[Writing Prompt] An Immortal Tries To Commit Suicide
Melvin’s Strange Addiction
“Perhaps it was inevitable I would end up like this.” Melvin looked down at the false wood paneling covering the cheap pedestal at which he stood. The drab auditorium of the Dakota county civic center was nearly empty except for a smattering of about twenty people in varying states of unkempt disrepair. They all chimed in unhelpfully.
“No, don’t say that!” “That’s not true!” “No fate brother!”
Melvin sighed and regretted coming here. He nodded as if agreeing reluctantly. “Thanks everybody.” Then Melvin stepped down off the slight rise of the stage and back toward his seat. On the way he passed Jerry, the meeting’s MC.
Jerry patted Melvin supportively on the shoulder and whispered encouragement as he passed. “Be proud man, that’s a big step.”
Melvin wanted to explain the ten thousand reasons it really wasn’t, but the days of blowing peoples’ minds were behind him, hidden behind the high walls of unwanted complications his past efforts at honesty had wrought.
Instead Melvin gave Jerry a meek smile and sat down in the cheap aluminum folding chair.
As the other attendees congratulated him for his courage, Melvin didn’t hear a word. He was jonesing for a fix.
Melvin was born 7500 years ago at the dawn of civilization. He learned to read and write on clay tablets, in a language not dissimilar to ancient Sumerian. He remembers when someone invented the wheel in the same way your great grandmother might remember the first time she heard rock and roll.
Melvin was not born Melvin, but Utu. It hardly matters to Melvin what people call him though. He has had many names, and none of then stick around forever.
As you may of guessed, Melvin is not a normal fella. Melvin is immortal. Of course, that means several different things to different people. In the strata of immortality, Melvin is Highlander immortal, forever stuck at the age of his first death – thankfully a fit 25 – , but without the whole chop off the head business. Melvin can “die”, but he always comes back.
For millennia Melvin roamed the earth after his first untimely beheading under the obsidian lined ax of an executioner. Things did not go smoothly, they rarely did back then, and Melvin’s hacked up body was left to rot on the outskirts of town. Instead, Melvin healed – literally grew a new, identical head – and tried to find a way in the world.
Melvin’ s second death was at the hands of his village upon his return from the dead, at which point his body was torn to pieces and burned. But from the shards of bone Melvin grew back, this time steering clear of “home.”
Melvin had the traditionally depicted and imagined life of an immortal. Dozens of tragic loves and friends lost, fighting hundreds of wars, killing some, helping more, and altogether experiencing everything life had to offer.
Everything. By the time Christ was born Melvin was bored out of his goddamned mind. Almost nothing was changing. Christ made things interesting, and Melvin watched as Christianity took hold, even helping the guy out with a little water for wine bamboozle involving some highly advanced slight of hand.
The 19th century into the 20th definitely made things more interesting, and for awhile the pace picked up, but eventually even all the amazing gizmos bored Melvin and he mostly just moped around waiting for the next VR porn video to be released.
This was Melvin’s life up until a month ago, when something changed. Melvin found a new activity, one that turned into a habit and then quickly into an addiction.
As an immortal you invariably die in a great many ways over the course of your immensely long and unending life. But, you also become exceedingly good at avoiding death.
Before a month ago, Melvin hadn’t died in over 80 years. Then, one night, he got fed up and decided to kill himself. He had held off doing this for thousands of years, but something about his terrible loneliness in the “modern” age was just too much for him. He hoped that volitionally taking his own life might somehow make death permanent.
He was wrong of course, but in jumping out the 56th floor window of his penthouse suite onto the exposed concrete outcropping of his building lobby, Melvin learned something about himself. As impact raced toward him, and finally tore through his body, Melvin found that adrenaline slowed time down and he felt every minuscule feeling before blacking out.
This was new territory for Melvin. It had never happened before, not like that, and, when he awoke, whole and complete inside a city morgue, the first thing Melvin did after escaping the freezer, was race up to the roof of his building and jump to his doom a second time.
The feeling of death washing over him was amazing, almost erotic, and over the next few weeks Melvin found a dozen dozen ways to end his own life – everything from asphyxiation to gunshots. Melvin came to pine for the sensation of snuffed out, and then reignited, life, and it began to eat into his every waking thought.
At last, Melvin found he was dreaming of new and obscure methods of killing himself and felt enough was enough. So he signed up for a suicide support group. However that meeting just wasn’t geared to his experience, what with the focus on only living once. When Melvin thought about it more, his problem was fairly compulsive, more like an addiction, hence Alcoholics Anonymous.
Melvin’s eyes glazed over as the other attendees spoke about their problems, all of which struck Melvin as trivial in comparison to losing two dozen “loves of your life” over fifty centuries. But he sat quietly and said nothing until everyone had finished. Finally, when everyone was shuffling out the door Melvin bee-lined it for the subway. As he left the building Jerry caught him by the arm.
“Hey, Melvin.” He looked Melvin pointedly in the eyes. “I know the first one can be hard man, but come back one more time. It gets easier.”
Melvin just nodded. “Thanks Jerry.” Then he walked off, slower than he was going before.
Standing at the edge of the subway track, Melvin considered Jerry’s passing words and wondered whether things really would get easier.
Perhaps he would return to a meeting and find out. But, for now, the third rail called to him like a crack pipe and, with a quick look around, Melvin crawled down into the tracks, lay flat on his back, and reached out for the cool electrified metal with his bare hands.
Also I think it’s important to point out that although I use suicide as a plot point and character motivation in this short, it is not something I condone, encourage, or want to make light of. This is just a story. If you or someone you know is having actual suicidal thoughts or considering self harm call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 , 24 hours everyday.
If You Enjoyed This Story – Or Any Of The Hundreds Of Other Legends From The Multiverse – And Want To Give A Dollar To The Madman Behind The Curtain Who Writes Them All:
Subscribe to the RSS feed or leave a comment anywhere on the r/LFTM subreddit with “!subscribeme” or “subscribeme!”, and you’ll receive a notification whenever a new story or continuation is posted.
READ MORE FLASH FICTION
| ACTION | APOCALYPTIC | DARK | ESTABLISHED UNIVERSE | FANTASY |
| FUNNY MAYBE | HORROR | MISC | WTF IS THIS? | SAD |
| SCIENCE FICTION | SCIENCE FANTASY | TWIST ENDING | RANDOM |
READ LONGER STORIES
| THE DEMON’S CANTOS | INCIDENTAL SUPERHERO |
| BENEATH | THE HUMANITY SAGA |
| THE TRAVELER | I, LYCANTHROPE |