One hundred attempts

Thomas told me the truth on Wednesday.

I was seated on the futon in our dorm, watching the season finale of Friends. It was late in the evening and I had a long day. He walked in, sopping wet, and stained with blood. While a jarring sight, Thomas had an aura that seemed to attract violence, so it wasn't unexpected. The air was sucked out of the room when he walked in. This time he looked like hell, though. With a bottle of wine gripped in his hand, he sat across from me on the ottoman, watching the tv.

“Long night?” I broke the silence, pausing my show.

He explained he had an altercation at the local gas station, an attempt to mug him which led to a more serious attempt to drown him in the bathroom. It didn't take.

Thomas took a deep breath, more frustrated and intoxicated than I had ever seen him, and leaned in with his elbows on his knees. “Listen to me, Scotty. I’m Jesus Christ, this is my 40th time here.” He leaned closer. “And I need you to kill me.”

I didn't call him crazy. I didn't laugh. His voice made sure of that. I wanted him to be lying, but everything told me that he wasn’t.

For the next hour, he told me everything. Not once did a smile escape him. I didn't say much, simply absorbed what he was saying to me. Thomas had lived 39 other lives here, each time coming back as a new man but keeping the same mission; no water to wine, no thunder from the sky, but only observing. Then, he’d slip up. He’d heal somebody without meaning to, or he’d say something no normal person should. And then somebody would kill him. Every time.

He looked at me for what felt like an eternity, giving me time to process. “What happens if you don’t die?” I asked.

“The rapture.” He took a swig of the wine he had been fidgeting with. “The second coming, the ascension, the resurrection- whatever the hell you want to call it.” He took a breath. “But here's the thing, Scotty. You don't want that to happen, I'm telling you. It’s not a paradise!” Thomas dropped his head, his usual calm shattered. “Heaven is flat, bland. Like you’re drowning in a warm, endless bath.” He didn't look up at me and I didn’t say anything. “I don't want it.” He murmured. “If I don’t die by a human hand, the world is done. Everyone will ascend. I can’t let that happen, no matter what my father says.”

I ran my thumb along the edge of the futon, subconsciously. “Why tell me?”

“Because you’re the only person I know right now who might actually do it.” That stung more than it should’ve. I had only known Thomas since the fall, when we began our freshman year at university together. Getting accepted to a college states away from my home in Michigan, I had to pick a random roommate. Our match quizzes had aligned perfectly: moderately clean, introverted, nonsmoker. We got along fine, but we had never exceeded a casual friendship level. Thomas was always in and out, coming back in some state of disarray. He’d always been a nice guy, looking out for those around him, but obviously battling something within himself.

He slid out of the chair and left the room, leaving me to think. There was a gun in his dresser. Strictly prohibited on campus, he had made me swear not to turn him in, explaining his dad made him keep it with him.

An hour passed. I laid in the dark. Thomas wasn't coming back tonight. My gaze was fixated on the cracks in the paint on the ceiling. The gun was 10 feet from my head, sucking the air out of the room. I thought about grabbing it to feel the cold weight in my hand. But I didn’t trust myself to put it down. If he was telling the truth, which I didn't doubt, everything ends if I do nothing: no more war, no more pain, a state of constant comfort for everyone. Ghosts stuck smiling in place with no future. His words echoed through my mind, Drowning in a warm, endless bath. Maybe suffering wasn't the worst thing. Maybe the worst thing was a world where one can’t get heartbroken, can’t grieve, can’t mess up. Maybe the pain is the only proof we are alive. If that’s true, then maybe peace isn’t worth a goddamn thing if we have to end it all to get there. Is that even peace at all?

I sat up in bed, decided. I texted Thomas to come back to our room. I placed the gun on the top of the dresser.

When he arrived, he took in the scene: the gun, me, the hum of the minifridge, the bright overhead light casting a cold white over the room.

I cut him off before he could ask. “You can’t push the fate of humanity onto me, Thomas, and you know it. You don’t want it to lead back to you. You can't make me God just because you don’t want to be him.”

“You sound like him,” Thomas chuckled.

“Who? God?”

He shook his head. “No. You. All of you. The whole damn species. They can never choose.” His fist slammed onto the dresser. I watched his face twist, then his jaw clench. He tried to collect himself, tracing his finger along the pistol. I left, then, left him to his decision, left the world back in his hands. He could go find another potential killer, or he could let the rapture occur.

The next day I came back to the dorm: no blood, no trace of him. His bed was cold, his dresser empty.

No storms, no earthquakes, no trumpets.

Maybe he was raptured; maybe he was lying after all.

Sometimes, when the silence gets too thick, I think about Thomas. I think about heaven and peace and the noise.