Chapter One CHAPTER ONE Dear God, I think to myself, carefully sliding my index finger along the sharp edge of the razor while I squat on the lid of the toilet seat. This is no way to live. No fucking way to live, indeed. Day after day, this prickly notion comes to me with hooks and fangs to spear my every waking thought, to wrestle me until my mind is sore and aching. It was innocuous at first. Of course, things are always so deceptively gentle when they first appear to you, especially when they want something from you. I suppose all things in this world want something from you, even something as innocent and as guileless as a thought. However, certain thoughts are carnivorous.

I''ve learned this after years of noticing my mind become more and more polluted, the more upsetting and baleful thoughts taking root easier and spreading further until I''m infected. Yes, infected. Perhaps all human thought is a strange kind of infection, a sort of unseen disease that rots you from the inside out if you''re not careful enough. I thought I had been careful. I imagined I was clever when entertaining certain ideas, always attempting to push the more malignant, vindictive thoughts to the outermost corners of my mind where light cannot follow. But lately, more and more, these beliefs come to me when my guard is lowered, when the gates to the shallower lowlands of my mind are open and welcoming to any kind of malevolent trespasser or vagrant. Yes, these thoughts are trespassers. I find myself becoming more vexed by the day as I allow these ideas to plant themselves like perennials in the bed of my mind, destined to be cut down and then regrown every year like a new pernicious bloom.

Still, it''s more than obvious to me that this is no way to live--crouching on a rust-eaten toilet in the men''s room at work, my fingers skating up and down the length of a razor blade I brought from home. Just one mere slit, I think to myself, daydreaming about the self-carnage I could invite with such ease. Just one flick of the blade and I could open up a river current that''s livid and aching to be freed from the most vexing dam of all--my flesh. Yes, there are days when I wonder if my flesh will slough off similar to the skin of some tropical fruit, shrugging away like some expensive coat until the secret wellspring of blood I''ve been hiding deep within me unplugs and then rushes out like an uncontrollable geyser. Dear God, I ache for that! I think to myself, admiring the way the narrow blade glistens a little in the bathroom''s overhead fluorescent lighting. I''ve thought about killing myself for quite some time. However, ending things is so decidedly permanent. It''s the punctuation at the end of a sentence you must complete.

There are no other words to be revealed, no other truths to be uncovered. The punctuation at the end of a misused life like mine is final, unable to be rectified or salvaged if you happen to change your mind. I wouldn''t be able to change my mind, after all. I''d be without thought, without pain, without any semblance of reason. Of course, some of these thoughts are attractive to me and possess a certain sense of desirability. But as I gently slide my index finger along the edge of the razor blade with a silent threat to myself, I can''t help but wonder if this is how things are supposed to end for me. Naturally, I never envisioned myself living past the age of thirty-five. I always thought life for a gay man ends when you turn thirty.

But as I grow older, I can''t help but wonder if I''d be interfering in the way things are supposed to be. Am I forcing punctuation in a sentence that must remain ongoing? I remain uncertain even now, sensing my blood coursing in all of my body''s main pressure points--a dim throbbing sensation aching me all over. If there were a time to slice myself open, now would be it. I can already envision how it might look when they find me--my bloodless corpse slumped against the side of the toilet like a discarded department store mannequin, a dark shadow of all my wants, needs, hungers stretching across the grime-covered tiled floor. There''s no poetry to be found here. But then again, I suppose there''s not much poetry in the art of killing yourself. There''s nothing poetic about slitting your wrists and slumping over across a toilet half-filled with excrement, all your shamefulness dripping down and pattering along the floor. I''ve entertained the thought countless times, but never here before, at my place of work.

In fact, I feel a little unsettled at how easy it was for me to consider ending things so abruptly in a public bathroom. Have I no shame? Have I no common decency? I think about how my superiors might find me sprawled out on the floor, a blood-buttered razor gripped firmly in my hand. I think of how they might chastise me--even after expiration--and how they might curse me before I had an opportunity to finish my latest spreadsheet about our fourth quarter from last year. Nobody actually loves you, I think to myself. You are worthless to them unless you are giving more of yourself than you can offer. I suppose that''s true of most people. Sometimes what you must give is not nearly enough. It certainly wasn''t enough for my beloved Jonathan.

