The Perfect Day To Die

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It was the perfect day.

She didn't know why but it just was.

She opened the double doors that led to the balcony and walked out under the open sky. She leaned across the railing of the hotel and looked at the picturesque sight ahead. A half moon was floating among the gliding clouds on this dark night. If she listened carefully, she could even pick out the tune of a melancholic piano sonata playing in the dining hall below. It was a three-star hotel- the kind of hotel where your luggage gets escorted by the bellhop and the kind of place where the receptionist actually smiled at you.

Renting a room for one's last night seemed farfetched. Some people would even call her mental. But she couldn’t care less. It was just that she didn't want to die in her claustrophobic, small-sized apartment. She wanted to go out in style... like the other three million, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and seventy nine demented people in this world. The only difference was she had the means to do it while the others didn't. Besides, she didn't want the police, the paramedics and all her mourners trampling her doormat once they found her body. No, that wouldn't be fair to the doormat that had survived more than her and possibly, didn't suffer from mental issues like she did. It was more of a winner than her and it saddened her to think that she was suddenly having an inferiority complex all because of a doormat.

She took out a Marlboros pack from her coat-pocket and gracefully picked out a stick from the stack. Slipping it into her mouth, she lit it up and took a long drag of her cigarette, letting one of the last guilty pleasures of life fill her lungs. It didn't help her nerves though. They were jittery as usual.

Glancing at the overcast sky one last time, she bid a final goodbye to the city of lights that beckoned beneath her. She bid adieu to the people whom she had once called friends and wished them good luck in their own lives. They were going to need it, she thought bitterly on retrospect. They might be a bunch of self-conceited, megalomaniac morons who forgot her birthday but still, they were good people on the inside... somewhere really deep on the inside.

There were many things unpredictable in life, like the day your mother delivers you in the maternity clinic, like the day you actually graduate out of high-school much to the surprise of your family and kin, like the day you get into a skiing accident and end up with a knee fracture and especially the day you choose to end everything.

A soft sigh escaped her lips. She retraced her steps back into the one-bedroom suite she had checked into and closed the doors behind her. Opening her duffel bag, she took out her charcoal stove, the one her grandmother had left behind before ascending the staircase to heaven.

Then, she closed the only window in the room and pulled down the revolting white shutters. The lights were the next to go and she realized that it was utterly stupid to light the stove in the pitch-black darkness. But she struggled and managed to pull it off. Once, the coals started burning a soft ember red, she pulled out her cigarette and threw it into the ashtray with a deft-flick of her wrist.

Even after immersing herself in the shadows, she could still see the lights flickering beyond the curtains that shrouded her from the outside world. They seemed to be taunting her, teasing her of her loneliness and the fact that no one would care whether she stayed or not.

The first bout of the asphyxiating gases tickled her sense of smell. Or maybe it was just the cigarette smoking its last.

She was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, her arms hunched-back and resting on the cot behind her.

"It's ok, grandma," she said aloud in a state of stupor. "It won't be long before I meet you up there."

It was a slow death but the least painful way to die. For someone who hated the very thought of being pricked with needles, she didn't like pain all that much. She couldn't bear the idea of swallowing poison or even stabbing herself with a knife. She knew this was the best way to go... if not, the only way to go.

She started to feel heavy and a wave of dizziness overtook her delirious senses.

Her head lolled back on to bed and her eyes stared dreamily at the ceiling. She'd been busy tracing the whirly patterns when something buzzed next to her. She turned her head to the side to see her cell-phone glowing in the darkness.

She'd forgotten all about it much to her amazement. Reaching out for it with one limp hand, she squinted her eyes to read it.

1 New Message, the LCD screen stated with an enthusiasm unmatched.

Maybe it was one of those telemarketing offers- the annoying ones which promised to gift you one ring tone free if you bought another. Maybe it was from her boss, informing her of another painstaking assignment in the barren plains of Timbuktu or on ice-capped hills in Siberia. She had half a mind to toss the cell phone into the dustbin. But she didn't. It would bug her till death and beyond, wondering what that message was. She'd toss and turn in her grave wondering who the sender could have been.

Just as her thinking became even slower and her eyelids felt heavy, she clicked on the message and decided to read it.

It was from a friend.

Just two words.

Happy Birthday.

She smiled ruefully and let out a soft sigh.

It had been the perfect plan.

It had been the perfect day to die. But then again, there would be many more perfect days like this one. She decided to take that chance.

Besides, she ought to give that doormat some competition.