Preparations for a Suicide (Part 1) (First Edit)

The rows of houses spawned out into the distance like a sea of gravestones; there was a military precision to their layout, all on parade and all standing to attention. Every home was a mirror of itself, the outside walls of the buildings painted yellow with a red trim and glossy white front doors reflected brightly off the distant sun. Something about this place seemed engineered, it was soulless, devoid of individuality and the people here seemed robotic, going about life as if creature of habits. They’d visit the same restaurants each week, eating identical meals and having the same arguments with each other. Everyone’s eyes were cemented grey and their heads faced South, shoe gazing.

John looked at the clock for the tenth time that hour, the time showed 4.53pm, he was waiting for his second wife, Joanna, to return, he would then walk slowly to the hallway to look at his reflection in the mirror. His salty dry tongue licked his index finger which then proceeded to moisten what small bit of hair he had left, he slicked his fringe to one side. Occasionally he’d pace the floors of the house they acquired 5 years ago, then sit down, stand up and sit down again. He couldn’t keep his hands in his pockets. She was late, again. The mirror reflected his pain. John Hope was 45, his dark hair was thinning but he wasn’t worried about going bald, that was in fact the least of his concerns. Above his lip slept a moustache that had adorned his face since his first wife left him 10 years prior to buying this property.
’30’ he thought to himself
There was an element of hope when his first wife, Lisa, left. A new beginning, young enough to start again but old enough to have the wisdom not to make the same mistakes. ‘It’s funny’ he thought to himself ‘how life has it’s little way of playing tricks on you’
John raised his hands to the mirror; they were like shovels, coarse and strong. Hands that had cradled Joanna, the woman he now loved, when her marriage had failed she came running to his arms. John remembered the times he was there to hold her, his hands used to brush aside her hair and his fingertips mopped up the tears that fell from their cavernous womb.
His hands showed signs of a man who had worked hard all his life, not like the children he had nurtured and bequeathed to his first wife, Lisa. John had always used his hands to make a living, working the fields, manual labour. After the ‘incident’ at the farm which led to his dismissal his shovel like hands seemed useless in the modern world. Bereft of a trade, his disintegration from society was swift.

John caught himself looking at his hands and noticed how they were shaking nervously. His eyes met in his own reflection and his left eyelid starting twitching. He checked his watch one more time. 4.55pm. His heartbeat sped up, he peered out of the window waiting for the return, waiting for her return. She’d be the same she was everyday, slightly dishevelled, he’d noticed many times that her shirt would be hanging out the back of her skirt. Many times he had watched her in the car applying make up, covering the traces of the act she’d just committed.

The paranoia slowly crept up on John, swiftly, he ran up the flight of carpeted stairs and started undressing methodically, placing his clothes neatly on the wooden chair by the bed, which hadn’t been used for it’s purpose for months. The shower spurted into life as the water threw itself over his naked body. John began scrubbing hard at his body to the point where his skin became red, small spots of blood began to form under the surface of his skin but he kept scrubbing harder, trying to wash over the thoughts that consumed his mind. The soap felt good over his body as he washed harder and harder, trying to clean himself from the thoughts that dirtied his soul.

Naked he stood in front of the mirror, looking at the creases and folds in his body. 45 and this was the point of no return, his body was diminishing in front of himself, the scars from the self-inflicted wounds over the years started to look like the map of the underground. Different coloured veins represented different journeys, that had travelled through his wiry body to his heart and back again.

For a moment there was silence, a stillness in time and all John could hear was the thumping of his heart beating against his ribcage. Then there was that thought again…
He knew where she was. He knew who she was with. His mind vibrated at the speed of light.
‘The Bitch’ he shouted out aloud
There she was with his best friend, Paul, screwing. Her noises set free and flying into the afternoon’s atmosphere, their faces contorted with pleasure as she cums over and over on his best friend’s cock. The seedy hotel room on North Street couldn’t confine the betrayal. He’d often driven over there to listen to his wife have orgasm after orgasm, just to torture himself. He’d sit opposite in his beaten up car, listening and waiting for the last shudder before speeding off back home to wait for her return. He knew the truth. She knew he knew the truth. Paul definitely knew that he knew, but yet they all carried on, as if nothing was going on. What made it worse for John was not the sexual pleasure she received but the laughing afterwards, the mocking, post coital they would laugh at John.

The car lurched into the drive and abruptly ground to a halt, John checked himself in the mirror once more.
‘This was the night’ he thought ‘this was the night he would reveal the truth’
In his jacket pocket slept an old colt .45 loaded with two single bullets, one for her and one for him. As he peered out the window and watched his wife go through her routine of denial, he brought his hand up towards the gun that rested against his heart. The cold metal helped slow down the pace of the beating rhythm inside his chest. Joanna’s black heels clicked noisily against the grey concrete path that led to the door that led to John that led to the end. The key inserted into the lock and the door swung open, in walked Joanna Hope.

‘Darlin’ I’m home, how was your day?’ she said without flinching, as if nothing had happened, as if the small trail of her husband’s best friend cum wasn’t trickling slowly out of herself and down her thigh.
John replied ‘I’m in the dining room, come in, I have a surprise for you’
‘Oh darling’ you shouldn’t have?!’ knowing full well that there was no surprise.
Joanna walked into the room and there was John, dressed in a suit, the same suit he wore everyday she returned home, the same suit he’d worn for the last 3 years upon her return, the suit they got married in ten years ago.
John approached her, kissed her gently on the cheek and said
‘I love you dear, I hope your day wasn’t too hard, would you care for a cup of tea?’
‘Yes dear…thank you’ she replied

John walked by his wife who was living a lie, entered the kitchen, pulled out the gun from his inside pocket and hid it in the same drawer he always hid it in and had done for the last 3 years. Glancing at the clock it was 6.07pm. The colourless liquid gushed out from the arched metal tap that glistened in the evening sun, John’s fingers were now steady, devoid of emotion, he smiled inwardly as he filled the kettle with water.