Just as I''m about to press the edge of the blade against the curve of my wrist, I hear a fist pummeling against the bathroom door. A man''s voice calls out to me: "Simeon? Are you in there?" I immediately know it is Henry, one of the middle-aged men from the accounting office, whose voice is watery and rotted-sounding, probably because he still smokes those god-awful cheap cigarettes, and a dim vapor of smoke seems to constantly shroud him. The razor slips from my grasp and clatters on the floor. I hold my breath, wondering if he''s heard my fumble. "Yeah, I''m here," I answer, and then silently curse myself for responding. Why did I feel obligated to answer him? I wonder to myself. Why am I so accommodating of everyone else''s needs but my own? So I zipped myself up and excused myself from the washroom. Henry greeted me at the threshold with a look of suspicion.

But there was no way he would have been able to guess what I had been doing. It''s not like I was browsing on my phone for child pornography like one of our previous associates, who eventually was caught and subsequently fired. Still, there''s a part of me that remains cautious. I''ve already been written up once for what was termed "excessive bathroom time." I certainly don''t want to bring more attention to myself now. "Hurry up," Henry calls out to me from beyond the locked bathroom door. "Mr. Whittaker''s asking to see you in his office.

" That can''t be good, I think to myself. I''ve only ever met with Mr. Whittaker when I''ve fucked up in some way--whether it was due to the incorrect numbers included on my spreadsheet or my iciness when interacting with fellow coworkers. Of course, it''s never a good sign when your superior wishes to have a word with you. I swipe the razor blade from the floor and pocket it at once. Why didn''t I have the balls to go through with it? Surely there must be some way I can muster up the courage, the strength, to permanently end things. Why am I saddled with these meaningless human interactions day after day? "I''ll be right there," I call through the door, pressing my index finger against the toilet''s handle and flushing. "Just a moment.

" But I''ll need more than a single moment. After all, I''ve already wasted a lifetime of moments wishing my life were different, wishing I could somehow bring back my beloved Jonathan, promising to the void I''d do anything, would bear any burden to be with him one final time. I hear Henry''s footsteps, the squeak of his patent leather loafers on the linoleum floor while he retreats. When I''m certain he''s gone, I pull out my wallet and peel the small photograph of Jonathan from where I keep it safe, tucked behind one of my maxed-out credit cards. I gaze at the picture--the way Jonathan''s been permanently captured there. It''s a beautiful photograph. Jonathan, shirtless and wearing black sunglasses, is lazing on a checkered beach towel on a sandy dune in the hot Provincetown sun. His arm is lifted in the air to prevent me from taking the picture.

A smile is slowly creeping across his face, half-formed, nearly there. Sometimes I glance at the picture and wonder if he wanted me to take the photograph. But I can''t be saddled with that introspection right now. I pocket the picture and ease myself off the toilet seat. I''m at the door in a matter of seconds, tugging on the handle and stepping out into the corridor. Henry''s not waiting for me there. Instead, the hallway is empty. I make my way toward the main area where most of the cubicles are arranged.

I hasten past Henry''s workstation and flash him a smile like a simple thanks for alerting me. There''s no gratitude in my warmness, however. I know I should be expecting the worst from my superior. In fact, he looks at me somewhat perplexed, like I disrupted him in the middle of something, like I misremembered our previous interaction at the restroom. But surely I couldn''t have misremembered something that happened only a few moments ago. Still, I shiver slightly and wonder why he looks at me so queerly, so suspiciously. Finally, after what feels like eons when it should only have taken me a minute at most to walk from one corner of the floor to the other, I arrive at the threshold of Mr. Whittaker''s office--a small, cramped room that resembles almost a broom closet.

It''s not the spacious, ornate office that one might expect for the vi.