I Will...

I’m going to begin writing a draft of my will because I worry that I’ll die tomorrow. Although Sarah, my therapist, assures me that my fear is irrational. When I leave her office she tells me that I’m not going to die. “At least not yet.” 

My only daughter Lauren doesn’t know it yet but she won’t be in my will. Sarah doesn’t agree with my rationale about leaving her out, especially since the amount of money I’ve accumulated over the last ten years is a considerable sum. But it's my decision.  

Sitting on the bus I watch four door sedans and two door sports cars careen past each other. It makes me nervous. How can anyone be so confident? The day I realized I shouldn’t drive anymore was when I had a panic attack in a crowded parking garage. 

I live on the third floor of an apartment complex near the river. From my small brown desk I look out and watch a trio of kayaks. The sun is shimmering on the surface of the river and in front of me is the will. It says:

I, William Lovitts, give all of my worldly possessions to the salvation army as donation. I also give all of my accumulated wealth in dollar amounts from all three of my accounts (two checking and a money market) to the charity of my choosing, The Giving Foundation. 

And while I have been able to accumulate several thousand dollars by reducing my footprint in every conceivable way, Lauren will not see any of that money. And it's not because I don’t love her. I do. But I worry she’ll become soft in an increasingly hard world. I can see the veneer that covers our reality. The ornamented painted mask of death. It only takes a war or pandemic to change everything. The soft and weak die first. The strong, and well, the lucky survive.

I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder when I was nine years old. It began with light switches. I can still see my little fingers switching the light on and off like a strobe until I was satisfied. Later I graduated to listening to my CD collection in alphabetical order regardless of what I actually wanted to listen to. I can still remember the torture of having to get through all the A’s, B’c and C’s until finally reaching my recent purchase located in the D’s. 

This sickness continued. Manifested into new stages. In high school I began to feel overwhelmed by my wardrobe. The laundry basket became my oracle. After a fresh load of clothes from the dryer I began the process of putting them in order on the hanger and in the dresser. Whatever I pulled from the basket went to the back of the line. Each morning I would rise and grab whatever shirt or pair of pants was next in line regardless of what it was. If it matched, great. If it didn’t, I went through the whole day aware of my ridiculousness. 

I have been working from home for the last three years. I'm dispatch for a small team of facility engineers at a hospital. I send emails, respond to work requests, and make phone calls. The work is fairly low stress except for when my phone rings. I have an irrational fear of speaking to people on the phone. Go figure. 

When I leave my apartment it's generally only to see Sarah. Before I open the door to my apartment I close my eyes and allow my mind to accept death. The scenarios of being murdered on the way to the bus stop or a stray semi smashing into the bus or a rogue plane nose diving into the building where I’ll meet Sarah all cross my mind. Thoughts of dismemberment and decapitation, blood and organs. Once I’ve accepted that I’m going to die, and my nerves begin to calm, I open the door. 

In the small waiting room the receptionist chews bubble gum and looks at her phone. Classical music plays, and in my imagination there are various characters from movies and music and books dancing in the walls. Their limbs contort and reach out from the floral wallpaper, bending to the piano and violin. This cast of musicians and actors and eccentrics are always with me. And I am obsessed about their existence. 

There is a fish tank in Sarah’s office, but it has nothing living in it. It’s filled with seashells and crabs and other sea life that she has meticulously preserved. The art hanging on the walls is of beach and ocean scenes. I have always assumed they were done by a patient of hers because they feel so, “local.”  

“William,” Sarah says. “How have you been?” Her smile is genuine and warm. She has bright red hair and black rimmed glasses that make her look like the doctor she is. She must be in her early fifties. 

“I’m alive,” I say, sitting on the black sofa. 

“I see that. That’s a very good thing.”

The light in the room is soothing. Numerous diplomas hang behind her desk. She is sitting in a brown chair in between her desk and the sofa. 

“So how have you been since I last saw you?” She asks.  

“I’ve begun writing a will like you suggested.” 

“Good, and how does it make you feel?” 

“I suppose it eases my worry about what will happen to all of my possessions and money before I die.”

“One less thing to think about.” 

“I still accept death when I leave the apartment.”

“That may be a habit that will take some time to get rid of. And quite frankly, I don’t think it's totally bad. The way you have described feeling more in the moment when you accept death can be very beneficial. The next time that you find yourself accepting death I want you to focus on what is happening inside of your body. What are you feeling? Is fear rising inside of you? What is happening to your state of being? Can you nail down any specific feelings, good or bad? I think this has the potential to be very meditative for you. And perhaps through this meditation, while I admit, is a little morbid, it may allow you to come into touch with something larger than yourself.”

I nod my head in agreement and I close my eyes and feel the sensation of the ground against my feet. I accept that I could have a heart attack right here and fall over.

“I want you to take some risks,” she says. “Step out of your comfort zone on purpose. Do you think you could do that?” 

“I don’t know. What do you mean?” 

“Calling your daughter for example. I know that it makes you anxious to talk to her. I want you to break the ice, make some kind of goal to make the conversations more regular.”

“Why do you care so much that I write her into my will?” 

“I think you just need to try harder with her.” 

“I’m scared to drink water sometimes,” I blurt out. 

