The Returns

A man walked into a sterilized room and noticed it was filled with a bunch of returned suicides. They had been arranged in a rough circle (which primitive superstition asserts is the opposite, talismanic shape to suicide's unbounded anti-circle). They were all sitting on fold-out metal chairs. All the chairs were one-size-fits-all. That is how suicide is, thought the man. The chairs looked as provisional as life felt to the returned suicides. The returns were all ages, all sizes, all colors and creeds. They had all tried to buy the farm, but their eternal mortgage had fallen through. They were here to explain but not apologize, a tightrope act. Now it was going to be something like credit counseling. There would be condescension masquerading as love or at least civility. Some would later decide to save themselves or others. They would become bankers of life. Others would bide their time, visualizing isolated tree branches the way some have porn films playing in their heads all day. No sooner had the man entered the room than he announced himself as conductor. He showed the returned suicides a small baton. He smiled at the string section and they all jumped out the nearest window, en masse.