Chapter 2
The first time I tried to kill myself, I met with God.
He sat on a throne on top of a few layers of clouds and dust and I imagine it was the same stuff he made me and you out of, because he’d sometimes twirl his hand through it and it’d glow colors like it was made of something besides water vapor.
And I stood in front of God and he looked down at me and started to ask me questions.
“Why did you try to kill yourself?” He asked. Isn’t God supposed to be omniscient? He should know already.
“It’s a stipulation of your free will,” was his response. Apparently, when we’re free, he loses the ability to see us. That explains why it’s so easy for the devil.
He asked me why again, and I didn’t quite have a real answer. I mean, he gave me a lot. Family, lovers, friends, pets, money. But hey, not everything buys happiness.
So I stood there staring at God. I stood there looking around the place where God lived. His bed looked pretty comfortable. Did he eat well?
“Have you been having complications with the lovers I gave you?”
I thought about you, because that’s where I go when I hear the L-word. No, I suppose not. There has been nothing between us that I would say makes me sad. Perhaps dissatisfied, but not unhappy.
“What about your family, are they problematic?”
I thought it all through, each member, extended and close, that I knew. Nothing came to mind. The odd thing about being around God is there’s something about him that makes your memory better.
“And your friends, aren’t they helpful?”
Yeah, they’ve pulled me out of tight spots before. I try to return the favor, but I’m not very good at it.
No, I don’t know why, God. I don’t know why I took a pair of scissors from the kitchen and cut all my hair into disgusting shreds. I don’t know why I gripped a bottle of prescription pills like it was the only thing keeping me from being swept off a waterfall. I don’t know why I counted out each pill, organized into groups of threes, and took each one. Three by three by three, swallowing the contents and hoping the chemicals leeched into my body before my stomach turned.
And God sighed and he stood up from his throne. He walked over to where I was standing in the middle of the room and took me in his arms. I could feel something wet against my cheek and I realized he was crying, and I tried to cry with him, but I couldn’t. I just sat there, a little bit uncomfortable, while he held me.
Eventually he pulled away and an adviser came over.
“Don’t come back,” God said to me, “I don’t want to have to explain this to Jesus.”
Right, because God’s a comedian.
When I woke up, my mother was stroking my hair and I was laying in a hospital bed. I could hear the beeps and whir of machines keeping me alive. You never visited me in the hospital, but you were at home when I got out.