. The orchestra slowly died down. The conductor, bewildered, turned to stare at the spectacle unfolding to the right of the stage.

The camera zoomed in on the portly, middle aged man with the comb-over and grey button down shirt. He was sweating profusely and beginning to cry. The crowd murmured...then began to shout and jeer at him.

The broadcast cut to a “We are experiencing technical difficulties” screen. Then about fifteen seconds later it returned. The orchestra was back in the swing of it, finishing up the song. I could just barely make out the body of the middle aged man lying atop the ever-growing pile behind the stage.

After that, some stupid commercial came on. A woman with a mature but nurturing voice spoke over some faint, melancholy violin music in the background.

“Are you struggling? Did your exit selection come as a surprise, and your life’s in disarray as you hurry to make preparations? Do not give into despair. Call the exit assistance hotline. We’re here for you, and will talk you through this daunting time. Remember that you are not alone, our counselors are available 24/7 to help you do what needs to be done.”