“Oh... Why?” 

“I”m worried that it's full of mercury. I’m worried about what happened in Flint, Michigan.” 

“I see.” 

“Did you know that I save money on my utilities by not drinking from the tap and not flushing the toilet? I mean, I only flush solids.” 

“Yes. I’ve observed that you take a lot of pride in that. I think saving money and water is a good thing.” 

“Recently I’ve begun only washing certain parts of my body, keeping my shower time well under three minutes. This is less about utilities and more about preserving the bacteria on my body that normally, I would wash down the drain.” 

“Interesting.” 

I stop and look around her office. I wonder how much she gets paid to do this. My insurance covers the majority of it but she must be making a killing. 

“Will you take some risks for me?” She asks. 

The first time I noticed the obsessive drumming of my fingers my dentist told me to stop.

“I think so,” I say. “Yeah… I’ll take some risks.” 

At the bus depot my hands are shaking in my lap. There are a lot of people this afternoon and when the bus finally arrives I find that there is only a single seat between two people. I stand and hold on to the rail above my head. At the next stop three more people board and they stand too close to me. If something were to happen I wonder If I would be able to escape successfully. Could I squeeze out one of the windows?  

The last time I spoke in depth to my daughter it was before her mother died. It was before I worried about eating at restaurants. Before I stopped drinking from the tap. Before I thought obsessively how I could end the uncertainty. It was before I understood that I could just kill myself. 

As the bus comes to a complete stop and the middle door opens two seats become available next to a window and before they can be filled by passengers I fill the void. I don’t sit. I lower the window and hoist myself up and squeeze out falling and crumpling onto the sidewalk.  

Three weeks later my will is official. I meet with Sarah and she is happy I have written it and is now ready for further discussion in making me, “better.” What she doesn’t know is that with the will behind me it has made me more relaxed in my own suicide. 

My alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning. Before Clara died I had a different routine. I would use the exercise bike, shower, make coffee and breakfast and still have enough time to get some reading in. Now I just wake and lay there watching my characters protruding from the ceiling.

For three days I think about what Sarah said at our most recent meeting, “Call Lauren.” 

“What would I say?” 

“Anything at all. Call and ask how she is doing. Ask her what she’s been up too. You just need to start some kind of conversation. This will help you in so many ways, I promise. You just need to call her.” 

I don’t like irregular things. I like seamless and sameness everyday. Nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t want any surprises. I want to coast through reality as if it weren’t real. 

“Dad?” 

It takes me a few moments to realize I’m hearing her voice and that the phone is pressed against my ear. I’m remembering the first time I was left in the house by myself. Lauren had moved out and I was wondering how I was going to pay the mortgage. The empty cool space next to me was haunting and I couldn’t sleep. I sold everything and got an apartment. 

“How are you…” I say after a long pause where I listen to the clinking of dishes in the background and small chatter. 

“I’m fine. I was about to sit down to eat dinner.” 

“I can call back tomorrow if you like?”

“No, it's fine. I have a few moments.” 

“I just wanted to check in. See how you’ve been. I miss you…” 

I hear her whispering to someone else in the room with her. She finally says: “How are you?” 

“I’m well,” I say, my fingers playing a beat on the counter top. 

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Can I call you tomorrow?” 

“Of course. I’m sorry I called at a bad time.” 

“Its fine. I’ll call you tomorrow. I will.”

“Okay.” 

“I will.” 

There is a beautiful truss bridge over the river. I pass over it when I ride the bus. When I lay in bed at night I run through the scenario of hanging myself from its railing. I have a rope the appropriate length to most likely break my neck when I jolt at the end of it. Lately I have thought about ways I could make sure I was decapitated. Like if I were to line the noose with something sharp. 

The morning is cool and I stand looking down. It’s a fifty foot drop. It hasn't rained in a long time and the river bed is dry. I stare down at the rocks below and the rope is coiled next to my feet. The morning is cool and all I can think about is my daughter. I place my cell phone on the metal railing.

“I’m going to die today,” I say. 

My cellphone is a small black mirror that reflects the sky above and a single cloud glides slowly across the screen. 

A car drives slowly by on the bridge behind me. I hear it stop not too far off. 

“Excuse me,” I hear a woman’s voice. When I turn to look she is wearing a long green coat. She has brown hair and tan skin. 

“Excuse me,” she says again and her eyes drop toward my feet.

I focus on her red lipstick and then down at her brown boots. 

“Yes?” I say.

“I think you need to come with me.”

“Why should I go anywhere with you,” I ask. 

After a long pause she says, “What do you have to lose?” 

It begins to sprinkle and I walk toward the woman and her car and leave the rope behind me. I don’t know where she is taking me but I let her. I stare out the window and I begin to cry and I tell this perfect stranger that, “my daughter is supposed to call me.” I'm sobbing and I can’t stop. We are driving along the river and I look for kayaks but there aren’t any. My phone begins to vibrate in my pocket and when I pull it out the screen says, Daughter. 

There are tears streaming down my face and I’m sucking air. I watch the screen with her name like a marquee and feel it vibrating in my hand. Before the call ends I swipe the green icon to accept the call and I say, “hello…”